I’m excited to share that I am releasing The Light Work Journal today! I want to welcome you to this next evolution of inner work.

While Shadow work is the process of uncovering your wounds, hidden traits, and blind spots, Light Work helps you move out of the ‘gray area’, from the liminal space of healing into balanced, inspired living.

After years of working with the shadow, sharing The Shadow Work Journal that organically reached millions, and listening closely to what people were struggling with, a pattern emerged. One essential piece of the practice was missing. I saw that sometimes awareness alone is not enough for transformation. People can still feel drained, stuck, and caught in the same cycles. Shadow needs balance. Light Work restores and grounds your energy, moving you into real inner evolution and forward momentum. My journey into Light Work began after a period of deep inner work, when a house fire uprooted my life and reflected the state of my inner world. I had done the digging, faced what needed to be faced. But there comes a point when you stop searching the ashes and begin planting something new: belief, hope, and the life and person you’re willing to grow into.

If you want to go deeper into this practice and how the book came to life, I shared more in an interview on Passion Struck with John Miles.

Real transformation happens when you learn how to show up and reclaim your most vital inner resource: your energy.

This journal is not a traditional notebook or workbook. It is a structured practice I spent years developing and refining, designed to support your transformation. It includes prompts, exercises, and scannable bonus content that lets you listen to deeply immersive meditations and music. Together, these modalities hold and guide you out of stuckness and into light.

After completing The Light Work Journal, you will be able to:

– Reclaim your gift and talents
– Navigate life with a clearer sense of self, direction, and grounded confidence
– Recognize where your energy is being drained and consciously reclaim it
– Live from alignment rather than internal conflict

If you meet this work with honesty and commitment, your life will transform in unimaginable ways.

Welcome to the next phase of your journey. Welcome to Light Work.

→ The Light Work Journal

Shine on, little star,

Keila Shaheen

🖤 Thanks for reading Shadow Work to Expand Awareness: a space where inner work meets the outer world through shared prompts, writings, and livestream conversations with Dr. Connie Zweig, Ph.D and Keila Shaheen.

The other side could be:

• Entering a new phase, career, or relationship in your life.

• Carrying yourself with a new energy that serves you more fully.

• Letting go of archetypal patterns that you’ve grown, integrated, and shed.

• A change of lifestyle that honors your well-being.

Your inner work is doing its job when it moves you closer to understanding, growth, and wholeness…not when it keeps you circling the same pain, rehearsing the same patterns, or identifying with the same wounds.

It might very well be the feeling of coming back to yourself. The relief of remembering, “Ah, this is who I am.” It is knowing how to stay connected to Self while honoring the contractions and expansions that cramp your soul as you evolve in life.

Meet your light self with this guided visualization meditation.

One of the most common reasons people feel stuck in cycles of self-work is that, over time, they begin to organize their world around their wounds. This can be draining and disorienting, not only for you but also for the people around you.

The beauty of healing is that we can choose to change in response to the information that comes up for us during the process. However, when they become the only lens you use to relate to yourself, you narrow.

Your sense of self becomes rooted in what is unresolved.

When Awareness Turns Into Attachment

Healing requires awareness, but awareness without integration can turn into attachment. The mind starts to build familiarity around:

• Your wounds

• Your emotional patterns

• Your past experiences

Familiarity feels safe, even when it’s painful. So instead of healing being something you move through, it becomes something you stay inside of. This is where many people unknowingly get stuck.

The Role of the Nervous System

From a psychological and physiological perspective, this makes sense. If your system has been conditioned by stress, emotional intensity, or unpredictability, it learns to associate those states with normal.

When you begin to experience calm, peace, ease, and joy…your system may not immediately register them as safe.

Instead, it may:

• Look for what’s wrong

• Anticipate disruption

• Minimize the experience

• Or pull you back into familiar patterns

This is why people can do deep healing work and still feel uncomfortable in moments of joy and happiness.

The Missing Half of Healing

There is another half of the work that is often overlooked. It involves learning how to experience what is good and grounding.

Like:

• Sit in peace without needing to analyze everything

• Feel joy without waiting for it to end

• Receive love without questioning it

• Allow ease without believing it has to be earned

It is the practice of becoming available for an expansive, whole, and even spiritual internal experience.

Light Work as a form of living in this integration

This is where Light Work begins, and invites you to explore:

• Who am I when I’m enriched in life?

• What does it feel like to be at ease in my own skin?

• Can I experience wholeness without needing to earn it through struggle?

Learn how to practice and explore this in The Light Work Journal.

— THE LIGHT WORK JOURNAL

Get closer to your Self and try these meditations:

1. Meet Your Light Self Meditation

2. Integrate Your Light Self Meditation

Light Work Is the Balance

Healing begins with awareness, and the goal is to alchemize fear/pain into wisdom/embodied change through integration and light work.

With love,

Keila Shaheen

🖤 Thanks for reading Shadow Work to Expand Awareness: a space where inner work meets the outer world through shared prompts, writings, and livestream conversations with Dr. Connie Zweig, Ph.D and Keila Shaheen.

Go Deeper into Light & Shadow Work:

WATCH 7 SIGNS YOU ARE A LIGHT WORKER HERE

IT’S TIME TO GET YOUR SPARK BACK. WATCH HERE

UNDERSTAND THE BASICS OF LIGHT WORK HERE.

THIS IS WHAT LIGHT LED LIVING LOOKS LIKE

TALK TO YOUR INNER SHADOW WITH THIS FREE GUIDED EXERCISE

REFLECT ON THE WAR WITHIN

CLAIM YOUR SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

DON’T STAY STUCK IN YOUR HEALING

Connect with me and Practice:

Download the Zenfulnote App

Youtube Channel

Instagram

TikTok

www.keilashaheen.com (free meditations available here)

Join the Conversation!
Be part of our Substack community chat for ongoing discussions, Q&As, and shared insights.

Support our work:
– Get the Zenfulnote App to make inner work part of your daily life.
– Keila’s books: The Shadow Work Journal, The Lucky Girl Journal, The 369 Journal, The Book of Shadow Work, The Light Work Journal (NEW! pre-order).
– Dr. Connie’s books: Meeting the Shadow, Romancing the Shadow, Meeting the Shadow on the Spiritual Path, The Inner Work of Age.
– Keila’s website: www.keilashaheen.com (free meditations available here!).

If you have heard of shadow work and practiced that, but can’t find any information on how to do light work, this article offers tips and guidance on how.

Light work is a way to engage with the contents and dynamics of your internal world that honors the part of your Self that meets the world (your ego, persona, and true self). This is achieved through practices and exercises that expand your light-self awareness, and through intentional, inspired actions.

Light work is important because it allows you to balance the polarity of your being. The shadow is an infinite ocean of unconscious depth. If you don’t pay attention, it can pull you into a vortex. If your ego is underdeveloped, shadow work can be dangerous.

Meet Your Light Self

Spotting your light self often begins with noticing the moments, patterns, and qualities that reveal your innate brilliance and strength. Here are five steps to help you identify and celebrate the aspects of yourself where your light shines:

1. Recognize moments of flow & joy! These moments of flow often signal that you are aligned with your inner light. They reflect the unique ways you naturally excel and express your authentic self.

2. Observe positive feedback from people! The qualities that others admire are windows into your inner light.

3. Notice where you leave a positive impact! Reflect on situations where your actions consistently uplift or inspire those around you.

4. Tap into your passions! Your passions reveal how your energy transforms into tangible expressions of beauty and innovation.

You begin light work with observation first. In The Light Work Journal, a complete guide on practicing Light Work, you are given this Scale of Awareness for this purpose. (see below)

Many of us are living in the gray, not quite in shadow, but not fully in light either. This scale shows a spectrum that moves from Shadow (the states that fragment us), through Gray (the states where we’re disconnected or uncertain), into Light (the states that reflect our energy, clarity, and deeper self). The fifteen emotions on The Scale of Awareness are here to help you locate yourself, give your inner world language, show you when something needs to be held and explored (shadow work), and when something’s ready to shift and expand (light work).

In this way, you can see how shadow work is light work, and light work is shadow work. Your Light = your consciousness/True Self.

In nature, light illuminates the shadow. The same goes for the nature within our being.

Use The Scale of Awareness as a tool (a kind of inner compass). By locating where you currently are on the scale, you become more aware of how your emotional state is shaping your perception, behavior, and energy. This awareness helps you consciously choose how you want to respond to life, rather than unconsciously reacting from old patterns.

A light work practice can be journaling, reflection, nervous system regulation, harnessing and expressing your talents and gifts, and becoming of service to your loved ones and community. All of which are exercises included in The Light Work journal.

You can practice lightwork by dissolving dense/stagnant emotions, or alchemizing your pain into something rich and golden.

Light work is also radiating and directing your light onto people, projects, or things.

This practice expands your energy, helps you radiate at a higher state of consciousness, and stabilizes your internal state. You become less reactive, clearer, confident, and more intentional in how you move through your life.

Your relationships improve because you communicate with greater awareness. Your decisions become more aligned because they are not driven solely by emotion or conditioning. Your energy becomes more consistent because you are no longer in a constant state of reaction. You become a magnet to aligned opportunities, and set a positive example that inspires those around you.

