How To Do Shadow Work For Beginners

How to Do Shadow Work for Beginners

If you are beyond frustrated with your life, feeling stuck or the Law of Attraction isn’t working for you and you don’t know what to do then shadow work is for you. Shadow work allows you to go deep into your soul and see the dark parts of yourself that you don’t want to look at.

It allows you to look at what is not working for you and why. If you are trying to push down all your negative emotions and it’s not working then they will keep coming up for you to look at until you do.

Shadow work is an interesting word and to a beginner, it might seem scary. But it’s not as scary as it seems, the word can feel off but it’s a very healthy spiritual practice. If you are looking for how to do shadow work for beginners, then this article is for you.

What is Shadow Work?

Shadow work is looking into the shadows of your soul, into the darkness to see what is there, and bringing it up to the surface to be released.

The Universal Law of Polarity states that it is a dualistic universe with both positive and negative aspects. If you have a positive then its equal polarity of negative has to exist, it is the law. For this reason, we all have light and dark parts to us.

There are light and dark parts to everything that exists. So, everyone has dark parts of themselves that need to be looked at. This is where shadow work comes into the picture.

Your shadow self is those dark parts. They are your deep negative emotions and your fears. They are the things that you don’t want to look at or admit to yourself or to anyone else. They are the parts that are hidden from society that you’d never want anyone to know about you.

We all have these parts even if people don’t admit it, they do. Some people seem so cool as if nothing ever bothers them, but deep in their soul, these parts exist. 

How the Shadow Is Created

Your shadow self comes from this lifetime and other lifetimes. Stuff builds up over time that doesn’t get dealt with and at some point, it can no longer be stuffed down.

In turn, it creates an aspect of you that you want to keep hidden because you don’t think it is your best self and it can be painful to look at. You did the best you could at the time, but the world has left its mark on you and created a shadow part that you’d rather not see.

Maybe in a past life, you dealt with some heavy stuff, and you didn’t want to look at it then but now in this life, you are being asked to look at it. So, you may have more stuff coming up that you didn’t even know existed not long ago.

We are all going through a huge ascension process and that is why more stuff is coming up for everyone. The shadow self can no longer be left untouched. It needs to be brought to the surface so it can be released.

Now more than ever it needs to be tended to and shadow work needs to be done so that it is dealt with properly and not projected onto anyone else.

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Why Is It Important to Do Shadow Work?

1. Law of Attraction

When pondering why and how to do shadow work for beginners, know that it is an important part of manifestation. Shadow work is done to make you feel better and to release resistance as well as limiting beliefs that may be holding you back.

When you do shadow work as a beginner, you feel better and therefore release a lot of resistance. This in turn affects your vibration and what you attract into your life.

Doing the uncomfortable work benefits you in many ways. You feel better and your life improves because of it.

2. Improved Relationships

Your relationship with others and with yourself will improve once you do shadow work. If you don’t do the work, then all the same issues will keep coming up to be looked at. You may even project these things onto others in your life. In turn, it hurts your relationship with them and therefore it hurts you.

If you understand that this work is important and needs to be done, you won’t project your fears and the aspects you don’t want onto others. You will become responsible for how you feel and look within when anything comes up that requires your attention.

3. It Makes You Stronger

It takes a strong person to do shadow work. You need to be completely honest with yourself and that isn’t always easy to do.

By doing the shadow work it will make you strong, knowing that you can get through anything, and you can admit your weaknesses even if it is just to yourself. Sometimes we have the hardest time admitting things to ourselves.

4. It Will Move You Forward on Your Spiritual Journey

There’s something to be said about “doing the work.” Shadow work is work that will uncover different aspects of yourself that will move you forward on your path.

Once you uncover some of the things holding you back, you will be able to move into new spiritual lessons. This work will propel you forward on your spiritual life path.

5. Better Physical and Mental Health

When wondering how to do shadow work for beginners and why to do it, your health plays a major part in it. If you are holding onto your shadow and stuffing it down inside your body, it will give you physical pain.

Your shadow wants to be recognized and expressed. It wants to move through you. If it can’t do this, it will be stuck in your body and cause you pain. It’s trying to move but it can’t and that is uncomfortable to your body.

