Shadow work can feel worse when it’s approached as a battle against darkness rather than a loving invitation to integrate disowned parts of yourself. True spiritual practice requires you to acknowledge and engage with all aspects of your humanity, not just the “love and light.”

Why does avoiding my shadow self make things harder?

When you avoid your shadow self through forced positivity or spiritual bypassing, you create a profound imbalance, disconnecting yourself from your innate wholeness. This rejection of parts of yourself keeps trauma stuck and prevents deep, authentic healing. Genuine spirituality operates from oneness, meaning every single part of you is valid and essential, and ignoring your shadow only perpetuates the illusion of separation.

How can I approach shadow work safely?

Shadow work is truly radical self-love; it’s about making peace with what you’ve denied or judged and integrating those parts to reclaim wholeness. By consciously relating with those parts of yourself (acknowledging your negative emotions, past experiences, and flaws) you create space to engage them in a loving manner rather than with self-rejection and self-shaming. That means to feel safe engaging in shadow work, you must first learn to love yourself unconditionally through radical self-acceptance, self-forgiveness, and creating a felt sense of safety i yourself.

I discuss this thoroughly in my podcast, The Simple Source, episodes “How to Transform Your Shadows into Self-Love and Reclaim Your Wholeness,” and in “Why Forced Positivity Is Holding You Back” and in Chapter 5 of my book, Unconditional: You Are Perfect As You Are.