When the Shadow Self Spoke Back

Reclaiming the parts of you that got left behind

There’s a moment I keep going back to from my conversation with Keila Shaheen. It’s when she said:
"Shadow work isn’t about fixing yourself—it’s about finally seeing yourself fully."

That hit me harder than I expected.

A few months ago, I was in the middle of a hectic travel stretch—back-to-back interviews, writing deadlines, the constant treadmill of content and conversations. I got back to my hotel one night, completely wired and exhausted, and I reached for my journal. I hadn’t opened it in weeks.

I wrote: “Why am I doing all this?”
And immediately, the voice came up: “Because if you stop, people will forget you.”

That was my shadow speaking. The one driven by fear of invisibility. The same fear Keila and I talked about—the fear that if you’re not constantly proving, performing, producing... then maybe you don’t matter.

Shadow work asks you to sit with that voice, not to silence it, but to listen to it, understand it, and integrate it. That moment with my journal didn’t fix everything, but it cracked open a window I didn’t even know was locked.

Since then, I’ve been working with those shadows. Some are loud. Some are sneaky. But all of them, I now see, have something to teach me…

What You’ll Get with a Paid Subscription

When you become a paid Passion Struck subscriber, you’ll unlock:

✅ The full, ad-free interview with Keila Shaheen
✅ A companion reflection guide with prompts to help you begin shadow work in your own life
✅ A premium digital workbook, created in collaboration with Keila’s ZenfulNote team, available only to our premium subscribers
✅ Bonus Substack entries with deeper dives into themes like healing through journaling, building inner resilience, and cultivating authenticity

That’s why Keila’s work is so important. In a world obsessed with “leveling up” and hacking your life, she reminds us that the real growth happens in the dark corners of ourselves—the places we’ve been told to ignore.