A Blessing for Our Shadows*
Holy One who embraces all,
help us to grow in intimacy
with the shadow parts of ourselves:
the shame, the resentment, the too-bigness,
the longings for things that seem out of reach,
all that we resist and reject
and project onto others.
Reveal to us your sacred welcome
to everything that feels tender and troubled
all that we would rather not face.
Bless our vision so that we might discover
the brilliance hidden in our darkest places,
show us the treasure that lies within
so that we might become
the fullest version of ourselves,
integrated, whole, textured, and
sometimes tangled.
Help us claim the truth
that lead can be transformed into gold,
and our shame into dancing.
Dearest dancing monks, artists, and pilgrims,
Tomorrow we begin a 6-week online retreat journey through my book A Midwinter God: Encountering the Divine in Seasons of Darkness. Here is an excerpt on shadow work:
The shadow is what we reject in ourselves, which may be either what we perceive as “positive” or “negative” qualities. As we grow older the journey of integration is to bring the shadow to light, to go consciously into dark places and befriend what we find there. We have each suppressed parts of ourselves in service to whatever role we feel we “should” play in the world. As we face the things we most fear, we can experience a profound sense of liberation and starting to live from our own needs, desires, and power.
Generally, in the first half of our lives, our focus is on developing a particular persona or mask. We strongly identify with our role in the world, which is often our work. We strive to achieve and accomplish, to excel and get ahead. The more we neglect our shadow selves, the more it grows within us.
At midlife, the shadow has often grown enough to begin expressing itself through experiences like depression, physical illness, acting in a way we quickly regret, or dreams that feel disturbing. We need to release these blocked energies hiding in our unconscious by working with a therapist or soul friend, by tending to our dream life, by welcoming in emotions we would normally resist, and listening to our heart’s deep desires. This is a process of stripping away everything that is false about our lives and how we have adjusted ourselves to society’s expectations. The journey of spiritual maturity is to embrace the wholeness of who we really are and let go of our need to control the outcome of life.
By facing the shadow and welcoming those rejected parts back in, we enlarge ourselves and our vision of what our life is about.
Our shadows are all those things we would deny about ourselves. Shadow work disrupts our sense of self because we begin to embrace the wholeness of who we are. Shadow work is essential to this vital task of dissolving our efforts at bypassing our difficult experiences. Working with our shadow is precisely the act of welcoming in, listening to, and integrating the wisdom there for us from our disowned and rejected elements. These are the elements we try so hard to suppress and end up projecting onto other people, convincing ourselves that we don’t have dark emotions to deal with. It is challenging work too because we are usually quite invested in the masks we wear and the face we show to the world.
Jungian analyst James Hollis writes: “Shadow is composed of all those aspects of ourselves that have a tendency to make us uncomfortable with ourselves. The Shadow is not just what is unconscious, it is what discomforts the sense of self we wish to have.” The Shadow is what feels strange, foreign, threatening, unsettling, or disruptive to the persona we have created. The persona is the mask we wear to fit into our families, our workplaces, and the wider community.
If this sounds challenging, it is. If this sounds like the work of a lifetime, again, it is. But in its absence we sacrifice a life of growing depth and spiritual maturity. By softening all that has been frozen within us, we open a great river of meaning and purpose to flow through us. It is helpful to do this work with the support of others, because we can be so skilled at blinding ourselves to our own shadows. Working with a therapist or soul friend can also help us from getting lost in our feelings, while still working closely with them and feeling the rawness of them. Our shadow is revealed when we pay attention to our bodies and our feelings, but also in dreams and in our projections on other people.
Please join us for A Midwinter God companion retreat, a rich exploration of the gifts of winter, spiritual bypassing and shadow work, grief, and the underworld journey. I will lead a weekly live session with teaching and meditation and I also had several conversations with guest teachers like Dr. Jamie Eaddy on grief and Dr. Christena Cleveland on the Black Madonna. Aisling Richmond will offer weekly practices to tend ourselves with care during the process and Dr. Jamie Marich offers a weekly dancing mindfulness practice. We also have a lovingly facilitated forum for sharing and connection.
With great and growing love,
Christine
Christine Valters Paintner, OblSB, PhD, REACE
*Blessing written by Christine for a book of blessings (due to be published in spring 2026)
