Shadow Work Course
Welcome to Hunt Your Own Shadow, a free 12-week self-paced shadow work course designed to help you identify and release the limiting beliefs that no longer serve, to process unresolved traumas, and embrace the hidden patterns that may be influencing your thoughts, emotions, behaviors, and relationships. Drawing from mindfulness, journaling, contemplation, inner child work, and guided self-inquiry, the shadow work course will guide you through a structured process of turning your attention inward, exploring the unconscious aspects of yourself, and integrating the parts that have been ignored, repressed, or forgotten.
Through 12 self-paced sections featuring guided meditations, reflective prompts, practical challenges, and ongoing self-exploration, you will develop deeper self-awareness, self-acceptance, emotional resilience, authenticity, personal agency and freedom. You will learn to know and radically accept your self. All of your self. Not just the good parts, but the bad, ugly, and the unknown, the parts that are changing and your potential.
The goal of this shadow work course is not to eliminate the shadow, but to understand and integrate it, allowing you to live with greater clarity, purpose, wholeness, and alignment.
My name is Zachary Phillips and I will be your guide in this shadow work course. I am a psychotherapist, meditation instructor, author, and poet. I help people identify and release the limiting beliefs that no longer serve, helping the to process the past, accept the present, and embrace the future with positivity and purpose. My work blends psychology and counseling theory with meditation, spirituality, and lived experience to support radical self-acceptance, healing, and meaningful change.
What Is ‘The Shadow’ & Why Should I Hunt It?
Your potential is obscured by your shadow. It is sitting just out of reach, waiting for you to uncover it, waiting for you to turn and face the darkness and expose it to the light. You, by taking this course are committing to hunting your own shadow. This will not be an easy task, and it won’t always be fun, but it will be profoundly transformative. Over the next 12 weeks you will discover hidden aspects of yourself and begin the process of integration and acceptance by identifying and releasing the limiting beliefs that no longer serve you. This process will help you to become whole, allowing you to better live your truth, find meaning, and follow your dreams. You will be taking steps towards living a life of fulfilment, alignment, and utter contentment.
I am using the word ‘hunt’ as opposed to ‘discovery’, ‘shining light’, or ‘allowing the shadow to reveal itself’ because hunting is proactive, assertive, and actionable - You can choose to do the shadow work, and you will receive the benefits of doing said work. The word hunt does of course have some negative/aggressive connotations which need to be immediately addressed here. To be clear, we are not aiming to kill our shadow, but rather proactivity uncover, integrate, and accept it.
Analogy: You are hunting a mythical multicomponent beast known as ‘the shadow’ across the vast wilderness of the inner world. You use the skills of tracking (introspection, meditation, and other internal work) to get onto the trail. You start to see the footprints, the broken branches, and the leavings it is making. This grows your understanding of the beast, you learn more about its shape, what it wants and where it is heading. Eventually this tracking process will cumulate with a confrontation, and you must engage with your quarry directly – this is done with love, acceptance, visualisations, mental reframes, and other tools. If successful (and with time and applied effort it will be) that confrontation becomes a connection and then a collaboration. Finally, your understanding of your inner hunting ground will have expanded, with that aspect of your shadow either being reintegrated into the whole, or else allowed to run free, but now thoroughly understood, tracked, and monitored – thus allowing you to get onto the trail of yet another aspect of your shadow, only this time you will be doing so with experience, confidence, and the boons born of your prior hunt.
‘The Shadow’ consists of all the aspects of ourselves that we have repressed, ignored, forgotten, or been conditioned away from; anger, jealousy, and fear. It consists of the darker aspects of the self that we perhaps would rather believe we have let go of or are not impacted by; the dark desires, the cravings, the ego, and selfishness.
In the same way that unseen code and programs are needed to view this text, the shadow exists in the subconscious, but its impacts are felt in every interaction, every thought, and every action.
Although these parts of us may no longer be present or within our conscious awareness, they nonetheless deeply impact our lives – we find ourselves making ‘irrational’ or ‘out of character’ decisions, becoming triggered or angry or overwhelmed, or believing that ‘the world’, ‘fate’, or people in general are somehow against us, are inherently dangerous, or that for whatever reason we are unlucky or undeserving.
The Shadow contains our conditioning, our inner child, our attachment styles, our fundamental belief systems, and other hidden drivers of our thoughts and behaviours.
Unless we shine light on our shadow and begin to delve below the surface, we will forever be a slave to these unseen forces. We will forever be trapped by limiting beliefs, less than ideal behaviours, and the victim of seemingly unbreakable habits.
I use the term ‘Hunt Your Own Shadow’ because it implies action. You, the person reading these words, the one that has purchased this course, has decided to act - When the starving hunter picks up the spear and begins searching for the trail of game, that hunter is infinitely closer to dinner than their fellows who merely sit and wait for food to crawl into their mouths.
