My dear friend Debbie Ford is courageous, vulnerable and brilliant. I want to share a remarkable speech that she gave to the Masters Circle Superconference in Orlando last week in which she demonstratred the power that being vulnerable has to inspire others. Just as remarkable, is that her assistant Debra, who has worked with Debbie for many years (remember the quote, “No man is a hero to his own valet”) was so inspired and moved by Debbie’s leadership, that she wrote this newsletter. Debbie’s assistant’s words are in italics below and Debbie Ford’s speech is in bold:

Hi Everyone. I’m Debbie’s assistant Debra and I was given the honor of introducing this week’s newsletter for one simple reason: after reading the speech that she gave this past weekend at the Masters Circle SuperConference in Orlando, it was clear that our previously scheduled newsletter had to be postponed. I knew that the message at the heart of this speech is what had to be shared instead. As I read what Debbie had to say to 3,000 chiropractors from around the country, I suddenly found myself flooded with tears of joy, and I’ll sum up why in one sentence: I cried because Debbie has the vulnerability and raw courage to tell us the truth that our souls long to hear.

While I was traveling here, I searched my consciousness to see what I might have to offer you. Knowing that there is probably little I could say that you haven’t heard at least a hundred times before, I humbly turned to God to guide me. It only took a few second to realize how very scared I am to stand before a group of my peers. I’m scared because I want to be great. I want you to think I am brilliant, loving, kind, and good-hearted. I want you to think I am one in a million, that I am special, but more importantly, I want you to think I am human. Even though my precious little ego yearns to be approved of, my bigger commitment is to support you in unraveling the next grandest and greatest version of yourself.

I know the only real gift I can give you is the gift of my experience. I do not want to try to provide you with some new information that will make you feel smarter or better. What I do want to do is support you today in surrendering some old thought, belief, or righteous position that is firmly and impeccably placed between you and that next greatest expression of yourself.

And I want to share with you that it was not my light but rather my darkness that birthed the work that I now share in the world.

It is my fears and my insecurities that ultimately allow me to be vulnerable and stand before you. It is not my quick wit nor my perceived brilliance that has brought me here today, but rather my anger, discontent, and insecurities.

It was my inability to learn in traditional ways that expanded my mind and caused me to strengthen my spiritual connection. And it was my weakness and the suffering from my drug addiction that brought me to my knees and opened me up to greater realities.

It is my fear of being less than, not good enough, mediocre, and stupid that has driven me to write five books and create a nationally recognized coaching program at an accredited university.

It was the pain of my parents’ divorce, and then my own, that gave me the inspiration to write Spiritual Divorce and made me an expert on healing the heart.

It was the belittling comments of one of my exes that triggered an emotional hot button that pushed me to embrace “actress” which allowed me to film a television show that will be aired this winter on ABC. And it is my big mouth and inability to keep it shut that brought me my radio show.

So if you haven’t figured it out, what I am attempting to tell you is that it is my darkness that launched my career.

My arrogance made me believe that I knew more than all of you, and it was my ignorance that made me get down on my knees every night for years and beg God for spiritual wisdom and new ways to integrate emotional pain.

It is my greed and love for fine things that has me work when others are out partying. It is my denial of the evil and angry judgments of others that allows me to stand up in front of group after group and tout my message. And it is my depressive nature that birthed the Pollyanna in me that relentlessly tries to transform the un-transformable and never gives up on the hopeless.

It is, my friends, the very darkness that I didn’t want to be or have that has created the woman I always longed to be.

My fear of being called lazy gives me my drive. It is my vanity that dressed me this morning and gets me to work out even when I’m tired. My fear of being a negligent mother makes sure that I go to all my son’s flag football games (even when I’m busy), drive him to school (even when I’m tired and he could take the bus), and lay with him every night until he falls to sleep (even when I want to watch TV).

Unknowingly, my shadow, and my ego and all its flaws, have led me to who I am today. I am eternally grateful for this. I cannot shun or disapprove of my flaws and imperfections, my judgments, or my weaknesses, because they are exactly what has led me to the expression of what I believe to be my genius, and my greatness.

My feelings of inadequacy have me wake up in the morning and ask, “What can I do to make my world a better place?” My need to matter, to be all used up when I die, was birthed out of the fear that I would die unnoticed, that I would be nothing more than a middle class Jewish girl from Hollywood, Florida.

So today I am here to invite you to allow your next expression of greatness to emerge – not by learning new tricks, or more strategies, but by embracing more of your darkness, more of your insecurities, more of your vulnerabilities.

I am here to remind you that it is not the absence of darkness that gives us access to our light but rather our ability to bring our light to the darkness that pervades our human experience. This is what heals us and ultimately lifts us up into new realities. I believe that it is the courage to embrace the totality of our humanity – both our light and our darkness – that will lead us to the experience of heaven on earth, because heaven is when we can love all of ourselves – both our human self and our divine self, both our light and our dark.