The Benefit of Triggers in Shadow Work

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By Christine Renee

Learn how triggering experiences can assist our shadow work and help us to learn and grow, aided by personal healing stories.
spiritual woman holding a burning sage bundle

The nature of life is that someone is always going to say something or do something that’s gonna piss us off. And that opens an opportunity to get curious about…

  • Why did I respond like that?
  • Where in my life do I get reactive?
  • What am I hiding?
  • Who am I protecting?
  • Where did these learned responses come from


When we take on the role of a gentle observer and get curious, things begin to shift. We can take this position and a few amazing things can happen. First, we can have some serious ah-ha moments to understand our reaction process and decide if we’re ready to let go of those limiting beliefs, past wounds, and finally forgive ourselves and others in our life so we can move forward, while being more fully authentically ourselves. AND we have the opportunity to take that energy and turn that anger/frustration/ disappointment into motivation.

spiritual woman sitting on a log covered in shadows

So this is Shadow work: After years of playing in the space of “Law of Attraction” I could finally see the spiritual bypassing and toxic positivity that often came along with it. I saw that shadow work is the deeper healing that truly resets our vibrational energy field for manifestation. Diving in gives us the opportunity to heal more deeply.

For years I’ve been connecting the dots on why I chose to get married to someone 18 years my senior leading to a horrific first marriage. Daddy issues, obviously, but why? Where did the “daddy” issue stem from? And how was it now affecting my current healthy marriage? Recently I discovered how my first marriage’s lack of trust and straight up emotional abuse about me being a “bad wife” for not having the house spotless was affecting my current marriage.

I superimposed those expectations of being the “perfect wife” as I was living in fear of a backlash that would never come from my current husband. But the question was still there, why?? Why was I still having this reaction? Through therapy, I knew it was stemming from me… nothing my current husband has done has given me any reason to need his approval.

Recently I was discussing this with my best childhood friend who’s been in my life since age 3 and I told her about the reactive qualities that I’m working on releasing. She said, “Do you think that’s because your older sister needed so much time and attention from your parents that you were trying to compensate to get their attention?” WOW…ah yes, that’s probably “the why” I’ve been trying to figure out.

I would do anything to get my father’s attention as a child and tried to be the “perfect” child. Perfect grades, perfect Catholic to the point of nearly becoming a nun, perfect helper for his business, etc. Then I married someone who did notice me and all the ways I wasn’t perfect. His abuse was his way of showing me all the ways I could be better. And now that expectation of abuse lived on inside of me.

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I could now see what I was doing. The why no longer eludes me, which means I can make a new choice when I feel triggered. It motivates me to fully love and accept myself, flaws and all, and know that I have a husband that does the same.

During the holidays, much of my “ex” stuff was flaring up as my now 16-year-old son has decided to live with me full time. His Solar Plexus has awoken and he’s definitely setting some firm boundaries with his bio dad. When I see a storm coming, I get in gear and pre set up self-care. Reiki sessions, massage, counseling, whatever I have available.

So mediation comes and goes and overall, I’m not feeling too triggered about it. I feel like I’ve hit the bottom of the work that I need to do around this relationship. But I had set up a counseling session anyway so I go, pondering if we’ll go over the above ah-ha moment around my childhood. I entered the session with an open mind thinking “I’m sure there’s something there to work on” and I trust my counselor. She is awesome – as a fellow Reiki student and a Shamanic practitioner, I can be all the woo with her and it’s ok.

As I arrive, I’m filling her in on all the things and she’s says, “Let’s tune into your body and see if there’s anything hiding there”. Great. I close my eyes, tuning into the tension and can feel my jaw and up into my ear tense up as well as the back of my neck. What’s this?? I get curious.

OK there… it’s a fucking cord to my FIL. I had spoken to him on the phone over the holidays and he said something to me that irked me. Trying to be polite since I don’t talk to him but a few times a year, I just quickly moved the conversation along. But here it was, that suppressed anger rearing its ugly head.

spiritual woman beating a shamanic drum
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Time to release. I recall what we were talking about… I was telling him about my business growth and success and my plans to expand in the new year (if I was telling this to my father he would have been ecstatic, so perhaps that’s why I thought I’d get the same response from my FIL). But instead the response was, “That sounds like a lot of work, you don’t need to do that. It’s ok to just accept what you’ve already done”. My brain was exploding! Whaaaaaat??? Why would I limit my passion and impact? This is me trusting the Divine. This is me showing up in my authentic self doing what I love. Why would anyone tell me to slow down and settle?

Now, in counseling, I was in a safe place to process, to release the suppressed energy and cut the fucking cord. And to transform that anger into motivation! Done, done, and done!

The shadow work piece in all of this was recognizing that the trigger was my response, not because of my FIL, and to see the situation from the Crown Chakra point of view to me running down my spiritual path. No slowing down for me!

I left the counseling session feeling motivated rather than leaving that anger stuffed under the surface. The following days have been magnetic to Divine downloads on all the next steps for my business. Had I not done the work to release, the ease and flow would not have been available to me. Now I get to step into my gratitude and appreciation for all the beauty in my life and the way it shows up. I have the knowing the Universe is always acting in my good and in my favor to help align myself to my destiny. I woke up New Years day with the word SOAR. And that is what I’m planning on doing in 2023!

Ecstatically yours,
Christine Renee
Moon Rising Visionary

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