Excerpt from In The Meantime by Iyanla Vanzant, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

We enter relationships looking for love, expecting someone to love us or accept us lovingly. This makes perfectly good sense if you consider that we are each born to express and receive love. In some unfortunate situations, we can want love or acceptance so badly that we will do almost anything to get it. We break love's rules. We disregard love's house. We forget to set love boundaries. We allow people to step in, be in, move in, live in our lives in ways that have nothing to do with love. Even when we have boundaries or standards clearly defining what we will do, how we will do it in the name of love, and what we expect in return, there never seems to be enough love to fill the void we have all, at one time or another, felt in our hearts. When we believe we do not have enough love in our lives, we enter the meantime. What we fail to understand is that we are the love we seek. Until, however, we can recognize ourselves as love and live in harmony with our true identity, the void grows deeper, wider, and more painful.


They just didn't get it! He called several times during the next several weeks. At first, she refused to return his calls. She was struggling to shake and break her attachment. He had already shaken his, although he had forgotten to tell her that she had been shook! "Surely she knows!" he thought. "She has to know!" In the meantime, people often forget to say what they mean or mean what they say because they assume you already know. He did not assume that he would pass her on the street, but he did. The moment they saw each other, the thumping started---his mind, her heart, and their body parts. They spoke. Actually, she spoke first. He responded by talking to her about the calls. Feeling guilty, as we often do in the meantime, she agreed to call him later. She did, and they agreed to meet.


When you're in the meantime you want an escape route! You want something to do other than all that meantime stuff. They wanted to do something about their thumping body parts. They wanted to be attached to one another. They thought it was love. It had to be love! Why else would it keep showing up, thumping and giving them the perfect excuse to break all other attachments. The meantime is not about breaking up attachments. It is about creating attachments honestly and lovingly. However, in the meantime, the thumping body parts are completely unaware of this little tidbit of information. He made the offer. She accepted. On opposite sides of town, both of their other attachments were fed up with excuses and ready to do another kind of thumping of body parts!

Copyright © 1998 by Iyanla Vanzant