In my recent interview with the amazing Debbie Ford we talk about our “Shadow” side and how to discover & accept the parts of ourselves that we are rejecting (and thus probably suffering over). We do an exercise from her (must read) book Dark Side of the Light Chasers. Here is a little excerpt from our interview where she asks me what I want people to think of me…
Alissa Kriteman: I want people to think that I’m fantastic, and witty and smart, and charming.

Debbie Ford: Okay. So your shadow would be dumb, boring… , (LAUGHS)…,

Alissa Kriteman: (LAUGHS) Oh, no! We’re really doing it!

Debbie Ford: Yeah! And ordinary.

Alissa Kriteman: Yes.

Debbie Ford: And what have you become? You’ve become fantastic, and witty and charming. You’ve become all these things in order to hide the shadow. So, nobody’s going to say, “Oh! Look at Alissa! She’s boring!” But, it might be that boring is the exact thing that you need, even though you can’t see it. In order to make a life choice that will take you to your greatest expression.”

WOW! I wasn’t expecting THAT! She went on to say the work I/we can do is to embrace those rejected qualities of our selves (dumb, ordinary and boring) so that we are not creating lives out of reaction to avoiding being/feeling them. We are a product of our thoughts, patterns, influences that mostly come from our childhoods. Debbie Ford is doing powerful work to help people see these “dark, shadow” places so they can be embraced, loved, and reintegrated back into our minds in a new way. Then, we can create lives that TRULY inspire us in the core of our beings.

I am totally taking this on - loving my dumb - and will keep you posted on how it is going!