Doing shadow work helps to release stuck energy which helps to relax your body, move out any old energy that is stagnant and clear space in your mind.

When you have physical pain, it is hard for your mind to focus clearly. So, getting this shadow energy out of you will help to clear out your mind as well.

How To Do Shadow Work for Beginners

You may be asking yourself how you do this shadow work as a beginner when you’ve never done it before?

Shadow aspects are not going to come up unless they are ready to be released. So, if you are sensing there is something to be dealt with, then they are ready to be looked at. If you are reading this article there is a reason for it. It is likely time for you to do some shadow work or at least time to be aware of it in case something does come up for you in the near future.

#1 Way to Do Shadow Work for Beginners –Recognize Your Uncomfortable Emotions

Shadow work is done by looking at your uncomfortable emotions and fears. What are your deepest fears? What are you so afraid to look at in yourself?  What have you been stuffing down and ignoring for a long time?

It is a good idea to write these things down to get them out. Write down your fears and what you are afraid to admit to yourself.

Some of your fears might be:

• I’ll never be good enough and let everyone down by continuing to follow my heart instead of what others want me to do.
• I’ll never get married and be alone for the rest of my life.
• I’ll be unfulfilled forever and nothing will ever feel the emptiness in my soul. 
• I’ll never get healthy and forever be in pain.
• I’ll never have true friends who understand me; I’ll always be an outsider standing on the outside looking in.

Allow these things to come to the surface and feel them. Don’t push them away; feel every part of them as that is how they will be released.

#2 Way to Do Shadow Work for Beginners – Feel Your Uncomfortable Emotions

The second step of how to do shadow work as a beginner is to feel your emotions. After you recognize what uncomfortable emotions you’ve kept hidden from yourself and stuffed down because they are painful, it’s time to feel them. When you feel them, you release them.

Suppressed emotions need to be seen and felt in order to be released from your body. If you don’t do this, they will stay stuck in your body, and you feel them. It will feel like an uncomfortable feeling or a pain somewhere in your body.

After you write down your fears, invite these emotions into your body to be felt. This can seem a bit scary at first because you are likely used to pushing them away.

Your ego may be on high alert and tell you that this is wrong. It’s ok and it’s part of it. You’ll see after you feel your uncomfortable emotions that they weren’t so scary after all. The anticipation of feeling them was worse than actually feeling them.

#3 Way to Do Shadow Work for Beginners – Love Your Uncomfortable Emotions

After you’ve recognized and felt your uncomfortable emotions, it’s time to love them. Most people hate their shadow aspects and push them away. They tell them they are wrong, and they judge them.

But no emotion is wrong or bad. It is a part of you and if you are neglecting that part of you then you are pushing away an aspect of yourself.

Send love to all of your shadow aspects and accept them as part of your experience here on earth. Thank them for being here because they likely helped you in some way (even though I know it probably doesn’t feel that way). You can put a color into them such as a white or golden light, a green healing light, or a pink love light.

#4 Way to Do Shadow Work for Beginners – Embody All Aspects of Your Shadow

The next step is to embody these aspects as a part of you. Embody the wisdom that they’ve brought you. What have they shown you? They are a part of you and know you have this wisdom that they helped you to uncover.

How can you be different now that you’ve seen your shadow self? What has it helped you with? Allow it to be used for the positive in your life instead of seeing it as something negative.

Perhaps now that you’ve been through it, you can help others who are and will go through it as well. The best teachers are ones who’ve had personal experience.

Or maybe it has helped you to get over some hurdle in your life so that you can now move on to the next step. Maybe you were stuck because you didn’t want to look at your shadow and now that you have, you can finally move on to something new.

As you embody these shadow aspects with a new understanding, you may receive insights that you didn’t have before. Be open to what shows up for you.

#5 Way to Do Shadow Work for Beginners – Understand the Polarity in Your Shadow Aspects

There is a polarity on 3D earth so everything dark can be light and every emotion has its opposite available. This means that if you feel like you’ve been to rock bottom, you can also be on the very top. Everything has its opposite available at every moment and depending on what you choose to focus on is what you will get.

