In This Guide:

• What shadow work is and why your triggers are actually gifts pointing you toward healing
• How childhood wounds become shadows—and how those shadows create the patterns running your adult life
• The 4-step shadow work process to heal your wounds and reclaim the parts you've been hiding
• Common shadow patterns in strong, capable women (and the childhood wounds behind them)
• How to start shadow work today, even if you don't remember your childhood clearly
• Why shadow work is different from therapy and self-improvement

If your childhood wounds are running your life—showing up as triggers, self-sabotage, and exhaustion—shadow work is how you break free.

The patterns you can't shake aren't character flaws. They're survival strategies you created as a child when parts of you got rejected, shamed, or dismissed. Those wounded parts didn't disappear. They became your "shadow"—hidden aspects of yourself that now secretly control your life through unhealthy patterns, disproportionate reactions, and constant emotional triggers.

Shadow work is the practice of bringing these hidden wounds into the light so you can finally stop living from half of yourself. It's not about fixing or improving. It's about feeling, accepting, and reclaiming the parts you've been running from—so you can step into your full power and heal the childhood wounds keeping you fragmented.

This is your beginner's guide to understanding what shadow work is, why your triggers are actually gifts, and the 4-step process to start healing the wounds that have been controlling you.

Let's start with an example...

You sent a text to a family member asking them to dinner next week.

Simple enough, right?

But then... silence.

One day passes. Then two. Then three.

And suddenly you're consumed. Replaying every word you wrote. Analyzing the tone. Was it too pushy? Too casual? Did you say something wrong in your last conversation?

You try to rationalize: They're probably just busy. Their phone might be off. It's not about me.

But underneath those rational thoughts, there's a current of panic. A familiar tightness in your chest. A story playing on repeat: I did something wrong. They're upset with me. I'm in trouble.

You can't focus on anything else. You're half-present in every conversation, every task, because part of you is running through scenarios, trying to fix something you don't even know is broken.

Finally, the day before the dinner would have happened, your phone buzzes.

"So sorry! Was hiking with no signal. Would love to come!"

And just like that, you realize: This entire week of anxiety, rumination, and self-interrogation... had nothing to do with what was actually happening.

It had everything to do with something much older.

You're Not Overthinking. You're Triggered.

If you've ever found yourself:

• Spiraling when someone doesn't text back
• Panicking over a small mistake at work, building elaborate systems to ensure it never happens again
• Feeling intense shame when you get corrected or receive feedback
• Replaying conversations, wondering if you said too much, took up too much space, were "too much"
• Going into fix-it mode instead of actually feeling your feelings
• Saying yes when you want to say no because you can't bear the thought of disappointing someone
• Over-explaining, over-apologizing, or obsessively trying to make everyone comfortable

...you've probably told yourself you're just overthinking. That you're too sensitive. That you need to get over it.

But here's the truth...

These aren't character flaws. These are triggers.

And triggers are breadcrumbs leading you back to your childhood wounds.

The moments when you learned that:

• Making mistakes meant you were stupid or unworthy
• Your needs were a burden
• Your sensitivity was weakness
• Being wrong meant being bad
• Taking up space meant being too much
• Needing help meant you were failing

You learned these things not because someone sat you down and told you explicitly.

You learned them through humiliation when you got an answer wrong. Through the look on a parent's face when you cried. Through being called dramatic when you were hurt. Through watching what happened to other people who were "needy" or "difficult."

And because you were a child whose survival depended on love and acceptance, you made an unconscious choice:

You took those wounded, "unacceptable" parts of yourself and pushed them into the shadows.

What Shadow Work Actually Is (And Why It Matters)  

Shadow work is the practice of bringing the parts of yourself you've exiled back into the light—not to become them, not to fix them, but to become aware of them so they stop secretly running your life.

The "shadow" isn't some dark, sinister place full of your worst qualities.

