The Shadow Diaries
Real women - slightly unhinged - get real about the daily chaos of motherhood, business, relationships and everything that comes from life. From airing out the dirty laundry to actually washing it, we dive into the messy, beautiful, and hilarious reality of navigating life.
The Shadow Diaries
Introducing: The Shadow Diaries
Welcome to the rebirth of our podcast - now The Shadow Diaries! After a year as Unhinged and Unfiltered, we've evolved into something more intentional, more purposeful, and deeply aligned with our mission to demystify shadow work.
The Shadow Diaries creates a space where real women share real stories about their shadow work journeys. We're moving beyond surface level conversations to explore the parts of ourselves we typically hide away - not to dwell in darkness, but to bring these aspects into the light with acceptance and compassion. Through storytelling, we showcase that transformation happens in small moments: catching yourself before snapping at your child, recognizing a trigger before it consumes you, or showing yourself kindness when you'd normally be harsh.
What makes this podcast unique is our approach to shadow work. It's not about journaling your darkest thoughts or blaming your shadows - it's about understanding how these hidden aspects have been trying to protect you and discovering where they actually fit in your life. As we often tell our clients, spotting your shadows doesn't mean you need to immediately "fix" everything. This work unfolds gradually, becoming easier as you develop self-trust and an unshakable sense of who you are.
You don't need to have experienced "big T trauma" to benefit from shadow work. Everyone has aspects of themselves that have been shamed or hidden away. Whether you're just beginning your journey or have been practicing for years, The Shadow Diaries meets you exactly where you are. Take what resonates, leave what doesn't, and know that your perspective might shift over time.
Subscribe to join our community where personal development isn't a lonely journey. Share this podcast with someone who needs to hear they're not broken, just human. Drop us a line about what came up for you - the messier, the better. We'll be here holding space for all your beautiful chaos as your story continues to unfold.
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Expression of interest
Welcome to the Shadow Diaries.
Speaker 2:This isn't a dear diary, it's a dear shadow here we are pulling the curtain back to the good, the bad and the ugly. To bring light to those deep inner thoughts and feelings you keep on having but are too ashamed to admit to. To provide a safe space and get radically honest about what's holding you back and what shadow work really is shadow work really is.
Speaker 1:This isn't surface level. It dives deep into your soul to meet it with acceptance and compassion. There is no need to hide. All is welcome. This can be a space where you land and receive real women, real stories, real shadows.
Speaker 2:This is the Shadow Diaries and your story starts now. Welcome to what was Unhinged and Unfiltered and has now been rebranded. We have decided that Unhinged and Unfiltered whilst it reflected what we wanted this podcast to be when we originally started that we've been doing this for a little over a year now and we feel like we have kind of gone in, or we'd like to move into a different direction. And one thing about lorinda and I is that we are always all for change where it is needed, change where something isn't necessarily working, and I think that I can speak for the both of us where, probably up until maybe two, three months ago, when we first started talking about what we were going to do, moving forward, that this was starting to feel a little bit like a chore.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was like scrambling for topics and so on.
Speaker 1:No, it was just like ah, another episode. What are we going to talk about today?
Speaker 2:And that's definitely not something that we ever wanted for this podcast. We want this to be fresh and we want to bring all of our energy into it. We want to bring new things that are actually going to help. We want to make sure that, if you are spending your time with us, that you feel like you can walk away and you have gained something, whether that is perspective. Gained something, whether that is perspective, insight, more knowledge or just a bit of inspiration. So we would love to reintroduce, or introduce, reintroduce what is now going to be known as the shadow diary.
Speaker 2:The reason that we have decided to name it this is that obviously, firstly let's just get the elephant out of the room is the seo, because it's more searchable. Um, it means that people are going to be able to find us more easily if they are looking for help with shadow work and things like that. But the second reason is that we really want to start bringing in more of your stories, because the thing with shadow work, with self-development, whatever- it is whether it is the shadow work, whether it's breath work, whether it's talk therapy, whether it's nlp, like whatever it is, is that your stories are what makes it fucking inspirational.
Speaker 2:It's not about these huge big moments where you've had this enormous breakthrough in a session. It is about, for me anyway, when a client messages me and says oh my God, steph, I would have been screaming at my kid over this a month ago and now I actually managed to catch myself and I managed to stay calm through that and I managed to show them how to process that emotion in a healthy way. And it's about those little moments throughout the day. And I think that to get to that point, we have to acknowledge where you've been. We have to acknowledge what's gotten you here. We have to acknowledge whether that is trauma, whether that is a shitty experience, whatever it is. We have to acknowledge what's gotten you here. We have to acknowledge whether that is trauma, whether that is a shitty experience, whatever it is. We have to acknowledge it because that is what makes you you.