Light workers know how to shine their light best: whether it’s through the way they show love to others, through acts of service in their community, through sharing their wisdom, or through being an inspiration to those around them. Because of this, their light is contagious. They know how to brighten a room’s mood or hold space for someone in distress and pain. Here are 7 signs you are a lightworker.

A Simple Framework for Practicing Light Work

Step 1: Observe Without Reacting
Begin by noticing your thoughts, emotions, and behaviors in real time.
Take a mental step back and simply observe what is happening. Is something asking to be held and understood? (shadow work) Or shifted and expanded? (light work). Use the Scale of Awareness.

Step 2: Regulate, Ground, & Protect your Energy
When you move from a state of wholeness and groundedness, you are protecting yourself and your energy. Take a few slow breaths, relax your body, and allow your nervous system to settle.
Regulation creates the clarity needed for intentional action. Use the exercises found in The Light Work Journal for examples.

Step 3: Choose a Conscious Response
Once you have expanded your awareness, decide on the best way to respond to life.
This may look like changing your tone when speaking, setting a boundary for yourself, offering your love, or making time for a soul-fuelling activity.

Step 4: Repeat Consistently
Your light builds with momentum. Small moments of awareness, practiced consistently, create lasting change over time.

Start your light work journey here with The Light Work Journal.

World peace,

Keila Shaheen

🖤 Thanks for reading Shadow Work to Expand Awareness: a space where inner work meets the outer world through shared prompts, writings, and livestream conversations with Dr. Connie Zweig, Ph.D and Keila Shaheen.

Go Deeper into Light & Shadow Work:

WATCH 7 SIGNS YOU ARE A LIGHT WORKER HERE

IT’S TIME TO GET YOUR SPARK BACK. WATCH HERE

UNDERSTAND THE BASICS OF LIGHT WORK HERE.

THIS IS WHAT LIGHT LED LIVING LOOKS LIKE

TALK TO YOUR INNER SHADOW WITH THIS FREE GUIDED EXERCISE

REFLECT ON THE WAR WITHIN

CLAIM YOUR SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

DON’T STAY STUCK IN YOUR HEALING

Connect with me and Practice:

Download the Zenfulnote App

Youtube Channel

Instagram

TikTok

www.keilashaheen.com (free meditations available here)

Join the Conversation!
Be part of our Substack community chat for ongoing discussions, Q&As, and shared insights.

The word “Light” traces back to the Proto-Indo-European root *leuk-, which means “light, brightness, to shine.”

Light workers honor their light and spread it to others.

Light workers bring ease to others, let go of anger, practice mindfulness, and are kind and grateful people.

Light workers know how to shine their light best: whether it’s through the way they show love to others, through acts of service in their community, through sharing their wisdom, or through being an inspiration to those around them.

Because of this, their light is contagious. They know how to brighten a room's mood or hold space for someone in distress and pain. Here are 7 signs you are a lightworker.

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I can recognize many light workers in my life, even if they don’t necessarily call themselves a “light worker”. I know they are light workers because after I spend time with them, I feel motivated, energized, and renewed in my sense of purpose. It’s not like they try to do this; it’s a natural consequence of how they carry themselves. And we need more people to embody this, or else the echo chamber of darkness will only grow larger and denser. This is why I created The Light Work Journal, which is one of the few resources on light work to date. Light work offers an important step in navigating uncertainty and forging a path back to your highest self. It is rooted in psychological frameworks such as Carl Jung’s concept of individuation. This journal guides you in illuminating your gifts and strengths, identifying what energizes and inspires you, and taking actions that create positive change in the world.

Although light work emphasizes light, it is not to be mistaken for an attempt to avoid discomfort or pain altogether. It requires an honest willingness to understand the dynamics at play in your inner world, including both the parts that feel unfamiliar or unresolved (your shadow parts), and the parts that are familiar and conscious (your light parts). It is through this holistic understanding that personal growth and development become a sustainable and natural part of your waking life.

A light worker is not someone who avoids the shadow, but someone who engages with it directly and integrates it so it does not hold power over them. (Read / watch experts Dr. Connie Zweig and Keila Shaheen explain shadow work). Light workers understand how to either dissolve dense emotions or transform them into something meaningful. They know how to work with their shadow, move forward in life, close loops and patterns, and use the wisdom they have gained as a lesson and as important substance to incorporate into their life projects, work, relationships, and community. A light worker takes responsibility for their internal state of being. They know the power that their internal energies hold: a power to destroy or create. They know how to create meaning with the knowledge and awareness they have.

Light work starts internally, but its impact ripples externally.

In practice, it looks like:

1. Putting your unique gifts and strengths into practice

2. Setting boundaries that honor your needs

3. Offering new, refreshing perspectives and inspiration to those around you

4. Regulating your nervous system through practices that you know will expand your light energy

5. Taking actions that are inspired and fueled by your good intentions

All of these things help a light worker protect and expand their energy.

If you don’t learn how to activate your light on your own, you’ll end up attaching the external things to feel energized: people, goals, and validation. And what happens when those things go away? You end up feeling anxious, worried, and empty. Light workers focus on harnessing and mastering their own energy.

Anyone can be a light worker. This term is not limited to a spiritualist or “enlightened” figure. Everyone holds light in their soul. Everyone can access that light in their soul. It is up to you to become conscious of this and use this awareness to harness and apply the powers of light work into your life.

As you develop this awareness, your behavior begins to shift naturally. You communicate more clearly and confidently, make more empowered decisions, and operate with flow and ease.

The result is alignment with your highest self. A steadier internal state that allows you to navigate life with intention, clarity, and strength (rather than reactivity and fear).

That is what it means to be a light worker.

World peace,

Keila Shaheen

🖤 Thanks for reading Shadow Work to Expand Awareness: a space where inner work meets the outer world through shared prompts, writings, and livestream conversations with Dr. Connie Zweig, Ph.D and Keila Shaheen.

Join the Conversation!

Join our Substack community chat for ongoing discussions, Q&As, and shared insights.

Support our work:
– Get the Zenfulnote App to make inner-work part of your daily life
– Keila’s books: The Shadow Work Journal · The Lucky Girl Journal · The 369 Journal · The Book of Shadow Work · The Light Work Journal NEW! pre-order
– Dr. Connie’s books: Meeting the Shadow · Romancing the Shadow · Meeting the Shadow on the Spiritual Path · The Inner Work of Age

– Keila’s website: www.keilashaheen.com

We are living in a time where the world is speaking in shadows. You can feel darkness and density shapeshifting every day into yet another new story or headline. In a way, it’s a really big opportunity for you to understand the collective unconscious and what lurks within it. The things that used to stay hidden, buried beneath systems, identities, and distractions, are rising into your view. What do you see? It’s all so loud and disorienting: the news, your feed, in conversations that feel heavier than they used to. It’s not normal for us to hold this much tension in our psyches and bodies. Sitting in meetings, answering emails, making plans while knowing that somewhere, someone is unsafe. That families are being separated. The people you love could be called into situations you can’t control.

Too much pain, too much struggle, too much heartache!

Do you know what’s happening to the world? Does anyone, really?

Carl Jung (1968) wrote in Psychology and Alchemy:

What we’re witnessing right now feels like this quote’s explanation of how it feels to interact with the collective unconscious. This is the panic fear spreading among civilized people.

And this means you are not just observing and feeling the chaos. You are inside of it, influencing it, whether you are aware of it or not.

So here’s an honest question: how do you live well, and consciously, in the middle of this?

When awareness alone doesn’t feel like enough, what can you do?

At least this is what I have been asking myself, without self-guilt or shame. Just honesty.

What is our social responsibility right now?

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I think the answer nods to what C.G Jung explored on psychological alchemy. Alchemy is about engaging with the unconscious in a way that changes its form. To be an alchemist is to be someone who understands how to conduct this transformation.

Alchemists use heat to melt, distill, and mold.

When something psychological and emotional is alchemized, the fragments unite, and the psyche is whole and healed.

Right now, you can alchemize through your craft through what you make or do in life, what you imagine, and how you bring the spirit of light and heat within you into external form.

So picture this: the world is tainted in heavy lead. Dense, tense, hard to move through like molasses. Some of us are caught in it, not by choice but by circumstance. Then there are others in the middle of it, confused too, but choosing to move differently. They bring in light through their words, their presence, and the way they respond. They use their imagination to envision a healed world. They share their positive ideas with those around them. They leverage their talents and craft to serve others in humility.

The lead begins to soften and warm. It becomes something workable, something closer to gold.

You see it in small, real ways. Someone leaves a conversation a little more open. Someone chooses curiosity over defensiveness. You share art from another part of the world, expanding your lens. You pause during a tense moment and stay grounded rather than reacting.

YOUR LIGHT IS YOUR ENERGY. YOU CAN CHANNEL IT IN THE WAY YOU SHOW UP, THE WORDS YOU CHOOSE TO RESPOND WITH, THE LOVE YOU CONSCIOUSLY CHOOSE TO SHARE.

In a time where so much unconscious material is circulating: fear, division, projection, reactivity, there is a real impact in choosing to move with awareness instead of contributing more of the same, endless echo chamber of darkness.