Don’t get me wrong, shadow work will happen on its own – life will make it so. It happens when you fall in love and when you face heartache. It happens when you feel the pain of defeat and the elation of victory. It happens when you become a parent, and when you see yours become frail and passing on. It happens when world events disrupt the status quo and when the forces of nature express themselves. At these times life will test you and you will come face to face with your shadow, and perhaps you will come out the other side with a deeper understanding of yourself and be a little bit more integrated – there is a wisdom to be found with age and experience after all.
But we are not satisfied with passively waiting for these lessons to come. No, we see the value of introspection, of walking through the dark internal cave and emerging the other side, we see the value of identifying and questioning our beliefs, of challenging our assumptions, of investigating our pasts and our very nature. Not in response to external events, but as an active choice.
We crave understanding. We crave self-acceptance. We crave integration.
By hunting our own shadow, we first see the programs and the code underlying our operating systems and we begin to see links between the software and hardware. From there we can take action to tweak the code, reinstall certain programs, and delete those that are no longer needed and, in this way, free up our valuable processing power and working memory to be dedicated towards the truly necessary tasks and all-important life changing goals that we want to achieve.
Self-awareness is the single most important skill to have – for without it, all our actions may not be in line with what we truly want or need in this life.
This shadow work course will guide you on the process of hunting your own shadow.
About This Shadow Work Course
This course will identify and release the limiting beliefs that no longer serve you by guiding your attention inwards; to your feelings, emotions, thoughts, and to your earliest memories, the parts that you have blocked, repressed, and ignored.
Once you identify these aspects of yourself, you are invited to sit with them. To feel them. To listen to what they have to say, and then to offer them the loving kindness, wisdom, and guidance you have fostered in the proceeding years.
This is the process of hunting the shadow - we make an intention to actively seek out and identify the parts of ourselves that we have kept hidden, that we repressed, that we put aside, and lovingly invite that part back in, as we would to an old friend or family member that we thought had passed out of our reach.
Put simply, this course will act as a guide, offering insights, prompts and suggestions that will help you to identify and release the limiting beliefs that no longer serve you. Ultimately, shadow hunting is a solo endeavour. You need to turn the lens of attention inwards. You need to process the pain and accept the parts of yourself you discover. You need to do the work in this course and beyond into the rest of your life.
But this will be some of the most rewarding work you ever do, because it will put you on a path towards discovering your divine purpose, awakening to your highest calling, and finding true and lasting inner peace and acceptance. Not only that, but by understanding yourself, you will better understand those around you. Thus the impact of this work will transcend your life and flow into everyone around you.
Warning
This shadow work course will change you.
It will unlock aspects of your past that have been hidden and reveal things you’ve previously repressed. It will make you question who and what you are, along with the world and your place within it. It may prompt you to make changes in your life, relationships, career and goals.
Do not begin this course unless you have a solid support team around you. This means you have friends and/or family and/or community that are there for you. It also means that you have access to and are willing to use support systems, for example a therapist, counsellor, coach, mentor, or other experts that you know and trust, that are willing to help you on this journey. To this end, I offer psychotherapy services.
This course is not for the faint of heart. You will be pushed and encouraged to dive deep into yourself, to turn the lens of awareness inwards and to begin the process of reintegration with parts of yourself that have previously been hidden.
The rewards for such a practice are immense and ongoing, namely the identification and removal of blocks that are holding you back and no longer serve you.
But this practice may also be taxing. Shadow work, when done right, will be confronting and can also be potentially overwhelming, tiring, and even triggering, so make sure that you are practicing self-care and are taking steps to return yourself back to a state of grounded, mindful clarity before you proceed with the rest of your day.
It is for these reasons, that at the bottom of this shadow work course, I will share with you some further resources including grounding meditations that will help you to return yourself back into the present moment and regulate yourself.
If at any time, you find yourself struggling, that is, your functionality dropping, you are having overwhelming feelings, panic attacks, thoughts of self-harm or suicide, or uncontrollable urges to use drugs, alcohol or harm others, STOP this course and seek help.
Remember: everything in this course is a suggestion. I am not telling you to do anything, but rather offering you a guide. You need to determine if you are capable of starting, continuing, and finishing the journey.
Only you know your internal state and capabilities. Only you know your limits, and when they are being pushed versus when they are being broken. Only you know when you are truly at risk or when you can hold the space for yourself and hunt your own shadow.
There is no rush, you have access to this course forever, so stay safe and return to it when ready.
Course Content
This is a 12-part self-paced shadow work course. It is designed with the assumption that you will be making your way through one of the 12 modules each week in sequential order. That said, you are more than welcome to move through it at any pace you desire.
I encourage you to trust your intuition on this. If you feel compelled to complete this course in a day do so. If a single module requires a month of focus, take it. And if you need to repeat modules, repeat them.
