In Memory of Debbie Ford

Debbie Ford, New York Times best selling author of many books including "The Dark Side of the Light Chasers" died recently of cancer at the age of 57. I will always be grateful to her for endorsing my "Soul Visioning" book in 2008 and the courageous contribution she made to the importance of reclaiming our "shadow" parts.We shared a common belief that we need to own our "shadow" self (the parts that are hidden, disowned and disdained). Debbie said, "There are parts of ourselves that we are unaware of or we're in denial of or the parts of ourselves that we don't like, that we feel ashamed of or embarrassed by, that we suppress. We spend our time, sometimes knowingly, sometimes unknowingly, hiding them.""In trying to express only those aspects of ourselves that we believe will guarantee us the acceptance of others, we suppress some of our most valuable features and sentence ourselves to a life of reenacting the same drama with the same outworn script. Reclaiming the parts of ourselves that we have relegated to the shadow is the most reliable path to actualizing our human potential. Once befriended, our shadow becomes a divine map that reconnects us to the life we were meant to live and the people we were meant to be. We do have to, ultimately, bring the shadow out of the shadows and bring it to the light."There are many ways to discover and heal our "shadow self" including past life regression, dream interpretation, forgiveness, hypnotherapy, and mindfulness. I address this in my Soul Visioning book. (Chapter 4: What is Really Holding You Back?) To embrace all parts of ourselves without condemnation allows us to heal it and correct the misperceptions of who we think we are. According to Carl Jung, we need to find the "gold in the dark" and realize that there are gifts hidden in our shadow."What is disowned in us, owns us." Susan Wisehart