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In the Meantime: Finding Yourself and the Love You Want
by
“The most powerful spiritual healer, fixer, teacher on the planet.” —Oprah Winfrey
The #1 national bestseller from the host of the show Iyanla: Fix My Life on the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN) that answers the question: What’s love got to do with it in the meantime?
You know where you want to be, but you have no clue how to get there. You know exactly what you want in life, ...more
The #1 national bestseller from the host of the show Iyanla: Fix My Life on the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN) that answers the question: What’s love got to do with it in the meantime?
You know where you want to be, but you have no clue how to get there. You know exactly what you want in life, ...more
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Paperback, 336 pages
Published
September 14th 1999
by Atria Books
(first published 1998)
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Community Reviews
Showing 1-30

Start your review of In the Meantime: Finding Yourself and the Love You Want

Don't let the title fool you--whether you have the love you want, are looking, or don't have any interest, the focus is on learning how to love yourself. I have read and re-read this book many, many times. It is hi-lighted and rabbit eared to the point that I would never be able to lend anyone my copy but it is one of the best self-help books I have ever encountered (and I have read a TON of them, believe me). I find Iyanla's voice very real and she seems to "walk the talk"-very genuine. I also
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This book saved my life! I am not saying that to be dramatic...this is my truth! I was in an abusive relationship (verbal, mental & physical) when I came across this book. It was a GODsend! This book taught me that my inner peace was more important than pretending to be a family. My sanity was more important then my son having a father in the house because if I stayed he may not have had either one of us. If you are in the meantime...This book is definitely for you! The love and appreciation tha
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The truth is that love is buried in your soul, and no relationship with anyone can unearth it or activate it in your life.
I was no longer angry about what i could not and did not have in a relationship. In the meantime, I learned how to mind my own business. The business of loving myself and being excited about me.
The interference from my relationship channel was creating static on every other channel of my life.
In the meantime, if we can remain loving of ourselves and toward other people by s ...more
I was no longer angry about what i could not and did not have in a relationship. In the meantime, I learned how to mind my own business. The business of loving myself and being excited about me.
The interference from my relationship channel was creating static on every other channel of my life.
In the meantime, if we can remain loving of ourselves and toward other people by s ...more

I read this book the first time in 1998, I'd taken a self prescribed sabbatical from dating to embark on a journey of self discovery. In The Meantime, became my doctrine my handbook to learning who I was, what I needed/deserved and how to stop sacrificing myself for the sake of others.
Four years after I had turned the last page and closed the book from a second read, I met and married the love of my life, my truest life partner, my husband.
This book taught me about me that I needed to be seilfi ...more
Four years after I had turned the last page and closed the book from a second read, I met and married the love of my life, my truest life partner, my husband.
This book taught me about me that I needed to be seilfi ...more

This book is very helpful, especially if you are having relationship trouble. The author helps you to look at your life from an interesting perspective. She uses the metaphor of moving up through the floors of a house, needing to take care of each level before moving on to the next. The basement is where you are miserable and hopefully realize that things need to change. As you move up the floors, you need more self-love and appreciation, more spiritality, more honesty, etc. I found this book to
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The title really says it all, but Vanzant gets to the heart of the matter by using personal experience and the trials of others to show that loving yourself enough to make difficult personal choices is where love and joy abound. I often found myself in a myriad of emotions reading this book, and abandoned it for some time before picking it up again. I recommend this read to anyone looking to discover real change through learning the secret of truly loving yourself and others.

Must read for women ages 22 & Up. If you are in the reflecting stages of you life wondering where your relationships went wrong, this is for you. Never give up on love. Your meantime is for a reason.
I bought ever copy at a local bookstore and gave it out to friends to read. I highly recommend reading this.
I bought ever copy at a local bookstore and gave it out to friends to read. I highly recommend reading this.

I have upgraded my rating from four to five stars. Not because of the book itself, but because of how I feel about myself after having read the book, which I suppose is a comment on the book itself. I feel bigger, brighter, more centered, having found myself first, but then read the book like someone wandering a slightly overgrown path, discovering the truth in the words and trampling the grasses to make the truth more permanent, more prominent in my life.
I loved the analogy of moving through a ...more
I loved the analogy of moving through a ...more