You are hunting your ownshadow after all and you, my dear shadow hunter, need to do what is necessary to get the most out of your time here. The best way to get the most benefit from this, or any, course is to complete it. If you miss a week or life happens, that is okay, just start again when you can. Slow and disrupted progress is better than no progress.
Each part contains a guided meditation & contemplation,
Guided Meditation & Contemplation
Each week has a 15 to 20 minute audio track to listen to. Each track follows the same format:
1: Welcome to the session
Each session starts in the same way; a welcome followed by an invitation to get comfortable and settle in. This will prime you to begin the work contained in the rest of the track.
2: Guided meditation
Each session will then introduce and lead you through a brief guided meditation – each with a slightly different style. Collectively these will give you a toolbox of practices that will help you calm the mind, relax the body, open you up to expansion, healing and growth, and prime you for shadow work.
If you find a practice that particularly resonates with you, feel free to use it as part of a daily meditation practice or personal shadow work moving forward.
3: Contemplation question
Following the meditation you will be offered a question to contemplate. Approach these questions with an open mind. Allow thoughts, emotions, memories and feelings to arise without judgement or filter.
Take note in a journal* of any internal contractions, push back, and contradictions that arise, as well as any expansions, unlocks and ‘ah ha’ moments - these are worth further investigation and focus. They can also be brought up with me and processed as a part of email coaching.
If a particular contemplation or question resonates, I encourage you to come back to it again in a few months’ time and/or work on it after using the tools discussed in the How To Hunt Your Own Shadow section below. In this way you will refocus, refine, and reexplore the learning and insights – thus giving you deeper access with your shadow work.
4: Guided discussion
Following the introduction of the contemplation question I will lead you through a discussion of the question, highlighting some possible implications, extrapolating lines of reasoning, and delving into potential insights and unlocks.
5: Silent contemplation
Following the discussion, we will sit in silent contemplation of the session. Each track offers 1 minute of silence here, but you are encouraged to extend this time for as long as you feel is necessary to derive the most insight and unlocks.
Introspective Prompt
This is a question or scenario that will encourage you to explore and reflect upon the more hidden aspects of your subconscious, personality, and past. With each prompt, you will move closer to a deeper understanding of yourself, fostering personal growth, self-acceptance, and inner harmony.
I encourage you to write down your responses in a dedicated journal.
Note how you are feeling before, during, and after as well as any memories that arise - keep these reflections for later reference; there is tremendous benefit to be found from repeating these prompts and then comparing your responses over time.
Expansion Challenges
Here you will be encouraged to expand your comfort zone, to interact differently with the world, perhaps pushing against some preconceived notions of who you are, both within yourself, and relative to other people.
By changing your behaviour, even just once, you will begin to see that who and what you are is not static. You are free – if you can take the steps to get there!
I encourage you to note down your internal response in that same journal* three times: before, during and after completing the challenge. Asking the questions:
‘What am I feeling?’
‘Has anything hidden been brought up?’
‘What is happening within my body?’
Mindset Primer
I invite you to commit yourself to the transformative process facilitated within this course and want you to consider the following question as you engage with each week’s content:
‘What attitude do I need to take in order to get the most I can out of this session’
Take it.
How To Hunt Your Own Shadow
There are many ways to Hunt Your Own Shadow and over the next 12 weeks, this course will guide you through the process with guided questions and contemplations, introspective prompts, and expansion challenges.
But as discussed in the introduction, this is a solo process. All the information in this course is a finger pointing to the moon – it will show you a potential path, but you must take it. Not just over the next 12 weeks, but for the rest of your life.
Below you will see five solo practices that I have found work best for both myself and my coaching clients, I encourage you to try them for yourself, either now or over the next 12 weeks in addition to the weekly modules - Doing so will help you go deeper with the rest of this course.
Solo Shadow Work Practice 2: Mindful Observation of Strong Emotions
How:
Whenever you feel a strong emotion, memory, feeling or other mental phenomena - take a breath and mindfully observe it. Your goal isn’t to change it, alter it, or judge it in any way. Just to hold space for it and notice it.
If you feel like you are ‘falling into’ the emotion, practice present state awareness - slow the breathing down and focus on the inputs from your senses: asking ‘what can I see, hear, feel, taste and smell right now?’ From that place of grounding, turn back towards the strong emotion and ask it to share with you what it needs you to know.
Then simply listen and feel the response.
Why:
Feelings, memories, and emotions arise for a reason. There is something going on internally, or in response to the external environment, that your subconscious is flagging. It is doing whatever it can to inform ‘you’ that something is up, and you need to do something about it. Often, all you need to do is be aware of it and these feelings will dissipate on their own. But every so often, you get an insight into your shadow.
