"The Blue Moon, Your Shadow, and Why the Patterns Keep Running"

This week Jennifer goes deep on shadow work — what Carl Jung actually meant by it, why insight alone has never been enough, and what it takes to create change that reaches the root.

She shares new neuroscience on what declining estrogen does to the brain's neural pathways — the uninsulated wire — and why high-achieving women are navigating a three-part problem with a one-part solution.

And she tells a personal story from high school — as an Enneagram 8 — that reveals her own shadow around vulnerability, protection, and what it actually took to become more whole.

This episode was recorded during the Full Blue Moon in Sagittarius on May 31, 2026 — the rarest lunar moment in nearly 40 years.

What you'll hear:

• What Jung actually meant by the shadow (not the Instagram version)
• Why the patterns live in your nervous system — not your mind
• Jennifer's personal Enneagram 8 shadow story
• What individuation actually requires — and why you can't do it alone
• Three questions to sit with under the Blue Moon

Links mentioned:

• Book a free consultation: 
• Join the Facebook community

Transcript

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You've done the therapy. You've read all the books. You've listened to all the podcasts. And now you have the career. You've got the house. You've got the kids. You've done all of the work. You've checked all the boxes. You've done everything you were supposed to do to be happy. And you woke up one day and realized that you're not. And you started asking the question: isn't there more? Yes, there is. And I don't mean more information. We have all the information. What we need is transformation. And that is only done when we excavate that whole system and repave that superhighway. We're not skimming the surface here. We're gonna dig in deep and drink the water from a deeper well. We're telling the truth in a whole new language. You felt the nudge, then you hear the whisper. You ignore it, life gets louder, and it will manifest as burnout, exhaustion, illness, injury, anxiety, disconnection, addiction de jour, and drama at every turn. There is a better way, I know, because I found it on my own journey. This story is a part of my story. And I built this toolbox for myself, and I have proven that it works with hundreds of clients over the past 28 years of being in private practice. We're gonna blend neuroscience, psychology, and timeless Eastern wisdom and show you where science meets soul work. This is where we will rewire the patterns that have kept you stuck. I'm Jennifer Moore, licensed psychotherapist and creator of the therapeutic coach approach. Isn't there more? Yes, there is. Each week I'm gonna share practical tools to implement so that you can actually transform your life. Follow now wherever you listen. And if somebody popped in your mind, that's not a coincidence, that's a synchronicity. Send it to them because they're ready to hear it too, just like you are. And welcome home. We're gonna talk about that person in your life who drives you crazy. You know the one, they walk in the room and you can feel the energy shift, the hairs on the back of your neck stand up and you avoid all eye contact like there's no tomorrow. You just don't want to be around them. You don't want to talk to them, you don't want to look at them. Ugh, I almost get the cringe, and you can't even explain why. Because it's not like they've done something terrible, but they make your skin crawl. Maybe it's that they just need too much attention or they never stop talking about themselves, or they're too needy or aggressive, or they play the victim role. Maybe it's just the way they can't seem to get their act together. Whatever it is, you feel it in your body. That internal recoil that's visceral. And guess what? That person, that reaction, that's your shadow talking. The thing that triggers you the most in another person is almost always a part of yourself that you've exiled. Not the part you're proud of, but it's the part that you decided somewhere along the way was not allowed in the room. The person whose neediness makes you cringe. Look at where you've buried your own need so deep that you can't access it. That person whose victimhood makes your blood boil. Look at where you've ignored refuse to acknowledge your own pain. The person whose attention-seeking behaviors absolutely make you roll your eyes. Well, there's an invitation there. Look at where you've stopped allowing yourself to be seen. I call it the mirror image self. What we cannot tolerate in others is almost always what we cannot tolerate in ourselves. Jung, Carl Jung, that is, called it the shadow. And that's where we're going today. Welcome back to Isn't There More? I'm Jennifer Moore, licensed psychotherapist and founder of the therapeutic coach approach. And I've been doing this work almost 28 years, working with high achievers who were outwardly successfully, successful and inwardly exhausted. And today we're gonna talk about why you're actually exhausted. We're going deep dive on shadow work, not the Instagram version. We're gonna talk about what Carl Jung called is individuation. We're gonna talk about what's happening in the brain and in your nervous system, where those patterns live. And until you can change those patterns, nothing in your life is gonna change. And I'm gonna tell you a very embarrassing story about myself in high school that I've never shared. But as I've continued on this journey and doing my own shadow work, it was clearly my shadow showing up. Also, as I'm recording this, today is May 30th, tomorrow is May 