It's simply the parts of you that you learned weren't safe to show. The parts that got rejected, shamed, dismissed, or punished. The parts you had to hide to survive your childhood.

Your shadow is your wound that went into hiding.

And when we keep these parts in the darkness they don't disappear or become less powerful.

Instead, they run your life through:

• Unhealthy patterns
• Coping strategies
• Defense mechanisms
• Bad habits
• Automatic responses
• Disproportionate reactions
• Self-rejection
• Self-sabotage

AND they keep feeling empty and longing for "more."

Because a deep part of you knows these wounds exist. These parts are desperate to be known. And you're living life from only half of yourself.

You can't step into your full power when half of you is hiding.

You can't love yourself fully when you're actively rejecting parts of who you are.

You can't have mutually fulfilling relationships when you're performing instead of being real.

You can't heal from your past when you're still living by its outdated rules.

This is why shadow work isn't optional if you want to live fully.  

It's not just another self-improvement tool.

It's the difference between living from your wounds and living from your wholeness AKA your healed, whole self.

How Wounds Become Shadows: The Moment Everything Changed

Let me take you back to a moment you probably don't even remember.

You're young—maybe 2, maybe 5, maybe 8. You're crying because something hurt. Not dramatic crying, just genuine tears because you're genuinely upset.

And someone—a parent, a sibling, a teacher—responds with frustration. An eye roll. A sharp "Stop being so sensitive." Or worse, silence. The kind that tells you your feelings are an inconvenience.

In that moment, you don't have the cognitive capacity to think, "Oh, this person is having a bad day and their response has nothing to do with me."

Instead, you make it mean something about YOU.

My sensitivity is bad. My tears are too much. My feelings are a burden. I need to stop being this way.

And because your survival literally depends on being loved and accepted by your caregivers, you make an unconscious choice: I will never be this way again.

You don't "decide" this consciously. Your nervous system does it for you. It's a brilliant adaptation designed to keep you safe, connected, and loved.

So you push that sensitive part down. You exile it. You send it into the shadows of your unconscious mind where you don't have to look at it, feel it, or be it.

This is how a wound becomes a shadow.

And, here's the thing, the people who wounded you probably had no idea.

Likely, they weren't trying to hurt you. They might have been overwhelmed themselves. They might have been parenting the way they were parented. Your sibling might have just been "being a sibling." Your teacher might have had 30 other students demanding attention.

The wound wasn't about the severity of what happened—it was about what you made it mean.

And how it impacted you matters. 

A single look. A sarcastic comment. Being laughed at when you got an answer wrong. Watching what happened to someone else who was "too much."

These moments aren't necessarily traumatic in the clinical sense.

But they become the stories that shape your entire life.

The Stories We Tell Ourselves

When you're a child, you don't have context.

You have limited information and an egocentric worldview (which is developmentally normal). So when something painful happens, you create a story to make sense of it:

• "I got humiliated for getting the answer wrong" becomes → Being wrong is dangerous. I must be perfect.
• "My parents seemed annoyed when I asked for help" becomes → My needs are a burden. I must do everything myself.
• "I was told to stop whining" becomes → My vulnerability is weakness. I must be strong.
• "Someone laughed when I shared my idea" becomes → Speaking my voice is risky. I must be careful and play small.

These stories aren't TRUE. But they become the lens through which you see yourself and the world.

"Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate." — Carl Jung

And because you're living from these stories, you unconsciously create situations that "prove" them:

1. You finally ask for help, but they don't do it as well as you would (because your standards are impossibly high) → You conclude: See? I can't rely on anyone. I have to do everything myself.
2. You say yes when you mean no to avoid upsetting people → You feel safe but unknown and alone → People get used to you showing up from self-abandonment → You believe: See? People don't really want to know me. It's not safe to be my true self.
3. You push through exhaustion because "needing rest is lazy" → You collapse on the couch for a quick break → No one picks up the slack which means you have scramble to make dinner and prep lunches → You conclude: See? I can never take a break. No one is there to help when I need it.
4. You triple-check your work to avoid making mistakes → When you catch a tiny error, you spiral into shame and panic → You confirm: See? I'm one mistake away from humiliation.
5. You monitor yourself in conversations, editing as you speak so you don't take up too much space → You leave feeling unheard and like you didn't really connect → You think: See? I'm too different and don't connect well with others.
6. You anticipate everyone's needs and solve problems before they're asked → People expect this level of caretaking and stop checking in on you → You conclude: See? My needs don't matter.
7. You don't share when you're struggling because you automatically just handle it → People assume you're fine and don't offer support → You feel: See? I really am alone. No one would be there even if I asked.
8. You immediately go into fix-it mode when emotions arise (yours or others') → You never actually feel your feelings → You become numb and disconnected from yourself → You wonder: Why do I feel so empty? Why don't I even know what I want?

The wound comes from the story → The story creates the shadow → The shadow creates the pattern → And the pattern proves the story

This is the cycle that's been running your life.

And the only way out is to bring it into the light.

And interrupt the pattern.

What Becomes Possible When You Heal Your Shadows

You might be thinking, "This all makes sense. I see how my wounds became shadows and how those shadows created my patterns. But is it really worth doing this work? What if I open this up and it's too much?"

Let me tell you what becomes possible when you stop letting your childhood wounds run your adult life.

You get to stop performing.

Imagine waking up and not immediately scanning for what you might have done wrong. Not replaying yesterday's conversation. Not bracing for criticism. Not monitoring every word that comes out of your mouth.

The exhaustion you've been carrying? A huge portion of it comes from the constant vigilance required to keep your shadows hidden. When you integrate them, you get that energy back.

You get to actually be known (and feel safe enough to let it happen).

Right now, you're showing people a carefully curated version of yourself—the capable one, the helpful one, the one who has it together. And you wonder why you feel so alone even when you're surrounded by people.

When you reclaim your shadows, you can finally let people see the real you. The one who has needs, who makes mistakes, who doesn't always have the answer. And you discover that you're more lovable in your wholeness than you ever were in your performance.

You get to make decisions from what you actually want, not fear.

When your shadows are running the show, every choice is filtered through: Will this make me look bad? Will people be upset? What if I'm wrong?

When you've integrated your shadows, you can ask: What do I actually want? What feels true for me?

That's freedom.

You start to show up fully in your relationships.

No more saying yes when you mean no. No more abandoning yourself to keep the peace. No more disappearing into fix-it mode when emotions arise.

You can have conflict without catastrophizing. You can receive help without guilt. You can take up space without apologizing.

You can finally have the mutually fulfilling relationships you've been longing for—because you're no longer relating from your wounds.

You get to stop being hijacked by triggers.

That panic when someone doesn't text back? The spiral when you make a mistake? The shame when you're corrected?

These won't completely disappear overnight. But they lose their power over you.

You'll notice them arising and think, Oh, there's the old story trying to run the show. But I don't have to believe it anymore.

You get to choose your response instead of being controlled by your reactions.

This is what living from your whole self looks like.

Not perfect. Not "healed" in some final, complete way. But grounded. Present. Free to be all of who you are—not just the parts you decided at a very young age are acceptable.

Why You Can't Afford to Wait

I know this work feels hard. And it can be. 

Full truth is that it can also be fun, invigorating, and fulfilling.

And, every day you wait to face your shadow, the patterns gets stronger.

Every time you over-apologize to avoid being seen as wrong, you're teaching your nervous system: The story is true. Being wrong really is dangerous.

Every time you say yes when you mean no, you're reinforcing: My needs really are a burden. I really can't be my authentic self.

Every time you spiral over a delayed text message, you're proving to yourself: See? People really will abandon me if I'm not perfect.

The pattern doesn't just maintain itself—it deepens.

And the cost compounds.

Think about the energy you're spending right now monitoring yourself, performing, trying to prevent mistakes, managing everyone else's emotions.