This practice will reveal some of the hidden workings you are operating with, the assumptions you are making about the world and the people in it, as well as your own innate responses to it. The act of mindfully drawing your attention towards these mental states and holding space for them allows the deeper understandings to arise.
Carry a journal or take a note in your phone if you discover something poignant and use these notes as a contemplative prompt for later contemplation.
Expansion:
This process can also be expanded into the body in a process I call Intuitive Guidance. This takes the above steps and applies it to sensations, blockages, and restrictions in the physical body, the goal being to identify these spots and allow them to be seen, felt, and heard without judgement or filter. This operates off the premise that the body keeps the score, that our physical bodies often hold onto the tensions, traumas and other things from our past.
You may discover long held feelings, thoughts, emotions or even vivid visualisations that seem to need something from you. Once again, the instruction here is to breathe slowly, stay grounded in the present moment, and to simply observe these parts – allowing them the space to express and be heard.
Eventually you may get the sense that this part needs to be given something: love, respect, attention etc, or that the visualisation can be transformed towards positivity. If this intuitive feeling arises, trust it and offer that part what it needs
Solo Shadow Work Practice 2: Journaling
How:
Step 1) Write
Write without judgement, filter, or thought for a future reader. Use the page as a therapist and express whatever arises. It will listen, absorb, and accept. Write, and don’t stop writing until it is all out. You will know this moment; it will feel like peace.
This step alone will reveal aspects of your subconscious that you were previously unaware of.
If you need to formalise this practice, set aside a time and place each day. Set a minimum time (eg: 5 minutes), but no maximum. If nothing is coming, write that nothing is coming until it does. If nothing is still coming, write about the things you can observe (see, hear, touch, taste, and smell) or your internal state (thoughts, feelings, moods, emotions, memories).
IMPORTANT: if during the act of writing you find yourself embarrassed, or pulling back, or not wanting to write something that you may read later, or a feeling of ‘not wanting to go there’ – take note - it is here that you may find the deepest insights into your shadow!
You can use this template to journal if you wish!
Step 2) Read
Sometime later (a week or a month), return to your writing and read it – taking care to note the differences between your current mental state and what is being evoked from your writing. Be curious about the memories and judgements and feelings that arise – being careful not to fall into them.
You are here to read and observe your response. If you discover something poignant, or feel compelled, return to step 1 above and repeat this process.
Step 3 – Respond
Adopt the mental frame of the ‘wise advisor’, ‘parent’, or ‘counsellor/therapist/coach’ and respond to your writing with the advice that the part of you that wrote those words needs to hear.
From your detached perspective and with the benefit of hindsight, you can gently guide your past self out of trouble, confusion and pain. You will be able to see, and subsequently show, when there are aspects of faulty, illogical or irrational thought. You can help tweak responses moving forward and you can address aspects of the shadow that have revealed themselves.
You can choose to repeat this process as many times as you like, effectively ‘layering’ the responses and subsequent insights. On your second time through step 3 you may see your shadow in your response – this can get deep and extremely meta - in a good way!
You can also choose to perform a fire ceremony or other cleansing ritual to symbolically ‘let go’ – this can be powerfully insightful and healing when aligned with your particular beliefs and spiritualism.
Why:
When done right, this process will act as an alternative way into the subconscious. With practice you will learn how to let go and simply write. You will ‘forget’ that you are going to read and review your words, and you will simply begin expressing them. This is gold. This is what you want, because you will have learnt how to let your barrier down and allowed yourself in.
This is a formalised version of thought-based mindful introspection, but one that can happen over pages as opposed to short bursts of fleeting emotionality. The self-awareness that this process will give you is phenomenal.
Expansion:
Speak.
This process can of course be done with the voice using a digital recorder, but in my experience this is significantly more of a foreign concept to most people, and they simply can’t (at least not with a lot of practice and commitment) drop the barriers and speak authentically enough to complete all the above steps in the same way as described.
A good work around is to simply go for a walk by yourself and speak out loud, with your voice, whatever arises – yes, I am asking you to speak to yourself, but it works. The goal is to practice tapping into and expressing without filter. Once again, simply observe any feelings of embarrassment, pulling back, or not wanting to speak on a certain topic - it is here that you may find the deepest insights into your shadow!
Remember to take a notepad or template to jot down any insights that arise for further contemplation.
Solo Shadow Work Practice 3: Internal Asking
How:
Get yourself into a calm, open, meditative state, and simply ask your shadow to reveal itself – then feel whatever arises.
This process is similar to #1 above, but more active – rather than responding to an emotion that arises, you are instead inviting them to arise. You do this with the intention to investigate and explore the nature of your subconscious without judgement, filter, restriction or even purpose – beyond merely holding space for yourself.
You will need to have good mindfulness skills to stay separate from the feelings that arise as opposed to ‘falling into them’, the guided meditation sessions will help you with this, as too will the further resources section at the bottom of this shadow work course.
