Iyanla Vanzant is back. The renowned spiritual teacher, New York Times bestselling author, and beloved host returns to OWN with an all-new series, IYANLA: THE INSIDE FIX—a fresh, more seasoned perspective on the healing journeys that touched millions.
A decade ago, Iyanla: Fix My Life became a hit. Through honest, often emotionally raw conversations with celebrity guests like Shereé Whitfield, Karrueche Tran, Evelyn Lozada, and DMX—and with everyday people navigating wounds that mirrored our own—the series created space for vulnerable truth-telling long before today’s mainstream dialogues on trauma, inner child work, or generational healing.
But Iyanla says she didn’t fully grasp the cultural magnitude of what she was doing back then. “Doing the show back then from 2012 to 2020 or 2021, I didn’t really have a healthy awareness or respect for how groundbreaking the show was,” she tells ESSENCE. “I now understand that what I was doing back then was spiritual hygiene—teaching people how to brush their mind, how to floss their heart, how to cleanse their spirit, how to nourish their body.”
Now, she’s ready to return to the work with deeper clarity and a responsibility she describes as part of perhaps the most important time in her life. “When I say I’m back,” she says, “I’m back as an elder in my legacy years, creating a pattern and a process and a path for healing that’s going to outlive me.”
IYANLA: THE INSIDE FIX revisits twelve of the most unforgettable episodes from the original OWN series; moments that sparked cultural conversation, tears, memes, prayer circles, and living-room debates across the country. The Six Brown Chicks confrontation in “Fix My Backstabbing Friends” remains one of the most talked-about episodes in OWN history; “Fix My Broken Mother” left families questioning the unspoken hurts shaping their own bonds. But this new iteration isn’t simply a retrospective, it’s an acknowledgment that the world has changed, and so have we.
Vanzant has long believed that spiritual hygiene is essential to human evolution. “We’ve got to know how to take care of our minds because people are using our minds to turn us against ourselves. We’ve got to know how to take care of our hearts,” she says. “We need spiritual hygienic practices to keep our minds, our hearts, our bodies and our spirits aligned.”
One of the powerful through-lines in THE INSIDE FIX is Iyanla’s willingness to critique her own earlier work. This kind of reflection grounds the new series in humility, and explores her growing sense of purpose as what she calls a “cultural custodian.”
“Going back now, it’s just unpacking the wisdom that’s already there,” she says. “I don’t need anything new right now. I got enough old stuff that I can work with. The prescription still works.”
From a mental health standpoint, fans have long wondered how Iyanla held space for others with such steadiness while navigating so many emotionally charged moments. Her answer is simple: Prayer. “Beginning everything with prayer is something that works.” But she emphasizes these rituals were never for show—they were a blueprint for how we can approach conflict in our own lives.
“If you are having a conversation with your family, clear your space, breathe, pray, set yourself, have a clear intention,” she says. “That is good spiritual hygiene.”
In an age of algorithms, culture wars, emotional burnout, and endless digital noise, this new series arrives as a reminder that healing is truly a lifelong commitment. Vanzant’s return is timely, and perhaps is needed now, more than ever. And as she puts it: “I’ve always been ahead of my time, but now I have a deeper appreciation for the power of communal collective healing.”
IYANLA: THE INSIDE FIX premieres Saturday, January 17 at 8PM ET/PT on OWN.