That's energy you could be putting toward your dreams, your creativity, your actual life.

Think about the relationships you're in where you're not truly known. Where you show up as half of yourself. Those relationships aren't deepening—they're staying surface-level. And you're staying lonely.

Think about your children, if you have them, watching you abandon yourself. Learning that this is what it means to be a woman. That your needs don't matter. That you have to be perfect to be loved.

This isn't about shame. It's about clarity, self-expression, and stepping into your full power.

You didn't create these patterns consciously. You were a child doing your best to survive and be loved.

But you're not that child anymore.

And the parts of you that you've been hiding, rejecting, and running from?

They're not going to quietly disappear. They're going to keep showing up as triggers, as exhaustion, as that persistent feeling that something is missing.

Until you turn toward them.

Until you bring them into the light.

Until you finally, courageously, choose to come back to yourself.

So the question isn't "Is shadow work worth it?"

The question is "How much longer are you willing to live a half-lived life?"

The 4-Step Process: How to Begin Shadow Work

The good news is that you don't have to stay trapped in this cycle.

Shadow work gives you a way out. Not by fixing yourself or trying harder, but by finally seeing what's been running the show—and choosing differently.

I'm going to walk you through the exact 4-step process I use, using one of my own shadow patterns––the one I told you about at the beginning—the unanswered text message that consumed an entire week of my life.

This process works whether you're dealing with a "small" trigger (like an unanswered text) or a major pattern (like chronic people-pleasing or perfectionism).

The steps are the same.

Step 1: Track Your Triggers (in The Whole Soul Way™ I call this "Find a Trailhead")

A trigger is any moment when your reaction is disproportionate to what's actually happening.

This is the golden doorway, or I call it a trailhead, to what's hiding in the shadow, ready to be illuminated.

Many of us dismiss our triggers, especially the smaller ones that we think we shouldn't let bother us. [Watch my video about this here]

We tell ourselves we're overreacting, being dramatic, too sensitive.

We try to rationalize them away or stuff them down.

But triggers aren't the problem—they're the solution.

They're your psyche's way of saying: "Hey! There's a wound here that needs attention!"

What tracking looks like in practice:

When my family member didn't respond to my text, I noticed:

• Physical sensation: Tightness in my chest, anxiety in my stomach
• Emotional response: Panic, shame, dread
• Mental loop: Obsessive replaying of the message, analyzing every word
• Behavior: Inability to focus on anything else, constantly checking my phone
• Time spent: Days of rumination

The key question: Is this reaction proportional to what's happening?

A delayed text response doesn't warrant days of anxiety.

My reaction revealed that something much older (from a young child part of myself) was activated.

Your turn:

Start paying attention to these moments:

• When do you feel a disproportionate surge of panic, shame, or anger?
• What "small" things send you spiraling?
• Where do you overfunction, over-explain, or over-prepare?
• When do you go numb or immediately into fix-it mode?

Don't judge these reactions. Just notice them. Write them down.

Because they're breadcrumbs leading you back to your wounds.

Step 2: Identify the Underlying Story (in The Whole Soul Way™ I call this "Go Inside")

Every trigger is connected to a story—a belief you formed as a child about what it means when certain things happen. 

This is where you ask: "What am I making this mean about me?"

When my family member didn't respond, here's what I discovered underneath my anxiety:

The surface story: "She's upset with me. I did something wrong."

The deeper story: "I'm in trouble. I'm bad. People will abandon me if they don't like something I do or I mess up."

The original wounds: Multiple childhood experiences of being blamed, criticized, and rejected when I made mistakes. Watching relationships fracture. Having friends stop being my friends because of something I did with no ability to fix it. Learning that love was conditional on being "good."

This wound wasn't based on one traumatic experience, it was more like a thousand small moments that taught me: You're only safe when you do things right (based on what other people deem right). Any misstep means rejection.