Speaker 2:That is why you are the way that you are, and every single piece of you, every single thing that you've been through it makes up, you know, like the tapestry of your life, but like it's all, like part of the puzzle that makes the whole picture yeah, and we really want to be a platform where women can share their stories. But also it's not just to share the stories, it's to show you that you can overcome it, that you do not have to sit in what happened to you, that you do not have to be at mercy to what happened, that it does not have to control you, that you can go through horrible things, even things that don't feel so horrible, and you can come out of that as a stronger person yeah, I feel like you just like took all the beautiful words out of what would have been a my good brain today, but it's not.
Speaker 1:But I just love all of that and I think that's something that I have been sitting with as well. Of like, when I listen to podcasts myself, I'm like what, what makes me feel good, what makes me feel lit up and motivated, and it's always the storytelling wrapped in perspective shifts, wrapped in educational pieces of going oh, what a really great fucking story. But now I can see myself and I even had this quote that's been sitting with me for ages now. It's like the main character. Like I'm a huge reader and when you do a lot of reading, you read a lot of characters. But the main character is not the one that you'd like. It's the one that you identify with, right? It's not the character who is always showing up super positive and super happy. If anyone reads like Throne of Glass, you're going to resonate with Ailyn, right, the amount of trauma that she went through. And we still read. She's sassy, she's witty, she's annoying. Sometimes she's frustrating, but that's what makes her her. And when I listen to other women's stories, I don't want to see just the positive side. I want to see all of them. I want to see the darkness, I want to see the light. I want to see just the positive side. I want to see all of them. I want to see the darkness, I want to see the light. I want to see who they are in that moment. It doesn't need to be about who they're going to be in the future and turning their pain into success. It's like who are you right now, in this very moment? That's who I want to meet.
Speaker 1:And when we were rebranding, like when we started this podcast, we were like let's just do it. There wasn't a lot of thought process in it, because at that point of my life I really struggled to share my voice and I feel like all I now do is talk. But, like Steph was like hey, let me be that safe space for you, let me be the person that you can lean on so you can have your voice and get more visibility and have somebody safe. And in the last year I've been so appreciative of that because what Steph's done for me is now what I get to do for other people as well, and what we both do for people. Like we have guests on all the time now and it's like I get to just listen. I get to listen to what you've been through and how you've got to write now.
Speaker 1:So the shadows diaries just fit, because we still want to talk about the things that maybe a lot of people are not comfortable to talk about, maybe the things that you might put in your diary and hope that nobody's going to read, but we want to talk about those things as well in a way that feels good for us. Some people might not resonate, some people might. Thing is, I'm here for you to identify with. I'm not here for you to like me. So this is the space where, if you're somebody who is listening to this and you're going, actually I do want to share my story. I want to remind you as well that you don't need just to have quote unquote big T trauma, reminding you that trauma is not about the event itself. It's the way that your body has held it. It's the event that's happened in your body, it the experience that happens in your body. If you've had a story where you're like one, I really want to share that because it'd be really healing for me and potentially others, then message us. If you've been listening for this podcast for one episode or 25. Thank you for being here.
Speaker 1:We're still going to have our witty, sassy selves, but it's going to be more intentional.
Speaker 1:We are big intention people and we're like let's actually come from a place of intention.
Speaker 1:Why which is why, at the moment in our life and our season, we've pulled it back to fortnightly, because when we get on and speak about these things, we want to be fully in that, we want to be fully aware of what's happening around us and when we're with guests, we want to be fully in that. We want to be fully aware of what's happening around us and when we're with guests, we want to be fully present for them. We don't want to have to be stressing about a deadline because between the both of us, once a fortnight's fine. We have kids, we have our own businesses, we have a lot of things, but it's kind of like, oh yeah, like once a fortnight, so doable, so doable, steph's got things going on, I can get a guest on and vice versa. And then when we have a topic which don't worry, we have plenty of topics written down when we have a topic together, we're really with it, we're really in it. So, yeah, that was a big part of the rebrand.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I don't know what else to say yeah, we definitely want to bring those stories and things like that, but I think a lot of our episodes will also be things that we've discussed with our clients, things that they've brought into us and things that we know that you're struggling with because we're hearing them over and over and over again in our spaces.
Speaker 2:We're hearing them from. We're hearing them from you guys on social media. We're hearing them from our friends, from our families, and we know we want to make these topics. Basically, we want to break down shadow work. It's like shadow work for dummies. So we want you to understand what it is, because it's such a beautiful modality and there's so much taboo around it, there's so much misinformation around it and we really just want to bring it to gen pop and explain what it is, get this work out there and also give you guys things that you can do.
