Why should you read The Dark Side Of The Light Chasers by Debbie Ford?
This book is great because there aren’t too many self-help books that go into shadow work or exploring the darker sides of ourselves. Why do we fail ourselves? Why don’t any of us acknowledge that side of ourselves.
Debbie isn’t afraid to explore this area of your personality. If you think you can just power through with positivity, then you should read this book. Debbie took the normal self-help route of reading self-help books, attending seminars, and researching spirituality.
None of those things made her feel whole. What she later realized is that she had been denying a side of herself. The dark side of herself. Often these dark sides of ourselves are trying to tell us things. We’ve neglected these areas when we should be listening to them.
We have anger for a reason. We get hungry for reason. We need to be outspoken for a reason.
If you don’t acknowledge aspects of your personality, then they will come out on their own. Oftentimes, people’s shadows come out in the worst ways. They come out in the form of substance abuse or destroying relationships. Shadows can come out when people don’t follow their dreams. We get angry at ourself for not pursuing our dreams and this can wreck all different aspects of our lives.
I read this book and another book by Debbie Ford called Spiritual Divorce. The most moving exercise in them was an exercise involving a school bus. You are supposed to meditate and picture yourself boarding a school bus with people that repel you. Whether it’s a fat person or an angry person. You have to listen to what this person has to say to you and teach you. From this exercise, you learn that you’ve been judging and looking at things incorrectly. You shouldn’t judge people based on their looks or their emotions in the moment. You also learn that it’s ok to experience emotions like anger sometimes. Sometimes people really do make us justifiably angry because they’ve done something wrong to us. If you don’t let that anger out in a healthy format, it will get bottled up.
Another note from the book that really helped me was that we see ourselves in other people. We see both the good and the bad aspects of ourselves in others. Do you find yourself constantly judging other people? Notice what you don’t like about them. This is also what you don’t like about yourself. Do you hate weakness in others? This is likely because you don’t enjoy weakness in yourself.
Weakness isn’t a bad thing. It’s ok to be weak sometimes. If you constantly try to show strength, then people will be intimidated by you because every situation does not call for strength. Some situations call for empathy and sensitivity.
You can see how noticing traits in others that you dislike can help you find traits in yourself that you’ve repressed.
Once you’ve learned more about your shadow, Debbie turns the book towards finding your light. She approaches this similarly to finding your darkness. You look for qualities in others that you like. Do you like confident people or skinny people but can’t acknowledge this in yourself? Well it’s time to find the light side of yourself that you haven’t acknowledged and begin to acknowledge it. What I love about Debbie’s book is that she tells you that we are all capable of so much more than we think. Once we fully integrate ourselves, we can become our best selves.
Go grab a copy of this book today and start your journey towards being the best you.
Debbie Ford was an inspirational self-help author. She wrote many books about shadow work. She went through addiction treatment, survived divorce and worked closely with Deepak Chopra.