The world doesn’t just need more information or more opinions right now. There is enough of it. It needs people who are grounded enough not to amplify chaos, who can stay present in uncomfortable conversations, and who can take responsibility for their own emotional state rather than pass it along. Who can share a powerful statement of affirmation and hope when it’s needed. Who can take actions that contribute positively to humanity.

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Unprocessed pain spreads quickly, often without being recognized for what it is. It is poison.

The same is true for clarity, care, and love. It is medicine.

If you’re reading this, it’s your sign to start spreading light.

Begin by asking yourself these questions:

• Where am I being pulled into reactivity instead of staying aware?

• What would it look like for me to share my light in the world?

• What strengths and gifts do I have that I can use to contribute positively to my community?

• Who around me might need more support than they’re expressing?

A moment of presence and an act of loving service can change how someone behaves and how they perceive the rest of their day.

You don’t have to fix the world to participate in changing it. You participate by becoming more conscious within it.

I created The Light Work Journal for this exact mission. So you can learn how to master your most precious inner resource: your energy (your light), and use it to transform yourself and the world around you. In the Light Work Journal, you’ll find more educational resources on working with your light, exercises, prompts, and worksheets to put this into practice. We need this now more than ever.

If you’ve been feeling more reactive lately, more emotionally charged, more sensitive to things you thought you had already worked through, know that the external world has a way of activating what is unresolved internally. This is where shadow work becomes helpful. It gives you a way to understand what’s being stirred up within you instead of letting it spill out into more unconscious muck. If you need a place to start, you can explore that through The Shadow Work Journal.

With light,

Keila Shaheen

Examples:

• How to push through a tense moment.

• How to wear a persona mask at a social event

• How to find safety in vulnerable moments.

These are patterns your nervous system created to protect you, and this is where the practices of Shadow Work and Light Work begin to take place.

Before we begin, it’s important to know that there has been a massive decline in accessible mental health resources around the world. That’s one of the reasons we’re so committed to creating more content on depth psychology and self-help tools that help people understand themselves more deeply. Thank you for your awareness, and thanks for being here. Now let’s begin!

Shadow Work helps you notice the patterns, reactions, emotions, and impulses that run automatically in the background, without your full attention.

Light Work helps you learn how to live and thrive again once you have met your shadows and become a source of light for those around you.

Without Shadow Work, these buried patterns and triggers stay hidden and run the show. And Without Light Work, your gifts, wisdom, and light will remain dim.

For true healing and personal growth, development, and individuation, you need both. To evolve and grow into a higher, more expansive version of yourself, you must understand your shadows and integrate them into your light. Shadow Work and Light Work are two sides of the same coin.

We are living in a time where awareness of the world’s shadows is everywhere, yet far fewer people are willing to step forward and become a source of light. The courage to create, lead, and bring goodness into a fractured world matters now more than ever because healing alone cannot repair the future. Only conscious action can.

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WHAT THE SHADOW REALLY IS…

Let’s review the nature of shadows. When we speak of shadows, we are not talking about something abstract, mystical, or make-believe. We are talking about the recurring inner parts of ourselves we all carry: the tones, reactions, and energies that show up in unpredictable ways. Your Shadows live in the dark corners of your mind and personality. They represent everything you had to hide in order to feel like you belong in your family, friend groups, community, and society.

The shadow mentality is: “If I show this, I lose love.”

The shadow is the anger that takes over. The shadow is the bad habit that feeds your avoidance. The part that feels the need to please others, or the desires and passions that didn’t make sense to anyone else.

You have many of these areas of internal tension within you, and it’s a natural part of being human.

They live under the surface…but nothing under the surface disappears. It waits and thrives in its own shadowy way, often showing up in the most inconvenient moments.

Shadow Work begins the moment you stop suppressing, and you start digging with compassion and understanding.

This is where the focus shifts from self-criticism and self-sabotage into self-compassion and relationship. True growth and healing happen here.

HOW THE SHADOW SPEAKS

Your shadow doesn’t communicate in words or language. It speaks in your reactions, not your intentions. So pay attention to these primary examples:

1. Triggers
2. Patterns
3. Attraction
4. Avoidance
4. Cycles

Use The Shadow Work Journal to start tracking and navigating your shadows.

Shadow Work requires sitting in these moments of discomfort. Noticing them, naming them, and asking the voices behind them questions. Through this process, integration happens. You know when your shadow is integrated when you notice yourself becoming less triggered by scenarios that would trigger you before. You’re calmer and hold greater capacity for understanding and perspective, which gives you more control over previously heightened situations. This is why your shadows are valuable tools to leverage in your life, to eliminate blind spots, and to finally illuminate a path towards your Light, which we will discuss below.

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU ONLY LIVE IN THE SHADOW?

Psychological work requires bringing shadow material into awareness, but don’t get too caught up in the ongoing search for your shadows. Know when it’s time to bring in the light. Let’s unpack this together.

Prolonged focus on the unconscious shadows living within carries some risk.

One example is when a person creates an identity around their trauma or pain. This enables them to find comfort in their victimhood and further anchors them. Shadows are meant to be seen, understood, and then alchemized. Psychological alchemy happens when a person shifts the energy of their shadow. For example, when a person recognizes that their anger is buried grief or stems from unmet needs, they may stop reacting outwardly and choose to set healthy boundaries.

Shadow insight alone does not produce psychological growth. Integration must take place.

This is where the Light Work practice begins.

KNOWING YOUR LIGHT

Across psychology, mythology, and spiritual traditions, Light has never simply meant positivity. In psychology, light represents consciousness. In mythology, it represents return. So, in the process of alchemizing your shadows, your light represents integration: the gold that emerges with the shadow work.

Light isn’t about being blind to the darkness either, but orienting yourself amongst it.

Use The Light Work Journal to start harnessing your energy and illuminating your light in the world.

Your light is your energy source. This comes with your ability to choose and direct your willpower. It’s your greatest resource in life. Without it, you can become drained, unmotivated, and stuck. It’s important to learn how to channel your light, especially after you’ve seen your shadows clearly. It is also important to spread your light, especially in a world that is dominated by shadows.

Your light is the part of you that can hold what you find in the dark without becoming it. Light Work begins when awareness becomes embodied and lived…

Light work takes courage and strength. It is incredibly rewarding and energizing when practiced regularly.

Light Work feels like:

• Self-trust and belief

• Discernment

• Boundaries that don’t need explanation

• Reaching a state of flow

The effects of integrated light are magnetic. When in states of deep trust and flow, prepare for people to take notice and for your world to shift.

You’ll nail a job interview. Leave a lasting impression on someone.

Or land the promotion you’ve been working toward.

You’ll stop second-guessing yourself.

Relationships with loved ones become stronger.

You walk into a room and feel so comfortable in your own skin.

In business, you attract new clients or collaborators who align with your values.

You decide to be in a relationship that honors your needs.

You’ll stay grounded in your worth and unshakable in your self

This work is about returning to the most powerful version of yourself, again and again. Shadow Work and Light Work together pave the way to wholeness.

Start by asking:
What part of me is speaking right now?
What does it need?
And who do I choose to be in response?

The answer holds a golden bridge between shadow and light.

These practices can be self-guided, done with a friend or partner, or with the support of a therapist or Jungian analyst. There are many tools that can support your journey toward wholeness and growth.

Never in history have we been so aware of humanity’s shadows from division, distraction, and disconnection. The courage to create, lead, and bring light into a fractured world matters now more than ever because awareness without responsibility leaves the world exactly as it is. If you want to support me and this work, order The Light Work Journal here. It means more than you know <3

If this information is resonating with you, explore the best-selling books that have changed millions of lives: The Shadow Work Journal and The Light Work Journal. We also recommend you download The Zenfulnote app for a digital resource that you can access at any time. See the links below for these powerful tools, and subscribe to our free Substack channel for live q/a’s, webinars with me and Dr. Connie Zweig.

Subscribe now

Your shadow wants to be seen, and your light deserves to be lived.

With love,

Keila Shaheen

Like everyone else in America, I’ve been inspired by Alysa Liu. An Olympic and World Champion figure skater, she has become a cultural embodiment that reminds us: excellence does not have to be fueled by fear, but anchored in joy. She is a great example of what happens when you let joy be your internal compass, guiding how you move, speak, create, respond, and even compete.

When fear leads, everything tightens and contracts within and outside us. Your decisions come from a defensive position, and your identity becomes performative. You spend your energy on managing perception. But when JOY leads, something relaxes and strengthens at the same time. There is clarity without the pressures of the rigidity of being “correct”. Alysa Liu is an example of light-led living.

This is one of the main foundations of a Light Work practice. Tap into your inner light and joy with The Light Work Journal.

“I can resist the pressure to perform, and prioritize joy, playfulness and creativity” — Alysa Liu

The word joy comes from the Old French joie, which came from Latin gaudia, meaning rejoicing, delight, gladness, pleasure.

The deeper Latin root is the verb gaudēre, meaning to rejoice, to be glad, to take pleasure in.

What’s interesting is that joy is not originally about fleeting happiness, which many of us seem to understand it to be. The roots of the word joy carry a sense of inward gladness. It’s more settled and interior.

