Beyond Shadow Work: Stepping into the Force of Darkness (Dark Work Series, Part 1)
A dark forest with tall, bare trees and soft green hues. The edges are shrouded in shadow, and there is no clear path. A faint glow shines in the distance beyond the trees.
This post is the beginning of my Dark Work series—an exploration of the power of darkness, reclamation, and transformation beyond traditional shadow work. Throughout April, I’ll be sharing new pieces every Wednesday, weaving through themes of embodied defiance, deep alchemy, and the generative force of darkness.
Darkness has a history of being misunderstood. Feared. Pathologized. We’ve been taught that to evolve, we must overcome our darkness, tame it, integrate it into the light. But this idea is incomplete. It’s rooted in a misunderstanding of what darkness actually is.
Shadow work and dark work are not the same. They might seem similar at a glance—both deal with what’s hidden, what’s been denied, what lurks beneath the surface—but their purposes, their philosophies, and their outcomes are worlds apart.
Shadow Work: Integration and Reconciliation
Shadow work comes from Carl Jung’s exploration of the unconscious. Jung believed that each of us has a shadow self—the parts of our psyche we’ve rejected, repressed, or disowned because they weren’t acceptable to our families, cultures, or sense of identity. These aspects don’t disappear. Instead, they operate in the background, shaping our behaviors, relationships, and perceptions without our awareness.
The goal of shadow work is to make the unconscious conscious — to identify the fears, desires, wounds, and impulses we’ve buried so we can integrate them into our whole self. Jung saw this as the path to individuation — the process of becoming a fully realized, authentic human being.
Shadow work is about reconciliation. Healing. Making peace with what has been denied. And this is valuable, necessary work.
But dark work? Dark work is something else entirely.
Dark Work: Embodiment and Power
Dark work is not about integrating darkness into the light but about forging a relationship with it—listening, surrendering, and allowing it to shape us. Dark work is about inhabiting darkness fully, stepping into its force, becoming it.
I have experienced cycles of depression throughout my life. Before I developed a relationship with my own darkness, I would claw at my internal walls, desperate to escape, fearing it meant something was inherently wrong with me. But over time, I learned that when I surrender to the heaviness—allowing myself to fully sink into the descent without knowing how long it will last—hidden parts of me emerge, parts I cannot access in the light.
I do not seek to bring these parts into the light. They are not meant to be integrated, only related to and sometimes to die. When I descend, I may feel lost, but I am not. I am answering a call. These parts of me belong to the darkness, and they do not ask to be saved. They only ask to be witnessed, felt in their purest form, and sacrificed when it is time.
Having moved through this cycle enough times, I now trust that I will always ascend. And when I do, I return with renewed energy to create and embodied wisdom from the depths.
Darkness is not merely what is hidden. It is neither something broken that needs to be fixed nor something lost that needs to be found. It is a living entity, a force as ancient as the cosmos itself. It moves through the unseen, the unknowable, the spaces in between.
To be a dark worker is to cultivate a relationship with darkness. Not to use it as a tool. Not to control it. But to listen to it, to trust it, to let it teach us, to let it transform us.
Dark workers do not approach darkness with the intent to heal it. We do not attempt to redeem it. We recognize that it does not need redemption.
This is the path of death and rebirth. Of destruction as a sacred act. Of honoring rage, grief, and chaos—not as wounds to be mended, but as forces of creation.
The Wisdom of the Dark
Ancient cultures understood this. They knew that darkness was not evil—it was essential. They honored the night, the void, the underworld. They performed rituals in the deep hours, sought visions in the dreamtime, engaged in rites of descent to meet the wisdom held in the dark.
The dark was a time of gestation. Incubation. The place where seeds cracked open, where transformation began.
But over time, the world turned against darkness. Colonization, industrialization, patriarchy, christianity—all of them severed our relationship with the dark. When the feminine was crushed, so was our reverence for the unknown, the formless, the chaotic, the void. Night became something to fear. The underworld became hell. The sovereign became monstrous.