So, the deeper the shadow aspect, the deeper the opposite is available. This in itself should be comforting to you. Because if you’ve felt a ‘negative emotion’ quite strongly, then its opposite is also available for you.

How I Did Shadow Work as a Beginner

I had a bunch of stuff come up that I believe was from childhood, other lifetimes, and some from this lifetime as well. I didn’t even know I was doing shadow work when it happened. I just wanted some relief at the time.

Basically, I was having a really hard time with how things were going in my life. I didn’t understand why everything all of a sudden seemed to be breaking down and falling apart.

I was sitting on my kitchen floor sobbing really hard and talking to my spirit guides (as I usually do when I need help). I felt something was trying to come up, but I didn’t want to go there. I said, “I can’t go there because it’s too painful and I may never stop crying.” I didn’t want to look at what I had suppressed for so long.

I don’t know if my guides gave me the idea to allow it in and do the shadow work, but someone did. I remembered this video I watched about allowing yourself to feel all your negative emotions and doing the shadow work that comes along with it. I’ve also done a YouTube video similar to it but of course, it helps to have it validated by someone else and get someone else’s perspective.

I realized that I had been holding on really tightly to my positive thoughts about what I wanted and would not allow myself to feel anything negative. I wouldn’t let my mind think about what I didn’t want. But I was doing that anyway without realizing it. As I thought positive, the negative was amplified.

Every time I thought about what I wanted; the opposite came up very strongly about what I didn’t want. This happened because I had a lot of resistance to what I didn’t want. Until I did the shadow work, it would never change. Until I looked at it, I couldn’t move forward.

As someone who’s practiced the Law of Attraction, I know that positive thoughts attract the things you want to you. So that is why I didn’t want to let my mind go to anything but positivity. That is why I was so resistant to allowing my fears to come up.

Then I realized that I was holding on so tightly to that notion that it was actually having the reverse effect. I had a ton of resistance built up and it was building up every second I held onto the idea that I needed my thoughts to be positive all the time.

So, I did something that I’ve never done before. I went upstairs and wrote out all of my fears. I cried as I wrote out everything I was scared of.

I immediately felt relief after writing out these fears. The thought of my fears was way more intense when I didn’t allow them to be there than it was when I allowed them to come through.

I thought “what was I so scared of?” This isn’t that scary. I allowed the fears to come into my being and let them move right through me.

Now when I read the fears, I wrote down they don’t have the same hold on me. I see them and acknowledge them, but they don’t punch me in the gut like they used to. By doing the shadow work and allowing them to be there, they now have no power over me.

I didn’t just do it once either; I did it a couple of times. As new fears or even the old ones came up again, I acknowledged them, thanked them, and allowed them to be with me. I sat with my fears and invited them in. I didn’t shut the door on them anymore. They went away WAY faster this way than when I was ignoring them. I felt instant relief and less scared of my shadow self.

Final Thoughts: How to do Shadow Work for Beginners & Why It’s Important

As you can see shadow work for beginners is not as scary as it seems in your head. It is not negative or evil. It is about acknowledging all the parts that belong to you and not resisting the parts you don’t like.

Once you actually do the shadow work, you will wonder what you were so scared of in the first place. It is much scarier thinking about it in your head than actually doing it.

Spiritual teachers always talk about being positive and being happy which is great, but this work needs to be done as well. If you can’t go deep into your soul and look at your shadows, then you will never be able to move forward and be positive and happy. Stuff will keep coming up for you and you won’t be able to successfully move forward without looking at these parts of you first.

When you push against parts of you that are trying to get your attention then you are saying they aren’t valid in your experience, and they are valid because they are part of you. When you allow parts of you to be with you then they will be able to gracefully move through you and move you forward. The shadow parts just want to be acknowledged.

Trust me, you will feel much better much faster when you allow these things in. Sit with them, feel what they are trying to get you to feel and your shadow self with be happy and therefore you will be happier too. You will move forward much more quickly by acknowledging the shadow parts than by resisting them.

~Meghan

(Pssst…this is totally something I teach more in-depth in my online course My Discovery Journal. If you are ready to transform your life from the inside out, I highly suggest you check it out here.)

Watch the video below:

(Click here to watch on YouTube)