Shadow Work for Core Wounds: Move Beyond Toxic Positivity to Heal Emotional Trauma and Find True Belonging

A profound, in-depth guide to help you heal core wounds, identify your authentic self, improve relationships, and find a sense of true belonging.

If you experienced emotional trauma in childhood—neglect, parentification, physical or sexual abuse, or unhealthy family dynamics—your core wounds may be deep or even hidden. You may struggle with relationships, or feel like you just don’t belong. And if you’ve sought refuge as a spiritual seeker, you may feel alienated by the dogmatic and inevitably shallow “love and light” spirituality scene that can often bypass real struggles of mental health, trauma, and loss. It’s time for an in-depth approach to healing.

In this evocative guide, Ora North—author of I Don’t Want to Be An Empath Anymore—will lead you on a journey to uncover and better understand your shadow self, allowing you to integrate unconscious aspects of yourself, shore up repressed emotions, and tap into the self-awareness necessary to heal core wounds. You’ll explore nine archetypes of the self, including the shadow self, the higher self, the wounded self, the creative self, and more. And finally, you’ll discover strategies to help you continue this journey on your own, such as tapping into your intuition, energy work, inner child healing, and boundary setting.

If you’re seeking lasting change in your life, this book goes beyond the toxic positivity and “good vibes” only aspects of popular spirituality to help you heal the emotional wounds at your very core—allowing you to fully understand who you are, and feel truly connected with the world around you.

Ora North is a spiritual teacher and mental health advocate. While very involved in the spiritual community, North does not subscribe to the “love and light” or “good vibes only” mentality that can often whitewash or bypass the very real struggles of the marginalized. Because of this, her focus is on shadow work and promoting the acceptance and validation of all our feelings―not just the positive ones―as tools for growth. She is author of I Don’t Want to Be an Empath Anymore and Mood Magick.