Remembering a Spiritual Luminary Debbie Ford
In addition to loving our good self, the qualities and characteristics we deem good, she believes, “True love is embracing our dark impulses, our imperfections, our mistakes and our heartache. That is when one reconnects and experiences the love that is truly the answer.”
Through Debbie’s self-awareness and understanding of her own experiences, she recognizes the importance of the relationship between one’s inner world and outer world, which she refers to as “the ego created and the soul inspired, the human and the divine, the false self and the true self.” Embracing the concept of a “return to wholeness and the integration of all we are that has inspired and woken me up every morning for the last 20 years,” Debbie chose to make it her mission “to find new ways to inspire others to go on this lifelong journey to clean up their past, to forgive themselves for their flaws and shortcomings, to make peace with their humanity, to open up to their divinity and allow themselves to be guided by a power greater than themselves.”
Debbie’s decision to acknowledge and embrace the shadow self has inspired others to do the same. Describing the shadow as “the parts of ourselves that we hide, deny, or suppress,” she desired to educate others to accept, embrace and celebrate all of who they are, including the shadow. She says, “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 the light to it.”
Laurie Sue Brockway offered these powerful words in her eulogy to describe Debbie: Those of us who knew her, or were in some measure touched by her work, remember her as a physically tiny person who was a huge force of nature – dynamic, passionate, engaging, fearless, funny as all hell, and the person who always delivered laser sharp insights meant to help you grow, whether they were comfortable or not.
