De\u2019Arbreya Lee<\/strong> As a part of the events held during the week of Capital City Classic, Jackson State University welcomed award winning author and spiritual technician, the Reverend Iyanla Vanzant on November 17.<\/p>\n Prior to her visit to campus, Vanzant was the\u00a0 featured speaker for the Women of the Classic Luncheon at the Old Capital Inn in downtown Jackson.<\/p>\n With a soothing voice, Vanzant urged her \u201cbeloveds\u201d to awaken their spiritual beings and become the people whom they are destined to become. She believes that many young people today are capable of success and do not put forth the work that it takes to achieve this success. \u201cDon\u2019t be afraid to do the work,\u201d said Vanzant.<\/p>\n With all of the daily tasks and demands that life puts on individuals throughout life, Vanzant stressed the importance of remaining focused on one task at a time in order to receive desirable results. \u201cI give 100 percent to what I\u2019m doing in that moment,\u201d said Vanzant.<\/p>\n Stating that many people are guilty of not being fully present in situations, leaving them distracted and thus never completing a task to its fullest level on profection, Vanzant said, \u201cHandle your business so that when you move from one place to the other, your back is covered\u201d.<\/p>\n In her encouragement for students \u201cto do the work\u201d, Vanzant also stressed how important it is to not overlook the work of others, but to examine those\u00a0 accomplishments to recreate your own.\u00a0 \u201cBe willing to do other stuff that people are doing, but do it differently,\u201d the author said.<\/p>\n She also shared how important it is for men and women to have a circle of friends to whom they share their thoughts and feelings with, something that Vanzant shares that many African-Americans do not do.<\/p>\n \u201cWe as people of color do not know how to be fully present with our feelings,\u201d\u00a0 she said, explaining that this lack of presence in expressed feelings has stemmed from slavery.\u00a0 Many African-Americans dared not express any feelings of distress towards slave masters, she added, and today many are still continue through struggles and withhold these emotions.<\/p>\n The author of several books, her newest 2010 publication \u201cPeace from Broken Pieces: How to Get Through What You\u2019re Going Through\u201d, which according to Amazon.com, recounts the last decade of her life, from her time\u00a0 with working with TV celebrity Oprah, the short life of the Iyanla TV show, to her ending marriage and her 15 month journey during the last days of her daughter\u2019s battle with illness.<\/p>\n She read the opening\u00a0 poem written by her daughter Gemmia in her book \u201cOne Day My Soul Just Opened Up: 40 Days and 40 Nights Toward Spiritual Strength and Personal Growth\u201d.<\/p>\n After reading the poem, the mother of three reflected upon the hurt that she experienced in losing her daughter Gemmia to colon cancer. Vanzant said that after her anger at God for taking her child, she came to the realization that her daughter was not her own, but only a gift from God, and in that realization, she found comfort.<\/p>\n Before her daughter\u2019s death, both Iyanla and Gemmia created the Inner Visions Institute for Spiritual Development in 1998, which according to www.innervisionsworldwide.com website is created to facilitate the evolution of human consciousness one mind, one life, one heart, one spirit at a time.<\/p>\n After her daughter\u2019s death, the IVISD Ministerial class of 2010 created the Gemmia Lynnette Vanzant Foundation in honor of the young woman. Lynette Suttlar, a graduate student from Yazoo County, Miss., said that the event was amazing.<\/p>\n \u201cHer work has been very inspirational to who I am as a part of me knowing who I am today. I\u2019m so excited to see JSU bringing in speakers of her caliber,\u201d said Suttlar.<\/p>\n Onetta Whitley, Deputy Attorney General for the State of Mississippi, gave a long awaited emotional thanks to the woman who\u2019s works she credits to saving her life.<\/p>\n \u201cToday for me is an opportunity to thank someone who has had a profound impact in my life,\u201d said Whitley. Whitley has also passed along books by Vanzant to others close to her and urges young people to read Vanzant\u2019s works.<\/p>\n Whitley also stressed the importance that Vanzant put on students \u201cdoing the work\u201d that it takes to succeed in every aspect of life, stating that they must do so by honoring their own thoughts and ambitions.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s so important to open our souls up to other people and ourselves. Tell your story in a way that empowers you. Look for the lessons, look for the blessings,\u201d Vanzant.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" De\u2019Arbreya Lee Staff Writer As a part of the events held during the week of Capital City Classic, Jackson State University welcomed award winning author…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"editor_plus_post_options":"{}","editor_plus_copied_stylings":"{}","_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/jsuflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/jsuflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/jsuflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/jsuflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/jsuflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=799"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/jsuflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/jsuflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/jsuflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/jsuflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nStaff Writer<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nSeveral women in the audience who have followed Vanzant\u2019s works throughout her career thank the \u201cgreat mother\u201d [the Nigerian definition of her first name] for her\u00a0 messages of inspiration in her books.<\/p>\n