IDENTIFYING IMPERFECT KNOWLEDGE AROUND BLENDING SHADOW WORK AND LAW OF ATTRACTION
Author: Taylor Elena
I have found myself reading again. This as a result of eliminating social media usage. I had an idea come to me. I would create a personal bibliography for the year. While I find amusement with this, it also acts as a safe-guard system. I do not know how or particularly want to find out how to cite short-form media content. Therefore, it is easier to eliminate it altogether.
As I spend more time reading, the desire to write resurfaces. While I do enjoy simply reading a story or absorbing information, there is a part of me curious as to what led the author to write their particular work. As I ponder this, I imagine it is my creative desire trying to reach out to another. Hoping to understand what caused them to start. Perhaps understanding this will encourage a start of my own.
Part of me believes this is another way for me to delay the beginning. Why is it so uncomfortable to start? In fact, I have felt internally uncomfortable all day. I began to journal to seek the why.
I thought perhaps it was my sudden interest in shadow work. I watched a video which explained that shadow work in the media tends to be false and true shadow work looks differently. Or when a person identifies a part of themselves they do not like, media claims ‘just tell yourself the opposite’. To me this connects with the concept of affirmations: ‘if you just tell yourself it enough, then you will start to believe it’ or the ‘fake-it-till-you-make-it’ mentality.
For about two years I used these methods and felt that they worked. But now I feel like I am back at square one. It was furthering my research on spiritual topics that presented contradictions. For instance, Untethered Soul written by Singer (2007) deepened my understanding of what we actually are as human beings. We are observers, since anything observable denotes a sense of separation. When we can observe something then we inherently are not that thing, alluding to our thoughts, emotions, and sensations. Including our positive thoughts about ourselves.
This sent me into a mini-spiral. I thought: ‘I just spent the last two years of my life building up my sense of identity around positive affirmations, and now all of it means nothing’. I felt unmotivated and I entered a slight depressive state for about a month or so.
Last August was my, or at least feels like, my annual ‘time to watch my life completely fall apart and then be rebuilt again’. I distinctly remember it happening consecutively for four years after high school. First, I moved out of my parents house in October 2022, uprooting my life as I knew it. In September 2023, a relationship ended and decided not to go to the college I was already admitted to, uprooting my life as I knew it. In August 2024, my living situation fell through and I spontaneously moved to California with a man I had only met a few months prior, uprooting my life as I knew it. In August 2025, I ended said relationship and moved aboard to study, again uprooting my life as I knew it.
As I am writing this, I am realising it is quite beautiful that such events happen as summer transitioned into fall. That my seemingly old life drifts away the same way as leaves do from their trees. It reminds me that I am more connected to the ways of nature, than I originally thought.
But it took this recent uprooting for me to come face-to-face again with the concepts presented in The Untethered Soul. To begin to understand what shadow work may truly look like.
It was this video that reminded me of the dualistic nature of the Universe and how such polarities or potentials are within each individual person. Aspects of ourselves are not ‘bad’ or ‘good’ but we have the potential to show either one of these aspects.
When we label something as ‘good’ or ‘bad’, we begin to chase more ‘good’ and repress more ‘bad’. When repression of individual aspects occurs then they begin to have power over us. We fear them and we want to continue to lock them away deep within ourselves. It is shadow work that aims to bring these back to the surface.
I believe this is why affirmations began to no longer work for myself. When I focused on these ‘good’ identities, it meant that I was pushing away the polarity – the ‘bad’. It was a simultaneous or conditional process. When I wanted to believe in the ‘good’ identities then I would have to push away the ‘bad’ ones. If I want to be this, then I cannot be this. I wanted to avoid the antithesis of who I was wanting to be.
This logic was flawed and such flaws came to light, while I was reading The Untethered Soul. I was experiencing an ego-death of sorts without me realising what was going on. And now, the shadow work video has allowed me to realise this.
So how is shadow work done then? First you must recognise where the shadow is appearing. Commonly, you can identify these through where you feel avoidance, judgement, or shame. Once identified, a person must be willing to learn to love these aspects of themself authentically. Rather than pushing them away, you lean into these aspects more. You give them an outlet to be expressed. By allowing these ‘bad’ parts to surface you release the charge and power they had over you. Allowing their expression, increases the potentiality of its polarity into your life. Or when you accept the ‘bad’ parts then you welcome more ‘good’ parts. Not because one is objectively better than the other, but rather you are expanding your container to experience both.
I have come to realise that my affirmation techniques used previously were used as a way to spiritually bypass. I justified avoiding the ‘bad ‘ identities because I felt that it contradicted The Law of Attraction. That accepting and believing something that I did not want to be would make it into a reality. But perhaps, this highlights the sense of fear around such aspects. Signifying that I have more work to do. But I am currently in a position where I can say that I do not understand yet, how the Law of Attraction and this type of shadow work can be blended together. I understand them now as contradictions.
But I do not doubt that the truth will be presented and imperfect knowledge will be resolved.
REFERENCES
Singer, M.A. (2007). Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself. Oakland, CA, USA: New Harbinger Publications.
Jackie (2021). How to do Shadow Work. YouTube, 9 Sept 2025. Available at: https://youtu.be/SHSndH8YI7s?si=Orr4GlrdTBW-xNXE. (Accessed 19 Jan 2026).
