How to Embrace the Dark Without Losing Yourself: A Gentle Guide to Shadow Work

When you think of darkness, or the dark within us, what comes to mind? Does it bring up uncomfortable memories, difficult emotions, or the idea of being taken over by something outside of yourself? In my experience as a therapist and coach, darkness isn't something to fear or fix, although we may believe that it is. Darkness, or shadow, is often more about what we've put there than about who we are at our core.

Pulling from Carl Jung's conception of the shadow, this inner darkness is not just our anger, jealousy, or shame that cause us to act in ways that may lead to disconnection, but also our disowned talents and hidden desires that have been cast aside. Darkness can be just as much about our unlived or unhealed internal parts as it is about unhealthy coping mechanisms. I have found that a majority of my clients have a much harder time identifying their positive traits than what they deem as negative about themselves. We have sent our kindness, our joy, or our love, into the darkness just as often as our pain and grief.

This is exactly why shadow work is an essential part of the healing process. Doing that work may help you to discover gifts that you had previously thought of as challenges. One example of this is a client of mine who lost her job and became a stay-at-home spouse, making her face fears around scarcity and identity. After months of working through these fears and others, it led to a realization that she actually enjoyed the freedom from a job and schedule, and wanted to pursue a different career path moving forward. Her dark night of the soul became an initiation into shadow, where facing her fears helped her discover a more balanced sense of self.

Many people on a healing path tend to lean in one of two directions when it comes to shadow work: those who seek it out and those who avoid it. For the seekers, one thing to keep in mind is that shadow work is only part of the healing process. Sometimes the work to do is to remember that there is the light and to resist becoming stuck in the dark. Personally, I have had many times in my life where I spent months or years drowning in the darkness, simply because I forgot that I could turn on a light.

For those who avoid shadow work, one thing to know is that eventually, the darkness will become too much to ignore. Shadow work is a "what you resist, will persist" situation.

You Can't Avoid the Dark
As both a mental health practitioner and spiritual seeker, I find myself walking the worlds of both science and magic. In each of these spaces, there can be a tendency to avoid the dark. You have likely heard of "spiritual bypassing" or "positivity culture," where the dark is unwelcome and only light is allowed. There is fear in some healing spaces that if we work with, or acknowledge, difficult thoughts or experiences, we will manifest more of the same in our lives. This, in my opinion, causes more harm than good. When we don't acknowledge the dark, we repress it. Then, to use the words of a client, our emotions can come out sideways. Repression can become anxiety, illness, or toxic behavior, turning the light into the dark. Just as day turns to night and back again, we, too, must take inspiration from nature and spend time exploring our shadow and our light.

In order to face our shadow, or darkness, it can help to have some guideposts to help along the way, to heal rather than retraumatize. If you move too quickly through shadow work, you might find it does more damage than good. Creating safety within ourselves is the most important piece of any shadow work you will ever do.

As you practice the ways to embrace your dark, watch out for emotional flooding; this can look like being overwhelmed for hours, difficulty "coming down" from the memories or emotions that you experience, or difficulty staying present (often called dissociation). Any one or more of these is a sign that you need to slow down, or that you may want to find a guide to help process your shadow work. None of these are a sign of failure; they are simply pieces of information to help you navigate the spiral path of healing.

Here are five ways to begin embracing the dark—slowly, safely, and without overwhelming your system.

1. Name the feeling without story. This allows the nervous system to process emotion without reinforcing old narratives. Spiritual seekers and healers are often incredible storytellers. We can visualize, remember, and feel deeply into our emotions, which is typically a source of power and strength. However, the story can be a distraction from what we most need to have happen: to simply feel. To notice the rage, the sadness, or even the joy we feel, without moving into the what or the why. Here's how this could look: you have a difficult interaction with a friend, where they say or do something that instantly rubs you the wrong way. Instead of going into storytelling, identify the emotion. What do you feel, instead of why?
   
   
2. Track sensations in the body. Our bodies hold trauma, pleasure, power, and so much more. They also hold the key to a deeper doorway than the stories of feelings. If you have difficulty noticing sensations in your body, or the opposite, if you become easily overwhelmed by connecting to your body, keep this in mind as you move ahead. In either case, you will want to do this step in a quiet and safe place, where you can move slowly. From the place of noticing the feeling, begin to track the sensations in your body.
   
   As you recall the emotion, see if you can find where it lives in your body. Notice the intensity of sensation. Does it feel like anything you have experienced before? Go as slowly as you need to, breathing into and through the sensations in your body.
   
   
3. Dialogue with a shadow part. As you begin to tune into the body, you may find that memories or other experiences come to mind. If answers don't come right away, that's okay; listening is often the work. This is the place where you can access story, from the place of looking deeper and finding what lies beneath emotion and sensation. This is why it is shadow work—we are seeking to access what we cannot see on the surface. As you tune in to the body, you may want to ask the emotion or the sensation some questions. I like to start with, "What do you need me to know right now?" or an even simpler, "What do you need?" When working with the shadow, it is essential to remain open and curious, to allow the wounded parts of ourselves to feel safe. Once you ask that initial question, stay quiet, taking deep breaths and softening within.
   
   
4. Ritualizing grief or anger. Ritual is an important part of our transformation process, particularly when it comes to shadow work, as those parts of ourselves often need to grieve a loss, related to their own existence. The ritual you choose can vary greatly, depending on what you are trying to process. Many years ago, I did a "burning man" ritual to let go of negative self-talk. I purchased a small cloth doll figure, specifically meant for burning in ritual, and wrote on the doll with a cloth marker. I wrote the words or phrases that I was ready to move past and had worked through in my own healing, so I knew that when I burned the doll, I would be able to let go of the associations. To heal from the pain of a romantic relationship ending, you may consider taking yourself on a date, carefully planned by you and for you, to remind yourself that you are worthy of love, care, and attention. Whichever ritual you choose, be sure there is time to process. Take the time to ask yourself "why" this ritual and to journal or meditate before and after.
   
   
5. Knowing when not to go deeper. In working with shadow, sometimes the wiser course of action is to do nothing, or to pull back and take a break from that work. As healers and spiritual seekers, sometimes the message can be to soften, rather than continue to work harder. We can't heal everything, all at once. Bring to mind the image of the spiral way of healing, as spoken and taught by many. As you go through life, there will be times for healing and times for integration. Just as you would give yourself time to recover from a surgery or accident, you must also give yourself time to recover from deep healing work or difficulties in your life. Take a break from the hard work by spending time doing light things, such as watching a funny movie or making a delicious meal.

If you are someone who is always searching for the next practice, person, or idea that could heal or fix you, take a step back from the work and rest. This is actually a shadow, showing up in masked form. It has convinced you that you are not enough or have not done enough, like the trickster it can be.

When sought out with intention and clarity, the dark can be a source of wisdom. Embracing the dark allows us to become whole. The dark is there to balance the light, just as we see in nature.

The darkness is a place of gestation; it offers creativity, intuition, and compassion. In the dark, we are able to hear those internal voices, sometimes so soft and still, sometimes loud and deafening. The modern external world constantly offers distractions. The darkness can help to shut them out, bringing with it reconnection to our inner world.

Embracing the dark is an initiation. It is an offering, to seek what has previously been hidden from you. Give yourself the gift of this initiation, but I encourage you to do so with softness. The shadow often needs gentle excavation. Shadow work is not about becoming darker—it is about becoming whole.