11/10/2025
So often people ask about shadow work, trying to understand what’s involved and how it helps. I thought we could discuss a few ways shadow manifests and how it causes issues.
Let’s start with a common one: silenced voice.
This often starts with one or both parents having “issues”. They could be an addict, conservative or evangelical, emotionally stoic, have mental health issues, or be an embittered single parent. Regardless, there was no time to hear you. Either one parent was busy placating or managing the other or they were too busy trying to make ends meet for listening to be on their priority list.
There wasn’t time or energy to give their child(ren) a platform to be heard. Another way of saying this is: the volatile parent never matured enough to manage themselves, and the children were expected to inherently understand and bypass needing to be heard – or they were ignored, punished, mocked, isolated, etc.
How does that show up in adults? Body pain, particularly in the pelvis, shoulders, and neck. Learning to ignore your intuition, dismissing health issues, ignoring the silly, fun activities because they are “childish“, even though some part within desperately wants to do it; not advocating for yourself with your parents, employer, friends, or your partner, or feeling like your children are doing something wrong when they ask for their social needs to be met.
One thing I’ve noticed is that when I find these shadow parts, they have stayed stuck at the age and developmental stage they were when they were created, whether at five or 25. Additionally, children and teen parts do not care that their parents “did the best they could“, those parts only care that they weren’t loved the way they needed to be and desperately want validation, acceptance, love, and unburdening.
Often times when clients listen to parts that have been acting out for years, they finally feel peace in their mind and body. Muscles that have been relentlessly tight for a decade or longer finally soften and release, part of their constant mental load quiets. Over time, they notice advocating for themselves is easier and they have less pain, particularly in the areas where shadows processed out.
Do you identify with this? Maybe it’s time for somatic shadow work. My booking link is 👇🏻:
https://book.squareup.com/appointments/a1fe8c5c-fbe9-40b1-9926-5706df7b910f/location/BFY6W2V2WC1XW/services
