According to author Debbie Ford, we’re continually telling ourselves “stories”—creating personal dramas based on our beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors. “When we live in these stories”, Ford writes in her book The Secret of the Shadow, “we engage in noisy internal dialogues, self-defeating habits, and abusive behaviors.” Ford teaches that we create our life stories in our attempt to become someone or something, and traces these stories to childhood experiences. Because we fear the disapproval and harsh judgments or others—we develop stories, trying to prevent the withdrawal of love. The Secret of the Shadow illuminates why we hold onto our stories and how to reclaim our power. Some of the profound wisdom found in this book includes:

• What we think we will receive by fixing our stories pales in comparison to what we will win when we step outside our stories into the fullness of who we truly are.
• Our personal dramas—our pain, our complaints, and our discontent—often become our excuse for not manifesting our most magnificent selves. Our dramas take up so much space in our lives that most of us wouldn’t know ourselves without them. In order to disengage from our dramas and step beyond our limited perspective, we need to see what we get out of holding on to them.
• Our guilt comes from not listening to ourselves, from making choices that go against our core beliefs, from disappointing those we love, and from choosing behaviors that we might feel are selfish.

With incisive observations, practical exercises, and compelling anecdotes, Debbie Ford insists that we are powerful beyond measure—possessing enormous gifts and healing creativity. The Secret of the Shadow teaches us that:

• We not only possess the light of the world, but we are the light of the world.
• How to make peace with—and live outside of—our personal story.
• Finding our “unique recipe” occurs when we recognize the usefulness of our stories and extract our specialty out of the dramas we have lived.