An all-encompassing guide to recognizing and restoring your shadow. Throughout our lives, we suppress and deny the aspects of our authentic selves that our families, peers, and the world have told us are wrong, unlovable, or "too much," and from this suppression, our shadow is born. By the time we reach adulthood, much of our authentic self is shadow. The connection we once had with who we truly are has been severed, and we no longer feel radiant and excited about life. In this practical and trauma-informed guide to deep shadow work, Mary Mueller Shutan explains how to find compassion for your dark side, reconnect with the suppressed and abandoned aspects of yourself, and reclaim the resilience and joy of your authentic, whole self. She highlights the positive, protective role of the shadow and describes how it consists not only of the trauma and darkness we've experienced but also of the light we have yet to absorb. She explains how your reactivity to certain people and situations – your "triggers" – reflects your pain and the ways you project your shadow onto others and the outside world. Presenting a wide variety of shadow work tools and emotional intelligence exercises, the author teaches you how to identify your shadow projections and work safely and competently with the challenging emotions that may arise during shadow work. As you discover and understand more of your personal dark areas, the author introduces the concept of collective shadows created by society but affecting us individually, including online shadows and relationship shadows. She explains how to identify and release the projections of collective shadows to promote individual and collective health. Offering a self-directed process for healing trauma and reclaiming the eclipsed light of your shadow, Shutan shows how working with your shadow allows you to transcend the limitations you have placed on yourself and others and to see the beauty that exists in the dark areas of the self.