How many of you have heard of the term shadow work? If you are like me, I often pondered what exactly is shadow work? What is so important about it and why is the spiritual community talking about it as if it is vital to your growth and ascension process. I’ll be honest and tell you that when my Dark Night of the Soul began in 2019, I had no clue what shadow work was, or even how to do it. In fact, my spirit team often told me that I needed to learn to climb the mountain of self.

“Shadow Work” is one of the hottest topics in the spiritual community right now. If you have been on a spiritual quest or awakening journey then chances are you have heard of this term. While many people have heard of it, many don’t know its purpose or meaning. Many don’t even know why it is important for your spiritual growth. With that being said, let’s start our journey into shadow work from the beginning. Shadow work originates from the term ‘shadow self’, which was first conceived by a 20th century psychologist from Switzerland by the name of Carl Jung.

His theory is that humans have a ‘shadow’ part of themselves that they repress or keep hidden. I have always viewed shadow work as a necessary part of self-discovery when going through a spiritual evolution or growth period. You simply view the shadow aspects of yourself, heal the wounds of those darker aspects and love yourself completely. I will admit that saying this is so much easier than doing the actual work. Doing the shadow work requires patience, surrender, reflection, acceptance and self-love.

As a spiritual life coach I work closely with many individuals who struggle with facing their shadow and from my own personal experience with it I know how daunting it can be to surrender to the process, and reflect on those darker aspects with love and understanding. To be fair, it is even harder to accept and love yourself when all you see is pain, doubt, fear, and hate. That is why, when I work with my coaching clients I often refer to shadow work as ‘climbing the mountain of self’. When you think about it this process is you climbing your own challenges, burdens, obstacles, and fears of oneself. It is you, overcoming YOU! While going through the journey you travel through deep valleys, climb high peaks, and often encounter twists and turns. Through the process you’ll experience jagged rocks, obstacles and sometimes will even lose your way. No matter how confusing, challenging or fearful you become during this process remember that this is a form of self-discovery.

We are learning to understand ourselves in ways we never knew. Some of us even learn how to let go of beliefs we thought were a part of us, but were merely ways of controlling us to be who others wanted us to be. Climbing the mountain of self is a hard journey to take and many will start the process and quit before reaching their destination. I find that one of the biggest reasons people avoid this process is because they are afraid of what they might uncover. During my process, I was so afraid of unbecoming who I had known myself to be. The truth is, we all have skeletons in our closets and while many of us would prefer to leave them hidden we must come to an understanding that hiding parts of ourselves only prolongs the process.

My angels told me something valuable one year and to this day I have kept that phrase with me always. The phrase is this…

Truth will always be revealed. You cannot run from the truth, for it knows where you keep your secrets.

Angels of Love

For years I tried desperately to ignore the shadow aspects of myself but like a phoenix they rose out of the ashes. No matter how hard I tried to stuff them back down, they kept rising to the surface. One of the most interesting things about shadow work is that it will find you and it will always rise when you least expect it. It’s almost like the shadow aspect of yourself knows you are trying to avoid it and it is secretly saying, “YOU can run but you can’t HIDE!” Sometimes you will be blind-sided by these aspects of yourself and when you face them head on you want nothing more than to shove them back to the depths of the darkness from where they came but know that the longer you prolong the process the harder it gets.

"Shadow work is the process of exploring your inner darkness or 'shadow self'. Shadow work uncovers every part of you that has been disowned, repressed, and rejected. It is one of the most authentic paths to Enlightenment."

- Loner Wolf, The Minds Journal

I believe shadow work is necessary to your spiritual growth and no matter how hard you try to avoid it, somehow, someway you face it willingly or unwillingly. From a coaching perspective and my own experience with shadow work I like to approach it with love and nurturing. Shadow work is not meant to be done all at one time. In order for you to truly accept and heal from those parts of you that are wounded, you must take it one step at a time. This is the reason why I developed a 12-week workbook and group program that is designed to provide you with a step-by-step process on starting your shadow work journey. The beauty of doing this with others is that you will realize you are NOT ALONE and you will recognize that you have a support system that will help you through the journey. My approach to climbing the mountain of self is both nurturing and compassionate with a coaching structure set in place to help you know exactly what to do and how to go about doing it.

Here are the requirements I feel one needs when embarking on a journey within themselves to uncover who they truly are, while embracing the shadow self.

• Patience
• Surrender
• Reflection
• Acceptance
• Self-Love

Patience

All journeys begin with patience, especially a journey of climbing the mountain of self. Patience is first because we know and understand that it will take time to do the climb and the work. Even when we plan a trip we must develop patience because we might have a plan of action, or a plan for how long it will take us to get to our destination but things happen. Change is something many of us struggle with. Some of us, don’t like change, because it means we have to step outside of our comfort zones and make new plans, take new action steps and so forth. When doing shadow work it is important to understand that while in this process you will encounter pitfalls, struggles, delays and obstacles. What struggles, or obstacles you wonder? How about self-sabotage, or avoidance. Resistance is a big one, especially when we have become professionals at pushing things away that make us feel uncomfortable or out of place. Patience is key when doing shadow work because there will be times you grow frustrated with the process because you aren’t where you feel you should be. First rule of thumb when it comes to shadow work is, ‘to drop your expectations and outcomes at the door.’