The key thing is that the story doesn't have to be true. In fact, it usually isn't.

Turns out that my family member wasn't upset. She was hiking without cell service. The entire narrative I created—the week of anxiety, the self-interrogation, the fear—had nothing to do with reality.

But the story felt true because it was based on real wounds. Real moments when I was rejected because someone else though I messed up, hurt them, or did something wrong.

Your turn:

When you notice a trigger, ask yourself:

• What am I telling myself this means about me?
• What do I fear will happen if this is true?
• When did I first learn this story?
• What was happening in my childhood when I decided this was dangerous/unacceptable/bad?

You're not necessarily looking for "the one traumatic event."

You're looking for the pattern, repeated messages you received, and the way people responded when you showed certain parts of yourself.

One important thing to note is that you might not be able to remember any examples. In that case, what I suggest you do is that you consider the atmosphere in your home, making a best guess about what you learned, ways you may have been hurt or rejected, and what was expected of you. 

You don't have to get this perfect, the point is to train our brain to see that our reaction is based on a "story" that we created as a child about ourselves, and very little to do with the actual situation that we're upset about. 

So, identify the story, write it down, and this will begin to bring the story and associated wound from the unconscious into the light.

Step 3: Feel It Don't Fix It (in The Whole Soul Way™ I call this "Parent Yourself")

If you're like me, you'll be ready to make a plan and fix this "problem!"

So this might be the hardest step.

When emotions arise, we immediately go into:

• Analysis mode: "Why am I feeling this? What does it mean?"
• Solution mode: "How do I make this stop? What do I need to do differently?"
• Rationalization mode: "This doesn't make sense. I shouldn't feel this way."

But here's the deal...

Your shadow wounds don't need to be fixed. They need to be felt.

I know that because feeling is not out "go to." Fixing is. 

But what's needed is for us to at least just BE WITH the story and the underlying wound.

When I finally recognized the story running underneath my text anxiety, I wanted to immediately "work on it." 

Instead, I broke my pattern and stayed with the feelings.

The panic. The shame. The fear of rejection. The terror of being "in trouble."

I put my hand on my heart and held myself for a few moments.

I didn't try to change them or talk myself out of them. I let them be there. I acknowledged:

This is what I learned to feel as a child when I thought I'd done something wrong.

This is the process of reparenting ourselves.

The inner child part of me who learned that making a mistake meant abandonment needed the adult me to say: "I see you. I feel you. What you're feeling makes sense given what you experienced. You're not bad. You're not in trouble. You're safe now."

Not as a mental exercise. As an embodied experience of actually feeling those feelings without trying to fix, escape, or rationalize them.

This story was from years ago when I first learned to do this type of inner work.

And I was so surprised how "feeling it" was transformative. 

Your turn:

When you've identified the story, resist the urge to immediately fix or reframe it.

Instead:

• Let yourself feel what that young part of you felt
• Place a hand on your heart or belly and breathe
• Say to that part: "I see you. I'm here. You're safe now."
• Allow the feelings to move through you without needing them to make logical sense

This isn't about wallowing (in fact, it will likely only take 90 seconds).

It's about finally giving those exiled parts the acknowledgment they've been desperately seeking.

You can't heal what you won't feel.

Step 4: Take New Action (in The Whole Soul Way™ I call this "Show Up")

A lot of people who do shadow work stop at awareness and feeling their feelings.

But after years of doing this work, it's become so clear that you can know exactly where your pattern came from, you can feel all the feelings, and you can have profound insights about your childhood story...

...but if you keep doing the same things you've always done—if you keep repeating the same behaviors—you're reinforcing the original story.

And you'll see the shadow keep playing out in sneaky, destructive ways in your life. 

Every time you:

• Over-apologize to avoid being seen as wrong 
• Say yes when you mean no to avoid disappointing someone 
• Triple-check your work to avoid making a mistake
• Go into fix-it mode instead of feeling your feelings

...you're telling your nervous system, "The story is true. This really is dangerous. I really do need to protect myself this way."

