It Hurts, Until It Frees You

yup...shadow work...

Lately, I’ve been plunged into deep shadow work.

Not because I went looking for it, but because I found myself inside the radiant, surprising, and soul-shaking vortex that is Women of Wisdom.

Let me be clear: I didn’t expect this.
I didn’t go seeking transformation.
But I got it anyway.

Working with Kerrie Basha—who brings an almost supernatural precision to this inner terrain—I found myself not just healing, but remembering. Unraveling old knots. Meeting parts of myself I had long buried. Unearthing the stories that were still dictating how I show up in the world.

And here’s what struck me, hard:

Shadow work isn’t just about trauma or ancient wounds.
Sometimes it’s about how we’ve been trained to shrink.
How we learned to trade truth for safety.
How somewhere along the line, we decided our authenticity was too much—and our desires, too dangerous.

BUT…

There’s a moment, in the middle of shadow work, when everything feels worse—not better. You’re cracking open a vault inside yourself you’ve kept locked for years, maybe decades. And what spills out isn’t pretty. Shame. Rage. Grief. The part of you that’s manipulative. The part that craves approval. The part that says yes when everything in your body is screaming no.

It’s not trendy. It’s not Instagrammable. And it doesn’t always feel “spiritual.”
But it is real.
And it’s where authenticity is born.

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What Is Shadow Work, Really?

Shadow work is the process of facing the hidden aspects of yourself—the traits, behaviors, desires, and wounds you’ve rejected or disowned. Coined by Carl Jung, the “shadow” refers to the unconscious parts of the psyche that we’re often too ashamed or afraid to face.

But here’s the paradox: these shadow aspects are not inherently bad.
They’re powerful. They’re raw.
They’re just unintegrated.

And until they’re brought into the light, they drive us from the background. We overreact. We self-sabotage. We attract what we secretly judge. We call it fate, but it’s just the shadow’s way of being heard.

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Why It Hurts

Shadow work is not a feel-good bypass. It's not a weekend workshop and done. It’s emotional surgery.

Because to do it honestly, you have to stop blaming.
You have to stop performing.
You have to stop pretending.

You have to sit with what you’ve been avoiding.
The loneliness behind your people-pleasing.
The control hiding in your caregiving.
The envy masked as moral superiority.

And that kind of truth-telling burns.

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But Then—Something Shifts

You stop being afraid of your own reflection.
You stop editing yourself in conversations.
You stop trading connection for performance.

The freedom you were chasing?
It was buried under all that self-denial.

You realize: the goal isn’t perfection.
It’s wholeness.
The ability to stand inside your full humanity without apology.

And that’s where authenticity blooms—not as a costume, not as a brand, but as a quiet, grounded presence. You’re no longer split in two. There’s no backstage version of you hiding behind a mask.

You are who you are. Everywhere. With everyone.
Even when it’s messy.
Even when it’s not understood.

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Authenticity Is Expensive—but Worth It

You will lose people.
You will lose roles.
You will lose false peace.

But you will gain yourself.
Your voice. Your spine. Your life.

The version of you that comes out the other side of shadow work doesn’t need to be liked to feel worthy. She doesn’t hustle for love. She doesn’t silence herself to belong.

She is her own belonging.

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The Endgame Is Freedom

So yes, shadow work hurts.
It strips. It humbles.
It asks you to stop running.

But if you let it do its work—if you stay through the storm—it will hand you something rare:

A life that’s yours.
A voice that’s yours.
A love that’s earned, not performed.

It hurts—until it frees you.
And then, you’re unstoppable.