Iyanla: Fix My Fatherless Family

Iyanla: Fix My Life

OWN The Oprah Winfrey Network

Society & Culture

4.7 • 827 Ratings

🗓️ 17 September 2019

⏱️ 38 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Iyanla travels to Newark, New Jersey, to help two sons who are trying to heal from a lifetime of abandonment by their father. Son Isaam tells Iyanla that he has spent decades living in pain because of his distant relationship with his father. He and his brother Chon recall how their father was in and out of their lives, sometimes disappearing for years at a time. Despite trying to mend the relationship, Issam and Chon say their father has continued to disappoint them and to lie to them. Just when they had given up for good, however, they received a phone call from a brother they never knew they had. Now, their father, John, is ready to face the sons he abandoned and finally introduce them to the brother he kept a secret for years. Iyanla's challenge is to help all four men on to the path of forgiveness, before their relationship is destroyed forever.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Let me tell you who I am.
0:02.0	I am a survivor, a teenage mother, a welfare recipient, and a woman.
0:08.0	I am a teacher, life coach, minister, lawyer, and author.
0:13.0	I've had my share of breakups, breakdowns, and breakthroughs.
0:18.0	I did my work and put my life back together piece by piece. I am I
0:23.0	Yianna Van Zand, and I am here to help you do your work. I'm in New Jersey doing
0:31.7	the work of redemption. This is a story about three fatherless sons and the man that made them that way.
0:41.7	33-year-old Isam says he has spent decades living in pain because of his distant relationship with his father.
0:49.3	I barely have any memories of my father and my mother and I being a family.
0:55.1	He was literally gone at the age of three.
0:58.7	I felt very lonely as that little boy.
1:02.2	Isam's 37-year-old half-brother Sean had a similar experience growing up.
1:07.4	My mom raised me.
1:08.5	She worked a lot, so I was left to figure a lot of things out of my own.
1:12.2	I sold drugs. I robbed people, in and out of prison. I never felt like I belonged anywhere
1:18.7	because I couldn't relate to where I came from, who my family was. Isam and Sean say their father,
1:25.7	63-year-old John, was in and out of their lives, sometimes
1:29.8	disappearing for years at a time.
1:32.3	It's been two years since I've seen my father, and he literally lives 15 minutes away.
1:38.3	The pattern hasn't changed from childhood to now.
1:41.4	Over the last four decades, Isam and Sean say they've tried to mend
1:46.3	their relationship with their father,
	...

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