Shadow Work Quotes

“They were not holding hands, but their shadows were.”
― Toni Morrison, Beloved

“The Shadow is not evil. It is everything You were told to hide in order to belong, anger, desire, grief, neediness, brilliance, queerness, eroticism, boundaries, pleasure, pride.


In short: the parts of You that threatened the story someone else needed You to play.”
― Diana Von Rigg, Dom(me) the Darkness Within: Ritual Shadow Work for the Neurodivergent & Kink-Aligned

“Love is how I entered into this life and survived. Love is how I came to experience growth and increase in intelligence and Light. Love is the guiding voice which has allowed me to step through my fears into the dark and walk out the other side. And Love continues to be the path that allows me to enter again and again into the dark and once again discover the Light.”
― Gwen Juvenal, Our New Story: Guides in the Garden Volume 1

“The unconscious hides our shadow, but also, and more importantly, the being we seek to create.”
― Paching Hoé Lambaiho

“All they have touched or seen they make their own,
In Nature’s basement lodge, mind’s passages fill,
Disrupt thought’s links and musing sequences,
Break through the soul’s stillness with a noise and cry
Or they call the inhabitants of the abyss,
Invite the instincts to forbidden joys,
A laughter wake of dread demoniac mirth
And with nether riot and revel shake life’s floor.

Impotent to quell his terrible prisoners
Appalled the householder helpless sits above,
Taken from him his house is his no more.

07.02_117:032-033”
― Sri Aurobindo, Savitri: A Legend and a Symbol

“Sometimes we stand in our brightness, sometimes we sit in our darkness, but at all times we must balance both sides of ourselves.”
― Megan Mary, The Dream Haunters

“A gator smile past happy hour;
eyes above the filth of truth
Judging me from his sex swamp,
oh, this cold blood bleeds power
All dead at the kissing booth;
mirrored reptile tail-swing stomp”
― Casey Renee Kiser, Altered States of the Unflinching Souls

“You’re not broken here. You’re becoming.”
― David Maze, 9 Analogies of Consciousness

“When the dark stops hating the light and the light stops hating the dark, then we can play in shades of gray. Then we have space.”
― Erin Currin, Hate Your Way to Happiness: Cultivating self-love even when you feel like sh!t

“The pain of being aware of your own darkness is one of the most excruciating sensations one can experience in a lifetime. It feels like dying. Until it sets you free.”
― NZ Kaminsky

“Power without ethics is just abuse in ritual drag.”
― Diana Von Rigg, Dom(me) the Darkness Within: Ritual Shadow Work for the Neurodivergent & Kink-Aligned

“Anyone who focuses so strongly on their ideal self, will be eaten by the unrealized self.”
― Kenn Day, Post-Tribal Shamanism: A New Look at the Old Ways

“Perhaps this all sounds too simple and happy-go-lucky. Well, snap out of it! No thing has dominion or power over you unless you give it that power. Stand your ground. Take three deep breaths. Be willing to see into what something truly is. Be willing to take the time and ask questions. Be willing to Play.
This is what we are inviting you to do here.
Imagine your new life of being free from all fear. Imagine a life where fear is being used as an empowerment through you. Yes. Own your power.
Every moment.
This is You!
Make your choice.”
― Gwen Juvenal, Our New Story: Guides in the Garden Volume 1

“I Dance in The Dark (The Moths’ Song)
I dance in The Dark.
I fly through moonlit wings.
My heart beats loud
for every living thing.
Deep in the waters
all reflects clearly,
clearly, clearly, clearly.
I fly to the heart
and weave a web.
Through this fabric of sky
all once hidden is said.
My whisper enters your ear,
“Come dance, and you will know.
the gift of Love as not separate from Fear.
The thing you fought against
is waiting to be seen.
and set Free.
Free. Free. Free.
Come Dance with Me.
Come Dance with Me.”
― Gwen Juvenal, "The Seed" Journal: A Space for Recording Your Soul Experiences and Expansive Journeys

“While this (shadow) work can be difficult, it is incredibly transformative and healing. When you find yourself stuck in negative patterns or feeling worn out with your old ways of being, shadow work illuminates a healthier path forward.”
― Jor-El Caraballo, The Shadow Work Workbook: Self-Care Exercises for Healing Your Trauma and Exploring Your Hidden Self

