Shadow Work: Finding Light in Difficult People - 18

In this episode, we explore the power of shadow work — the process of exploring and integrating the hidden parts of ourselves. I share a personal story about being triggered by someone who reflected old wounds and show how these moments are opportunities for growth.

Together, we’ll learn how understanding our triggers can help us release old patterns, reclaim our power, and evolve our relationships. We’ll also talk about the importance of daily rituals — even just a few quiet minutes in the morning or evening — to reflect, integrate, and move forward with clarity.

If you’re ready to go deeper, we’ll give you a first look at the upcoming Shadow Work Workbook, designed to help you understand yourself more fully and transform your relationships and manifestations.

Welcome to Lady(ish)—the podcast where real talk meets whole-self transformation. Hosted by coach, healer, and wellness guide Autumn Noble O’Hanlon, this unfiltered space is for women who want more out of life—but on their own terms.

Each week, we dive into the messy, beautiful, and often contradictory layers of wellness, covering everything from career shifts and body image to energy healing, intuitive living, fitness, burnout recovery, and creating change that actually sticks.

Whether you're chasing a new chapter, healing old wounds, or just trying to reconnect with yourself in a loud, overwhelming world—Lady(ish) is here to support your evolution. Expect honest conversations, coaching wisdom, holistic tools, spiritual insights, and permission to be a little bit of everything (and nothing you're not).

Because wellness isn’t one-size-fits-all—and neither are you.

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Transcript

Autumn Noble (00:00)

Hey everyone and welcome back to Lady-ish, where wellness gets unfiltered.

Today I wanna talk to you about something that really got under my skin a couple months ago and really spurred me to dig deeper into my own internal work.

And that is the idea of shadow self and shadow work and how it can help us navigate difficult experiences. But specifically today, I want to talk about how it can help us deal with difficult humans.

I want to share with you how engaging in shadow work in dealing with difficult relationships and impossible people with more self-awareness and peace can truly change the way you show up in every moment of your life.

Recently, I had an encounter with a gentleman that really got under my skin. I could not stop thinking about it. I could not stop fighting with him in my head about it. And I was having dreams of fighting with him about the conversation. And it wasn't a big dramatic conversation. And I think honestly, from his perspective, he thought that it was productive and then it went well. But it was the

energy of it that really stuck with me. He was condescending and dismissive and arrogant and

misogynistic and he just radiated this aggressive masculine energy that really brought up a lot of old wounds for me from my experience practicing corporate law and living in a corporate male dominated environment.

For the rest of that day and the several days that followed, I really replayed that moment and that exchange in my mind. And I just felt small and judged and dismissed. And it brought up this anger and kind of defensiveness within me. And that's when I realized that...

This wasn't just about him. This was more about me and what it was bringing up in me that I had not resolved. And that's when I knew it was time for me to dig into some new shadow work.

So what is shadow work? If you listen to my podcast on manifestation and how that works, I touched on it briefly and specifically how understanding shadow work is really essential for any of us that are engaging in manifestation or law of attraction work. But I want to talk more about it here and specifically get into what is shadow work.

The term shadow in this sense comes from Carl Jung, the psychologist who described it as the unconscious part of ourselves, the hidden side of us that holds everything that we repress, deny or avoid.

It's those parts of ourselves that we would rather shut in the closet and never look at again, but yet they continually just follow us in the shadow of our life day in and day out. And yes, that might sound kind of dark or scary, but it's really just the parts of ourselves that we haven't yet made peace with that are begging to be brought into the light and released.

Our shadow selves are those parts of us that say, I'm fine when we're actually hurt. It's the part that seeks validation or control when we're feeling insecure.

and it's the part of ourself that flares up when someone triggers an old wound. Shadow work isn't about judgment, it's about curiosity and starting to understand those responsives in ourselves.

Shadow work is the process through which we shine a light on those hidden aspects of ourselves so that we can understand them, give them some compassion, integrate them, and ultimately heal them.