Speaker 2:That isn't necessarily working with us, because obviously we know that that's not accessible for everybody, whether that is money wise, whether that is time wise, whether that is just that you don't fucking vibe with us and that's so fine. I don't know why you'd be listening to our podcast if you don't vibe with us. But anyway, maybe you're just not quite there yet, maybe you're just not quite ready and that. Maybe you're just not quite ready and that's perfect and that's beautiful. But that does not mean that you should not be able to access these things, to start to shift things on your own, to start to move things, to start to understand yourself better and to start to love yourself just a little bit more.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love all of that, especially because I want people to understand that shadow work is not just about journaling your shadows. It's not just about being aware of your shadows and then blaming your shadows. It's about cool. I see this part of me that has been shamed or punished that doesn't feel good to come out, and now I'm going to relearn and reparent that, so my nervous system feels okay to share that part of me when I feel like I want to, instead of allowing the shadow to run the show, you get to go.
Speaker 1:Oh, I can understand why right now I feel triggered about that. It's because this part of me has been squished and I like to think of it, of like, how can I find the shadow in your home? Where does it actually fit in my life? Where is it needed? Because that part of us is just trying to protect us and it also has beautiful gifts. So I think re-sharing shadow work, the way that we've been taught, the way that we integrate it into our own lives and it's been for me. I'm coming up to my two-year anniversary of shadow work and I'm like, wow, in two years, so much has changed. My perspective on things has changed. It doesn't make me wrong for having a different perspective shift, but I still want to share what I know now because I know in two years' time it's probably going to be different using it differently. The foundations are still the same, but how I use it in my own life and in my client's lives might be different so, yeah, absolutely yes.
Speaker 2:And I think it's the more that we get into this work, I feel like the more like, the more chilled out I get about this life, like, okay, yeah, cool, things are gonna come at me. Yeah, okay, cool, there's a pattern. Yeah, okay, cool, there's a shadow and it I had. I was speaking to a client the other day and she's had something come back around where we thought we dealt with it. And this is the tale of all the time. It's come back to her and she's like does this ever end, steph? She's like is this what it is like? You get into this work and this is what it's like. I was like, yeah, exactly, that's exactly what it's like.
Speaker 2:And she's like what the fuck? So I don't want to do this. I was like well, babe, once you're on the train, you can't get off. I'm sorry, like it's done now, but I was like the thing is, is that you get better at it? It's, instead of spotting it and going like, oh no, I have to deal with that again, that's going to be horrible and hard, you look at it and go, you sneaky bugger all right, no worries, let's get on with it.
Speaker 2:Let's, let's. What are we? Why are you here? What are are we doing? What do we need to learn? This time, that's okay, and you get to the point. I don't know about you, ren, but I sometimes get like a bit of a sick pleasure when I notice a pattern that's come back around and I'm like, ha ha, I know what you are. What the fuck are you doing here?
Speaker 2:You're, you were, I thought we put you to bed, I thought we found you, your new little home and, okay, cool, you're not comfortable there anymore all right, fine, like let's let's come back out, then come on, let's come, and deal with you and it's like it's being able to spot it and move through it a lot quicker, and also having that self-trust and that sort of unshakable knowledge of who you are that you kind of go okay. This doesn't make me a bad person. This doesn't make me a weak person.
Speaker 2:This doesn't mean that this is never ending it just means that, like I'm a constantly evolving human and I'm constantly going to be changing and growing and learning and all of the things, and that's really beautiful, because staying in the same spot for your entire life sounds fucking boring, if you ask me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when you were talking, I was like there's two things that come to mind. It's like then someone would be like, well, why would I get on the train? And I'm like like because you've got to choose your heart. Do you want to stay like this or do you want to get on the train and move forward? The other thing that comes to mind is I feel like, as you continue in this work, it also allows you to have more choice, because you can literally go.