31st, and we have an actual full blue moon in Sagittarius. The last one we had was 1988, and we will not have another one until 2044. Now, I'm not an astrologer, I'm a psychotherapist. However, I do look at patterns and I do pay attention when something in the natural world mirrors what I'm watching happen in the human psyche. And this is going on big time this week. There is some calling for some truth telling. And this moon is asking something very specific of all of us. What are we managing instead of meeting? All right, let's get to it. What is shadow work? I don't want to just keep this shallow and like the Instagram version or social media. What is what is shadow work? I want to go in and really talk about what Carl Jung's what Carl Jung, the famous Swiss psychiatrist, the founder of analytical psychology, described as the shadow is that part of ourself that we disowned. Doesn't mean it's evil, it doesn't mean it's bad or broken, but it is the part that somewhere along the way was not acceptable. And I want to talk about why that wasn't acceptable. The shadow isn't what's wrong with you. It's what you hid because something in your environment, maybe your family, your culture, an early experience taught you that certain parts of yourself were not okay, that it was actually dangerous to show up. Maybe it was anger or neediness or grief or ambition, I don't know, or the simple desire to stop performing and just be. Imagine that. You didn't get rid of those parts, but you buried them. And then you built your identity on top of that burial site. Jung called that identity that we build the face we show the world, our persona. Yep, that's the one. The one who's the boss, who's competent, who's capable, who's high functioning, who's got it all together. Fine. I'm fine. I'm fine. And that extraordinary persona is at work. That's the performance. And she's very sophisticated. She knows how to get it done. She knows how to make it happen. And she shows up in every room and privately exhausted. Because the shadow doesn't disappear just because you stop showing it. It runs. It runs in the pattern that repeats in every relationship, no matter how much you grow. It runs in the exhaustion that has no explanation. It runs in the rage that comes out sideways at the wrong person at the wrong time. It runs in the hollow feeling underneath a life that looks exactly what you worked for, which is why I named this podcast, Isn't There More? Because that was the impetus of all of this journey. Is I woke up when I was about 36 years old. And even though I had this quote, perfect life on the outside, I was asking, Isn't there more? There has to be more. Well, I didn't know then where I was going 20 years later, almost 20 years later, but here I am doing this deep dive on shadow work. And Young said something that continues to show up in my life and in yours too. Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate. Listen to that again. Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate. Not a pattern, not a wound, not something that can be changed. Just the way things are. That's what the shadow does when it goes unexamined. It masquerades as reality. And here's what's going on in your nervous system that Carl Jung didn't really have the neuroscience to prove this, but now we do. And most people don't talk about this. But this is where the intersection of psychology, neuroscience, trauma, hormones, and the gut brain axis come together. And this is what I see in my practice. These patterns that Young called the shadow aren't just psychological. They are encoded in your body, in your nervous system. And when a child decides, consciously or not, that certain emotions, certain needs, certain parts are dangerous to express, that nervous system records it and it builds a threat response around those parts. So decades later, that child, now a grown-ass woman, running her own business, maybe she's an executive, CEO, entrepreneur, whatever she's doing, still has that record running. The moment something tries to surface that resembles the original threat, vulnerability, grief, the desire to stop pushing, the need to ask for help, her nervous system activates into fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. Not because the threat is real, because the pattern says so. And that's why you can understand a pattern intellectually and still repeat it. Because insight alone, as smart as you are, as badass as you are, and as self-aware as you are, it is not enough because your nervous system doesn't respond to understanding. It responds to a felt experience, to safety, to learning, through repetition, through practice, through real embodied work. And that's a different way of actually being in the world. And it's a practice, my friend. I did it yesterday, but I caught myself. As much as I know this information, top down, bottom up, I know it in my head, but does the body know it? I asked my husband to go run an errand for me. And he responded with, well, he had this, this, and this, and I should have done it earlier. I I immediately went into fight. Never mind, I don't need your help. And I backed up and thought, yes, I do need his help. And I'm going into fight immediately. Nervous system activation. I said, I do need your help. Can you do this errand for me, please? Thank you. It is through repetition, through practice, through embodied work. It is okay to ask for help. He went and did the ran my errand. It was actually go pick up some new contacts. I said, Thank you. I could see for miles, made all the difference. I'm teaching him to show up in a different way, and I'm allowing myself to ask for