But dark workers remember. We remember that darkness was never the enemy. That it holds the wisdom of cycles, the power of alchemy, the sacred depths of becoming.
Disruption and Reclamation
Society demands that we suppress what is ugly, what is chaotic, what does not conform, and strive for goodness, for healing, for control. It teaches us that darkness must be feared, fought against, or transcended. This creates imbalance. Dark work rejects this outright.
To be a dark worker is to disrupt. To amplify what has been cast out. To embody what is feared and show that it holds power.
Dark work is not self-improvement. It is not about becoming “better.” It is about remembering what was never lost, embodying what was never broken.
Shadow work seeks to make the unconscious conscious.
Dark work moves through the unseen, the unknowable, the void itself.
Shadow work seeks to find what has been denied.
Dark work lives in the rejection.
Shadow work ultimately aims to reconcile.
Dark work disrupts.
How does dark work actively disrupt societal norms?
By reclaiming the monstrous. What society deems monstrous is often just raw, untamed power—wild femininity, unapologetic rage, grief that refuses to be silenced. Dark work does not seek to soften these things. It amplifies them.
By refusing to conform to the myth of “light as goodness.” Light is not inherently good. Darkness is not inherently bad. Both are necessary. Dark work disrupts the narrative that healing means moving toward the light.
By making the hidden visible. What society fears, it suppresses—rage, grief, destruction, death. Dark work brings these forces back into awareness, unapologetically.
By rejecting the demand for constant visibility. Society rewards what is seen, productive, and easily categorized. Dark work embraces the unseen, the hidden, the unquantifiable.
By embracing destruction as a creative force. Society treats destruction as inherently negative, something to fear or suppress, but dark work recognizes its necessity—death clears space for new forms to emerge.
These principles are not just theoretical; they are embodied in historical and contemporary figures, movements, and myths that challenge dominant structures and reclaim the power of the dark.
Figures, movements, and myths that embody this disruption:
· The Gorgon Archetype (Not Just Medusa) - The Gorgon represents the monstrous feminine, terrifying because it refuses to be controlled, embodying untamed, destructive power. Medusa is one expression, but the archetype stretches beyond her—an archetype of empowerment through rejection of the patriarchal gaze.
· The Witch Hunts - A violent suppression of those who held dark wisdom, feared by the patriarchy. The witch hunts were a brutal attempt to control and erase powerful women, healers, and those who practiced radical autonomy and connection to the unseen.
· Contemporary Artists and Activists - Embrace the grotesque, the chaotic, and the taboo in their work, forcing society to confront what it tries to ignore. These creators use their platforms to break taboos, challenge normative aesthetics, and expose the discomforting truths that lie hidden beneath the surface.
· Queer and Trans Resistance Movements - Challenge rigid structures of identity and categorization, embracing liminality and fluidity. These movements fight for the visibility and freedom of all gender expressions, rejecting societal norms and creating space for diverse identities.
· Anarchist Movements - Reject centralized power and hierarchical structures, advocating for decentralization, autonomy, and self-governance. Anarchism seeks to dismantle oppressive systems and build communities based on mutual aid and collective freedom.
· Radical Body Politics and Fat Liberation Movements - Challenge societal beauty standards and celebrate all forms of bodies, rejecting the notion that bodies must conform to particular ideals. These movements advocate for bodily autonomy and the rejection of shame associated with size, shape, and appearance.
How does one navigate the consequences of stepping into dark work?
Dark work is not for those who seek approval. It will alienate at times. It will provoke. It will unsettle. To step into it fully means accepting this.
It means standing in the truth of what has been cast out, unashamed.
It means standing in integrity.
It means becoming the descent.
But destruction is not a final act; it is a necessary precursor to creation. And in the alchemical process of dark work, destruction and creation are one and the same.
