Recognise in the moment that you’re emotionally triggered.

e.g. Your partner has just said something to you that felt like criticism about your work (writing/creative project etc.), hearing that made you furious, you want to or have already snapped at them. Realise that you just emotionally went from 0 to 100 and take a beat to check in with yourself.

This trigger typically takes the form of anger, sadness, or fear. An important concept to grasp is that fear can come in the form of; fight (anger, lashing out), flight (avoidance, pushing someone away), freeze (emotional shut down, feeling unable to speak or move until the threat has gone) or fawn (making yourself small or amicable to your partner so that they don't hurt or leave you, putting your needs aside so everything can go back to *comfortable*.). 

Understand what underlying narrative is causing the reaction.

e.g. “The thing my partner said invoked feelings that I am unwanted and unlovable, so I lashed out (or wanted) to defend myself.”

This is typically the most confronting part of the process to our self image. It means getting real with yourself about your motivations and your fears. It means holding the understanding that our emotions aren't forced on us by others but come from within and are usually echoes from our childhood. Having compassion for the past version of you that needs your attention, and both forgiving yourself for your reactions but staying accountable to your actions is important. These coping mechanisms used to functionally serve you as a child. They are now not serving you and you're working to let them go. All of your triggers are trying to protect you (but are usually doing the opposite and creating chaos in your life). 

Search for the pattern or trauma in your childhood that created this emotionally charged narrative.

e.g. “When I was a child, my parents were critical of me unless my work was up to a really high standard, I wasn’t given much room for error, and unless I was showing them my good grades I didn’t get much attention; I ended up feeling very unwanted and unloved/unlovable unless I could be consistently academically perfect.”

The origin will typically be between the ages of 0-7 years old. It does not have to be one specific memory, it can be as simple as an impression or feeling, or it may be a series of memories. If jumping straight back to childhood isn't working for you, taking smaller steps back through previous memories that felt the same in adulthood, on to teens, and then into childhood may help to find the pattern. 

For some it is important to remember that while your current adult logic may understand that your parents were doing their best to care for you, that doesn’t change the energetic impression that feeling emotionally neglected (etc.) left on your past child self. Small children do not have the ability to regulate their emotions or see the bigger picture - you grew into your logical understandings.

Feel into the emotions attached to this memory or impression & physically express as much of it as you can.

e.g. Crying for sadness/grief, screaming into or hitting a pillow for anger (pushing very hard against a solid wall also works), or if it’s fear/anxiety do jumping jacks or jog on the spot; pairing moving your body with raising your heart rate is the goal here - it helps if you breathe very rapidly at the same time.

There may be a blend of emotions at play; you may express your anger only to immediately be hit with a wave of sadness. Surrender to the process and the waves that come up. Allow yourself this expression knowing it will pass. Emotional release typically only takes around 90 seconds from start to finish. If your emotions are staying for much longer than this then you are most likely looping/attaching yourself to the story. Please note that this is different to something traumatic happening in the present day. For example if you're grieving a recent death it's totally normal to cry for long periods/repeatedly. (With that being said there is negative beliefs that may be exacerbating your grief over loss that can be explored and transmuted too.)

*IMPORTANT*: It is imperative to understand that this is the key step to doing Shadow Work. The emotional expression is what makes it Shadow Work and not just Shadow exploration/encounter. Your logical understanding of the source will not heal the trauma alone - skipping this step is also known as intelectualising your feelings and oftentimes can serve to further invalidate our wounded inner child.

There are times, especially when we are dealing with immense trauma/wounding, that we have to express these emotions in layers. This is going to be more frequent if you're not used to expressing big emotions. Though even if you are, there are some wounds when even the most emotionally experienced person will deal with their wounds in stages. An example of this from my own experience was first exploring and expressing a wound from a larger, societal perspective. Then after that, months later it was from a personal perspective, and then months after that just letting the feeling pass through my body in physical sensation and tremors. There are no wrong answers in this work other than repressing what we're feeling - although that is natural when we've been taught or forced to and shouldn't be a source of shame either.