So back to my encounter with this gentleman. You know, from a demographics perspective, he was the same age, race and gender of many men in my history that really just triggers this shadow part of myself. And when he spoke to me in that tone, that aggressive, patronizing, condescending energy, it really hit a nerve.

that didn't just relate to him, but all those people in my past that similarly struck a nerve. I felt this very deep-seated anger, but underneath that anger was something else and something more deeply painful, and it was that powerlessness, that feeling like a little girl in a world where I didn't belong and being shown.

how wrong I was in that space and how I didn't fit. That's a feeling that I've known before and many of the women that I work with in coaching who are lawyers or who work in a corporate world, we've all had those experiences from moments where we really feel dismissed or underestimated, especially by men in positions of power and authority. And it can really generate or hit on some deep

seated wounds that we all need to work through.

My initial reaction in that moment was to sort of push back and bite back and assert myself in a way that the younger me hadn't. Somewhere in that moment, I sort of recognized that this was a karmic pattern that I was coming up against yet again. And it was inviting me to show up in a different way than I had in the past.

And so it was an opportunity for me to sort of heal those past wounds in a way of using my voice and honoring what that past me wanted to say and wanted to do in those moments. And so even though I was able to show up and assert myself differently in those moments, I came away deeply troubled and deeply bothered by the exchange.

and I really pushed myself to explore why is this bothering me so much? I said all the things that I wanted to say years ago. I showed up how I wanted to years ago, but didn't have the strength and the power to do so and I did it and I'm still feeling so angry about it. So that's when I knew I had some shadow work to unpack.

At that point, I recognized that it wasn't about proving him wrong and it wasn't about asserting myself and biting back. It was about understanding why his energy triggered that younger version of me that once felt so unseen and so powerless.

because that's the thing about shadow work and that's the gift that it offers us. The people who trigger us the most are often our greatest teachers. They shine a light on where our healing still lives and where those hurt parts of ourselves are still hiding and waiting to be acknowledged and resolved.

So what did I do and how do we go about shadow work in our daily lives? First and foremost, it does not have to be complicated or mystical or sexy or really time consuming. It's simply about developing the awareness to pause and explore what is underneath that emotion. I always say in coaching that anger is like the low hanging fruit of our emotional

options. If you are reaching for anger or if that's the first thing that comes up for you, it is telling you that there is a deeper and more painful emotion that's pressing the easy button and the easy button is anger. And so we have to look behind that anger and really see what's really going on here.

So here's a simple framework that I would invite you to play around with when you're feeling triggered.

So when someone annoys you, upsets you, or makes you feel defensive or less ask yourself, why does this bother me so much? Instead of reacting, kind of pull back and just notice like, wow, I am really irritated with this person or what you said really got under my skin and start to explore what emotion is coming up for me.

And what is it about what this person just said or did that's really ruffling my feathers?

One of the ways to answer that question of why does this bother me so much is to trace it back and ask yourself,

When was the first time I remember feeling this way?

Maybe it's from childhood, maybe it's a past relationship or an old belief about yourself that they're sort of bringing up or challenging in you.

So really inviting yourself to connect with, when have I felt this before and does this feel familiar? Or the thoughts and the comments that are coming up for me, are they familiar? And are they from a pattern in the past? And what was that trigger back then? Because that tracing it back will allow us to answer what part of me needs attention right now.

For me, in my exchange with that gentleman, I knew where it came from. I felt like I lived that feeling day in and day out for almost a decade or maybe 15 years of practicing law. But I knew it was very familiar. And just even looking at him, I could see many faces of many men in my past that made me feel the same way. And I think what it came back to for me was this feeling of not belonging.

of not being good enough, of not knowing enough and that like, little girl, you you are out of your league and you just, don't know anything. And so it was that part of me that wanted to be seen was the part of me that believes I am good enough and that I do have something to offer and that I'm not dumb and that I do deserve to be here. And so in my shadow work, I really had to connect with that part of myself that felt deserving to be there.

