Meeting the Parts of Myself I Once Hid: My Real Journey With Shadow Work

by April Nicole

Meditation

There was a time in my life when I thought the safest thing I could do was disappear into myself.

When I was young (when my parents divorced), I learned early how to make myself small, not because I wanted to be, but because it felt easier than navigating the emotional landmines around me.

At times, I didn’t have the kind of childhood where you run freely through the house or feel held by the softness of someone’s understanding. My parents were going through their own issues and traumas, which, in turn, caused problems and trauma for their children.

I had a childhood where you measured the air before you spoke.

Where you kept your needs tucked quietly under your ribs. Where you found your own comfort because the person who should have given it couldn’t… or wouldn’t.

My escape was solitude. I’d tuck myself into nature, into silence, into music, into anything that felt like a world not shaped by tension or unpredictability.

Sometimes the quiet felt like abandonment, and other times it felt like survival. (I don't ever want to point blame, but kids feel what's going on in the hidden places) I didn’t know then that this pattern of withdrawal, self-containment, quiet endurance would follow me into adulthood.

I didn’t know I was carrying a shadow.

For a long time, I thought “shadow work” meant digging through trauma so deeply that it swallowed you whole.

I thought it meant reliving the past, reopening wounds, or forcing myself to love parts of me I didn’t even understand yet.

But the truth is softer than that.

Shadow work, for me, became an act of remembering gently. It became the process of turning back toward the child I was, the young woman I became, and the woman I am now… and realizing they were all still waiting for me to look at them with kindness.

The First Time I Realized I Had a Shadow

It wasn’t some dramatic spiritual awakening. It was simply noticing how my body reacted before my mind understood why.

The way my stomach tightened when someone used a certain tone.

The way my voice would quiet around strong personalities.

The way anger only appeared when I felt dismissed or condescended to.

The way love sometimes brought fear.The way connection could feel both nourishing and threatening.

My body remembered before I did.

And shadow work became the map back to those memories, not to punish myself with them, but to listen to the younger versions of me who never got the chance to speak.

Shadow Work Taught Me That My Reactions Weren’t Flaws; They Were Echoes

For years, I thought my sensitivity was “too much.”That my longing for safety was weakness.

That my difficulty trusting was baggage.

That my silence meant I was broken.

But shadow work has a quiet way of shifting the truth into its rightful place.

It taught me that my reactions were not dramatic; they were protective.

They weren’t overreactions; they were responses shaped by years of navigating emotional instability.

They weren’t flaws; they were echoes of the child who learned to survive with what she had.

And once I saw that, I could offer myself compassion instead of criticism.

Meeting My Inner Child Was the Hardest and Most Healing Part

There is one visualization I return to again and again:

I see her, eight years old, sitting somewhere quiet in nature, the same place she ran to when the house felt heavy. Her head is bowed. She looks soft but tired. I walk toward her, kneel down, and she lifts her eyes like she’s waiting to see if I’ll be gentle.

I tell her:

“I love you. I am here. I will never leave you.”

And something in me exhales every time.

Shadow work didn’t change my past, but it changed my relationship with it.

It helped me make peace with the girl who survived.

It helped me stop abandoning myself when things got hard.

It helped me understand why certain patterns repeated and how to break them with grace instead of guilt.

Shadow Work Didn’t Make Me a New Person — It Helped Me Return to Myself

People often think inner healing is about becoming someone entirely different. But what I’ve learned is this:

You don’t become someone new.

You become who you always were, before life layered itself onto you.

Shadow work cleared the distance between me and the woman I was meant to be.

It softened the parts that had hardened.

It gave language to the pain I learned to silence. It helped me choose peace more often than protection.

It taught me to trust my softness rather than hide it.

And most importantly, it allowed me to love myself with the same compassion I longed for in my childhood.

If You’re Just Beginning Your Shadow Work Journey

Let me offer this:

You are not too much.

You are not broken.

You are not behind. Y

ou are not hard to love.

You are simply meeting the parts of you that learned to protect you when you were small.

Shadow work is not the darkness; it is the light you bring into it.

And you don’t have to walk it alone. I’m walking mine, too.

Softly, steadily, one honest breath at a time.

If this piece resonated with you, if you felt something stir, soften, or lift inside you, I created a guide for moments exactly like this.

It’s called Soft Starts: A Shadow Work Guide, and it was designed to walk beside you, not push you.

Inside, you’ll find:

• gentle prompts to guide your self-reflection

• supportive notes that help you move through the deeper layers with compassion

• space to journal without pressure

• affirmations written to soothe the parts of you that still feel small

• guidance drawn from my own healing journey

It’s not meant to overwhelm you. It’s meant to steady you one tender step at a time.

If you’d like to explore it, you can find it here:

👉 Soft Starts: A Shadow Work Guide

Whether you use my guide, someone else’s, or your own intuition, may your shadows become softer every time you turn toward them.