Joy is a way of flowing through effort. It is not something you earn after proving yourself. It is something you allow when you stop performing.

Watching Alysa Liu all over my feed recently, I began to remember this inside myself, as millions of people online are, watching and commenting things like “Everything she has done is beyond perfect for the world to see true resilience and authenticity,” and “Opening new doors for athletes and humanity.” It’s a deep recognition that I see as a beam of hope in our twisted world.

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It’s important to remember that people like Alysa are idolized not because they are rare unicorns, but because they reflect something true in each one of us who admire them. The masses are simply projecting their own potential for joy, confidence, and radiant expression. And it’s exciting. The collective projection reveals what we long to inhabit in our society today: confidence, vitality, sincerity, and light.

For her, joy expresses itself through figure skating. For you, it may look entirely different. It might show up in how you build a business, host a gathering, solve a problem, design a space, parent a child, or how you move through your day. Joy does not require a stage or an ice rink.

Joy is a state of being in which your internal energy is full and teeming with light. Because it’s so full and active, it naturally flows outward, reaching and touching those around you who witness its shimmering beauty.

Who are you when you are living in joy? Close your eyes and remember. Leave a comment.

Writing it down helps solidify this image for yourself and reminds others of their own state of joy.

Part of what makes Alysa Liu’s story so compelling is what she chose to do at the height of her success. After becoming one of the youngest champions in U.S. figure skating history, she stepped away from the sport at sixteen to live a more ordinary life. At an age when most athletes are tightening their grip, she loosened hers.

When she eventually returned to the rink, it was not from pressure or unfinished business, but from desire. She told her coach she wanted to compete again, but this time on different terms. She would skate to music she actually loved, not the depressing piano pieces so often assigned. No one would starve her. No one would dictate what she was allowed to eat.

After a period of adversity, self-healing, or therapy, there comes a time when you feel ready to move on. The psyche yearns to express itself, not contain itself in introspection. It’s important to continue pouring into things that make you feel vital and alive. What Alysa Liu is exemplifying is the perfect representation of Light Work.

Light work is the disciplined cultivation of your strengths and energy source (your light). It is learning how to stabilize and ground your energy so that external chaos does not dictate your internal state. It is building a self-concept that’s not rooted in egoic inflation, but in grounded authenticity.

That is what we can clearly recognize in Alysa. She is not detached in the cold sense but in a lack of entanglement with the need to prove. In a recent CBS interview, when asked what her secret weapon was to block all the noise out, she responded:

“I protect my peace, really.”

“I hang out with my family and friends, they keep me grounded.”

“I say no, a lot.”

When you are living in your light and doing the light work, these are the outcomes:

• You’re comfortable with who you are.

• You respond genuinely, and people sense it.

• You prioritize protecting your peace and energy.

• You make others feel grounded and naturally inspire those around you.

• You are determined to show up fully and make a difference.

Alysa, thank you for working your light, your magic. Thank you for reminding us that even in today’s confusing world, we can choose to show up with courage, determination, and authenticity.

If any of this resonates with you, consider who you are when you follow your joy.

Close your eyes and imagine that version of yourself in detail. How do you move? How do you speak? Where in your body do you feel it? Share with me what that looks like in the comments :)

That still lives inside of you, and you can tap into it at any time. Start doing Light Work practices to cultivate it in your life and allow joy to become the axis around which your life turns.

.𖥔 ݁With joy.𖥔 ݁

Keila Shaheen

Before setting intentions for 2026, Dr. Connie and I encourage you to meet the part of you that keeps rewriting the ending. This time of year comes with a lot of pressure to jump forward, name your goals, and imagine a version of yourself that feels cleaner, more disciplined, more together than the one who made it through last year. But you don’t enter the new year alone. Your shadow will trail behind you. And if that shadow isn’t conscious, it will quietly sabotage everything you try to build.

In our latest conversation, Dr. Connie guides us through two exercises for meeting a shadow character: one through drawing and the other through dialogue. I didn’t expect what emerged when I followed the exercise, and I share that experience openly in the video. You’re welcome to watch and try the process for yourself.

What we mean by “shadow character”

When Dr. Connie and I talk about shadow characters, we are not talking about something abstract, mystical, or make-believe. We are talking about the recurring inner parts of ourselves we all carry: the tones, reactions, and energies that show up in predictable ways.

For example:

• The inner critic.

• The part that withdraws.

• The part that overexplains.

• The part that floods, distracts, avoids, or dominates.

• The part that people pleases.

• The part that escapes or avoids.

We usually don’t recognize these as parts. We just think, this is how I am, or this is just my mood.

But when you slow down and actually listen, you realize these patterns have voices. They have needs and histories.

Making the shadow conscious changes everything!

The goal is not to erase these parts, but to bring them into your conscious awareness.

Because once a shadow character is seen, once it’s given form, language, and attention, it loses its grip. It no longer needs to hijack your behavior just to be heard. You stop being unconsciously possessed by it, and you gain choice.

This is where the focus shifts from self-criticism to self-relationship.

A different way to begin the year

Before asking What do I want to change this year?
I encourage you to first answer something else:

What part of me keeps showing up, and what does it need?

When you approach the New Year this way, the work becomes less about forcing yourself into a new identity and more about integrating the parts that have been left out.

Sometimes meeting a shadow means opening yourself up to vulnerability. And although you might think you know what to expect when that happens, your shadow will surprise you with new insights every time. Try the Meet Your Shadow exercise guided by Dr. Connie to find out for yourself.

This is your reminder to bring the whole of you into the year, so no part has to shout to be heard.

With love,

Keila & Dr. Connie

🖤 Thanks for reading Shadow Work to Expand Awareness: a space where inner work meets the outer world through shared prompts, writings, and livestream conversations with Dr. Connie Zweig, Ph.D and Keila Shaheen.

Support our work:
– Get the Zenfulnote App to make inner-work part of your daily life
– Keila’s books: The Shadow Work Journal · The Lucky Girl Journal · The 369 Journal · The Book of Shadow Work · The Light Work Journal NEW! pre-order
– Dr. Connie’s books: Meeting the Shadow · Romancing the Shadow · Meeting the Shadow on the Spiritual Path · The Inner Work of Age

Join the Conversation!

Join our Substack community chat for ongoing discussions, Q&As, and shared insights.

This interactive presentation by Dr. Connie Zweig examines how the unconscious mind can erupt internally and sabotage our conscious intentions in daily life. It also explores how it erupts interpersonally, sabotaging our relationships through repetitive arguments, criticism, distancing, projections, addictions, and life transitions. Dr. Connie explains why shadow formation occurs in childhood and how to recognize it when it emerges later in life. In this free webinar, she teaches how to use this practice to make a conscious relationship with it and unlock the power to choose different outcomes. She explores three examples in depth, including times for self-reflection to do your shadow-work.

Watch the webinar and follow along! Share your thoughts with us in our community chat below.

With gratitude,

Connie & Keila

🖤 Thanks for reading Shadow Work to Expand Awareness: a space where inner work meets the outer world through shared prompts, writings, and livestream conversations with Dr. Connie Zweig, Ph.D and Keila Shaheen.

Support our work:
– Get the Zenfulnote App to make inner-work part of your daily life
– Keila’s books: The Shadow Work Journal · The Lucky Girl Journal · The 369 Journal · The Book of Shadow Work · The Light Work Journal NEW! pre-order
– Dr. Connie’s books: Meeting the Shadow · Romancing the Shadow · Meeting the Shadow on the Spiritual Path · The Inner Work of Age

Our careers shape our identities, determine our rhythms, and sometimes even define our self-worth. Yet, in the same space where we seek validation and purpose, the shadow quietly dwells.

When Dr. Connie and I sat down for this week’s conversation, we explored what happens when our work becomes an “adult playground for the shadow”, a space where hidden patterns of people-pleasing, control, avoidance, and approval-seeking play out behind polished LinkedIn profiles and meeting agendas.

Work draws our attention outward: deadlines, deliverables, the next raise, the next title. But while our focus stays external, our inner world is still quietly at play, forming reactions, suppressing emotions, replaying old dynamics.

As Dr. Connie shared, many of us were raised in families that transmitted certain values about success: be productive, be useful, be seen, be good. Those priorities often get passed down and embodied through our work. The question shadow work invites us to ask is:

“If that’s what’s being expressed, what’s being repressed?”

When we bury parts of ourselves to keep up, our rest, creativity, spirituality, or even our joy, we begin to trade vitality for validation.

The Corporate Persona

Just as families have personas (“the good Christian family,” “the progressive family,” “the elite family”), workplaces do too. Each organization creates a collective mask: a culture of performance, perfection, or positivity that hides its own shadow, competition, burnout, exploitation, or moral compromise.

And within that system, individuals also adapt. We suppress what doesn’t “fit.” We stay silent about what we see. We let our inner child seek approval from our boss the way we once sought it from a parent.

It’s not that we mean to. It’s just that the psyche repeats what’s unresolved.

When the Soul Grows Tired

I shared with Dr. Connie that my deeper journey into shadow work began at my first job. It was a creative tech company, a dream on paper. However, over time, I felt like a shadow of my former self. The work drained me. I doubted my competence. I was performing, but not fulfilled.

