Iyanla Vanzant is usually the one trying to get people to open up about their past, but she recently revealed how she tried to commit suicide. During a recent interview with OWN, Vanzant revealed that after she had her third child at the age of 21, she dealt with postpartum depression.
"I took a bunch of pills. I was in the kitchen, on the floor, and I could feel myself losing consciousness," Vanzant said. But then she gained a moment of clarity and heard a message from a higher power asking if she really wanted to die.
"In that moment, I saw what I believe to be the Divine Mother. She said to me, 'Do you really want to die?' And I said, 'No. I just don't want to hurt anymore.' "
Vanzant was admitted into a psychiatric ward, and there she learned about what matters in life and how she has the ability to turn her life around.
"What I learned to believe is that I matter. Life matters. God is all, and where I put my heart and my intention, that is what I'm going to experience," Iyanla said. "I learned in that eight weeks that I have the power to rebuild, restructure, redefine, re-create my life because my mind is one with God's mind. I learned that in the nuthouse. Pretty crazy, huh?"
It's definitely a message worth sharing, considering how far Vanzant has come since that time in her life, and how she's now helping those in need overcome their darkest moments.
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Diana Ozemebhoya Eromosele is a staff writer at The Root and the founder and executive producer of Lectures to Beats, a Web series that features video interviews with scarily insightful people. Follow Lectures to Beats on Facebook and Twitter.
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