Working with Your Shadow Self

Welcome to the first edition of the Shadow Seekers’ Dispatch! I’m so excited that you’re here. Let’s get started.

In This Edition

Working with Your Shadow

There are parts of you that learned to go quiet.

Not because they were wrong.
Not because they were dangerous.
Because survival needed you smaller, softer, easier to manage.

That is where the Shadow waits.

In Jungian psychology, the Shadow is often described as the part of the self we hide, reject, or refuse to recognize. But in this work, she is not a villain. She is not the voice of shame. She is not here to ruin your life from the basement.

She is the Keeper.

She holds what you could not carry at the time: anger, grief, instinct, desire, memory, fear, hunger, voice. All the parts that were too inconvenient for the life you were trying to survive.

Working with your Shadow Self does not mean digging through yourself with a shovel and calling every wound a lesson. It does not mean forcing forgiveness. It does not mean turning pain into a tidy little “growth moment” so everyone can feel relieved.

It means noticing what you have been fighting inside yourself.

For me, one of the most important shifts came when I stopped correcting my Shadow every time she spoke.

Once I allowed my Shadow Self to think what it wanted to think, I stopped feeling everything twice. I still had the original pain, yes. But I no longer added the second wound: the one where I shamed myself for having the thought, the memory, the anger, or the reaction in the first place.

That mattered.

Because resistance has a cost.

When you spend your energy trying to be acceptable to yourself, you leave very little energy for the actual work. You become the guard, the prisoner, the judge, and the witness. Exhausting little committee. Very loud.

Shadow work begins when you stop treating every uncomfortable part of yourself as evidence against you.

Why Work with the Shadow?

Because what you exile does not disappear.

It waits.
It leaks.
It chooses inconvenient doors.

You may notice it in defensiveness that arrives faster than thought. In jealousy that feels too sharp. In the old rage that wakes when someone uses a certain tone. In the way you disappear before anyone asks you to. In the way you call your own needs “too much” before anyone else gets the chance.

These reactions are not random.

They are trail markers.

The Shadow often speaks through what feels disproportionate. Not because you are broken, but because something old is still carrying heat.

Working with the Shadow gives you a way to approach that material without pretending it is pretty. You do not have to approve of every thought. You do not have to act on every impulse. You do not have to make a shrine to every wound and ask it to redecorate your personality.

You only have to stop lying about what is there.

That is enough to begin.

How to Begin Working with Your Shadow Self.

Start small. The Shadow is patient, but your nervous system may not be.

You do not need to throw open every locked door at once. Some doors are locked for a reason. Begin with the ones already rattling.

Notice what hooks you.

Pay attention to the moments when your reaction feels bigger than the situation in front of you. A comment, a silence, a tone, a look, a small rejection, a sudden envy.

Ask:

What did this touch?
What did I assume was happening?
What part of me reacted before I could think?

Do not rush to make yourself reasonable. Reason can come later. First, collect the evidence.

Write without the pretense of goodness.

Let the Shadow speak on the page.

Not the edited version.
Not the “I know I shouldn’t feel this way” version.
The actual version.

Write the petty thing. The furious thing. The jealous thing. The thing with teeth.

Then pause.

You do not have to obey it. You are listening, not handing it the car keys.

Use art when language gets too clean.

Words can lie beautifully.

Art is harder to control.

A shape, color, line, symbol, or repeated mark can show you what you are circling before your conscious mind admits it. You may draw a cage when you thought you were drawing a house. You may use red when you swore you felt calm. You may cover the page and realize you were trying to bury something.

Good.

The page noticed.

Speak to the Shadow as a witness, not an enemy.

Try this:

“What are you holding for me?”
“What did I ask you to keep?”
“What are you tired of carrying alone?”
“What do you want me to know before I decide what to do?”

This is not about letting every inner voice run wild. It is about relationship. You are learning to hear what was abandoned without letting it take over the room.

A Creative Shadow Exercise

This is a simple exercise for the moments when you can feel something moving under the surface, but you cannot name it yet.

You will need paper and something to draw with.

Draw a square on the page. Four inches is enough. It does not need to be perfect. Nothing important does.

Think of one question, situation, or feeling you want to explore. Keep it simple.

Then doodle inside the square until it feels finished.

Do not make art.
Make evidence.

