Product Description “The most powerful spiritual healer, fixer, teacher on the planet.” —Oprah Winfrey National Bestseller! What is the lesson in abuse, neglect, abandonment, rejection? What is the lesson when you lose someone you really love? Just what are the lessons of life's hard times? Bestselling author Iyanla Vanzant has had an amazing and difficult life -- one of great challenges that unmasked her wonderful gifts and led to wisdom gained. In this simple book, she uses her own personal experiences to show how life's hardships can be re-languaged and revisioned to become lessons that teach us as we grow, heal, and learn to love. The pain of the past does not have to be today's reality. Iyanla Vanzant is an example of how yesterday's tears become the seeds of today's hope, renewal, and strength. Review "USA Today" Iyanla Vanzant taps the universality of spiritual yearning. About the Author Iyanla Vanzant is one of the country’s most celebrated writers and public speakers, and she’s among the most influential, socially engaged, and acclaimed spiritual life coaches of our time. She is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of seventeen books which have been translated into twenty-three languages, and the host and executive producer of the award-winning breakout hit Iyanla: Fix My Life, the #1 reality show on OWN, the Oprah Winfrey Network. As Founder of Inner Visions World Wide, Iyanla is actively engaged in personal development courses and on-going training programs for spiritual life coaches, and ordained ministers at Inner Visions Institute for Spiritual Development.   Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. The Beginning It was happening. I had seen myself on television before, but not like this. I had never been on a mainstream national television show until now. This was special. This was big! This was the culmination of sixteen years of hard work, of three years of waiting for a producer to get back to me, and an entire day of filming. The results: one twelve-minute segment about my life and my work on CBS Sunday Morning. It felt great! Definitely something to celebrate. Instead of throwing a party, I felt awful, dishonest, like a fraud. I guess that's why I began to cry as the music began, heralding the start of the program. These tears were quite different from the tears I cried the day the segment was filmed. Throughout our many experiences of life, we cry different kinds of tears. What we are probably not aware of is that each type of tear emanates from a specific place in the body, and that each type has certain distinct characteristics. We may realize that shedding tears at certain times will have a particular effect upon us and those around us. What we are probably less conscious of is that each tear, regardless of its origin, or its effects, contains a seed of healing. Angry tears spill forth from the outside corner of the eye, making them easier to wipe away as they come at unexpected moments and inappropriate times. They originate in the ego -- the part of our being that presents to the world who we think we are. Angry tears create heat and stiffness in the body, because when we are angry, we usually don't know how to express what we feel. We definitely don't want anyone to know when we are angry, because anger is not acceptable or polite. Rather than display anger, we hold back, and the tears rage forth, shattering our self-image. More important, angry tears reveal to those around us our vulnerabilities. This, we believe, is not a wise thing to do. I cried angry tears the day the CBS film crew came to my home. I had just moved into a new house. I had very little furniture to fill the empty spaces in my large home. The garage was full of boxes, one of which contained the outfit I had planned to wear. It was an unmarked box that I could not find. I was also angry because my new mother-in-law was on her way to our home, and I had no place for her to sleep. What would s