One of the questions I get asked the most is,
“How do I actually do shadow work?”
It’s one of my favourite questions because shadow work can sound simple when people explain it in theory. Journal about your emotions. Look at your triggers. Heal your inner child.
But when you’re actually sitting there with your own memories, your own fears and your own emotions, it’s often not that simple. Most people don’t struggle with doing the work. They struggle with knowing where to begin.
Many of my clients have bought my Shadow Work Workbook, and even after reading through it they’ll message me saying,
“Kajsa… I think I understand it, but how do I know I’ve actually found the shadow?”
So today I wanted to share a real story from one of my sessions because I think stories teach us far more than explanations ever can.
This was an energy healing session with a client I’ve worked with for well over a year. Together we’ve already worked through many layers of limiting beliefs and old wounds, yet another layer reveals itself.
And that’s completely normal.
One of the biggest misconceptions about healing is believing you’ll find one root cause, heal it once, and everything else will magically disappear.
In my experience, that’s rarely how healing works.
Healing is layered.
Sometimes we find one root wound and work through it. Then another root appears underneath it. Sometimes we discover that what we thought was the root was actually a trigger pointing towards something even older.
Every layer has protected you in some way.
Every layer deserves to be understood before it can be released.
That’s exactly what happened during today’s session.
Before we even began the healing, we lifted one simple but loaded question.
“What still feels like it’s holding you back?”
She shared a few things that had been happening recently. Different situations. Different people. Different challenges.
While she was talking, I wasn’t only listening to her words.
I was listening to her energy.
This is where I use my body as the vessel to mirror the experience through my clair senses, to help her understand and pinpoint where & what the shadow hides.
As I started working through her chakras, I was immediately drawn towards a block in her Root Chakra.
There was a heaviness there.
A fear. But it wasn’t just fear.
It felt like something much older.
Almost like part of her consciousness had learnt to leave her body whenever life became too overwhelming. Not in the sense of dying, but as a form of self-protection. An automatic survival response where part of her disconnected because staying fully present had once felt too painful.
At the same time, I kept receiving the feeling of falling.
Not simply falling from a physical height.
It was the emotional experience of falling through life with nobody there to catch you.
No safety. No support. No feeling that someone would hold you if everything fell apart.
That combination immediately made me curious.
One thing I’ve learnt over many years of doing this work is that I never assume I already know the answer.
Instead, I become like an investigator.
I follow the energy. I receive psychic information through my clair senses. I ask questions to their higher self.
I observe how the body responds. Release.
I keep digging until all the pieces begin fitting together.
As I continued exploring her energy, I realised there weren’t just one, but two different layers.
The first felt like the original wound.
The second felt like something that happened somewhere between the ages of five and seven. It didn’t feel like the beginning of the trauma, but it felt like something during those years had reopened the original wound and strengthened the survival response.
So I asked her,
“Did something happen around the age of five, six or seven where you fell, injured yourself or experienced something frightening?”
She became quiet for a moment.
Then she looked at me and said,
“No… but something happened when I was much younger.”
She then shared a story she has carried with her for most of her life.
As a toddler, she had been left alone inside a parked car.
Somehow the car began rolling down a hill before flipping several times while she was still inside.
She was completely alone.
Just pause for a moment and imagine that experience through the eyes of a toddler.
Not only surviving a serious accident, but doing it without a parent there to comfort you, protect you or tell you that everything would be okay.
For a small child, that isn’t simply a frightening memory.
It becomes an experience that teaches the nervous system something about life.
It teaches the body,
“I’m not safe.”
“I’m alone.”
“Nobody is coming.”
“If I fall, I have to survive on my own.”
Those beliefs aren’t usually conscious.
They become embedded inside the nervous system, stored within the subconscious mind and often held within the energetic body long after the event itself has passed.
When I mentioned the age of five to seven, I explained that I didn’t believe this was where the trauma had begun.
Instead, it felt like something during those years had activated the original wound again.
This is something I see quite often during sessions.
The original trauma can happen very early in life, but later experiences trigger the same emotional response because the nervous system never had the opportunity to fully heal. The body doesn’t always distinguish between the original event and a later one that carries the same emotional signature.
As we continued talking, something became incredibly clear.
Although the situations she was experiencing today looked completely different on the surface, they all shared the same emotional theme.
She felt unsupported. She felt like she had to do everything herself.
She struggled to trust that people would be there for her.
She often felt like she was carrying the weight of the world alone.
And underneath all of that was one deeply rooted belief:
“If I fall, nobody will catch me.”
That belief had quietly influenced so many parts of her adult life.
Her relationships.
Her friendships.
Her work.
Her ability to ask for help.
Her nervous system had spent decades preparing for danger, even when there wasn’t any.
This is what I find so fascinating about shadow work.
The event itself happened many years ago, but the shadow isn’t the event.
The shadow is everything that grew from it:
-The beliefs.
-The protective behaviours.
-The emotional reactions.
-The coping mechanisms.
-The unconscious decisions you made about yourself and about the world in order to survive.
That’s what we’re really healing.
People often ask me what I actually do during these sessions.
The easiest way to describe it is that I become an investigator.
I investigate your energetic field.
I receive psychic information.
I follow intuitive impressions.
I notice where energy feels heavy, blocked or trapped, and I continue asking questions until the story begins to unfold naturally.
Sometimes the answers come through images.
Sometimes through sensations in my own body.
Sometimes through emotions.
Sometimes through memories that suddenly surface for the client.
Energy healing allows us to release the energetic imprint that’s still being carried, but releasing energy is only one part of the process.
The real healing continues afterwards.
That’s why I almost always give homework.
In this client’s case, that homework involved both Inner Child Healing and Shadow Work.