and that had things to say and to really recognize her and give myself that credit and soothe myself in a way of sort of recognizing like, no, look at all the things that I have done and look at all the value that I have to add. This guy's just blowing smoke. I know my worth, I know my value. And I really had to kind of go back to that part of me, that younger me.

that did feel really dismissed and did feel really undervalued and kind of go back to her and say, no, you know, there's no reason to let these people make you feel that way because that's not true. And kind of invite that past me to stand up in her power and stand up in her value and honor what she brings to the table. And part of that may be knowing when to walk away from that table because you know your value and because you know you have a contribution.

and you should never engage with someone who doesn't also see that and instead tries to make you feel small. And for me, that was kind of the culmination of the experience was looking at this man, sharing my piece, being very upfront with him about my thoughts, but then also walking away because I knew that I had enough value that it wasn't worth it to play this game for me.

and looking at that shadow self and doing that shadow work and recognizing that that was the underlying issue, not feeling valued and feeling dismissed. That allowed me to say, you know what I need here? I need to step into my power, own my value and walk away from this person and let them know that I don't need them and I don't need what they're offering me. And that sort of closed that loop for me, but it was sort of recognizing

that feeling dismissed, feeling powerless, feeling like a victim, like I needed this man and I couldn't say those things and I didn't have any other options, standing up and walking away and saying, you know what, I do have options and I do have something to offer at this table and if you don't see it, then we're not meant to be partners. And so the shadow work helped me see that that's what I needed to do and the second I did that, my energy totally shifted and I felt myself.

again and I was able to get out of that angry loop. So once you have done that, right, you identify it, you notice the trigger, you trace it back, you ask yourself what needs attention, where is this coming from, then we just name it without any judgment whatsoever. So for me, I have this loop of myself against aggressive, masculine people.

or masculine energy. That's a loop and I have just named it and I know when I'm in that loop and I know what shadow self it relates to and I can kind of go back there and kind of soothe that shadow in that way. We don't shame ourself for what we find. The shadow thrives in secrecy and us not acknowledging those past hurts and those deep wounds and it loses power.

when you shine a bright light on it. So when you name it and say, this is me getting defensive against aggressive masculine energy, we can recognize that, yeah, I'm feeling defensive because I have past hurts. And in the past, it has wounded me and made me feel powerless and like undervalued and dismissed. And so when we name it, it's an acknowledgement not only of your own patterning, but the shadow hurts that go along with it.

And so in naming it, we shine a light on it and it does take its power away. From there, we step into integration because once you see the root of the feeling and the pattern, you can start to shift away from it. It might mean forgiving yourself and recognizing, okay, like I totally understand why I just snapped and why I went into fight or flight in that exchange. And I know where that comes from and having compassion.

for that gut reaction. So forgiving ourself may be part of it. It also might mean setting a new boundary and showing up for yourself in a way that maybe historically you haven't because we let that shadow self take the reins and drive us to bowl over our own boundaries or say yes when we mean no. And so in this space where we're recognizing the shadow self at play, it could be an invitation to set a boundary in a way that historically

you might have avoided. it may mean releasing an old story that's no longer true. For me, it was that old story of kind of a young woman in corporate America and practicing law and in a male-dominated society coming from a very male-dominated home and world and feeling like I didn't belong, a family that doesn't have a lot of college education in the background. I didn't feel like I fit in.

And so I had to let go of that story somewhere along the way and shift it to, do belong here. And actually I add an interesting perspective because of who I am. And I see things that maybe other people don't see because of my background. And so that's a story that I had to shift and let go of that old story that I don't belong and that I'm other than them.

As you start to recognize your shadow self at play day in and day out, I would invite you to create a ritual of reflection and connection with that shadow self. If you listen to my prior episode on living in alignment with the seasons, one of the things that I've really done in this fall season is to intentionally carve out time for reflection. And that means I'm getting up at 5.30 or 6 a.m. every day, including the weekends.

