If you cannot name it, you cannot heal it.

We live in a society that has separated and encouraged us to be alone, self-contained, self-sufficient.  Humans were never meant to heal, grieve or grow in isolation. We are revealed in and designed to thrive in community.  Isolation can dress shadow work up as sovereignty, while keeping the shadow unseen. When we work alone, we believe we can see what’s happening within us. But the truth is, just like you can’t see what’s directly behind you but the person sitting opposite you can, we can’t see our own blind spots. 

That is why shadow work was never meant to be a solo path.  It’s meant to be done in community where we can be held accountable, for ourselves.

The shadow is, by nature, the part of us we do not want to see. If we are the sole protectors, interpreters and narrators of our shadow, we unconsciously curate what is allowed to surface. This isn’t integration. It’s management and in some cases it’s bypassing or skirting around the real issues we have buried deep.

In true community, we don’t just know each other’s strengths and personas. We know each other’s ego and shadow. We trust one another to recognise and call out (with love) when we are acting from that place.  Not to shame or judge, but to make it visible. 

Everything we perceive as “not me” gets cast out by the psyche and stored in the shadow. And the shadow is not just the traits we label as negative. It isn’t only anger, jealousy, grief or rage. The shadow contains everything that contradicts how we identify ourselves.

If you see yourself as joyful, your anger may live in the shadow.
But if you see yourself as sad, depleted or depressed. Your joy may be what’s hidden.

There are often sparkles of joy even in depression, moments of aliveness that don’t fit the story of “this is who I am.” And because they threaten the identity we’ve built, we push them away.

When we are unaware of what parts are missing, how can we retrieve them?

This is where community becomes the light of awareness.

We don’t heal by allowing only parts of us to be seen, we heal by being mirrored. Others reflect back what we cannot yet recognise in ourselves. What is hidden to us may be obvious to someone else. The subconscious always finds a way to emerge and often it does so through relationship. Others become the receiving end of what we haven’t integrated.

When we find the courage to be witnessed and to name the behaviour, the pattern, the shadow, the thought.  We move from denial into acknowledgement. And in that shift, something profound happens, we stop moralising our inner world.

Nothing is inherently good or bad. Right or wrong.
It simply exists and what exists can be met, held and dissolved or integrated.

If this has touched something, it’s probably because you’re not meant to do this alone.

We’re opening a 4-week breathwork and healing block. It’s a closed group, same people, same room, every week. Where we can be witnessed with love, held accountable and the work can actually land.

Mahi & Tom