Using Reflection to Support Healing, Honesty, and Spiritual Growth Shadow work has become one of those phrases that gets used often, but not always explained well. Sometimes it is presented as something dark, punishing, or emotionally brutal. Sometimes it is treated like a trend instead of a practice. And sometimes people approach it as though the goal is to dig up every painful thing they have ever felt and sit in the wreckage. That is not what healthy shadow work has to be.