Why can't women get along? Because we're afraid. We're afraid to be vulnerable. We're afraid to be soft. We're afraid to be hurt. But most of all, we're afraid of our power. So we become controlling and aggressive and vicious.
Iyanla VanzantRead
You can never love anyone to your own detriment. That is not love, that is possession, control, fear, or a combination of them all.
Interpretation
What this quote means
True love does not come at a personal cost; it is not about control or fear.
This quote emphasizes that genuine love should never harm or diminish oneself. If love leads to personal sacrifice, possession, or fear, it instead reflects unhealthy attachment rather than true affection. True love should empower both individuals, rather than create a sense of ownership or control over one another.
Themes
LoveSelflessnessRelationshipsControlFear
In practice
Example use cases
During a relationship workshop to illustrate the importance of healthy love.
More from Iyanla Vanzant
All quotes βChallenges come so we can grow and be prepared for things we are not equipped to handle now. When we face our challenges with faith, prepared to learn, willing to make changes, and if necessary, to let go, we are demanding our power be turned on.
Iyanla VanzantRead
Feminine power is silent, dark, mysterious, healing, nurturing. A woman can walk into a room and control it. She doesn't even have to open her mouth if she knows where her power is.
Iyanla VanzantRead
You know when I was 20 and 30, they were insecurities. Now they're just a new normal. I'm 60 years old, so my expectations of who I am and how I look and how I show up in the world had to shift. Not because I couldn't help it, or not because I did anything wrong, but because I had to get into the natural flow of my being as a woman.
Iyanla VanzantRead
Your greatest adversary is also your greatest teacher. Like it or not, it is the job of certain people to bring out the worst in you. What they trigger is already in you. They are here to reveal the sore, tender wounded places in your heart and mind, and they are providing you with a wonderful and divine opportunity for healing.
Iyanla VanzantRead
You have a right to say no. Most of us have very weak and flaccid 'no' muscles. We feel guilty for saying no. We get ostracized and challenged for saying no, so we forget it's our choice. Your 'no' muscle has to be built up to get to a place where you can say, 'I don't care if that's what you want. I don't want that. No.'
Iyanla VanzantRead
Similar quotes
I will write a book one day about how I feel about every aspect of Emily Stone. She's a full genius. She has found her genius and is giving it all so fully and beautifully. I think everyone who works with her, brushes shoulders with her, or even makes eye contact with her, gets a shot of sunshine.
Andrew GarfieldRead
My parents always looked like they loved being together. That's what I took from them, and that's how my wife and I are. I still feel like we're dating.
Billy CrystalRead
If we want to fully experience love and belonging, we must believe that we are worthy of love and belonging.
Bren BrownRead
But oh! as to embrace me she inclin'd, I wak'd, she fled, and day brought back my night.
John MiltonRead
Love is made by two people, in different kinds of solitude. It can be in a crowd, but in an oblivious crowd.
Louis AragonRead
Through this same man and me hath all this war been wrought, and the death of the most noblest knights of the world; for through our love that we have loved together is my most noble lord slain.
Thomas MaloryRead