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01Essays & Reflections

Essays and reflections from Shadow Work to Expand Awareness. To get new posts in your inbox, subscribe free on Substack.

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How to start Light Work...

Keila Delgado-Cruz · Apr 8, 2026 · 4 min read

I’ve done the shadow work, now how do I do light work?Finished the Shadow Work Journal? Here is your next phase.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 becau

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What is a Light Worker?

Keila Delgado-Cruz · Apr 8, 2026 · 4 min read

Light Work is the practice of nurturing your gifts and strengths, and mastering your most precious inner resource: your energy. But what is a light worker?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

After the Shadow Comes the Light

Keila Delgado-Cruz · Mar 20, 2026 · 5 min read

Throughout life, your body is constantly learning different methods to adapt and survive in the conditions around you.Examples:How to push through a tense moment.How to wear a persona mask at a social eventHow 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.For an explainer on Light Work, watch here. 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’r

If you're reading this, it's your sign to spread light

Keila Delgado-Cruz · Mar 20, 2026 · 4 min read

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. Si

After the Shadow Comes the Light

Keila Shaheen · Mar 13, 2026 · 6 min read

Why the courage to create, lead, and bring light into a fractured world matters NOW more than ever.Throughout life, your body is constantly learning different methods to adapt and survive in the conditions around you.Examples:How to push through a tense moment.How to wear a persona mask at a social eventHow 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 res

Alysa Liu feels like a cultural reset 𖤓｡⋆

Keila Shaheen · Feb 23, 2026 · 4 min read

This is how we learn to live in our lightIt’s crazy how letting joy guide you instead of fear can change every area of your life. Joy is a guiding force, and fear tightens the leash.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 c

Meet Your Shadow Character Exercise With Dr. Connie Zweig & Keila Shaheen

Keila Shaheen and Connie Zweig, Ph.D. · Dec 30, 2025 · 3 min read

Before setting intentions, meet the part of you that keeps rewriting the ending (A FREE Guided Exercise)A Guided Exercise to Meet Your Shadow CharacterBefore 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

FREE WEBINAR: Shadow Work For Conscious Relationships

Keila Shaheen and Connie Zweig, Ph.D. · Nov 7, 2025 · 1 min read

Dr. Connie Guides an Interactive Webinar for You to Navigate Shadows in Your RelationshipsThis 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

The Dark Side of Work and Achievement

Keila Shaheen and Connie Zweig, Ph.D. · Nov 3, 2025 · 3 min read

Unmasking the Parts of Us That Strive, Compete, and CollapseWe spend much of our lives at work when creating, building, striving, and performing. For many of us, work isn’t just what we do anymore. It’s who we are.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, cont

How to See Clearly (Even When Life Feels Blurry)

Keila Shaheen · Oct 20, 2025 · 4 min read

3 Steps to Sharpen your Insight and Psychological Perception“If the eyes are the windows to the soul,” the saying goes, then the quality of our perception and insight is how the soul sees itself.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 o

What comes after healing?

Keila Shaheen · Oct 13, 2025 · 3 min read

The aftermath no one talks about enough.No one talks about how hard it is once you’ve healed. When the chaos finally simmers down and the pain no longer defines you, there’s an unexpected silence. You’re left wondering ”now what?”.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,

Where Technology Meets the Soul

Keila Shaheen · Sep 23, 2025 · 3 min read

Exploring Zenfulnote with Dr. Connie, Ph.D and Keila Shaheen“Technology is a useful servant but a dangerous master.” – Christian Lous LangeWhat 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.To

The Life Within Art ❀࿔₊‧⁺

Keila Shaheen · Sep 8, 2025 · 4 min read

An exploration of the threads of soul-making via artThe Life Within ArtScroll 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 becom

Dr Connie's New Interview with Chicago Jung Institute on Shadow Work

Connie Zweig, Ph.D. · Sep 8, 2025 · 1 min read

Approaching the Shadow Today

The Eureka Moment of Finding the Story

Keila Shaheen and Connie Zweig, Ph.D. · Aug 10, 2025 · 4 min read

Interview with Dr. Connie Zweig on Creativity and Her Writing Process for A Moth To The FlameWhen I asked Dr. Connie Zweig about the role of shadow work in the creative process, she shared the story behind her novel A Moth to the Flame: The Story of the Sufi Poet Rumi. Watch the interview above or read about what her answers unfolded below:It began with a callKeila: 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

What I Learned About the Unconscious in Carl Jung's Own Backyard

Keila Shaheen · Jul 27, 2025 · 5 min read

Marking Jung’s 150th birthday with a journey into the home of his work in Zurich, Switzerland.There’s something that happens to the senses in Zürich. Everything widens. The air feels pure, honest, like breathing straight from the heavens. Even when you're close to something, it somehow stretches into a vastness that asks you to take a step back and see the whole picture. Like a living painting, dimensional and deep.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

The War Within

Keila Shaheen · Jul 6, 2025 · 4 min read

Why Shadow Work Is a Social Responsibility (especially today)Every day, we walk with a part of ourselves we can’t quite see.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 i

Shadow Work on SOUNDS TRUE Podcast

Connie Zweig, Ph.D. · Jun 23, 2025 · 1 min read

Dr. Connie's recent interviewExplore Shadow Work in many contexts: relationship, politics, spirituality. In this interview, you will hear a wide range of applications, including how shadow projection has been weaponized today and how to stop contributing to the darkness.

The Hidden Room: How Shadow Work Unlocks Creative Freedom

Keila Shaheen and Connie Zweig, Ph.D. · Jun 18, 2025 · 3 min read

Creativity in Shadow Work with Dr. Connie Zweig and Keila ShaheenThere 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 everyth

We Asked: "What Do You Long For?"

Keila Shaheen · Jun 2, 2025 · 1 min read

The answers cracked something open and revealed the sacred ache we all carry.What do you yearn for?Not what you want. Not what you say you’re working toward.But what aches beneath your chest when it’s quiet enough to hear it?Within each of us is a sacred yearning- a pull not toward achievement, but toward home. A longing for something we can’t fully name: belonging, union, peace, God, love, wholeness. This longing isn’t weakness. It’s the soul’s compass. It is what sets us on the path.In our community chat last week, we asked:“What do you long for that feels just out of reach?”Here are some re

A gift for your journey within

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