Another phenomenal read from Ms. Vanzant. I love her writing style and for me this is one of my favorite self-help books. In a nutshell it really is about loving yourself. When you love yourself everything else falls into place. When you love yourself you become open to the abundance that the Universe has to give. I love it, love it, love it! As with most of her writings I can never say that I've finished reading the book because my personal growth journey leads me to different places at differe
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I was not all that impressed with this one. It was very repetitive and simplistic in a way that was annoying at times. I couldn't relate to the stories within this book so I found myself skipping from chapter to chapter seeking for the meat of the lesson in each. When I would get to the meat of the lesson I was always left wanting a little more. The other part of this book that bothered me is that it was a Christian-based book. It had encouragements that were based on God's love for you. So sinc
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I would recommend this book to anyone that feels like they can't start over. I would definately recommend this book to someone who is trying to find there place in this world. It's a must read...
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Sometimes we come to a time which may just be the "meantime" of our lives. Iyanla in all her brilliance paints a clear and undeniable picture of just what being "In the Meantime" looks and feels like. She is poignant yet stern in her no-nonsense approach, leaving no stone unturned right down to the actually birthing of our lives having some sort of impact or meaning. Yes, how we actually entered the world, what kind of birth did we endure and how were we taught for the first crucial years of our
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I love this book! I felt like she was my mentor speaking to me in a spunky yet compassionate manner (just like I need- a soul sister!) She painted a mental picture for me, that helped me to visualize and recognize the different levels I am going to have to work through and acknowledge; in order to fully love my self and my past. This book helped me go lighter on myself in terms of feeling like, I need to change all at once, or that I am bad for my behavior in relationships at times. I felt suppo
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This is a book I can see myself picking up again and again when I'm unclear or unsure of life's trials and tribulations. While I think that Vanzant has a great process of getting yourself to a better place in life, I think I might cast aside some of the advice she gives for the "little things" in life. The way in which she compares cleaning yourself up spiritually and emotionally to cleaning out your "house" is brilliant. So simple, yet so true. I don't think there's a one size fits all approach
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I listened to the abridged audio book version from Simon and Schuster/Audible. Like many such self-improvement books, there's much here that is true, if a little obvious, but when you are taking the time to put yourself together in a time of transition, sometimes it's good to review some of these ideas. The book was recommended to me and was worth my time, even if I found the book's concentration on finding a lasting and healthy love relationship a little off target for my needs right now. Still
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The message that this book is trying to convey along with its solutions are good. However, I found the writing/format to be a little difficult to get through. I had to read several excerpts over in the book before I completely understood what the author was trying to say. Also, a lot of the ideas were repeated throughout the chapters in the book. It could have probably been summed up in just a few chapters.

This book has good ideas, sort of, but it wasn't applicable to my situation (i.e. it was telling me how to make myself a better person while in a bad relationship... which I'm not in) so I didn't finish it.
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My excuse for reading this and yesterday I cried, was Oprah. So melodramatic. I remember being reading it on the tube on the way to work and saying 'bullshit' out loud and the woman opposite me burst out laughing saying that she felt the same way reading it.....
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Aug 26, 2011
Alondra Miller
rated it
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review of another edition
Shelves:
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books-i-own
4.5 Stars
This book is all about you. It is about you standing in your truth.
When you are ready to have that conversation; the book will be there.
This book is all about you. It is about you standing in your truth.
When you are ready to have that conversation; the book will be there.

Repetitive and not very helpful too me. Got the concept early on, then it didn't challenge me after that. Gave back to owner without finishing :(
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This book was a prayer answered after my breakup of a five year relationship in 2007. My life has presented opportunities to return to it over the years, as I've learned more lessons through love in the meantime. Reminders, always.
"Love is the only thing we need. Love is our peace. Love is our joy, health, and wealth. Love is our identity. We go into a relationship looking for love, not realizing that we must bring love with us. We must bring a strong sense of self and purpose into a relationshi ...more
"Love is the only thing we need. Love is our peace. Love is our joy, health, and wealth. Love is our identity. We go into a relationship looking for love, not realizing that we must bring love with us. We must bring a strong sense of self and purpose into a relationshi ...more

The simplicity of this book is what makes it great. Vanzant uses an extended metaphor of cleaning your house, floor by floor, to helping the readers understand how to better understand themselves and what they want out of life and out of the relationships in their lives. It outlines how you need to clean each floor of your house one at a time, each relating to a different type of issue you may need to face in order to maximize your life, build up your relationship with yourself so you can be ope
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I read this with a friend and enjoyed it. Not everything in this book was fully and totally revelatory, but the chapters beginning on page 200 were worth the price of admission alone. Another structure that comes earlier in the book is also quite helpful, e.g. moving forward through challenging times with the following questions:
a - what do I feel?
b - what do I want?
c - what do a feel about what I want?
a - what do I feel?
b - what do I want?
c - what do a feel about what I want?

So loved this read. It was insightful, challenging, engaging, and very easy to understand. Its one thing for me to read a lengthy book- its another to read a lengthy book and have words I cant relate to. Those things make a big difference for me. I learned so much about ME and the processes I have been through, and need to rearrange- as I continue along my journey of Loving-me. It does a wonderful job of separating you from life and teaching you how to start understanding the role you play and h
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In Peace From Broken Pieces New York Times best-selling author Iyanla Vanzant she recounts the last decade of her life and the spiritual lessons learnedfrom the price of success during her meteoric rise as a TV celebrity on Oprah, the Iyanla TV show (produced by Barbara Walters), to the dissolution of her marriage and her daughters 15 months of illness and death on Christmas day. Like a phoenix ri
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