Why:
This is the ultimate form of shadow work. You, from a place of calm and focus intentionally turn the lens of attention inwards to see what arises. To an observer, you will look like you are sitting calmly and just breathing, but internally you will be acting as the curious observer of your inner world.
No one else can see what arises, offer interpretations, or derive wisdom and insight. Indeed, while I encourage you to keep a notepad beside you, I do so tentatively, because the knowledge that you need to ‘go inside and bring something back for later contemplation’, aka writing on the notepad – itself can be distracting and derailing.
The personal internal revelations that arise from this practice often transcend words and fall into the realm of understanding or simply an unlock – that helps you to see, think, and act differently and positively moving forward. It would be a shame to halt that process before it has a chance to crystalize.
Expansion:
Following the same method as above, ask for internal guidance in the form of a ‘why do I?’ or ‘why am I?’ question. For example: ‘why do I always get angry at my partner’ or ‘why am I unhappy?’ – go deep and go hard with these questions. The more they hurt the more likely that you will find answers and insights that will transform your experience.
Solo Shadow Work Practice 4: Embracing Silence
How:
Be silent and simply observe what arises internally. Silence, for our purposes here, is defined as the absence of any human made noises, particularly music, speech and writing, but ideally traffic and other similar sounds.
Those simple instructions hide a lot of depth, so more formally you want to allow yourself access to prolonged periods of silence – ideally with you in a stationary position (sitting or lying), alone without the potential for interruptions, either physical or digital. This may involve sitting in nature, a dedicated room of the house, or in your car – walking can also work as well, particularly in nature.
You can set a timer or simply sit and watch – both approaches should be tried to see what works best for you.
A) Timer: set a time that seems challenging but achievable, then add another 50% to the time. Begin the session and don’t break the silence until the alarm finishes - The timer approach allows you to practice with the comfort of knowing that the session will end after a predetermined interval, unfortunately when that timer does beep, you may be disrupted if delving deep into the shadow.
B) Simply Sitting: Find a place of silence and sit until your shadow reveals itself and just observe it mindfully (without judgement or attachment) - The simply sitting approach enables you to go as deep and as long as you desire. This is optimal for those wanting to delve deeply. Unfortunately because there is no pre-determined time frame, you may be tempted to stop the session when it gets hard/challenging, which as #5 below will discuss, is not ideal.
Try both approaches and see what works for you!
If you cannot find ‘formal’ silent time, you may need to get creative – drive/travel in silence. Don’t listen to music or a podcast when cleaning the house. Remove as much unnecessary noise from your life.
Why:
Your shadow lives in silence. When you allow yourself to sit and simply observe the contents of your consciousness, allowing thoughts to flow and memories to arise, the shadow begins to show itself. All you need do is watch and see what it is doing. Detachment is key. You will start to see connections between your actions and memories and feelings and life in general. You will recall the events and begin to story tell. You will begin to judge yourself lamenting the opportunities missed and decisions made. Do your best to observe all this arising – including your judgements of it all.
Detach. Stay mindful and simply sit.
This can feel like a passive approach to shadow hunting, particularly when compared to the other approaches in this section, but to continue the hunting analogy, we are taking time to observe our prey, to see what it is, where it dwells, how it moves and what it moves towards and avoids. Put simply, we are learning to open our inner eye to our deepest truths. This process happens in silence, so give yourself more.
If you fear silence, read on to #5 and consider the following question: What is scarier, sitting in silence, or the fact you are afraid to sit in silence?
Expansion:
The expansion of silence involves increasing the duration of the silence and simultaneously reducing the task and communication demands. Ideally this is expressed in the form of days long silent meditation retreats or extended solo and silent trips into nature (or perhaps solo retreat away from home). Find the approach that works best for your lifestyle, means and personality. Embrace prolonged silence and hunt your own shadow!
Solo Shadow Work Practice 5: Search For Pain Points
How:
Turn your attention towards emotional pain, tension, fear, and discomforts, use these feelings as a kind of trail to lead you back to your shadow. These are symptoms left along the way, places that you can search for, explore and offer healing light.
You can search for pain points in two ways, reactively and proactively. Do both!
Reactively
Every day you will feel intense emotionality (or a total lack/extreme apathy), ‘bad’ memories will surface along with negative self-criticisms. You may feel anger, jealousy, fear and a plethora of other things. When you notice a shift in your inner mental state – observe! Use their arising as a trigger to turn the lens of attention inwards and ask yourself:
What is arising right now?
What caused it?
What is my response to it?
What would I feel if this feeling grew?
What are they trying to tell me?
Proactively
This course is an act of proactively searching for pain points – you are purposefully trying to uncover the shadow with the purpose of revealing it (and thus the subsequent pain points) with the goal of inquiry and discovery. All of the parts in this section and each week’s modules will teach you how to proactively search for the pain points.