When I finally asked, “What am I sacrificing here?” I realized it wasn’t just energy…it was soul. I had lost touch with the parts of myself that once made me feel alive.

Bringing authenticity back into that space didn’t mean quitting immediately. It meant showing up differently: speaking honestly, softening expectations, and remembering who I was before the job title. Ironically, that’s when meaning began to return.

Shadow work in the workplace isn’t necessarily about escape. It’s about awareness.

When you feel the urge to overperform, notice the voice behind it. Is it the inner child trying to be loved? The inner tyrant demanding perfection?

When you want to set a boundary but can’t, ask who’s afraid to disappoint. When you feel drained, ask what part of you you’ve left behind.

Reflections to Take With You

If you’re curious to explore your own work shadows, here are a few prompts Dr. Connie and I invite you to sit with and respond in our community chat:

1. What parts of yourself do you leave at the door when you go to work?

2. What are you sacrificing to maintain your image or role?

3. What old family dynamics are being replayed with your boss, coworkers, or team?

4. What would it look like to bring more authenticity into your workspace?

5. What is your soul asking for through your fatigue, frustration, or restlessness?

With love,

Keila & Connie

🖤 Thanks for reading Shadow Work to Expand Awareness: a space where inner work meets the outer world through shared prompts, writings, and livestream conversations with Dr. Connie Zweig, Ph.D and Keila Shaheen.

Support our work:
– Get the Zenfulnote App to make inner-work part of your daily life
– Keila’s books: The Shadow Work Journal · The Lucky Girl Journal · The 369 Journal · The Book of Shadow Work · The Light Work Journal NEW! pre-order
– Dr. Connie’s books: Meeting the Shadow · Romancing the Shadow · Meeting the Shadow on the Spiritual Path · The Inner Work of Age

Join the Conversation!

Join our Substack community chat for ongoing discussions, Q&As, and shared insights.

Read that again, then ask yourself:

• Where has my attention been?

• Through what perspective am I seeing this?

• And what does that reveal about the needs of my soul?

Don’t rush to answer. Let these questions simmer and we’ll unpack them together in what follows below.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about how psychological perception, the way we interpret meaning, truth, and emotion, is a lot like adjusting a pair of binoculars. My husband and I bird-watch, and every time we pick up our binoculars, we have to re-focus. His settings never work for me, and mine never work for him. But when the image finally sharpens, when the blur gives way to clarity, we both gasp.

That moment, that “aesthetic gasp,” is what the Greeks called aesthesis: not just seeing, but taking in the world as something alive and meaningful. There is an instant when the soul meets the world and recognizes something sagacious in it.

The same thing happens inside of us. When our inner lenses are distorted, everything from our relationships, purpose, even our self-worth, appears foggy or fragmented. Inner work is how we bring those lenses back into focus.

It made me realize how much of life we live through someone else’s focus settings like cultural conditioning, collective expectations, algorithms…and how that blurs the image. It’s the difference between living in color and living in grayscale, or in pixels and fragments.

“Without the numinous and mysterious we can only think of the world as atomic particles, and the human being is reduced, by pragmatics of such.”

— McConeghey, H. Aesthetic Perception

When we allow ourselves to take in the world, with the truest and fullest vision we can set, it becomes sacred again. “Perception is a reflex like breathing, a sensitive repsonse that can change mere events into meaningful experiences by revealing their import.”— McConeghey, H. Aesthetic Perception.

Here is an opportunity to get a clear focus on your soul (inspired by bird-watching):

3 Steps to sharpen your insight and psychological perception ⇩

1. Find your focal point. What are you really looking for?

Psychologically, we’re all looking for something when we “see.” Some of us scan for danger, others for love, validation, or belonging. Becoming aware of what your psyche is searching for changes everything. Your focus can shift from day to day, so take note of your focus for the next week and adjust accordingly.

Try this: 1-3 hours into a new day, take a moment to ask yourself, What am I really looking for today? Safety? Approval? Understanding? The answer reveals where your inner gaze is directed, and where you might be unconsciously seeking clarity, understanding, or healing.

2. Adjusting your lens. What is shaping your perception?

Every experience we’ve had, or external influence that is not ours, leaves a subtle fingerprint on the way we interpret the world. The child who wasn’t heard grows into the adult who sees rejection everywhere. The perfectionist only notices what’s wrong. The headlines show you crisis. The list continues.

List the things that influence you most. Is it a close friend? A favorite news source? The algorithms curating your feed? Or maybe certain memories from the past?

To adjust your inner focus, start by reflecting or journaling on this: Are these influences bringing me clarity, or pulling me further from what I am looking for (the focal point you named in step one)? Then ask, What story am I telling myself about this?

Often, it isn’t the world that’s out of focus, it’s the filter through which we’re looking.

3. Chose how to interact with what you take in.

Once we’re aware of what we’re looking for and how we’re seeing, we get to choose how to meet the moment. This is the essential step of inner-work.

When you begin to see through the soul’s eyes, the world transforms. Colors come to life. Ordinary things shimmer with significance. You start to perceive not just what’s in front of you, but what it’s trying to show you.

This is where the mysterious beauty of life begins to reveal itself. The more you learn to notice and expand your experience of that beauty, the more you nourish and tend to your own spirit.

With love,

Keila Shaheen

🖤 Thanks for reading Shadow Work to Expand Awareness: a space where inner work meets the outer world through shared prompts, writings, and livestream conversations with Dr. Connie Zweig, Ph.D and Keila Shaheen.

Support our work:
– Get the Zenfulnote App to make inner-work part of your daily life
– Keila’s books: The Shadow Work Journal · The Lucky Girl Journal · The 369 Journal · The Book of Shadow Work · The Light Work Journal NEW! pre-order
– Dr. Connie’s books: Meeting the Shadow · Romancing the Shadow · Meeting the Shadow on the Spiritual Path · The Inner Work of Age

Join the Conversation!

Join our Substack community chat for ongoing discussions, Q&As, and shared insights. + find and save a special image of the prompts above so you can save it and share it with others!

Because there are a million manuals on how to survive the breakdown, but almost none on how to rebuild.

Peace can feel disorienting when you’ve spent years surviving storms. When you’ve been wrestling for months, maybe years, and the moment you finally unclench your fists, you look down and realize they’re empty.

And because shadow work is a lifelong act of awareness, many of us stay in the loop of what we call “our healing era.” We become so accustomed to excavating our wounds and over-identifying with them that we forget how to live beyond them.

So what happens in the aftermath?

I don’t think the aftermath sounds like: “I’m healed. I’m done. I’ve arrived on the other side.”

It sounds like: “I’m aware now. I have a greater understanding. The wisdom I’ve gained from my past makes me think and approach this differently. “

That’s where the process of Light Work begins. It’s the phase most of us miss, unfortunately. The tender middle ground where you’re not necessarily broken and confused anymore, but you’re not yet blooming. It’s the most fertile time for new beliefs, new ways of being, new energy.

If shadow work is where you meet your pain, Light Work is where you meet your potential.

If shadow work helps you face what’s unconscious, Light Work helps you embody your full truth, consciously.

They are two sides of the same coin: the descent and the return.

What is Light Work?

“Light work is a form of tending to your own energy. Your light is your energy source. It’s the force behind your breath, the motivation behind your animations and expressions, the boast in your laugh, the rawness in your eyes watching the clouds go by. The flex in your muscle when the thought arises in the midst of turmoil, “I am strong enough to overcome this.” Your light is your greatest gift. It’s what gives you life, purpose, motivation, inspiration, strength, hope. It’s what fuels your spirit.”

— “The Light Work Journal” Excerpt, Keila Shaheen

(unreleased, available to pre-order here only).

Light Work helps you:

• Activate your natural-born strengths and gifts

• Strengthen your emotional and energetic boundaries

• Reconnect with your sense of aliveness and creative purpose

• Generate and radiate your light from within

If this sounds like a path you want to illuminate in your life, be the first to receive a copy of The Light Work Journal HERE.

This is a new practice, and I know you’ll have questions about it. I want to know them all! Ask away in our community chat below, where Dr. Connie and I share prompts and answer direct q/a’s. Come as you are.

With Light ✨

Keila Shaheen

🖤 Thanks for reading Shadow Work to Expand Awareness: a space where inner work meets the outer world through shared prompts, writings, and livestream conversations with Dr. Connie Zweig, Ph.D and Keila Shaheen.

Support our work:
– Get the Zenfulnote App to make inner-work part of your daily life
– Keila’s books: The Shadow Work Journal · The Lucky Girl Journal · The 369 Journal · The Book of Shadow Work · The Light Work Journal NEW! pre-order
– Dr. Connie’s books: Meeting the Shadow · Romancing the Shadow · Meeting the Shadow on the Spiritual Path · The Inner Work of Age

– Keila’s website: www.keilashaheen.com

Join the Conversation!

Join our Substack community chat for ongoing discussions, Q&As, and shared insights. + find and save a special image of the prompts above so you can save it and share it with others!

“Technology is a useful servant but a dangerous master.” – Christian Lous Lange

What if, instead of hijacking our attention, technology became a bridge back to ourselves? What if our devices, which often serve as a source of noise and distraction from the self, could instead offer stillness, depth, and inner clarity?