The Alchemy of Destruction and Creation
Dark work is not simply about destruction for destruction’s sake. It is about what arises from the ruins. In a world that fears chaos, dark work understands that nothing new can be born without dismantling the old.
This is the way of the wildfire, burning away the dead so that the living can thrive. The way of the cocoon, where the caterpillar dissolves into formlessness before it can emerge as something new. The way of the sacred artist, who tears apart what has been in order to reveal what must be.
Destruction is not the opposite of creation: it is the force that makes creation possible.
To walk this path is to understand that breaking, unmaking, and dissolving are not acts of loss, but of power. Dark work teaches us to wield destruction as a sacred act—not in service of harm, but in service of something deeper, something wilder, something true.
The Descent into the Unknown
Dark work is the necessary descent into the unknown, the willingness to stay with the discomfort of collapse, uncertainty, and transformation. It is not the romanticized version of healing that promises quick rebirth or instant illumination; rather, it is the act of sitting in the rubble when the tower falls, resisting the urge to rebuild too quickly, and allowing the destruction to show us what is true.
We live in a culture that fixates on light—on solutions, on certainty, on the promise of clarity just around the corner. But darkness holds its own wisdom. The body itself is darkness; the internal landscape, the psyche, the places where memory and knowing reside—all are housed in the dark.
To be embodied is, in many ways, to be in the dark. And yet, we fear it. We fear uncertainty, the unknown, the dissolution of what we thought we were. But true transformation requires this dissolution. Without it, we are simply rearranging what already exists rather than creating the conditions for something new to emerge.
Why Dark Work Matters
Dark work matters because we need the practice. As individuals and as a species, we need to build our capacity to be with uncertainty, discomfort, and the unknown. This is not just personal—it is collective. The changes we seek in the world begin with how we engage with our own depths. To truly evolve, we must be willing to step into the spaces where we do not have answers, where we are not in control, where the only way forward is through deep listening and surrender.
Dark work is disruptive. It is defiant. It challenges the demand to be polished, perfected, and palatable. It allows us to be messy, unkempt, wild, untamed. It is a refusal to participate in the illusion that we must always know what we are doing. It invites us to meet ourselves and each other in our rawness—our rage, our grief, our longing, our differences. And in doing so, it offers a way to shift culture. To step outside the structures that demand our constant performance and instead cultivate something real.
Dark Work as a Catalyst for Collective Change
Dark work is a catalyst for collective change. It’s not only essential for personal transformation but for collective evolution. If we can build our capacity to stay with collapse, to move through uncertainty rather than rushing past it, we create the conditions for something new to emerge—not as an imposed vision, but as a natural response to what is. This is where true power lies: in the willingness to be shaped by what we do not yet understand.
This is where we begin to distinguish between generative darkness and unconscious darkness. Destruction, collapse, and loss are inevitable, but how we engage with them determines whether they foster new possibilities or simply replicate old cycles. At its core, dark work is about engaging with generative darkness—the kind that allows for deep, authentic transformation. It is the kind that makes way for what is true.
The next piece will explore this distinction: the difference between darkness that consumes and darkness that creates, and why dark work is always, at its heart, about the latter.
As part of this series, I’ll be offering reflective questions at the end of each post—an invitation to pause, turn inward, and engage with these themes in your own way.
1. What is your relationship with darkness? How do you experience moments of darkness in your life—whether they are emotional, mental, or physical? Do you resist, avoid, or embrace these moments? What would it look like to sit with them, without rushing to make them go away?
2. How has society shaped your relationship with darkness? In what ways has culture, upbringing, religion, or societal expectations influenced how you view “darkness” in yourself and in the world? What messages about darkness and light were you taught growing up? How do these messages show up in your life today?
3. What cycles of darkness do you notice in your life? Are there recurring patterns or phases of darkness (such as depression, burnout, or uncertainty) that you find yourself moving through? How do you navigate these cycles, and what have you learned about yourself through them?
Rooted in darkness,
AW🖤
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