Kate is a fully-qualified Shadow Work coach and group facilitator and she finds it hugely important in her work of helping people with their physical, mental and emotional health.

What is Shadow Work?

Shadow Work is a deep-dive personal development process.  It is a powerful experiential method for exploring your inner mental and emotional world, allowing you to rediscover hidden parts of yourself and shift patterns which no longer serve you.

It can be an intense and incredibly rewarding journey creating profound shifts in behaviour, spirit, attitude and emotional well-being. This is carried out by highly trained facilitators in a slow, safe and deliberate way.

It works with the idea of exploring your shadow.

What is a shadow?

Our shadow is the collection of those parts of ourselves that we hide, suppress and deny either consciously or unconsciously.  These are attributes, behaviours or feelings which we learned we should not have in everyday life.  We banished these parts to the shadow when we found they didn’t fit in with the way those around us expected us to be. 

We may have been belittled for crying, punished for being angry, told off for being loud, shamed for being quiet.  Displays of big emotions such as anger, fear, grief or even joy may not have been received well by those around us.  We may have then supressed those emotions or aspects of ourselves.

“I wanted to say a very big thank you for the opportunity I had thanks to you to access parts of me/my past that I hadn’t had the courage to look at previously.” T.V.

The shadow is made up of all kinds of facets, not just those we see as ‘dark’ or ‘negative’.  There could be some ‘positive’ parts of ourselves that we have exiled to the shadow, parts which we may find to be full of power and creativity but that we have thought too risky to see or show.  We may have hidden our assertiveness, our confidence, our joy for life. 

Why should I explore my shadow?

We all have a shadow and it will have come into existence to keep us safe, loved and valued in our early lives.  The problem with our shadow arises when it starts to get in the way of how we want our life to be. We can spend a lot of energy keeping things hidden in shadow and run out of energy for other areas of our life.  We may find ourselves missing some of the more valuable aspects of the shadow.  We may find there are aspects of our behaviour over which we have no control, these will be in found in the shadow. It may be time to look at our shadow when we feel stuck in a pattern, unable to be our true selves or incapable of being fully free and connected with ourselves or others. 

“”Wow, wow and once again!!!!!! What an incredible journey I had, I am so proud of myself for where I have been to how I have got to the place I am now” J.C.

How can Shadow Work help me?

Everyday life isn’t always the best place to explore the shadow.  Delving into a repressed way of being either at work or at home may not always turn out well.  With a Shadow Work coach, you are offered a safe space to explore the shadow slowly, deliberately and safely in a shame-free setting.  You can peek into the shadow and see what needs to stay there and what needs to come out. You can try out new ways of being. You can build a new pattern and from then on choose which pattern to adopt at any point.

“My Shadow work session was deeply transformational on many levels.  I felt able to freely express myself and felt held in the beautiful space that had been set up as well as feeling held by the process.  Standing ‘next to’ and sometimes ‘facing head on to’ aspects of myself was both daunting and liberating and speaking from my true power was indeed powerful.” R.W.

Exploring your shadow can help you:

  • Discover and build on lost strengths and powers
  • Regain control over parts of you that currently have control over you
  • Reclaim confidence and self esteem
  • Dip into the shadow for blocked or lost energy
  • Make changes in your life
  • Move on from old patterns of behaviour
  • Connect better with yourself and others
  • Express and release emotions
  • Come to terms with something
  • Find happiness, peace and fulfilment
  • Feel more whole

You don’t need to know what you want to work on before coming for a session, just that you want something to happen!

Is it safe?

Kate, like all Shadow Work™ facilitators, is trained to a high level and are committed to conducting Shadow Work in a way that is free of shame, blame or judgement.  The exploration of your shadow is kept safe in three main ways:

  • The Shadow Work coach follows you, you are never directed or forced in any direction.  You choose every step of the way.  You explore any risks and decide which, if any, you’d like to take in order to get what you want.  You control how far you want to go.
  • The Shadow Work coach helps you break things down into manageable parts so that you keep perspective.
  • A good Shadow Work coach will be continually working on their our own shadows to ensure they have integrity.  As a qualified Shadow Work coach, Kate is required to (and wants to!) continue to do her own growth work to maintain her certification.

“I felt safe in Kate and Waqar’s very capable hands to go deep and expose my vulnerabilities. I came away having shifted significantly and am already noticing the transfer of learning to real life.” P

What does a 1-1 Shadow Work session look like?

A one-to-one session with a Shadow Work coach usually takes between 4 and 5 hours.  The session begins by getting clear on your goals, what you want to accomplish relating to your issue.  Then a Shadow Work coach will help you build your issue symbolically and experientially, discovering and stepping into parts of you, experiencing what energies are found in each part and allowing for any emotional catharsis. 

There will be times of stepping back and viewing the symbolic scenario objectively and moments of choice and deep inquiry.  Your Shadow work coach may help you to step in and experiment with energies and aspects of you that have become difficult, allowing you to test new ways of being.

What is Group Shadow Work?

Group Shadow Work weekend seminars are where we work together using the power of the group.  This has the added benefit of being able to get real people to represent the parts of us, to learn more about ourselves through being part of others’ work and to learn that in essence, we have much more in common than we often think.  The weekend format also allows for more than one type of Shadow Work experience.  As a participant, you would have the opportunity to do your own individual Shadow Work process as well as taking part in other experiential and learning sessions and supporting others in their work.  The seminars are just over 48 hours long and there are maximum 8 participants, 2 facilitators and an assistant. For dates, please see here.

What our clients say

“”I had the honour of attending a shadow weekend run by Kate and Waqar. They held a container for the participants in a way which allowed full safety for deep diving in this work. Their combined knowledge and ability to work effectively together as facilitator’s was mesmerising. Their knowledge of the modalities and ability to differentiate between parts/support the process was exceptional. I have no hesitation to recommend Kate and Waqar as facilitators for Shadow Work. I am immensely grateful for what I have integrated following the vertical dive that I took and look forward to continuing this work on myself.” T.D.

“Kate took me on a journey to discover my inner world, the voices, the characters, and how they interact. It was an incredibly reflective, emotional and empowering voyage of discovery and I am still learning from it. I highly recommend her pragmatic skills in facilitating this Shadow Work.” E.J.

“Kate and Waqar were outstanding in their facilitation of the Shadow Work weekend. I felt completely safe, 100% trusting of their ability to hold me and the group, and I was humbled by their immense capacity to do this work with such skill and nuance.” A.H.

You can see more testimonials on our home page and the Shadow Practice website.

Further information

Kate Siraj is a Shadow Work coach and Group facilitator and holds one-to-one Shadow Work coaching sessions as well as group Shadow Work (see The Shadow Practice) with her life and Shadow Work partner Waqar Siraj.

European Shadow Work website, North American Shadow Work website, Shadow Work mp3 and Archetype Model to accompany the mp3.