Why:
Know thyself.
We have a tendency to avoid pain. To run from it, block it off, dissociate from it, store it in the body, inebriate ourselves away from it, or eat our feelings away.
These defence mechanisms work well to keep us safe in the moment, but also serve to create and shield our shadow. By searching for the pain points we are taking a step to uncover what we previously hid.
This is the core of shadow hunting. It is not ‘easy’ or ‘pleasant’ and certainty isn’t pain free, but it is extremely rewarding. The self-awareness you will gain will transcend anything anyone external can possibly point you towards.
‘The price of progress is pain.’
‘Beyond fear lies freedom.’
‘The night is darkest before dawn.’
Expansion:
This course is the expansion of the search for pain points. It is a systematic approach to guide you towards gently but purposefully towards uncovering then observing your shadow.
Proceed into the following 12 modules with a commitment to try everything and to not reflexively turn away from what you discover – but of course, keep the warning presented in the introduction in mind. Only you know your limits, so don’t overdo it searching for pain points.
12-Part Shadow Work Course
Below you will find the 12-parts of the Shadow Work course. I encourage you to keep a journal or use this template to reflect as you progress.
Part 01: The Unspoken
1: Guided Meditation & Contemplation
Play the track 'Week 01, The Unspoken’.
2: Introspective Prompt
Recall a situation where you held yourself back from expressing your true feelings or opinions.
Ask yourself: ‘What fears or judgments prevented me from speaking my mind? What are the earliest memories that I have of doing this?’
Investigate the potential shadows that may be influencing your communication patterns and offer love, support, guidance and a listening ear to any parts of you that arise and need it.
3: Expansion Challenge
Consider an issue you feel strongly about but have remained silent upon.
Either in person, or online, share your truth. Say what you believe, think, and feel on the topic. Engage with other people's responses, continuing to share your truth.
How did you feel before, during and after? What memories were triggered? Have you noticed any internal shifts?
Week 02: Fear's Footprint
1: Guided Audio Contemplation
Play the track 'Week 02, Fear’s Footprint’.
2: Introspective Prompt
Identify a recurring fear or anxiety in your life. Trace its origins and notice when it tends to surface. Go deep. Can you find the initial memory or event?
Sit with the earliest version of you/the earliest moment and offer that part of you love, connection, a listening ear, any needed advice, and an internal hug.
Consider how these deepest fears or unresolved issues might be casting a shadow on your current experiences. How can you begin to address them?
3: Expansion Challenge
While maintaining safety, consent, and common sense - do something that you are afraid of – whatever that is for you.
If, in response to this prompt, something is 'popping up' - consider something down that path. I encourage you to take real world action, even if it is just a very small action.
How did you feel in the lead up to action, during, and after? Have you noticed any internal shifts that you can apply across other aspects of your life?
Week 03: The Mask We Wear
1: Guided Audio Contemplation
Play the track 'Week 03, The Mask We Wear’.
2: Introspective Prompt
Consider the persona you present to the world - this may be the same in all situations, but likely will change depending on context (work, social, familial, and in response to different roles and people).
Reflect on instances where you felt the need to wear a mask or portray a certain image that feels furthest from your natural truth (who you are when alone).
Ask yourself: ‘What fears or insecurities drive this need, and how might unveiling the true self behind the mask lead to greater authenticity? What would I need to do/be to drop the mask entirely?’
3: Expansion Challenge
Say no.
Say no to a request, ask, or demand that you are not 100% all in and excited for. Say no out loud, using your words and your voice, then let your no sit in the proceeding silence - do not fill it with a reason or excuse to justify why (you can later, but don't rush to do so).
Before completion: How does it feel to even consider saying no?
After completion: How did it feel to say no?
What have you learnt about yourself and your responses to the world?
Week 04: The Legacy Of Childhood
1: Guided Audio Contemplation
Play the track 'Week 04, The Legacy Of Childhood’.
2: Introspective Prompt
Reflect on your upbringing and childhood experiences. What beliefs, values, or behaviours were ingrained during this time?
How might these early influences cast shadows on your present-day choices and relationships?
Do you recognise any 'past versions' of yourself arising in certain situations or with certain people?
3: Expansion Challenge
Reach out to a family member you have lost contact with and start a conversation with them – calling is ideal, text/social message is also fine.
Talk about anything you like, but when talking with them, keep part of your awareness on yourself – watch for any feelings/emotions that feel like they are coming from a younger version of you, perhaps you as a teen, or a child.
After the conversation, sit with those feelings and parts of yourself that were brought to the forefront and invite them to express themselves; then listen to them!