This was the question at the heart of my recent conversation with Dr. Connie, where we explored the Zenfulnote App: the personal growth app I created to help people slow down, reflect, and meet themselves with compassion.

Today, I want to invite you into that conversation and into the world of Zenfulnote.

Born from Both Science and Soul

Many of the practices inside the app came directly from the collaboration between Dr. Connie’s decades of expertise in depth psychology and my own work as the author of The Shadow Work Journal. Together, we dreamed up the Shadow Characters Assessment and character breakdowns, which are tools that help you personify and explore the hidden aspects of yourself with curiosity instead of criticism.

In the app, you can find a charcuterie board-like array of tools and techniques, and decide what works best for you:

• Journal or voice record your thoughts with shadow work prompts expanded from The Shadow Work Journal.

• Check in with your emotions and receive personalized meditations, exercises, or journal prompts designed to meet you exactly where you are.

• Set a Zenlarm to wake up with inspiring affirmations or a meditation.

• Browse a feed of endless affirmations on themes ranging from self-love to resilience and confidence.

• Read articles from experts in psychology on shadow work, healing, and self-discovery.

• Explore meditations by Dr. Connie and other inspiring creators who bring both science and soul into their work.

Zenfulnote is a living library of practices designed to help you uncover your inner world.

Shadow Characters: Meeting the Hidden Parts of Ourselves

One of my favorite parts of the conversation with Dr. Connie was when we talked about Shadow Characters.

These are the inner parts of us, such as the Perfectionist, the Rebel, and the Escapist Artist, that sometimes take the wheel when life feels overwhelming. Inside Zenfulnote, you can track when these characters appear, learn their triggers, their protective masks, and, most importantly, their hidden gifts.

As Dr. Connie reminded me:

“Part of shadow work is to break your identification with those characters and come back to your true nature.”

Seeing these aspects as characters instead of flaws creates space for warmth, compassion, and healing. It turns inner work into a creative dialogue rather than a self-critique.

A Digital Home for Glimmers, Growth, and Gentle Awareness

During our talk, Dr. Connie asked me which feature I personally use the most. Without hesitation, I shared:

“The emotional check-ins. Especially tracking glimmers.”

Glimmers are those fleeting moments of joy, beauty, or inspiration we often overlook. Like butterflies, they’re easy to miss unless we intentionally catch them. Zenfulnote helps you gather them, reflect on them, and slowly rewire your brain toward gratitude and presence. I tracked a glimmer in our zoom interview so you can see an example of how it’s done!

Over time, users have told us these simple practices have become second nature. What begins inside the app slowly moves off the screen and into daily life, relationships, and moments of choice. That is the goal here.

An Invitation to Begin

If you’re curious, consider this your invitation.

Zenfulnote was designed to be as multi-dimensional as you are. A space for reflection, healing, learning, and growth. A place where technology finally slows down enough to meet you in the quiet.

You can download the app on the Apple App Store or Google Play Store, and explore the features. Access a free month with the link and code below.

Apple Free Month LINK HERE

Android code (paste in onboarding): Substack1Month

With Love,

Keila Shaheen & Dr. Connie Zweig

🖤 Thanks for reading Shadow Work to Expand Awareness: a space where inner work meets the outer world through shared prompts, writings, and livestream conversations with Dr. Connie Zweig, Ph.D and Keila Shaheen.

Support our work:
– Get the Zenfulnote App to make inner-work part of your daily life
– Keila’s books: The Shadow Work Journal · The Lucky Girl Journal · The 369 Journal · The Book of Shadow Work
– Dr. Connie’s books: Meeting the Shadow · Romancing the Shadow · Meeting the Shadow on the Spiritual Path · The Inner Work of Age

– Keila’s website: www.keilashaheen.com

Join the Conversation!

Join our Substack community chat for ongoing discussions, Q&As, and shared insights. + find and save a special image of the prompts above so you can save it and share it with others!

Scroll to the very bottom for 5 soul-stretching prompts to deepen your encounter with art, and the takeaway to carry with you.

Artistic expressions tend to organically weave themselves into being. A painting, a poem, a melody…each begins as thought, color, or sound, but harvests its intention into multiplicity and momentum until it becomes something entirely of its own, alive, breathing with its own essence and spirit. Then, it transcends its physical form, and those who truly see or hear what is alive in a work of art become part of its unfolding life, carrying forward the artist’s intention. From there, every intense gaze, every thought, every curiosity or contemplation cast upon the work keeps it alive, reshaping or reaffirming its meaning across time.

This is why particular works of art seem to outlive even the moment of their creation. Van Gogh’s Starry Night, for instance, once met with indifference and even dismissal, but now breathes in the minds of millions each year. Or think of Rumi’s poetry, penned in the thirteenth century, still rippling across time with a relevancy that feels so utterly present and connected. These works refuse to be fixed. They evolve as each generation brings its own questions, longings, and interpretations.

Personal Encounters with Art

When I think of encountering an expression of art, I return to the moments that have breathed new life into my own spirit. Yes, at first thought, the museums I have walked through hold extraordinary works, those pieces preserved and celebrated for centuries, and I deeply value them. However, upon digging deeper into my memories, I've found that my favorite encounters have often been those that were hiding in plain sight: works created by living artists whose genius might not be fully recognized until long after their lifetime.

One such artist I admire is Hania Rani, a remarkable musician whose performances feel like entering her stream of consciousness. In this video, Hania Rani – Live Performance, her music carries crystalline clarity and yearning, evoking a contemplative, almost otherworldly, and alien quality. It seems to rise from the deepest part of her being. You can tell that as she plays, she does so from a sense of urgency, and there is a factor in her own expression that dominates her whole being.

TAKE A LISTEN HERE <3

Listening to her, I’m reminded of other artists whose work evokes a similar sense, such as Nils Frahm, with his minimalist piano pieces that sound like the inside of someone’s memory; Agnes Martin, whose nearly silent canvases hum with meditative stillness; and Arvo Pärt, whose Spiegel im Spiegel stretches time itself. There’s something in the presence of such work that stops us, opens us, rearranges us internally.

Soul-Making Through Art

When I listen to Hania Rani’s sounds, over and over, I think of “soul-making” in action. As James Hillman suggests, soul-making is not limited to moments of beauty or pleasure but to experiences that deepen, complicate, and enrich our lives. Art, in this sense, invites us into those depths. I find it timeless, which gives it a new taste with each listen, and it has become part of what crafts my own soul.

Returning from the Depths

What strikes me most is when Hania comes “out” of a song, as if being spat back into her chair or into present awareness, emerging from something.

At this moment, “the return” is essential. It reminds me of what Carl Jung called the transcendent function: the way unconscious material rises, reshapes us, and then releases us back into the world, having changed us.

Art can serve as a bridge for this process, a medium through which something beyond language finds expression, is conceived through the vessel of our own beings, and released into the material world.

In The Archetypal Artist: Reimagining Creativity and the Call to Create, Maria Antonia Wood, Ph.D, notes what Joseph Campbell observed: “that artists, even while surrendering to inspiration, do not completely lose themselves in the experience. They return from their descents into the unconscious…sometimes called journeys into the spirit world — with boons of insight for the collective…” (Introduction, 3).

Joseph Campbell might call that moment of listening an experience of aesthetic arrest: when time falls away, the ordinary dissolves, and the work of art holds you completely. He draws from Aquinas’s ideas of integritas (wholeness), consonantia (harmony), and claritas (radiance). These qualities cause us to stop, be struck still, and experience the miraculous in the ordinary.

And maybe this is what art ultimately offers: not answers, not solutions, but a moment of contact with something larger than ourselves, and with that results a widening of the aperture of our soul.

5 Prompts to Enter the Life of Art…

1. When was the last time a work of art stopped you in your tracks? What did it evoke?

2. What piece of art, music, or writing has lived with you the longest, and how has its meaning changed over time?

3. If you could ask the artist of our universe one question, what would it be?

4. What does “aesthetic arrest” feel like in your body? Can you describe the moment when the world fell away and you were completely immersed in art?

5. If your life itself were a canvas, what colors and textures would this season of you hold?

The Takeaway :･༄

A thread to follow…

Every encounter with art is a return, a leaving behind of what we know, and a reemergence carrying what we didn’t expect. The work leaves its fingerprints on us, whether we notice them or not, and reminds us that to feel deeply is to live widely.

With love,

Keila Shaheen

Join the Conversation!

Join our Substack community chat for ongoing discussions, Q&As, and shared insights. + find and save a special image of the prompts above so you can save it and share it with others!

🖤 Thanks for reading Shadow Work to Expand Awareness: a space where inner work meets the outer world through shared prompts, writings, and livestream conversations with Dr. Connie Zweig, Ph.D and Keila Shaheen.

Support our work:
– Get the Zenfulnote App to make inner-work part of your daily life
– Keila’s books: The Shadow Work Journal · The Lucky Girl Journal · The 369 Journal · The Book of Shadow Work
– Dr. Connie’s books: Meeting the Shadow · Romancing the Shadow · Meeting the Shadow on the Spiritual Path · The Inner Work of Age

– Keila’s website: www.keilashaheen.com

It began with a call

Keila: How did this story first come to you?