Not because I want to chase and produce more, but because I want to intentionally kind of enjoy and luxuriate the darkness and that time of deep reflection that the earth is in and that time for introspection And so during those early morning hours in the dark, I light a candle and I sit in a very cozy space and I do my shadow work.

and a lot of the work that I'm doing, I'm molding into workbooks that I'll be offering here later. But with our life being such a fast pace and it's so full and we're so distracted, it's really easy to avoid introspection. And so I think in this time of reflection in the fall where things should be slowing down, it's an opportunity for us to find ways to carve out space.

for introspection and potentially shadow work. So create a small ritual. Maybe it's just a few minutes in the morning with your journal or at night before bed. Those few minutes can really change everything and allow some true deep insights to come forward that we otherwise might not notice them there in the background waiting to be seen.

A simple approach is just to write about events during your day that really triggered you. what emotions came up for you when you were feeling triggered and what they could be trying to teach you. That simple exploration over a minute or two in the morning or evening can help you start to peel away the layers of your own shadow self.

And I wanna say here just as a simple disclaimer that doing shadow work, it doesn't excuse bad behavior. It doesn't mean that the man that I was interacting with wasn't treating me terribly and wasn't being condescending. He was, and it doesn't make it okay. But it did empower me to understand why that dynamic affected me so deeply.

I couldn't stop thinking about it. I was having dreams about it. And I really was able to connect with it and understand it at a deeper level. And that empowered me to show up differently. So it helps you reclaim your energy and your power. It does not condone the bad behavior of those around us. It just helps us show up in a more meaningful and aligned.

way despite the way those people may be making us churn on the inside.

Because when we don't do this work and acknowledge our shadow, those old beliefs, those unhealed wounds or patterns, they just quietly run the show. They inhibit our manifestations, as I talked about in a few episodes earlier, and they prevent us from creating the life that we actually want. So you might be trying to manifest something, abundance, for instance, but deep down, you believe that you're not worthy or you're not deserving of it.

You could be craving love, but there's a hidden part of you that feels being vulnerable. It will prevent you from finding that love that you're seeking. You might want more peace, but your nervous system is just wired for chaos because that's what once felt safe. There's learnings and teachings there that can help you shift those patterns so that you can attract more of what you do want.

because when we ignore our shadow, those hidden energies block our goals, our manifestations, and our growth. You can be doing all of the right things, setting intentions, manifesting, meditating, visualizing, but if there's unacknowledged resentment or fear or unworthiness buried beneath it, that energy will leak out and it will block what you're trying to attract.

In some, shadow work helps us see where we are standing in our own way because we all are in some way, or form. And this is your invitation to do that deeper work.

As we learn to sit with our shadow, hold it with compassion and understanding instead of shame or just ignoring it, we free ourselves and we can evolve. We can become less reactive and more aware, more peaceful and more grounded.

So I wanted to talk about shadow work today in the context of relationships because I think it's just one of the most powerful applications available to us, especially with difficult people. So when someone triggers you, it's just an invitation for us to ask, what is this person trying to teach me?

Maybe it's a lesson about self-worth, maybe it's a lesson about boundaries. Sometimes it's simply about compassion for them and for ourselves. And the goal should not be to try and fix the relationship. Sometimes the growth is in releasing it with clarity instead of resentment. And that's the beauty of shadow work.

So in closing, if this resonates with you, if you've been feeling triggered or stuck or frustrated by the people or patterns in your life, I invite you to go deeper. I'm putting together a shadow workbook that guides you through practical daily exercises to identify your triggers, understand your patterns, and transform your relationship with yourself and others.

If you want to be the first to know when it's released and maybe even get some early access, make sure you're subscribed to my newsletter. You can sign up through the link in the show notes or send me an email and I'll make sure that you are on the list. Remember, shadow work is not about fixing yourself. It's about remembering that every part of you, the light and the dark side, deserves to be seen, loved and understood. Because when you bring shadow into the light, it stops

controlling you from the dark.

So today, take a deep breath in, a long exhale out. You are doing beautifully and you're exactly where you are meant to be.

Until next time, my friends, if you found this information helpful and want to take it deeper, sure to check out my upcoming meditation that will allow you to release some of that shadow that is keeping you inhibited in your relationships.