Week 05: The Unknown Within
1: Guided Audio Contemplation
Play the track 'Week 05, The Unknown Within’.2: Introspective Prompt
Reflect on a time when you felt an unexpected surge of emotion or a strong reaction that seemed disproportionate to the situation.
Explore the circumstances, your immediate thoughts, and the emotions that surfaced. Consider whether there might be deeper, unacknowledged aspects of yourself influencing your response.
Invite those aspects of your deeper self to open up and express themselves. Listen.
3: Expansion Challenge
Spend five minutes engaging with that task you have been avoiding, eg: taxes, introducing yourself to your neighbours, specific cleaning tasks, shopping etc.
Feel the resistance prior to taking action – then feel that resistance shift upon action.
Consider how you can apply these findings towards other aspects of your life.
Week 06: Dreamscape Discovery
1: Guided Audio Contemplation
Play the track 'Week 06, Dreamscape Discovery’.
2: Introspective Prompt
Reflect on a recent dream that left a lasting impression.
Analyse the symbols and emotions within the dream, this doesn't (necessarily) mean that you should look up dreaming guides and other such content, but rather as an invitation to consider what insights your subconscious might be trying to convey, and how these elements relate to unexplored aspects of your psyche.
Ask yourself 'what does my dream mean?’ (or an element of the dream) not with the goal of attaining a single definitive answer, but rather with the goal of opening more access points to, and awareness of, your inner world.
3: Expansion Challenge
Write down your highest order, crazy large, aspiration/goal/dream - Then take the smallest step towards attaining it.
How does it feel to set that goal and take that step?
Week 07: The Internal Judge
1: Guided Audio Contemplation
Play the track 'Week 07, The Internal Judge’.
2: Introspective Prompt
Consider a recent situation where you felt highly critical or judgmental towards yourself or others.
Investigate the source of these judgements (the earliest moments/memories of similar feelings).
What standards or expectations were you holding, and how might they be connected to unacknowledged aspects of your past?
3: Expansion Challenge
Go out in public and people watch.
Notice any judgements of strangers arising - as well as any internal judgements that arise about yourself in response.
How would you categorise the judgements of other people? How would you categorise the judgements of yourself? eg: kind, cruel, positive, negative etc.
What emotions are arising in response to how you find yourself reflexively judging?
Week 08: Relationship Reflections
1: Guided Audio Contemplation
Play the track 'Week 08, Relationship Reflections’.
2: Introspective Prompt
Take a moment to recall your past and current relationships - platonic, romantic, and professional.
Look for patterns, recurring themes and dynamics. Both within the relationship as well as your response to the relationship.
Investigate the role your own beliefs and behaviors play in shaping these patterns.
3: Expansion Challenge
The next time you find yourself disagreeing about something that is not important - eg not your highest order goal attainment, crux relationship issue or likewise - pause, listen, and allow yourself to be convinced of their perspective.
If appropriate, apologise and take ownership of the disagreement.
For some people, this will be extremely challenging as they will feel as if they are 'losing' something important, the argument yes, but more so their ego.
If this is you, take some time to introspect upon those emotions and associated memories, ask yourself when in your past you felt the need to defend each and every point so strongly.
Can you begin to reintegrate? Can you let go of the need to 'win' every time, or at least see that need and its impact on your day-to-day life?
Week 09: Lost & Found
1: Guided Audio Contemplation
Play the track 'Week 09, Lost & Found’.
2: Introspective Prompt
Take a moment to recall a time when you felt truly lost, confused, or overwhelmed, a moment or time in which all hope seemed gone.
Feel the emotionality that arose during that time. What hidden beliefs or unresolved issues may still linger in your subconscious, influencing your present experiences?
Then take a moment to realise that those feelings, like all feelings, have passed. You survived, learnt, grew, and adapted. Feel the emotionality that arises in response to the realisation you survived what felt like a hopeless situation.
How can you take those feelings into your future?
3: Expansion Challenge
Take a small, but not completely inconsequential sum of money, perhaps ($5-$100), and without being seen, purposefully drop it on the ground.
Then step back and just watch as someone picks it up and walks away.
How did it make you feel?
How do you think they felt?
How can learning to accept small losses help you with future significant losses?
Week 10: Limiting Labels
1: Guided Audio Contemplation
Play the track 'Week 10, Limiting Labels’.
2: Introspective Prompt
Identify a label you've applied to yourself or received from others.
Reflect on how this label has shaped your self-perception.
What shadows or unexplored facets of your identity might be obscured by this label, and how can you redefine or transcend it?
3: Expansion Challenge
Take the label you identified in #2 above and take one small step to counter it. Take action that, when successfully completed, would show you that that label may not apply at all, or at least shouldn't be as strongly held.
Ask yourself: ‘How does it feel to actively challenge my label?’
Week 11: Navigating Uncertainty
1: Guided Audio Contemplation
Play the track 'Week 11, Navigating Uncertainty’.