The pattern keeps the story alive.

When you see the story clearly and feel into the feelings, you create space to change the story.

But that change only happens when you take the risk to act differently.

This is where shadow work becomes integrated, where it goes from a "fragment" to part of the "whole" you.

Where it moves from in your head into your life.

After I did the work to see my story ("I'm in trouble, people will abandon me if I'm not perfect") and feel the wound, I had a choice:

Do I want to keep letting this old story run my life?

The pattern would have been:

• Obsessively check my phone
• Draft and redraft apologetic follow-up messages
• Ruminate about what I did wrong
• Brace myself for rejection

The new action was:

• Notice the panic arising and name it: "This is the old story. Not what's actually happening."
• Remind myself: "I'm okay even if someone is upset with me."
• Resist the urge to over-explain or fix something that might not even be broken
• Stay present with the discomfort instead of letting it consume me

Was it comfortable? No.

Did my nervous system want to spiral back into the old pattern? Absolutely.

But I practiced staying with myself. Not abandoning myself to soothe my anxiety.

I didn't wait for her response to prove I was okay. I chose to be okay with myself in the uncertainty.

And when she finally texted back—completely unbothered, totally fine—I had profound evidence that the story wasn't true.

I unhooked from the story and took new action.

That's how you take the power back from the shadow.

And reinforce the NEW story, the NEW belief.

Your turn:

Once you've identified the story and felt the feelings, ask:

• What would I normally do in this situation? (That's the shadow-driven behavior)
• What would it look like to do something different? (That's the new action)
• What small step can I take that goes against the old pattern?

Examples of new action:

• If your pattern is over-explaining → Practice giving a simple answer without justification
• If your pattern is saying yes when you mean no → Tell someone "I'll get back to you" or "no," even though it's uncomfortable
• If your pattern is fixing everyone's emotions → Sit with their feelings (feeling your own) without rescuing them
• If your pattern is perfectionism → Deliberately send an email with a small typo and don't correct it

Eek! These actions will feel WRONG. Your nervous system will scream at you. The old story will tell you this is dangerous.

Do it anyway.

This is how you prove to yourself that you're safe (whether the story is true or not).
This is how you reclaim access to the parts you exiled to stay safe.
This is how you step into your full power.

Not just by understanding your shadows. By integrating them through action.

Common Shadows for Strong, Self-Reliant Women

If you're reading this, chances are you recognize yourself in these patterns. You're not alone.

Strong, capable, self-reliant women tend to share similar shadows—not because we're all the same, but because we learned similar survival strategies as children.

Here are some of the most common shadows I see (and have):

The "I Can't Make Mistakes" Shadow

• Spirals when feedback is offered, even constructive
• Builds elaborate systems to prevent any error from happening again
• Feels deep shame over typos, small oversights, or being corrected
• Can't tolerate being wrong or "not knowing"
• The childhood wound: Being humiliated, criticized, or shamed for getting answers wrong or making mistakes

The "I'm Too Much" Shadow

• Monitors how much space she takes up in conversations
• Feels panic when sharing a story or expressing enthusiasm
• Apologizes for her energy, her ideas, her presence
• Shrinks herself to make others comfortable
• The childhood wound: Being told she was too loud, too excited, too dramatic, too sensitive

The "My Needs Are a Burden" Shadow

• Says yes when she means no
• Can't ask for help without guilt or shame
• Takes care of everyone else but feels selfish when she has needs
• Pushes through exhaustion because "needing rest is lazy"
• The childhood wound: Watching what happened to "needy" people, having her needs dismissed or being made to feel like an inconvenience

The "I Must Be Perfect or I'm Bad" Shadow

• Lives in constant fear of being seen as wrong, bad, or at fault
• Obsessively replays interactions looking for what she did wrong
• Assumes silence or delayed responses mean someone is upset with her
• Can't separate making a mistake from being fundamentally flawed
• The childhood wound: Love and approval were conditional on being "good," any misstep felt like rejection

