Life without a test is life without a testimony

9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Aug. 1 and 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Aug. 2. $75. Sheraton Hotel Atlanta, 165 Courtland St. NE, Atlanta. www.shespeaksworldwide.com

A few months ago, Chinaza Duson decided to do something she believes faith requires of all of us.

She shared her testimony.

It’s a long story but here’s an abbreviated version.

Duson, 39, of Fairburn was abandoned at birth, survived grave child abuse, multiple arrests, rapes and molestation, a failed marriage and three back-to-back layoffs. Yet she found the strength and will to become a successful businesswoman.

The details she shared at an international business convention lit a fire under the women in attendance. They lined up afterward to offer congratulations and share their own stories. One had suffered her husband’s abuse for 16 years. One was dealing with homelessness as a single mom. Another knew at the age of 60 that she too needed to find her voice.

Their stories weighed heavily on Duson.

“God plagued me to talk about an exodus, at a business convention,” she said. “It was time to get his women to exit out of spiritual, physical and emotional bondage, to help them find who they were called to be.”

That was in May. This week Duson launched a women's empowerment movement called SheSpeaksGlobal. The meeting opened Friday with some 200 women and ends Sunday at the downtown Sheraton Hotel Atlanta. It moves to seven other U.S. cities, the United Kingdom and South Africa.

It's no secret that stress can make us sick. Studies have found that it increases the risk of obesity, heart disease, diabetes, depression, asthma, gastrointestinal problems and Alzheimer's disease.

Owning her own demons, Duson said, was the first step to exorcising them.

“I opened my mouth and discovered that my voice brought life,” she said.

As it happened, Duson was talking with a girlfriend in California.

“You’re constantly changing your hair, your clothes, you eye color,” she said. “Tell me, who are you?”

Duson had been born Tiffany Marie Duson, the daughter of a prostitute and a pimp. Her maternal grandmother, the woman who raised her, was a schizophrenic. Her grandfather, a savvy street hustler who ran numbers. By age 11, Duson was an incarcerated juvenile delinquent.

She pulled herself out of the madness, becoming the second person in her immediate family to graduate from high school and the first to attend college. She spent five years in the Marines before earning undergraduate and Master’s degrees in business administration from Strayer University in Washington, D.C.

“I’m a broken bird,” she told her friend. “I wear a mask.”

“Don’t you think it’s time to take it off?” her friend asked. “Imagine what would happen if you actually did what the word of God says.”

Her friend pointed her to Revelation 12:11: “And they overcame him by the blood of the lamb and by the word of their testimony…”

Tell your story, her friend implored.

“I don’t want everybody in my business,” Duson replied.

“You could really help others,” her friend said.

Every time she shared a piece of herself, Duson saw people being liberated. And she was being healed in the process.

“I stopped relaxing my hair,” she said. “I became my natural self. I could walk out of the house without being dressed to the nines and free from what other people thought. I stopped telling people my father was a doctor and mother was a lawyer. I stopped lying and began living.”

Duson would face more setbacks, including homelessness and a brutal custody fight for her daughter. Each time she willed herself to go on. The Buffalo, N.Y., native soon moved from California to Decatur in 2006, and then to Fairburn in 2008.

She was named Top 40 under 40 by Mass Transit Magazine in 2010. After yet another layoff in the spring of 2010, she lost everything again. Through foreclosure, repossession and bankruptcy, she took her last monies and became an independent business owner in direct sales and network marketing. In five years, she rose through the ranks, becoming the vice president of strategic development and the highest paid female income earner in her company, Paycation, a part of XStream Travel.

She recently purchased her dream car and moved into a new home she shares with her 17-year-old daughter. She self-published her life story, the subject of her speech back in May. That night, she stood before nearly 5,000 people.

Though we’re conditioned to believe our mistakes cripple us, healing comes from unearthing our pain – the failed marriages, out of wedlock pregnancies and sabotaged careers – and realizing they’re still good, she told the women. Growing up in a dysfunctional family, motivated her to seek a better life.

“Don’t let bad circumstances silence you or become your way of life,” she said.

A word of warning: if you plan to attend the conference, don’t expect a rah, rah session.

You, too, will be required to take off the mask.