Iyanla Vanzant has learned to use her own teachings to cope with the death of her daughters.
On Tuesday’s episode ofTamron Hall, the life coach opened up about how she initially felt when her youngestdaughter Nisa diedin July given her profession, and how she navigated her grief after losing her oldest daughter Gemmia 20 years prior.
“The deceptive intelligence of the ego always wants you to think that you’re not enough, not good enough, not worthy,” Vanzant, 70, began. “And for me, who spends all of my life, teaching other people, helping other people, fixing other people — when something happens in my life, the first thing that ego says to me is, ‘You’re a fake, you’re a fraud. You can save other people, but you can’t save your child.’”
Iyanla Vanzant on ‘Tamron Hall’.Tamron Hall Show/YouTube
Tamron Hall Show/YouTube
With respect to the relationship she had with Nisa, theIyanla: Fix My Lifehost also reflected on how “one of the most sacred relationships on the planet is the relationship between the mother and the daughter.”
“All children bring to life the subconscious issues of the parent. That child lives in your body. That child knows you from the inside out. That child has heard your voice, your secret thoughts,” Vanzant shared.
She continued, “When you give birth to a daughter, she’s bringing to life those things that you hold inside that you may not even know that are there and she’s gonna show ‘em to you in how she shows up in the world.”
“So Nisa showed me who I was and many ways that I didn’t,” added Vanzant, who lightheartedly implied that she saw parts of herself reflected in her daughter that she might not have wanted to see.
Iyanla Vanzant and Tamron Hall on the “Tamron Hall Show.".Tamron Hall Show/YouTube
At that point, hostTamron Hallread aloud Vanzant’s quote in 2009 about surviving the death of her daughter Gemmia, who died at the age of 32 from colon cancer on Christmas Day in 2003.
“I survived that, and I’ll survive this,” Vanzant responded. “There’s a saying in the Caribbean: The bigger the monkey, the bigger the stick they beat him with. So I have a big life. I have a big place in the world. I have a big assignment.”
As to what that assignment is? She believes it is “to facilitate the evolution of human consciousness, one mind, one heart, one life, one spirit at a time.”
Never miss a story — sign up forPEOPLE’s free daily newsletterto stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from juicy celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.
Relying heavily on her faith, she added that she ultimately recovered from that trying time in her life “with prayer and forgiveness.”
source: people.com
