Shadow Work Isn’t a Spa Day—It’s a Spiritual Bloodletting

I thought this post very appropriate thanks to all that I am learning and revisiting at the Held by Sisters Women's Festival that I have had the pleasure to present and to be present at this weekend. Even though I am still in the midst of taking it all in and learning, after last night's 9D breath work session, this topic seems even more relevant than it did when I first started writing this blog a few days ago. So, buckle your seat belts, and here goes.

Everyone talks about shadow work like it’s some sort of feel-good healing journey. Light a candle. Pull a card. Write a love letter to your inner child. And don’t forget to pair it with your favorite essential oil blend.

Cute. But also? Utterly disconnected from the truth.

Shadow work—real shadow work—isn’t cozy. It’s not cute. It’s not a self-care trend for your Sunday Instagram story.

It’s a goddamn reckoning.

When you start pulling the veil back on your shadow, you’re not greeted with affirmations and moonbeams. You’re met with shame, rage, grief, and all the ugly truths you’ve spent lifetimes locking in the basement of your soul.

And guess what? They don’t come out quietly.

They come out screaming.

Shadow work is the moment you realize that you were the toxic one.

It’s owning your manipulation.

Your avoidance.

The places where you weaponized your pain or projected it onto others and called it protection.

It’s watching your entire spiritual identity fall apart and having the courage to sit in the ruins without running back to the glitter-coated safety net of “love and light.”

Because you can’t light the path forward without first being willing to burn the lies you’ve been living.

That’s the bloodletting.

It’s messy. It’s brutal.

And it’s the most sacred thing you’ll ever do.

Shadow work means sitting in the filth of your humanity and refusing to look away.

It means feeling it all—without bypassing, numbing, or intellectualizing it to death.

It’s about letting the shadow speak… and listening.

You want transformation? This is the portal.

Not the trending challenge.

Not the “journal your way to healing” fluff.

Not the aesthetic trauma dump with a healing crystal selfie.

This. Right here. The raw, the ugly, the uncomfortable.

This is where you meet your power.

And when you emerge—gutted, changed, reborn—you won’t need anyone to validate you.

You’ll be carrying your truth in your teeth, your fire in your eyes, and your scars like sigils carved by the Divine.

Shadow work doesn’t polish you. It pulverizes you—and then hands you the tools to rebuild.

Blessings

Shari

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