Best known for her hit show on the OWN Network, “Iyanla: Fix My Life,” Iyanla Vanzant has spent many years helping others mend relationships. While she’s become the go-to person for helping fix estranged families and rocky relationships, she’s gone through her own struggles.
Vanzant lost both of her daughters. Gemmina died at age 30 on Christmas 2003 from colon cancer, while Nisa passed away at 49 earlier this year.
“There is no amount of hoping and wishing I can do that will bring my daughter back,” Vanzant told Essence. “So I had to figure out how to come to peace and be whole within myself, knowing she’s never coming back.”
For many who have lost loved ones, the holidays can be an emotional time. Vanzant struggles too, but she tries to focus on remembering the joy of holidays past, and uses the foods that once brought her family together to keep warm memories alive.
“The joy is what lifts us up. The regret and remorse is what tears us down. For anyone dealing with a loss this holiday season, I challenge you to do the things that you know brought that other person joy and focus on that instead,” she advised.
Tips for managing grief during the holidays
While everyone grieves differently, Grief.com shared a few do’s and don’ts on how to cope during the holidays:
- Do be gentle with yourself and protect yourself.
- Don’t do more than you want, and don’t do anything that does not serve your soul and your loss.
- Do allow time for feelings.
- Don’t keep feelings bottled up. If you have 500 tears to cry, don’t stop at 250.
- Do allow others to help.
- Do pay extra attention to children, who often display grief in different ways than adults.
Since the wrap of her OWN show, Vanzant has turned her attention to her podcast “The R Spot,” which is now in its second season. She continues to offer unfiltered advice on dealing with human emotions, as well as having “deeper conversations about more current issues.”
“What we’re really looking at is what’s current and how people are approaching it so that I have a greater opportunity to provide people with tools, information, and skills to address things in real-time,” she explained.
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