help. Can you do that? So this is top-down, bottom up. All right, more about this. This is why the shadow work doesn't just work in the mind. The shadow lives below your thought, and it requires below thought approach. Top down, bottom up. All right, so I'm gonna tell you an embarrassing story that at the time I did not realize that this was my shadow speaking. All I knew is I couldn't stop myself. I just couldn't stop myself. So I'm an Enneagram 8. We've talked a little bit about the Enneagram. I'm gonna do a deep dive. It's gonna be a series of a couple different podcasts where I'll do a deep dive in the Ennegram. I'm an Ennegram 8. As an eight, I'm a challenger, I'm a protector, I'm direct, I'm fierce, I'm decisive. I take up a lot of space in a room. I can hold a lot of energy. And our shadow, that part that we bury, is often around vulnerability or weakness or neediness or helplessness. Those words make me cringe because I want to protect. I push hard. I protect hard. I love hard. And for most of my life, I kept those soft parts so far beneath the surface that I didn't even know they existed. And I certainly didn't know how to access them. So back in the day, I was in high school. I was a good girl on the honor roll, doing all the things supposed to do as a good girl, right? It's still to this day, I'm a pretty good girl. I don't want to cross the road. If I'm on a run and that light is red, I am gonna wait until it gives me the walk signal. But back then, good girl, I walk in the bathroom. We were having field day. Supposed to be fun, right? I walk in the bathroom. I remember it like it was yesterday. I can almost feel it in my body. And there was a girl making front fun of a guy in our class with a disability. Openly making fun of him. People were laughing. On the day that we're all supposed to be connected and having community and hanging out, she was making fun of him and something in me broke open. I don't remember exactly what I said or what I did or how I made that decision or didn't make that decision. I think I just went into automatic reactivity mode and I got in a fight in the bathroom in high school. I confronted her and I had never behaved this way. Good girls don't do this. I ended up in the principal's office. I was mortified that I had done what I'd done, but I wasn't gonna apologize for it. I'd never been in trouble, but I could not physically, emotionally, mentally stand by and let her make fun of him. I couldn't, I I just couldn't have it. And I've thought about this a lot since I started doing shadow work and I learned about the Ennegram and learned about the eight and the fierce need to protect. And here's what I didn't know then that I know now. The reason I felt his pain so completely, the reason I couldn't stand by and let her do what she was doing is because somewhere in me, I knew what it felt like to be that vulnerable and unseen. And I just didn't know how to admit it. That fierce protector who could not tolerate vulnerability in others is often running from the vulnerability in ourselves. That's the Enneagram 8 shadow. That's my shadow. I still struggle with it today. When I hear somebody getting too needy or playing the victim role, I'm wanting roll my eyes. That's my work. That's my shadow. My protection of Neil was right. And I don't regret it at all, but it was my work. It's my shadow because the intensity of my response, the fact that I bypassed every rule that I'd ever lived by wasn't just about him. It was about every time that I'd felt small and I hadn't allowed myself to be seen. Every time I'd pushed instead of asked for help, every time I fought instead of felt my pain, protected others because feeling my own vulnerability was not an option. And naming that does not make me weaker. It makes me whole. It makes me, it calls in that what Jung called individualization. What is that? It is the process of becoming whole. Not perfect, not healed completely in a finished way, but whole. Healing and wholeness mean the same thing. Here's what I want you to hear because just because you hear it and you're getting the information doesn't change it, because it is in the body. It is in the nervous system. So those journal prompts and that five-step process or that weekend workshop where you go meet your shadow and come home transformed, they may open the door, but they cannot do the work. Here's what does do the work. First, and this is what this full moon is calling upon, an honest self-examination. Not just shallow self-improvement. Oh, I'm gonna do these mantras and change my limiting beliefs, but what am I pretending not to feel? What parts of myself have I decided are not allowed? Where am I exhausted or scared or needing support and refusing to admit it? For an Enneagram eight like me, those questions used to feel like an attack, and they still make me cringe. I don't need help. I don't need support. Yes, we are human. I actually believe we're spiritual beings having a temporary human experience, but in that human experience, we need connection, we need people, we need interdependence, we need things, and it's okay to ask for help. This is the medicine to feel safe when you ask for help. Second, the embodied practice because the shadow is not a thought product problem, it is a nervous system pattern that lives in your body. The body has to be part of this healing. This is not just in the mind. So this is top-down, bottom up. Ask the questions, have the information and feel it in your body. So yesterday, whenever I asked Holt to go get my contacts and he had the response, and I turned and said, No, I do need this help. And I allowed my body to feel that