The "My Feelings Are Dangerous" Shadow

• Goes numb instead of feeling
• Immediately jumps into fix-it, problem-solving, or doing mode
• Can't access what she actually wants or needs
• Feels disconnected from herself and empty inside
• The childhood wound: People didn't "hold" her pain (sensitivity, tears, or vulnerability), they shamed or dismissed her pain as weakness, unimportant, or too much

The "I Can't Rely on Anyone" Shadow

• Does ask for help but can't tolerate when it's not done "right"
• Sets impossibly high standards that no one can meet
• Ends up doing everything herself to avoid disappointment
• Feels alone even when surrounded by people
• The childhood wound: Early experiences of being let down, no one would/could take care of her, or learning that she had to be the responsible one

Do you see yourself here?

These aren't character flaws.

They're survival strategies that once kept you safe, loved, and accepted.

And now they're outdated and keeping you empty, unfulfilled, and living from only half of yourself.

Frequently Asked Questions About Shadow Work

Q: Can I do this work if I had a 'good' childhood?

A: Yes. Absolutely yes.

You don't need capital-T Trauma to have shadows. You just need to have been a human child who learned that certain parts of you weren't acceptable.

Even in loving, well-intentioned homes, you absorbed messages about what was okay and what wasn't. Maybe your parents were wonderful but stressed. Maybe they did their absolute best but couldn't meet all your emotional needs. Maybe you have siblings who got more attention, or you watched how other kids got treated when they were "too sensitive" or "too needy."

Shadow work isn't about blaming your parents or claiming victimhood. It's about recognizing that as a child, you made sense of your world the best you could—and some of those conclusions are still running your life.

If you have triggers, patterns, or parts of yourself you've been hiding—you have shadows worth exploring. Period.

Q: What if I don't remember my childhood clearly?

A: This is one of the most common concerns, and here's the relief: You don't need specific memories to do shadow work.

If you can't remember exact moments, consider the atmosphere in your home. Make your best guess about what you learned, ways you may have been hurt or rejected, and what was expected of you.

You don't have to get this perfect. The point is to train your brain to see that your current reaction is based on a story you created as a child about yourself—and has very little to do with the actual situation you're upset about.

So identify the story as best you can, write it down, and this alone will begin to bring the story and associated wound from the unconscious into the light.

Your present-day triggers are actually the most reliable guide. They're showing you exactly where the wounds are, even if you can't remember the original moment they formed.

Q: What if this brings up too much emotion? What if I can't handle it?

A: First, honor that this concern is actually your system trying to protect you. That's not weakness—that's wisdom.

Shadow work done well is titrated. You don't throw open all the doors at once. You work with one small piece at a time, building your capacity gradually.

Start with the "low-hanging fruit"—the smaller triggers, the less charged patterns. As you practice the 4-step process with these, you build the skills and nervous system capacity to handle deeper work.

If at any point you feel overwhelmed, that's information.

It means you need more support—whether that's slowing down, working with a therapist, joining a community like The EVOLUTION Monthly Membership where you're not alone, or focusing more on nervous system regulation before going deeper into shadow work.

The goal isn't to push through overwhelm. The goal is to expand your capacity to hold more of yourself with compassion. You get to go at your own pace. This is your healing, not a race.

Q: Is shadow work the same as therapy?

A: No necessarily, but they can work beautifully together.

Therapy (especially trauma-informed therapy) can help you process specific events, work through complex trauma, and get professional support for mental health concerns.

Shadow work is a self-directed practice of bringing unconscious patterns into conscious awareness so you can integrate the parts of yourself you've rejected.

Think of it this way...therapy helps you understand and heal what happened to you. Shadow work helps you reclaim the parts of yourself you abandoned because of what happened.

Many of my clients do both. They work with a therapist on deeper trauma while using shadow work practices to integrate their findings into daily life.

