Customer Reviews

In the Meantime: Finding Yourself and the Love You Want

5 star:		(147)
4 star:		(26)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(14)
1 star:		(17)

 

 

Reading this book was the best thing I've done for myself in years. As a man reeling from ANOTHER extremely painful breakup, I was desperate for anything to sooth the pain. Having read LOTS of self-help books, I can say with some justification that this is the most spiritual, calming, healing guide to relationships that I've ever encountered. Like a cold compress on a fevered brow, I could always find relief and peace by reading this book, even at 3:00 in the morning.

Recommended to me by a spiritually advanced friend, I found it to be the only thing that calmed me down, stopped my heart from racing, eliminated the panic attacks, and made me feel whole again. It provides a loving, gentle nudge in the direction of individual wholeness, completeness, and understanding of what we've all done wrong in relationships. More importantly, it shows us what we can do to PREVENT these disasters in the future. The key, of course, is self-love. Like a gentle mother guiding her unruly offspring, Ayanla lovingly puts us back on the right path without making us feel stupid, unworthy, or hopelessly inept at love. Her most powerful contribution is the concept that no matter how bad our partner and the relationship, it is ALWAYS ONLY ABOUT US!

This book provides a roadmap to relationship success, if only we make the time for ourselves to uncover our own issues and work to correct them. I've read the book three times in a row, including highlighting, underlining, and dog-earring the pages. This is like a User's Guide to love. Don't get caught without it. Please savor this book. Race through it the first time, if you must, but read it slowly again to really understand what she is trying to teach us. Vanzant should get the Nobel Prize for this one.

Excellent book for anyone who has not become their "ideal self" yet. This book reads like an old friend and earnestly works toward achieving what you truly want in life.... a better sense of self worth. It teaches that loving yourself comes first. Although this premise is not new, the book shows common occurances that we do not recognize immediately as disrespectful ourselves. This book does not talk down to the reader nor is it flooded with psychobabble.

Iyanla's book was painfully true and exact! It wasn't until I stopped denying that I had accepted things in my life - unsatisfying career, dead end relationships, negative relationships - that were taking me away from the "true self", that I came to appreciate that I needed to hear the truth from someone who didn't care if my feelings were hurt. From someone who was not judgemental and insensitive. I beleive as people, we are in denial about alot of things in our lives. And maybe we are too proud to admit this to others, but always be true to yourself. That is the only way a change can come about for the better. At the end of the day, when there are no more eyes to look into and fake smile, when you are weary of saying "I'm doing great!", when actually, you are so unsure about yourself and how you feel, you really have no clue about how you really feel! This book isn't scholarly! You don't need your doctorate degree to relate. It's conversational! It's down to earth! It's like listening on the other end of the phone, while your Aunt's talk! It's a must read.

This book started out good and really made sense and was positive but eventually, it got a little "out there". For instance, when she was giving an example of a couple who had a long-term relationship and one of them wasn't sure about how he felt and wanted to see other people, her advise was that the person who knew for sure about how he/she felt about the relationship should trust the other enough to let him/her do whatever they need to do to find out, as long as they stay together and supposedly, that's building love and trust. To me, it's saying, "I'm a doormat...walk on me." or can we say the word CODEPENDENT tendencies? BEEN THERE, DONE THAT!! And thank goodness, I'm far into my codependent recovery so as to recognize this; therefore, not buying into it. In the end, I just took what I could use from the book and left the rest but there was a lot left.

This was one of the best spiritual books that I have read in a long time. There are a lot of books out there about personal relationships, but this one really hit home and was easy to understand. Sometimes it's all in how the message comes across and the author does a great job in doing just that.

Some good messages that I learned from this book were:

1.) Learn to love yourself before you can love another. Often times we go looking for love to cure our life - thinking that a person that fits our needs will help that. Maybe briefly, but you need to be content with yourself first.

2.)Everyone will find out what love is not on their way to finding out what love is.

3.) You must listen to what people do, not to what they say. Simply put...actions are louder than words.

4.) Avoid the trap of thinking that every relationship has to be the relationship that last forever. Sometimes a relationship, even if it ends in hurt, is necessary to get you to the next level.

5.) Unconditional love makes you vulnerable. Unless you are vulnerable, you cannot be open and experience true love. Most of us are too busy building our "walls" up to see this.

These are just a few of the great points that I extracted from this book. Highly recommend it!

This is the first time I've EVER written a review on AMAZON... that alone should tell you that this book really helped me. I recently had a bad break up with my boyfriend, and was looking for answers to the same old questions... why does it HURT so much each time, what patterns am i repeating?, why am i always so insecure, what can i change about myself and my situation to get different results?...

I read this book in 2 days and it offers amazing wisdom and insight into WHY we behave in certain ways when in a relationship. The truth is going to hurt, but it is for your own good. This book really makes you LOVE yourself more and helped me personally to get over the break up (still a healing process) and made me more AWARE and WISE so that I will be ready in my next relationship. I'm not saying that the next break up will be easy or the next relationship will be perfect...in fact I know it will not, but armed with the tenets of this book, I am no longer scared about the mistakes and patterns we continue to make in comitted relationships and am looking forward to the bright futute.

If there is any self help book on love and relationships you are going to read, PLEASE READ THIS ONE. IT is soo worth it and if I have helped just one other person with a bad break up or a relationship concern, then my good deed is done :) CHEERS.

I just started a book club among my friends, and this is the book I chose for everyone to read. Every single one of my friends have said the same thing, They love it, love it, love it.... You can't believe it until you read it. This book is a must read for any man or woman, who would like to understand and/or make sense of why things, and events in our lives happen the way they do. It enlighted and taught us what to do in the Meantime,while waiting for love to come your way. We learned how we can't just expect things to happen in our lives, without the preparation. We must be prepare not only for happiness, but for the failures that will occur in our lives as we grow in the Meantime. I love this book, I will read it twice to absorb it's full content.

Got the book thinking it would assist me in getting through a rough single phase... Didn't. The book is a nice read - tells you everything's okay - you just need to straighten up a bit - but nothing terribly meaningful or enlightening. Mrs. Vanzant is a wonderful speaker, but, in my opinion, this book fell short. Most all of the scenarios involved people in unhappy relationships - well leave, that's easy enough. But for single people, there is very little that this book offers. Sure, learn to love yourself, don't sell yourself short, and be respectfult to yourself and others. That's nice, really, but it does little to fix anything. I don't mean to sound bitter, but I was disappointed with the work overall.

This was a good book. She gave you examples and scenarios of relationships we have been thru. And tells you to basically stop wallowing in self pity, know that your time will come and until then there is nothing you can do but learn. From the book I got the understanding that you can't have a good relationship with anyone else until you have a good relationship w/ yourself. Stop lying to yourself, beating up on yourself and learn to love yourself truly love yourself.

The first time I read ITMT, I was a bit lost. That was about a year ago. I decided to give it another try after attending the Meantime tour. What I realized was that the first time I was attempting to read the book, I wasn't ready. I wasn't ready for the truth. I had not come to the realization that I had some issues that needed resolving. Now that I am there--(no boyfriend, drama, etc.) I am able to grasp what it is Iyanla is saying. Yes, the book is a bit repetitive. However, you need to hear things more than once when you are in the meantime. I know I did because a part of me was still in denial. The Jeri-Willy story did lose me for a while but the lesson was still there. This book is for those who are ready to face their reality and come into the truth. It changed my prespective on life and love.