the nervous system has to learn through felt experience and repetition that it's safe to stop hiding. It's safe to ask for help. It's safe to be vulnerable. Vulnerability will not destroy you. Being still will not kill you. Being quiet will not kill you. That's where the healing starts. This kind of learning doesn't just happen through understanding, it happens through practice, through the body, over time, again and again and again. Third, all right, so let's start back from the beginning. First, honest self-examination. Second, the embodied practice, third, in relationship. And here's where most of us get it wrong and we want to resist because I don't need help from anybody else. But the shadow was built in relationship, my friend. And in those early years, when we were learning what was safe to show up and what wasn't, well, that was in relationship. So we're only going to heal in relationship, not in isolation, not in a solo journaling practice, not in a self-paced online course. Not that those things can't help you and educate you, read the books, listen to the podcast. Yes. And you have to do these practices in relationship. So when someone who isn't frightened by what comes up, who doesn't need to just be fine, who can be regulated in the presence of others, when your system doesn't know how to get it on its own. So this is what Carl Jung understood back then, and this is what neuroscience now confirms. The nervous system does not heal in isolation, it heals in connection. All right, back to my blue moon this weekend and the invitation. It's tomorrow night, Sunday night. And even if you listen to this on Monday or Tuesday, there's a three-day pull, right? The blue moon, the full moon rises in Sagittarius. It is the rarest lunar moment in 40 years. Sagittarius is about truth telling, that part of us that wants to grow beyond the current map. And a blue moon is a double illumination. A what? The light is brighter. What's been in the shadows becomes more visible. So I want to ask you, what's been stirring up for you this week? That irritability with no explanation? The grief that keeps showing up uninvited? The exhaustion that's not going away with even an extra nap. The part of you that is tired, genuinely tired of performing and being fine. That's not dysfunction, that's the shadow asking to be seen. And the Aquarius is getting the Sagittarius is getting real. I'm an Aquarius. So there was a Freudian slip there. The Sagittarius is getting real and it is asking the honest questions and directly to you. Are you willing to grow beyond who you've had to be? Not who you want to be, who you've had to be. And there's a difference there. Who you have built for survival. It got you here. It served a purpose, but it's not the whole of you. And your nervous system, your body, your life is telling you that the cost of maintaining that version of you has gotten too high. So I'm gonna leave you with three questions. You don't need a ritual, you don't need a ceremony, you just need to be real and honest. What part of myself have I been managing instead of listening to? The emotions you've been containing, the needs you've been minimizing, the parts you've experienced that I'll deal with that later. Second question. What patterns keep showing up no matter how much I change externally? That's the shadow speaking. What is it protecting? What and third question, what would I do, feel, or say if I wasn't afraid of how it would land? All right, I'm gonna say those three again. What part of myself have I been managing instead of listening to? Second question, what patterns keep showing up no matter how much I change externally? And third question, what would I do, feel, or say if I weren't afraid of how it would land? Sit with those three. The answer is usually the thing that is buried the deepest. All right, we're wrapping it up here. If you've been listening and you've stayed with me the whole time, then obviously something in here landed with you. If you're tired of managing those surface things that are running the pattern underneath and you're ready to do a deeper dive, then give me a call. I offer a free consultation, no pitch. I just want to hear what's going on for you. Let's look for those patterns. Let's look and see what's really going on. See what kind of support you do need. Maybe you are ready for the deeper work. Either way, I want to leave you with a little more clarity today. That's the promise that I give you for every one of these podcasts. I'll leave the show notes below. And I want to invite you to get out there and look at that blue moon. Look in the mirror. What parts are you that you've been hiding? Your success does not have to cost you your piece. The fact that you're still here listening means that something landed. All right, until next time. Namaste, my friends. Go out there and continue being the badass you are. Before you go, if something landed for you today, don't let that just be information. Let's use it as transformation, integration into your body. Ask yourself, what's one thing I heard today that my body already knows is true? Feel it. Allow your body to experience it. This is where the magic happens. If this episode added value to your life, the best way to support the show is simple. Share it. Forward it to somebody who needs permission to go a little bit deeper, to start showing up. Subscribe so you never miss an episode. And if you're feeling really generous, write me a raving review. It means everything. All the links and resources are in the show notes below. And I'll see you next week. Until then, you remember just how incredibly powerful you are. Namaste.