Although they often overlap, they aren’t exactly the same.
For her inner child healing, I asked her to return to that little girl.
To write her a letter.
To sit beside her in her imagination.
To comfort her.
To remind her that she wasn’t abandoned because she wasn’t worthy of love.
To tell her that she survived.
To become the safe adult that little girl desperately needed in that terrifying moment.
We cannot change what happened.
None of us can.
But we can change the relationship we have with that memory.
We can help our nervous system understand that the danger has passed. We can reprogram.
We can create new emotional pathways instead of reliving the same fear every time life feels uncertain.
That is where healing begins.
The shadow work goes even deeper.
It asks different questions.
-Can she forgive her mother, when she’s ready?
-Can she forgive herself for carrying fear that never belonged to her?
-Can she release the belief that she somehow should have been stronger, braver or able to change what happened?
-Can she finally stop carrying responsibility for something that was never her fault to begin with?
Because she was only a toddler.
There was nothing she could have done differently.
Yet her nervous system continued carrying that survival response for decades.
Over time it shaped the woman she became.
-She learnt to become fiercely independent.
-She stayed in survival mode.
-She struggled to fully trust support.
-She often moved into protective masculine energy because her feminine never truly felt safe enough to soften.
This is why shadow work is so profound.
One childhood wound can quietly influence an entire lifetime without us even realising it.
Sometimes it shows up as anxiety.
Sometimes as fear of heights.
Sometimes as people pleasing, perfectionism, hyper-independence or trust issues.
Sometimes it becomes relationship struggles or repeating life patterns that leave you wondering,
“Why does this keep happening to me?”
Often, the shadow isn’t trying to punish you.
It’s trying to show you something that still needs your love and attention.
That’s why I always encourage my clients to become curious instead of judgemental.
Instead of asking,
“What’s wrong with me?”
Try asking,
“What is this trying to show me?”
That one question alone can completely change the way you approach healing.
So if you’re wondering where to begin with your own shadow work, start by becoming curious about yourself.
Go back to the memories that still carry an emotional charge.
Think about the situations that continue repeating throughout your life.
Notice the people who trigger you the most.
Ask yourself what emotions immediately arise.
* Is it fear?
* Anger?
* Sadness?
* Shame?
* Rejection?
* Grief?
* Abandonment?
* Not feeling good enough?
* Feeling unseen or unheard?
Then ask yourself an even deeper question.
“What did this experience make me believe about myself?”
That is often where the shadow begins to reveal itself.
I also encourage my clients to notice how their body responds.
Where do you feel the emotion?
Is it sitting in your chest?
Your stomach?
Your throat?
Your jaw?
Your shoulders?
etc..
Can you connect it to recurring tension, digestive issues, headaches, skin reactions, old injuries or physical pain that seems to flare up during stressful periods?
Our bodies often remember what our minds have forgotten.
If your shadow involves another person, don’t only focus on what they did.
Become curious about your own response.
Notice the words that were spoken.
The words that were never spoken.
The silence.
The behaviour.
Your reaction.
The meaning you gave the experience.
Sometimes it isn’t the event itself that stays with us. It’s the story we created about ourselves because of it.
Shadow work isn’t only about major trauma.
Sometimes it’s hidden inside perfectionism.
People pleasing.
Avoidance.
Controlling behaviour.
Fear of rejection.
Anger.
Judgement.
Jealousy.
Limiting beliefs.
Or simply the patterns that keep repeating despite your best efforts to change them.
Many of these behaviours began in childhood.
Some come from mother wounds.
Some from father wounds.
Others from siblings, teachers, friendships, bullying, relationships or experiences that taught us how to survive in the world.
This is one of the reasons I recommend journaling so often.
Journaling is one of the fastest ways to access the subconscious mind because it allows your thoughts, memories and emotions to flow without constantly analysing them. Very often you’ll begin writing about one thing and suddenly discover that the real wound was something entirely different.
That is your subconscious speaking.
When we combine that with psychic guidance and energy healing, we can also work with the energetic body, the aura, the emotional body and the spiritual body. Instead of only understanding the wound intellectually, we can begin releasing the energy your system has been carrying for years, and sometimes even decades.
That is why my shadow work sessions often become so deep.
We’re not only talking about healing.
We’re experiencing it.
Shadow work isn’t easy.
It asks you to be honest with yourself.
It asks you to meet the parts of yourself you’ve been avoiding.
It asks you to stop running from your pain and instead become curious about what it has been trying to teach you.
It takes courage.
It takes patience.
It takes commitment.
Some days you’ll feel like you’ve made huge progress.
Other days another layer appears and you’ll wonder if you’re moving backwards.
You’re not. You’re simply going deeper.
And often, that’s exactly where the real healing begins.
I hope this story has given you a better understanding of what shadow work can actually look like in real life.
Whether you choose to do this work on your own, through journaling, with my Shadow Work Workbook or together with me in a session, know that you don’t have to have all the answers before you begin.
Sometimes you simply need someone to help you find the thread that leads back to the original wound.
My role isn’t to heal you.
My role is to help you uncover what your soul, your body and your subconscious have been trying to show you all along. I help you connect the dots, understand your patterns, release what no longer serves you and remind you of the strength that has always been within you.
Because your shadows aren’t here to punish you.
They are invitations. Invitations to understand yourself more deeply.
To heal what has been waiting to be seen.
To stop surviving and start living.
And every time you choose to meet one of those shadows with compassion instead of fear, you take another step home to yourself.
If this story resonated with you, or if you have questions about shadow work, inner child healing or the way I work, you’re always welcome to reach out. I’m happy to answer your questions, guide you in the right direction and, if it feels aligned, walk beside you on your own healing journey.
Thank you so much for reading.
With love,
Kajsa