Dr. Sandra's Story: A Journey Into the Shadow - December 2025
- Coastal Functional Medicine
- Dec 27, 2025
- 5 min read
As a small child, I learned quickly that my father was not safe. He was an angry man many days of the week, and it was in my and my siblings’ best interest to hide, be somewhere else, or make ourselves quiet and small just to get through the day. This survival pattern followed me into adulthood - and it became my shadow.
I buried my childhood trauma every chance I could. By the time I was a teenager, I was wearing a mask that made me look bigger, louder and rebellious. Sometimes that mask served me well: it helped me advocate fiercely for friends and later as an adult for fellow students, patients and colleagues. But other times, it created ripples and sometimes crashing waves, which ultimately created more harm than good. According to Carl Jung, the persona is the mask we wear before others which conceals and represses who we truly are.
It wasn’t until my late forties and early fifties that I began to recognize the many masks that I was wearing on a daily basis, leaving me feeling small, voiceless, unworthy, rejected, unseen and unheard. Today, I embrace my Shadow parts of me and I strive to make peace with them as they make me a whole person. My experience has shown me a profound truth: understanding and forgiving self leads to freedom, and a strength far deeper than we ever imagined emerges. Every wound from our past trauma bleeds wisdom, essential for our evolution and magnificent expression of our highest Self.
What is Shadow Work?The "shadow", coined by Carl Jung, includes traits we learned to hide—like anger, dishonesty, perfectionism, judgmental, jealousy, envy, egotism and many more. He described shadow as everything we deny, suppress, or disown about ourselves—both negative traits and positive potential. The shadow is not bad; it is unseen. Shadow work is the process of bringing our shadows into conscious awareness.Jung wrote, “Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual’s conscious life, the blacker and denser it is.” Shadow work is ultimately integration, not elimination. |
Actionable Items You Can Take To Practice Shadow Work Daily:
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How Does the Shadow Affect Our Lives Without Us Knowing?
According to The Shadow Effect by Chopra, Ford, and Williamson, when the shadow is unconscious, it:
shows up as emotional reactivity
fuels projection and judgment
sabotages relationships
drives compulsive behaviors
creates chronic guilt or shame
“Until awareness is brought to the shadow, it governs your behavior without your knowing.”Jung called this “fate.” — Deepak Chopra
Actionable Items You Can Take to Practice Daily:
Track emotional charge (strong reactions = shadow clues)
Ask: “What part of me feels threatened right now?”
Pause before reacting and breathe into the body
How does shadow work support mental health and trauma healing?
Trauma often asks us to shut down certain parts of ourselves just to get through and survive. Shadow work moves in the opposite direction. Instead of pushing parts of ourselves away, it gently brings them back into awareness. Through this process, shame and self-judgment begin to soften, old trauma responses can slowly shift, and emotional regulation becomes stronger. Shadow work also helps us reconnect with our intuition and inner wisdom, grieve needs that were never met, and meet painful inner experiences with more compassion rather than criticism.
Connie Zweig reminds us that until we integrate the shadow, it "runs our lives from behind the curtain."
Actionable Items You Can Take to Practice Daily:
Identify your primary survival role.
Ask: “What did this part protect me from?”
Thank the part before trying to change it.
How do self-love, self-compassion, and self-acceptance fit into shadow work?
Shadow work is impossible without self-compassion. Marianne Williamson reminds us that healing occurs when love replaces fear.
Debbie Ford teaches that: “Every aspect of the self exists for a reason.”
When we reject parts of ourselves, we reject our wholeness. Shadow work becomes healing when we offer those parts gentleness, permission, understanding, and grace. It's not about fixing ourselves, it's about befriending ourselves.
Actionable Items You Can Take to Practice Daily:
Place a hand on your heart during shame.
Speak kindly to the wounded part.
Replace self-criticism with curiosity.
What role does intuition play in shadow work?
Intuition is our connection to the unconscious. Jung saw intuition as a pathway to integrating what we cannot yet articulate. It guides us toward our unmet needs, our truth, emotional wounds, and our power.
Shadow work asks us to listen inward, "What is my body trying to tell me? What am I afraid of? What am I avoiding?"
What does Deepak Chopra teach about awareness and the shadow?Deepak Chopra emphasizes that awareness is our greatest ally. Without awareness, judgment tightens its grip, and labeling ourselves or others as “wrong” or “unworthy” narrows our perception of life. Awareness, by contrast, expands acceptance. Through meditation, resistance, shame, and fear begin to dissolve, allowing awareness to rejuvenate our lives—making them feel lighter, less effortful, and more joyful.As awareness deepens, we become more spontaneous. Life feels less like a struggle, desires arise and unfold with greater ease, our perspective grows less clouded by negativity, and we experience a stronger sense of belonging within the wholeness of life.Awareness = freedom from the shadow's grip.So how can we actually build more awareness in everyday life? A few simple practices can help:
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What does Marianne Williamson say about embracing our dualistic nature?
Marianne Williamson teaches that our wholeness includes both our shadow and our light:
"We are both the darkness we fear and the light we long for. Our power comes from embracing both."