Dr. Connie:
While I was immersed in reading Rumi’s verses, I had a series of dreams of a figure in a caftan and turban telling a story each night. I began to write it down.

Then a flyer arrived in the mail about a Rumi class. The teacher knew Farsi and took me to a bookstore to read Rumi’s biography in that language. It told the same story that was told in my dreams.

I knew then that I had to write a novel, but I had only written non-fiction. To prepare, I began to take fiction writing classes, study Sufism, and eventually went to see his home and school in Konya, Turkey. After eight years, A Moth to the Flame was published.

There was denial and resistance

Keila: What internal resistance showed up for you along the way?

Dr. Connie:
At first, I tried to ignore my dreams and their insistence that I pay attention. The Resister told me to forget about it. But the dreams persisted. So I began to write them down and take them more seriously.

This is when the first shadow character appeared.

Shadow Character: The Unqualified Writer

• Repeating voice: “Who am I to write this? I’m not qualified; I don’t know anything about Islam.”

• Feelings: Fear, dread

• Sensations: Queasy stomach, tight shoulders

• Image: I’m at my computer, shaking my head No!

I used my meditation practice to observe my mind as this shadow character emerged. It wanted to stop me—but “I” recognized it as a part, not who I am. And I became more and more committed.

Working and confronting what was within

Keila: What shadow characters emerged as you began writing?

Dr. Connie:
I sat with the verses of several translators, allowing them to seep in for long days and nights. I read everything in print about him. I traveled to Turkey with a Sufi sheikh and learned Sufi practices.

But I also had to face my ignorance, not only of Islam, but of the projections I carried. I did shadow work around the fears and prejudices I held as an American and as a Jewish person meeting Muslim people in Turkey.

I spent hours sorting through Rumi’s verses to look for patterns and a story arc. At first, I couldn’t see it.

Shadow Character: The Self-Doubter

• Repeating voice: “I can’t do this. It’s overwhelming. There’s no pattern, no story.”

• Feelings: Anxious, disoriented, sad

• Sensations: Tight neck and shoulders, restless body

• Image: I’m drowning in water, overwhelmed

The eureka moment of finding the story

Keila: What did the research and incubation stage feel like?

Dr. Connie:
As I steeped in the verses, trying to find a story arc, one day it emerged.

I realized the changing verses through the years reflected Rumi’s shifting consciousness. The evolution of the sheikh into the poet mirrored his journey from ordinary dualistic awareness to awakened non-dual awareness.

My response was paradoxical: excited but skeptical. I needed to keep writing and watch what happened.

Shadow Character: The Discoverer / Skeptic

• Repeating voice: “I see it. Can it be real?”

• Feelings: Excitement, skepticism

• Sensations: Energized, nervous

• Image: A light bulb

Nearing the end

Keila: As the book neared completion, did any other shadows appear?

Dr. Connie:
As the book took shape, I grew both excited and nervous. The Unqualified Writer returned, even as I continued to write. I revised and revised, and eventually another shadow character appeared—the one that usually shows up at the end of a project.

Shadow Character: The Perfectionist

• Repeating voice: “It’s not good enough. I’ll never know enough about Islam to write this. I’ll never understand Rumi from the inside out. It will never be published.”

• Feelings: Fear, grief, dread

• Sensations: Numbness, paralysis

• Image: Sisyphus rolling the stone up the hill forever

As I romanced this shadow character, I slowly moved toward completion. The dread increased when several editors rejected the book, and the Self-Doubter erupted again.

Then, suddenly, one accepted it.

And my novel was born.

Reflection

Dr. Connie’s creative journey with A Moth to the Flame is a tale of literary perseverance and a map of the inner terrain every artist must walk. Her process required her to confront the unconscious fears, doubts, and voices that arise anytime we create something meaningful.

This is the essence of shadow work: not banishing what shows up, but recognizing its voice and choosing to keep going anyway.

Find A Moth to The Flame here: https://a.co/d/ei1AKtz

With love,

Dr. Connie Zweig and Keila Shaheen

🖤 Thanks for reading Shadow Work to Expand Awareness: a space where inner work meets the outer world through shared prompts, writings, and livestream conversations with Dr. Connie Zweig, Ph.D and Keila Shaheen.

Support our work:
– Get the Zenfulnote App to make inner-work part of your daily life
– Keila’s books: The Shadow Work Journal · The Lucky Girl Journal · The 369 Journal · The Book of Shadow Work · The Light Work Journal NEW! pre-order
– Dr. Connie’s books: Meeting the Shadow · Romancing the Shadow · Meeting the Shadow on the Spiritual Path · The Inner Work of Age

– Keila’s website: www.keilashaheen.com

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It feels fitting to write this now, just after what would have been Carl Jung’s 150th birthday! To honor the man who gave us the language of shadow, introvert, extravert, archetypes, synchronicity, and the deeper layers of the soul.

This summer, I walked the same streets he once did. Every morning, I trekked 30 minutes on foot to the C.G. Jung Institute. His legacy is grounded in the very soil of Küsnacht. It became a kind of warm-up, a silent preparation for the mental marathon awaiting inside…

The CG Jung Institute is a building of history that holds itself together with quiet reverence. You can feel the residue of thought, the waft of dreams that were once analyzed there. Inside, I found 40+ students from around the world seated side-by-side in a single classroom. No air conditioning. Each hour that passed made the room hotter, as if the unconscious itself wanted to test our willingness to endure. It felt less like a lecture hall and more like a psychological sweat lodge where the heat was both literal and spiritual.

The first day hit the hardest. Three back-to-back lectures, each one a 2-hour+ flood of insight and psychological revelations that felt like rare gems being held in the palm of thought: admired, questioned, and honored by those witnessing. Those who asked questions were swimming upstream; those who listened, floating in the current of it all. I had a notebook of questions I wanted to ask, but every time I formed one, someone else voiced it. It felt like we were thinking together.

Here are some of the questions I came home still holding:

• How do we discern whether someone genuinely wants to do shadow work, or just wants to appear insightful?
  I think the difference here is about what they do with the insight. Do they use it as leverage? Or as substance to add more depth in the way they choose to live life more honestly?

• How do we mourn in a world that avoids discomfort?
  And also: how do we sit in discomfort in a world built on comfort? Just sitting in that humid room, breathing through the sweat and stillness, was a kind of mourning. I wonder what others in the room were imagining, conjuring about why they were there. Some squirmed around and fanned themselves, and some just sat still and poised. There was some meaning in that. People from all walks of life, all ages. A post-grad female from New York. A retired medical professional whose wife told him they’d divorce if he didn’t leave Canada and try something new. And me: a writer, a seeker, someone who’s still learning how to listen to the soul.

So how do we learn to mourn? By example? By giving ourselves permission to cry, move, laugh, or remember. We can’t “do” mourning, because it’s something we just let happen. And when we let it, we show others what’s possible too.

• If narcissists can perform soulfulness, how do we help them embody it?
  Narcissists thrive on the stage. But their role doesn’t exist offstage, and that’s where the emptiness sets in. Maybe, helping them embody soulfulness means inviting them into roles that require presence.

Dr. Susan Schwartz gave one of the lectures that left an imprint. She spoke about Narcissism as a mirror of modern self-hate and performance. She reminded us that to love the self is not the same as to obsess over the image. To be seen is not the same as being known. She also reminded us that narcissism is also a cultural symptom.

We live in a world that rewards the image, not the essence. We're conditioned to curate ourselves, perform for success, and confuse visibility with worth. In many ways, it's impossible not to develop some narcissistic tendencies in a society that constantly asks us to brand ourselves before we even know who we are.

What I Learned About the Unconscious

If there’s one thing Zürich taught me, it’s that the unconscious is not only within us, planted under the skin, in the body and mind of every living thing.... It’s also all around us, always. It's leaking through our language, our projections, our longings, our dreams. It's shaping our choices before we’re even aware we’re making them.

• The unconscious speaks in symbols, not solutions. Trying to decode it with logic alone is like trying to smell music. You have to feel your way through it. You have to be willing to sit with the image, the memory, the dream—without forcing it into a box.

• Ignoring the unconscious doesn’t make it disappear. It only makes it louder. We think we’re “fine,” but suddenly we’re triggered by a stranger’s comment or caught in a pattern we swore we’d outgrown. The parts we suppress don’t die; they disguise themselves.

• The unconscious is a mirror, not a monster. So many of us are afraid of what we might find “down there,” in the depths of ourselves, but more often than not, what we find is a part of ourselves that’s just been waiting to be acknowledged and/or loved. It’s not darkness for the sake of darkness and mystery. It’s darkness holding a hand out to the light.

• The psyche has an intelligence of its own. One lecture described it like a compass: the unconscious pulls us toward experiences and people that mirror what we need to integrate. Not necessarily what we want, but what we need in order to evolve as individuals.

More than anything, because the unconscious isn’t underneath us, but around us, I learned that you don’t get to the unconscious by digging harder, but by listening deeper. Slowing down enough to notice when something in you reacts. And choosing not to run from it.