Use lines, symbols, marks, shapes, pressure, repetition, mess. Let your hand move before your mind starts supervising.

Then leave it alone.

Eat lunch. Walk away. Watch something. Fold laundry. Pretend you are not thinking about it while absolutely thinking about it.

Later, come back.

Turn the page upside down.

Look again.

Ask:

What do I see now?
What changed when I stopped looking at it the expected way?
What shape keeps pulling my attention?
What does this image know that I have not said yet?

Write every response directly on the page, even if it sounds strange, dramatic, childish, bitter, or inconvenient.

Especially then.

That is often where the locked door starts making noise.

Want to Look Deeper?

Shadow work is a journey, not a quick fix. For a complete guide to embracing your shadow, visit the full article. I hope this helps you discover the hidden wisdom and peace that come from seeing yourself fully.

From the Shadow Seekers’ Journal

If you want to go deeper into this work, start with these pieces.

Healing Through Shadow Work Creates Real Change — A closer look at how Shadow work moves buried material into awareness so you can stop fighting yourself in the dark.

Voodoo Dolls in Modern Spirituality: Honoring History, Embracing Healing — A grounded discussion of modern intention dolls, spiritual context, and the importance of not flattening sacred traditions into aesthetic props.

The Art of Shadow Work: A Creative Path to Integration — A fuller guide to using creativity as a method for approaching the hidden, exiled, and difficult parts of the self.

Susanna, a You-Do-You Voodoo™ Custom Art Doll

Susanna was created as a custom You-Do-You Voodoo™ art doll: a material witness built around her owner’s chosen intention.

A doll like Susanna does not do the work for her Keeper. She does not cure, fix, rescue, or hand out enlightenment from the shelf like a tiny yarn prophet.

She holds focus.

She gives the intention a body.

She becomes something the Seeker can see, touch, return to, and place in the room as a reminder of the work already underway.

Susanna’s compositional elements were chosen with care. Each one carries a specific role in the doll’s structure.

Compositional Elements

Chrysocolla

Chrysocolla was placed at Susanna’s head. Its role here is patience and clarity without forcing emotions to the surface. It brings a calm, steady quality to difficult inner work, helping the Seeker stay with what arises instead of rushing to control it.

Tiger’s Eye

Tiger’s Eye was used in Susanna’s beads. It brings strength, protection, grounding, courage, and resilience. It steadies the work when emotional material gets heavy and helps the Seeker face what she is carrying without folding under it.

Turquoise

Turquoise was also used in the beadwork. Its role is protection, wisdom, clear communication, and inner calm. It supports expression with steadiness, helping the Seeker speak from a place that is both grounded and true.

Selenite

Selenite forms Susanna’s spine. It amplifies and clears the energy of the other stones while bringing peace, clarity, and stability to the whole structure.

A spine matters.

Especially in a doll built to hold focus.

Rose Essential Oil

Rose essential oil adds emotional balance and heart-centered support. It aligns with the calming qualities of chrysocolla and the empowering presence of Tiger’s Eye, bringing comfort, protection, and steadiness to the doll’s intention.

These elements are symbolic and sensory supports. They are not medical treatment. They are not promises. They are part of the doll’s language.

Susanna’s work is to stand as a physical anchor for strength, clarity, protection, and emotional steadiness.

The Seeker’s work is to keep showing up.

Custom Doll Orders

If you want a custom You-Do-You Voodoo™ art doll, order early.

Each doll is made by hand with deliberate compositional elements chosen around the Seeker’s intention. These are not mass-produced objects. They take time, focus, and a certain amount of muttering at materials until they agree to behave.

A custom doll may support work around protection, boundary-setting, confidence, grief, self-reclamation, Shadow collaboration, creative fire, survival, voice, or personal power.

The doll holds focus.

You do the work.

That’s All for Now

Thank you for reading the first edition of the Shadow Seekers’ Dispatch.

This is the threshold.

Not the whole map.
Not the final answer.
Just the first key in your hand.

Follow @kelliejoart on Pinterest for new work, Dispatch updates, and whatever else crawls out of the studio with enough meaning to earn a name.

Until next time,

Kellie Jo Close
Artist & Author
Transforms Shadows into Light
https://kelliejoart.com | https://linktr.ee/kelliejoart

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