Speaker 1:I see that now. Do I want to deal with it right now, knowing that it's going to come back around? Do I have capacity for this? And you get more like that. Self-trust is being built more, but you also have this freedom of choice of going. I'm aware of this. How can I actually do this now? How do I create the space for this? Is this actually the right season for me to dive into that, or can I wait just that little bit until I have more capacity in my nervous system and in my environment to choose to do that? And then you have to be really transparent about am I choosing this because I want to avoid the pain?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, 100%, and it's. It is all of that because something that I say to my clients all the time. I've just kicked off my group program where about two weeks in and one of the girls came in and she said is anybody else completely overwhelmed by the sheer amount of triggers that they have spotted? And I was like spotting them does not mean that you have to do shit with them. Yeah, I was like, please don't feel like you're going to spot all these things. And it's like, oh, my God, I'm so broken because that's exactly what you're trying to do here. You're going I'm too broken, I can't do this, I'm not going to change, I'm just going to leave it. I was like, take whatever is giving you the most grief and go with that. Yeah, and you'll be surprised that when you maybe you like clean up one little area, that it actually makes the rest of the kitchen look a lot cleaner. And you're like, oh, those, like those other three that I had on my list, actually don't bother me anymore.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's like, yeah, the start of this journey is like it can feel overwhelming and exciting and scary and all of the things, but and this is kind of the reason that we do want to bring people's stories to you, and sometimes these people will be at the beginning, sometimes they'll be at the messy middle, sometimes they'll be at the end of that particular journey, starting a new journey, and that's the cool thing is that everybody's in different spots of their journey and we want to show you that that is normal, that sometimes things are going to be good, sometimes things are going to be shit, sometimes things are going to be fine, and you actually do get to choose. You've actually got a lot more control than you give yourself credit for. You've actually got a lot more control than you believe, than you give yourself credit for. You've actually got a lot more control than you believe. And we just want to give you that gift. We want to show you that, even though it feels hard and scary and change is hard, it can also be really, really beautiful.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and because everyone's at different spots of their journey. It means that whether you're at the very start of shadow work or diving into this work, or you've been doing this for years, this is actually a place for you, because it's really about meeting you where you are, and it doesn't matter like if you've learned the foundations or not, because this can all be integrated and like woven. And the thing that I always say when I'm running like calls is take what you. What lands for you right doesn't mean you're going to listen to, maybe say, if we go on for an hour, we tend to do that, even though we say let's do 45 minutes, if only five minutes of that lands for you, take it right.
Speaker 1:Whatever we say is not the be all and end all, and it may not land for you now. In a year's time, maybe more will land for you, or maybe you'll go. Oh, I actually disagree. That's perfect too. It's not about like going yep, this is exactly how I do it. Everyone's journey is so different Steph and I have been on similar journeys that we have taken things so differently because that's what feels good for us.
Speaker 2:So we want this to be a space where you can go cool, I don't need to be anything else other than who I am right now. Yeah, yeah. And I think the cool thing about this as well is that, like we will go over the basics again and again and again, because you will hear it the first time and go, oh, wow, that's mind-blowing. I've never thought of it like that, I've never, ever heard that before. And then you'll come back in a year, two, two years, three years, five years down the track and you'll hear it again and it will all of a sudden snap something into place for you and you're like I have heard this said a hundred times over. I've heard this so many times.
Speaker 2:But every time you re-listen like even when I've been redoing the content for my group program and I redo it every single time I run it I listen to things or I read things that I've said and I'm like, oh my God, I've completely forgotten about that. But yes, now I'm taking it to mean this. Now I'm taking it to allow this to drop in. Now I'm taking this to mean this and this is the whole point of being that lifelong learner that even if you are in the work, in the work, if you're in the journey. If you're in the industry or you're not, you will still gain something from listening to particularly other people's stories and the way that they choose to integrate shadow work or whatever modality they are using. We will mostly be speaking about shadow work because that is the modality that we both use the most, but you will find a new way to integrate or you will find listening to somebody else's story going wow, I never actually thought about it like that.
Speaker 2:I wouldn't have thought about it in that way, I wouldn't have done that. I would have done that. Maybe I should do that, yada, yada. So we do believe that you learn best through storytelling. That is certainly what I have found with my content, with my clients, with myself, and that's really what we want to do. We really want to bring it back to you, we want to bring it back to the bones of it, we want to bring it back to what it's all about, and what it's all about is you and your story and how you can apply this in your real life yeah, and that's our rebrand and, like we mentioned, if you have a story or if you're wanting to share your voice, this can be a beautiful space.
Speaker 1:I've noticed in the last few weeks that the people that I've actually interviewed are first timers, and I didn't realize until afterwards for some of them and I was just like, oh, this is awesome, like this can be a place where you can actually share your voice and be heard and also validated, because that can be really nice sometimes too. But this is a place where you can actually share your voice and be heard and also validated, because that can be really nice sometimes too. But this is a place where you can really share your story. If you've been listening for a while, share that we've rebranded.
Speaker 1:Share our episodes and because we really want to get more women, more people, to listen to this purely because I love people listening to our stories and our chaos, but also because we want to share shadow work. We want to share personal development in a way that feels good for us and it may feel good for the people around you as well. This doesn't have to be a lonely journey. This can be one of community. So like, subscribe, share and we'll see you in the next episode for the Shadow Diaries.
Speaker 2:Only five minutes. Your story does not end here. Permission granted to keep fucking up and figuring it out.
Speaker 1:Subscribe if you're ready for more conversations that make you squirm in the best way. Send this to someone who needs to hear that they're not broken, just human. Drop us a line about what came up for you.
Speaker 2:The messier, the better We'll be here holding space for all of your beautiful chaos. Keep writing, keep exploring and keep being real.