I’d love to go deeper in future posts and interviews with Dr. Connie Zweig on self-love and self-hate, imposter syndrome, the creative process, creative imagination, anima and animus, and love…

Let me know: would you want to read more on these topics? For more discussions, prompts, and exclusives— join our Substack Chat below!

In the meantime, I leave you with this question:

What would a pilgrimage to your unconscious look like?
Where would it take you?

And what would you have to leave behind in order to find yourself?

And lastly,

to Carl Jung, born July 26, 1875, thank you for daring to look inward when the world was looking away. For teaching us that the soul has its own language, that the shadow holds our gold, and that healing begins the moment we’re willing to face ourselves.

With love,

Keila Shaheen

🖤 Thanks for reading Shadow Work to Expand Awareness: a space where inner work meets the outer world through shared prompts, writings, and livestream conversations with Dr. Connie Zweig, Ph.D and Keila Shaheen.

Support our work:
– Get the Zenfulnote App to make inner-work part of your daily life
– Keila’s books: The Shadow Work Journal · The Lucky Girl Journal · The 369 Journal · The Book of Shadow Work · The Light Work Journal NEW! pre-order
– Dr. Connie’s books: Meeting the Shadow · Romancing the Shadow · Meeting the Shadow on the Spiritual Path · The Inner Work of Age

– Keila’s website: www.keilashaheen.com

Join the Conversation!

Join our Substack community chat for ongoing discussions, Q&As, and shared insights. + find and save a special image of the prompts above so you can save it and share it with others!

It shapes our reactions, feeds our patterns, sabotages our goals, and colors our relationships. It appears in the partner we choose again and again. In the story we tell ourselves when we fail. In the judgment we place on a stranger we barely know.

That part is the shadow. Or, more specifically, the darker mirror of ourselves.

In this live conversation, Dr. Connie Zweig and I explored both the personal and collective nature of the shadow, and why learning to recognize and integrate it is not just a personal journey, but a collective act of healing.

What Is the Shadow?

The shadow is everything about ourselves we’ve disowned, rejected, or suppressed. Usually because someone told us it wasn’t acceptable.

Sometimes that “someone” is society. Sometimes it’s our family. Often, it’s the younger version of us trying to adapt to survive.

“Our shadow holds not only our repressed anger or shame, but also the dream of becoming an artist, our creative gifts, our capacity for vulnerability.” —Dr. Connie Zweig

It can look like addiction. Self-sabotage. Emotional reactivity. Or an obsessive need to perform, perfect, or please. But the shadow doesn’t only hide “negative” traits. It also contains the gold: our unlived potential.

Why Shadow Work Matters

Most of us are walking through life reacting to things we don’t understand. Triggers, judgments, projections, and they all hold clues.

Shadow work gives us a way to decode these reactions, ask deeper questions, and become conscious of what’s driving us.

“It’s a conscious choice to look at the full picture of who you are, and walk hand in hand with it instead of running from it.” —Keila Shaheen

When we begin to look at our shadows—through journaling, dream work, mindfulness, therapy, or mirror dialogue—we begin to reclaim our power. We stop outsourcing blame. We meet the parts of ourselves that feel young, scared, angry, or unwanted. And in doing so, we expand our capacity for intimacy with ourselves and with others.

Signs Your Shadow Is Showing Up

• A strong emotional reaction to someone or something

• Repeating the same unhelpful pattern (in love, work, habits)

• Harsh self-criticism or judgment of others

• Avoidance or procrastination around something meaningful

• Dreams where you act out in ways your waking self wouldn’t

Becoming aware of your shadow is only the first step. The next is asking:

What is this part of me really needing?
Behind the inner critic may be a need for space. Behind the addict, a need for comfort. Behind the perfectionist, a longing for love that doesn’t depend on performance.

“When we identify the shadow and give it an image, a name, and a voice, we can dialogue with it, and choose a more conscious response.” —Dr. Connie Zweig

Integration doesn’t mean you destroy the shadow. It means you bring it into awareness, meet it with compassion, and respond to its need in a healthier way. This is how wholeness is built. One conversation with yourself at a time.

The Collective Shadow: Why This Work Is BIGGER Than You

One of the most powerful parts of our discussion was when we turned from the personal to the collective.

The same mechanism that creates a personal shadow: repression, denial, and projection, also operates at the level of communities, cultures, and nations.

“If I can’t face what’s uncomfortable in me, I’ll find someone else to carry it for me.” —Dr. Connie

This is how collective shadows form:

• Racism

• Sexism

• Homophobia

• Political polarization

• Dehumanization of the “other”

• Anti-semitism

The collective shadow gets projected onto groups of people, turning them into scapegoats or enemies. And when entire systems are built around these projections, violence becomes normalized. Compassion dies. Projection is weaponized. Division thrives.

Shadow Work Is an Act of Resistance

In a time where fear is politicized, and projection is contagious, doing your own inner work becomes a radical act.

We don’t want to be adding to the darkness. We want to be adding to the light.

That starts by asking:

• What stories did I inherit from my family or culture?

• What parts of myself do I reject?

• What group have I labeled as “the problem”?

• Where is my anger hiding, and what is it trying to protect?

Join us.
We’ll be continuing this series here on Substack and in the Zenfulnote app, where we’ll share prompts, exclusive interviews, and deep dives on shadow work in all areas of life.

🎁 Below is a free 3-months of the Zenfulnote app, on us!

IOS: LINK: Here

Android: CODE: Substack3Months (apply code during onboarding)

Lastly, we invite you to join our community group on substack here below for deeper conversations and thoughtful prompts.

🕯 With love and gratitude,

Dr. Connie Zweig and Keila Shaheen

🖤 Thanks for reading Shadow Work to Expand Awareness: a space where inner work meets the outer world through shared prompts, writings, and livestream conversations with Dr. Connie Zweig, Ph.D and Keila Shaheen.

Support our work:
– Get the Zenfulnote App to make inner-work part of your daily life
– Keila’s books: The Shadow Work Journal · The Lucky Girl Journal · The 369 Journal · The Book of Shadow Work · The Light Work Journal NEW! pre-order
– Dr. Connie’s books: Meeting the Shadow · Romancing the Shadow · Meeting the Shadow on the Spiritual Path · The Inner Work of Age

– Keila’s website: www.keilashaheen.com

Join the Conversation!

Join our Substack community chat for ongoing discussions, Q&As, and shared insights. + find and save a special image of the prompts above so you can save it and share it with others!

There is a quiet moment that every one knows. And it arrives before the words hit the page, before the brush touches the canvas, before the melody finds its sound. It's the moment of stillness that can feel like nothingness, and yet, beneath it, something is being cultivated.

In my recent conversation with Dr. Connie Zweig I explored this space. It’s the space where creativity and shadow work meet and how much of what we create (or avoid creating) is shaped by parts of ourselves we rarely acknowledge.

"The unconscious holds everything we can't see in our blind spots," Dr. Zweig said. "It holds not only the feelings we repress, but also our unlived talents, forgotten dreams, and unclaimed gifts."

This is what she calls the creative unconscious: a place where shadow and potential are not separate, but intertwined. When most people hear "shadow," they think only of wounds, shame, or unhealed pain. But hidden alongside these are the skills we abandoned, the ideas we dismissed, the creativity we never allowed to bloom.

Creativity as a Shadow Practice

We tend to imagine creativity as pure inspiration. But in truth, the process is full of shadow. Not only does the shadow live in our traumas and repressed emotions, it also sabotages our creative process at every stage:

• In the beginning: the procrastinator appears, whispering excuses, delaying the start.

• During incubation: the skeptic shows up, dismissing daydreams and calling reverie a waste of time.

• Inspiration strikes: but then the inner critic attacks: “That idea’s not good enough.”

• At the finish line: fears of rejection, perfectionism, or existential questions rise:
  "What will my life be about after I complete this?"

"We spend most of our lives stuffing the shadow," Dr. Zweig noted. "Shadow work allows us to bring those parts out of the darkroom, like developing a photograph."

The Myth of Productivity

One of the most important insights we landed on was how modern culture misunderstands creative incubation. Sitting in stillness can look like doing nothing. But for the unconscious, this is highly productive time.

Einstein played violin to open his mind. Artists often find melodies or breakthroughs in their dreams. Mind wandering (or what Jung called active imagination) is not wasted time. It is a dialogue with the deeper layers of the self.

"In a culture addicted to productivity, we forget that the mind needs space to wander," I shared in our livestream. "The incubation period is where breakthroughs form — but only if we give ourselves permission to sit in that uncertainty."

Take Action Before the Shadow Returns

When the light bulb flashes, write it down. Record it. Begin. Because the longer you hesitate, the more time the shadow has to pull it back into hiding.

"Within a minute of inspiration, if you don't take action, pushbacks arrive," I said. "Doubt, excuses, distractions- they pull the idea back into the unconscious."

Creativity is Collaboration with the Self

Ultimately, creativity is not a battle against the shadow- it’s a collaboration with it. Our work as creators, as seekers, as healers, is to learn how to sit with these inner voices, name them, dialogue with them, and move forward anyway.

"The shadow isn't something to destroy," Dr. Zweig said. "It's a room full of dormant dreams. Our task is to bring them to light."

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