If you're dealing with severe trauma, active mental health crises, or feel unsafe doing inner work alone—please work with a qualified therapist. Shadow work is powerful, but it's not a substitute for professional mental health care when that's what you need.

Q: What's the difference between shadow work and self-improvement?

A: This is such an important distinction, especially for women who are so good at self-improvement.

Self-improvement says: "You're not enough as you are. Let me fix you, optimize you, make you better."

Self-acceptance (through shadow work) says: "You're already whole and enough as you are. Let me help you reclaim the parts of yourself you've been rejecting."

Self-improvement is about adding, achieving, and becoming more.

Shadow Work is about accepting, integrating, and coming home to who you already are.

Self-improvement keeps you in your head, analyzing and strategizing.

Shadow Work brings you into your body, feeling and experiencing.

Self-improvement reinforces the wound that says "I'm not good enough yet."

Shadow work heals the wound by saying "All of you is welcome here."

If you've been on the self-improvement treadmill for years and still feel empty, exhausted, or like something's missing—it's because you can't self-improve your way to wholeness.

You have to reclaim the parts you exiled.

Self-acceptance the truly transformative work.

The Invitation: You Don't Have to Do This Alone  

If you're reading this and thinking, "I see myself in these patterns. I recognize the wounds. I understand how they became shadows. But I've been stuck in these cycles for years—how do I actually break free?"

You're not alone in that question.

The 4-step process I shared can absolutely get you started. You can begin tracking your triggers today. You can start naming the stories. You can practice taking new action.

But here's what I've learned from doing this work myself and guiding hundreds of women through it...

Shadow work doesn't happen in isolation.

You can't heal childhood wounds without reparenting your inner child.

You can't integrate your shadows if your nervous system is overwhelmed and in survival mode.

You can't take new action if you don't have the capacity to tolerate the discomfort.

And you can't show up as your whole self in your actual relationships if the work stays private and intellectual.

This is why I created The Whole Soul Way™—because we all need a complete framework that addresses all of it. Not just shadow work. Not just inner child healing. Not just nervous system regulation. But all three working together to create lasting transformation.

Resources to Support Your Journey

Start here (free resources):

📥 Download the Shadow Work Starter Kit—includes the Golden Shadow exercise, worksheets, and a guide to understanding what shadow work is and why it matters

📖 Read: Shadow Work in Action: How to Use Your Judgments to Find Hidden Wounds—Learn how projection and judgment reveal your shadows (the companion piece to this post)

📖 Read: How to Befriend Your Dark Side without Self-Judgment: The 5 Pillars of Gentle Shadow Work—Learn how to explore the parts of yourself you really don't like in a compassionate way (and understand why it's so important to do so)

🎧 Watch or listen to The Whole Soul Way™ Foundational Course—I created this comprehensive program specifically to give you the complete framework for coming home to your whole self, shadows and all.

The foundational course (available free on my ELATE podcast on YouTube and all podcast channels) teaches you:

• The exact process for dialoguing with shadow parts (not just understanding them, but actually relating to them)
• How to reparent the inner children carrying rejected aspects (so you're not just integrating intellectually, you're healing at the root)
• How to build capacity to hold more of yourself (so shadow work doesn't overwhelm your nervous system)
• How to bring your integrated self into the world (because the goal isn't private wholeness—it's showing up fully in your life)

This isn't just shadow work. It's the complete path from fragmented to whole.

Start your journey here…

Watch on YouTube
Listen on Apple
Listen on Spotify

📈 Ready to go deeper? Loving The Whole Soul Way™ lessons and want personalized support applying them to YOUR life? Join The Evolution Monthly Membership—where shadow work becomes embodied and lived through community, monthly group coaching with me, and the structure you need to integrate this into your own unique life.

Learn more & sign up

 

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 Be honest: Share in the comments, how many of these shadow patterns did you see yourself in? (I'll go first: ALL of them. 😅)