2: Introspective Prompt
Consider the fact that each decision you make offers endless possibilities branching outwards, each with countless more decision points that need to be made, resulting in infinitely more possibilities, not to mention the unknown variables of other people's decisions and natural environmental occurrences.
Given this reality, do you still hope to control your future? Can you sit and accept an uncertain future? If not, what would you need to be able to do so.
3: Expansion Challenge
Attend a class, or social gathering, doing something new, with people you have never met. Notice the feelings of ambiguity that arise, alongside any internal defence mechanisms.
Specifically, did you find yourself, even partially, reverting to an ‘older version’ of yourself/putting on a mask?
If so, how old were you? What was the context? And importantly, why did that version of you surface in response to ambiguity?
Week 12: The Hero's Journey
1: Guided Audio Contemplation
Play the track 'Week 12, The Hero’s Journey’.
2: Introspective Prompt
Consider your life as a hero's journey:
"You begin in the ordinary world, but receive a call to adventure (challenge, quest, goal, or desire to change something). Initially you refuse, but then you meet a wise mentor who guides you across the threshold into the darkness. You are tested. You face challenges and conflicts (inner and/or outer), eventually culminating in your darkest hour... but after significant struggles, you 'win' and receive a reward (status, power, growth, healing, a necessary item/knowledge. Then you return home and the status quo of life is never the same as it was prior, things have changed and so have you. You have grown, matured, and learnt as a result of undertaking the journey."
Take a moment to reframe your life as the hero's journey: Reflect on the challenges, victories, and transformations you've experienced. What shadows did you confront along the way, and how did they contribute to your personal evolution? How have you changed over your life?
3: Expansion Challenge
Imagine that your life was a movie and you were the hero - what would that version of you do? Apply for a new job? Ask someone out? Leave a relationship? Move? Take a step towards beginning something monumental? Write a book? Travel? Speak your mind? Rest? This question is asking you what step you could take towards attaining your highest calling.
Can you identify the distant mountain top the deepest parts of you want to move towards and take a step towards it?
So go on, step!
Debrief & Moving Forward
Well done on completing the course!
My hope is that the course has acted as a catalyst for ongoing change, one that will continue to spawn insights and continually reverberate into your future, helping you to identify and release the limiting beliefs that no longer serve you. I have recorded a short message that will provide you with some guidance and resources moving forward.
Play the track ‘Debrief & Moving Forward’.
What Next?
Book a 1:1 Session With Me
If you have ongoing questions, deep revelations that need unpacking, or just want some further support or guidance I invite you to work with me. I offer online psychotherapy sessions via Zoom, catering to all time zones. You can find out more and book a session here.
Practice Solo Hunting:
In the ‘How To Hunt Your Own Shadow’ section I introduced three practices that work to dive deep into the shadow, allowing you to and identify and release the limiting beliefs that no longer serve you:
1: Mindful Observation of Strong Emotions
2: Journalling
3: Internal Asking
4: Embracing Silence
5: Searching for the Pain Points
If you haven’t already given these practices a try, I encourage you to do so now! These practices, combined with the unlocks and insights acquired over the last 12 weeks will continue to reverberate into your future, if you allow them to do so.
Repeat This Course:
The completion of this course does not spell the end of your journey, nor the insights, benefits, and internal shifts. This course was designed to act as a catalyst for change, offering a variety of different approaches to shadow work and a pathway towards integration, healing, and growth.
Completing this course has changed you and those changes will continue to reveal themselves over time. It is important to remember that this changed version of you is not complete. Healing and integration work never ends. There is always more to explore, reveal, and integrate. As such, I encourage you to return to this course as many times as you like - each time will take you deeper into yourself and grant you further wisdom and insight.
You now have access to this PDF and accompanying audio files forever! You are welcome to reengage with it at any time, completing it all again, or focusing your efforts on the most poignant and important modules, if something stuck out as particularly fruitful, challenging or insightful, you are on the right path.
Further Resources:
Below you will see a list of further resources, use them! They are all free and have been chosen specifically to act as a supplement to the content in this course, filling in any potential gaps of knowledge or going deeper in certain important areas. There are PDFs, links to guided meditations, useful blogs to read and specific podcasts to listen to.
Further Resources
1: Guided Meditation & Wisdom Talks
Click here to listen to some free guided meditations, breathwork, insightful talks, self-improvement advice, and guided shadow & Intuitive Guidance work.
2: Further Reading
3: Further Listening
4: Books
Mindfulness: A Guidebook To The Present Moment
5: Free Shadow Work Journal PDF
And finally, if you haven’t already, check out this free shadow work journal PDF will help you discover your truth and become whole. Inside you will find a comprehensive guide to shadow work journaling alongside a collection of activities and prompts.
Want to go deeper? Book a 1:1 session.
