Embracing Shadow, Reclaiming Wholeness
Image by Luca Finardi via Pexels
Human beings are social animals. We need others to survive and even to thrive. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with this truth, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with the individual journeys that we take over the course of our lives – including the parts of those journeys that are about “fitting in.” It’s an important piece of human development.
And…our attempts to fit in, to follow the rules of our society, our family, our chosen friend groups – our self-curation – can leave us feeling incomplete. You see, all of us, over time, learn which of our qualities are accepted and even celebrated and which are not. Many of us start to lean into those “beneficial” qualities and away from those qualities that don’t attract the right kind of attention. In other words, we work (sometimes REALLY HARD) to show our sunny sides, and we might work equally hard to hide our shadows.
The thing is, sunshine always casts shadows. There is no light without darkness. There is no YOU without the parts that you’ve hidden, silenced, or run away from.
So, What is Shadow Work?
Over the course of our lives, we curate ourselves. We push down the parts that don’t seem to fit. We hide the darker parts of our memories, the more challenging behaviors and emotions, even the dreams that we once held dear. We turn our backs on our anger, “selfish desires”, jealousy and ambition, sensitivity, chattery exuberance, our desire to be saved in order to fit the roles we are assigned and those that we choose. We learn to be the “right kind of” mother, wife, partner, daughter, lover, or professional.
Embracing the shadow is the process of gently turning around to face those parts of ourselves. It is the practice of meeting, greeting, and sharing space with your darker, hidden, or ignored parts.
The Descent of Inanna: A Metaphor for Shadow Work
To understand shadow work, we can look to myths. Many myths that relate to shadow center on goddesses, but they are equally useful no matter the gender you identify with. One of the best, in my humble opinion, is the Sumerian myth of Inanna. Inanna had it all – power, beauty, romance, status. She was a queen and had all the outer trappings to go with that title.
One day, Inanna was called into the Under World – the realm of her sister, Ereshkigal.
Inanna’s story can feel really personal for those of us who’ve spent years working to build our outer world (our Queendoms, you might say) – career, family, romance, security, and success.
Down and Down and Through the Seven Gates
Inanna and Ereshkigal hadn’t had a terrific relationship. It was strained at best, and the two hadn’t been in contact in some time – Inanna living her bright life up in the light while Ereshkigal lived hidden in the Under World, and Ereshkigal had some demands of her sister if the visit was to take place. Namely, Inanna had to strip herself of her power and everything that represented that power.
Inanna passed through 7 gates on her way down, leaving something of her power at each one. She surrendered her crown, her staff, her jewels … She surrendered all the things that she’d collected over the years of her reign that seemed to make her who she was.
In our own lives, the "gates" often appear as life transitions: Divorce, job changes, retirement, becoming empty nesters, illness, and grief, to name a few. We lose the roles that defined us simply through the process of living. We can also choose to pass through the gates in meditation or in ritual; we can consciously decide to explore what it would mean to remove the layers that we’ve built up over time.
Meeting Ereshkigal, the Shadow Self
When Inanna finally meets Ereshkigal, it isn’t all moon beams and cotton candy. Dare I say, it isn’t even particularly cordial. Ereshkigal has been ignored and mistreated, and she isn’t particularly pleased to see her sister, even naked of her power. In the myth, Ereshkigal demands that Inanna experience the full truth of the Under World. Inanna dies and hangs on a meat hook.
It sounds like a morbid horror movie on Shudder, I know, but it’s a powerful metaphor for the ego-death that we experience when we finally stop pretending, when we finally let go.. When we find ourselves weeping on the yoga mat or the dance floor for no reason, when we hit the rock bottom of an addiction or a relationship, or when we’re sunk in the bottom of deep grief – that’s the meat hook. That’s you finally stripped of the need to be whatever it was you were so busy trying to be: fine, perfect, beautiful, in control.
The Ascent
Inanna doesn't stay in the Under World. She is revived and ascends, but she returns transformed. She returns Whole.
That’s the goal of shadow work – to become Whole. It isn’t about swimming around in the darkness forever.
Whether through life transitions or consciously through meditation and ritual, we strip ourselves of the costumes we’ve worn, and we stand naked in front of ourselves. We willingly meet, greet, and yes, even embrace the wounds, old patterns, and lost dreams as part of us. Then, we return to our lives.
Changed.
More.
Whole.
We’re not trying to stay in the dark. We’re bringing the dark up into the light.
That’s Shadow Work.
If you’d like to explore shadow work through the lens of Inanna’s myth, join us for Embracing Shadow: A Healing Retreat for Women, at Sewall House Yoga Retreat from May 28th to June 2nd, 2026. This is an intimate retreat, and seats are limited.