Rome was not built in a day, and completing your shadow work will not be completed in a day either. I often remind my clients of the phrase my parents used to tell me when they needed me to be a little more patient. “All good things come to those that wait.” When embarking on this journey try to remember that you are discovering parts of yourself you never knew existed. It might be hard to handle some of those parts, to see them clearly, or even work through them but with time and patience this too shall pass. Taking it one step at a time is why patience is required and our first step. This process is about the JOURNEY, not about the destination. It is about the uncovering, the discovery process and what you learn while on this grand adventure. You will get to your destination but only when you have encountered every aspect of yourself and embraced it whole-heartedly.

Surrender

The next step is to surrender and it is probably one of the hardest steps to incorporate and adhere too while on this journey within. Surrendering your expectations while on the path to self-discovery is vital to your ability to release any outcomes of how things will work out for you. As mentioned earlier, one of the biggest mistakes people make is they put themselves on a timeline. They expect to be completed and done with shadow work by a specific time. The truth is shadow work doesn’t work that way. Once you start this process you will soon discover how this process works and why surrendering to the process is so important. Everyone who starts this journey starts out strong. They come in curious and begin working through each section of their life, every trauma, and every pain and before long they get comfortable. Soon they begin to think that this is easier than they thought. After a while, they come across an obstacle, or better yet, they come across something they feel they have already faced or worked on. You see, shadow work takes time because while you might have worked on one area that seemed easy, you’ve now hit another layer of the same issue. From your earlier vantage point the concern seemed minuscule but now that you’re digging deeper it’s become more of a challenge. Understand that when you do shadow work it will be done in layers. You aren’t going to magically get to the root of an issue with one dig. Sometimes our biggest treasures are down deep in the dirt. This is why surrendering is so important. You might think you know the answer or solution to everything but if there is anything I have learned during my process it is that I know NOTHING. Surrendering is also a way of letting go control of the situation. Self-discovery is about uncovering deep treasure within yourself. You are learning who you are and uncovering what makes you, YOU.

Reflection

This is the part of the process where people throw in the towel and simply give up on themselves. I will never lie to you my friends. The reflection stage is the hardest stage to be in and the hardest one to swallow. This part of the process is critical because we must understand the reasoning behind everything we uncover about ourselves. We are creatures of habit, and as we go along our path we learn from our previous mistakes. The biggest mistakes that I have seen in shadow work is not reflecting on past learned lessons, or even seeing all experiences as learned lessons. As a spiritual life coach I try to teach my clients to see the lessons behind every painful memory or experience. No matter how painful the experience was, or what trauma we faced, it still taught us something. As we reflect on our past we discover the root causes of why we are the way we are, or why we react in certain specific ways when triggered. For me, this part of the process was so hard because it meant I needed to reflect on sexual trauma. Trauma that I didn’t even know was there until repressed memories started coming back. The reflection stage is the part of the process where we come face to face with our darkest secrets, or aspects. We must face truths, deep truths that we would rather ignore. Some of those truths is recognizing how you self-sabotage yourself, acknowledging that you hate yourself or your body. This stage of the process is seeing truth, without blinders on. I have always felt that some of the hardest lessons to learn is facing TRUTH dead in the face. The reflection stage is meant to teach you that no matter the experience, it is a part of you and it is simply wanting you to accept it and move on.

Acceptance

I bet you didn’t expect to see this on here when it comes to shadow work. I know how hard it can be to accept our circumstances, experiences, and ourselves. However, when we can embrace acceptance into our lives we bring with it a great power and the final step when venturing on the path of self-discovery. Many of us believe that our negative or shadow traits are meant to be silenced or shunned but the truth is we are meant to bring them to the surface to see light and embrace them. We are meant to accept those aspects of ourself with genuine approval and love. Many people feel that shadow work is about changing who you are, but that is not what this process is about. We are all made of both light and dark. We were never made incorrectly, nor did God make any mistakes when creating us. We are made in the image and perfection of God so therefore, our dark aspects are simply void of light. This is why this whole process is about allowing our shadow self to rise, or come to the surface. We must allow it to be what it is, and acknowledge it in truth. By accepting it to be what it is, we accept ourselves exactly as we are. I find that when you work through the reflection stage you move quickly into acceptance and self-love for all areas that you discover. You were never meant to neglect parts of yourself, you are meant to embrace those parts, both the light and the dark. It is in this part of the process we understand that we cannot have one without the other. For every weakness we encounter, there is a strength that was created in order to overcome said weakness. Acceptance is about understanding the duality of things, and learning to honor what is without needing to change it or mold it into something it isn’t.

Self-Love

The last part of the process is Self-Love and if you think the reflection stage was hard then prepare yourself for this challenge. Learning to love yourself genuinely, and authentically will take time and patience. Climbing the mountain of self is about learning to love every inch, every part, every aspect of who you already ARE. It is often said that the areas in your life you feel the most lack are also the areas you fail to accept and nurture within yourself. In order to heal you must learn to LOVE yourself, embrace all parts of yourself that you want to shove down into the depths. Self-Love and acceptance go hand in hand and must be learned independently. Many people feel that they can get love from outside of themselves but NO ONE knows you like you do. You must learn to appreciate you, to LOVE you, and HEAL you.

Shadow work is about recognizing that the answers you have always needed were already within your reach, you simply needed to seek for them within. When embarking on this journey towards self-discovery remember to be patient with yourself, surrender to the process and release your expectations of how it will work and turn out. Reflect on everything you’ve been through, including your behaviors and habits. Embrace and accept where you are, where you’ve been while providing yourself with love and nurturing along the way. Remember that it is about the JOURNEY, not the destination. No one ever said this journey was going to be easy, but as you start on the path of discovery you will uncover freedom like never before. Go towards the depths of your greatest treasure my friends!

The GREATEST treasure IS YOU!