“It is beckoning you to discover, to unearth your darkness.”
― Megan Mary, The Dream Haunters

“The ultimate barometer for what’s actually going on inside you is to reverse engineer your unconscious intentions by the RESULTS you consistently keep getting and the current state of your life – not by what you consistently keep telling yourself.”
― Oli Anderson, Trust: A Manual for Becoming the Void, Building Flow, and Finding Peace

“The unconscious is always trying to make itself conscious and so if you slow down and listen you can align yourself instead of being torn to pieces.”
― Oli Anderson, Trust: A Manual for Becoming the Void, Building Flow, and Finding Peace

“Ignorance (of the truth) may protect us from shame in the short-term but it can never protect us from the Void.”
― Oli Anderson, Trust: A Manual for Becoming the Void, Building Flow, and Finding Peace

“The heroic quest typically highlights a seemingly average person (think Thomas Anderson before he becomes Neo) who embarks on a perilous undertaking, confronts challenges and temptations, and ultimately returns to his or her starting place, transformed and usually upgraded.

This myth appears central to human experience. The Tarot, for example, which reads as a distillation of ancient mythology, is in essence about the heroic quest to become one’s true self. Even the parable of the Prodigal Son can be interpreted as a retelling of the Hero’s Journey.

This journey isn’t merely external; it’s primarily internal. The Hero’s Journey, applied to our Matrix analogy, suggests that the only way out of the so-called simulation is into oneself.

The hero’s ultimate inner battle is against the enemy within, the shadow self, our own Agent Smith, the unrecognized and unintegrated aspects of the psyche that only battle and hinder us until we make peace with them.”
― Sol Luckman, Get Out of Here Alive: Inner Alchemy & Immortality

“By standing up to our fears, examining our darkness and reassembling our fragmented selves, we undergo a
profound metamorphosis ... provided we’re up to the
challenge of seeing the world for what it is: a product of our own projections that have been manipulated for something else’s benefit.”
― Sol Luckman, Get Out of Here Alive: Inner Alchemy & Immortality

“How can you expect to go in, where thorough and lasting change can only happen, if you’re always busy chasing loose and fake change outside yourself in the quote-unquote ‘real world’?”
― Sol Luckman, Get Out of Here Alive: Inner Alchemy & Immortality

“If you’re always obsessed about something out there, you’ll never become anything in there where it actually counts.”
― Sol Luckman, Get Out of Here Alive: Inner Alchemy & Immortality

“The body remembers what the mind avoids.
Trauma, repression, shame, unmet needs, these often emerge erotically. Not because we’re broken, but because eroticism is a powerful site of truth.”
― Diana Von Rigg, Dom(me) the Darkness Within: Ritual Shadow Work for the Neurodivergent & Kink-Aligned

“THE PAIN OF BEING AWARE OF YOUR OWN DARKNESS IS ONE OF THE MOST EXCRUCIATING SENSATION ONE CAN
EXPERIENCE IN A LIFETIME.
IT FEELS LIKE DYING.
UNTIL IT SETS YOU FREE.

Theme from Sense of Home (A Novel of Mystical Realism, Family, and the Power of Healing)”
― NZ Kaminsky

“The cards don’t speak in absolutes. They speak in patterns, echoes and whispers of what we’re ready to hear - Intuitive Tarot: Reading Between the Lines.”
― Clarity Weaver, Intuitive Tarot: Reading Between the Lines. The Art of Tarot Translation, Shadow Work, Pattern Recognition & Radical Self Honesty

“A woman who learns to burn without hatred becomes ungovernable.”
#ShaktiProtocol #FeminineAlchemy #ScorpioSeason”
― Nabal Kishore Pande, BURN: The Law of Release

“They who escape the darkness, only to cast shadows on others, live the deepest kind of enslavement.”
― F.C. Quiles

“Your shadows are unpolished gems that, when brought into the light, turn into majestic strengths.”
― Dusah Wiseman

“Shadow work then becomes the act of diving into the depths of who you are to discover which messages have been begging for your attention. When you become aware of these things, you can then alchemize them for your betterment instead of your demise.”
― Dusah Wiseman, Dear Cycle Breaker: Wisdom and Practical Magic for Reclaiming the Wild Divine Feminine