28/10/2026
*How to Sit with Uncomfortable Feelings: Going Deeper with Shadow Work*
Have you ever noticed how, the moment you feel uncomfortable feelings, you immediately try to find ways to fix them? Or is it just me?
I used to have a couple of misconceptions about shadow work. First of all, I thought it was some kind of dark magic. Secondly, I assumed it was complicated.
I feel like I’ve been going a lot deeper with shadow work recently. And by “going deeper”, I mean doing something really simple: allowing myself to feel the pain, whether that be physical or emotional.
And I’m wondering, is shadow work as simple as that, or is there more to it? What do you think?
I’ve talked about feeling the pain in the Happiness Club book and in previous blog posts, but I never fully understood how to do that until recently.
During 2025, I was processing some deep feelings and sometimes I was at a pretty low ebb, as I shared in a couple of posts this time last year.
My astrology and human design friend, Jennie Bloomfield from Her Story Her Stars, explained that I was in my Chiron return, and understanding this helped me to go deeper in a way I hadn’t done previously.
My friend Regan from Spirituality Art and Life sent me details of The Great Allowing process from Sam Miller, which I have found so valuable in helping me process these emotions.
My 90-second practice to allow uncomfortable feelings
I set a timer on my phone for 90 seconds. I close my eyes and focus on where I can feel the feeling in my body and I say:
“I allow you to be here. You are welcome here. Show me what you need to show me. Feel free to move around. I will not abandon you. I will keep coming back to you.”
For the remainder of the 90 seconds, I just focus on that feeling and where I can feel it in my body, notice any other feelings that I can feel in my body and notice if the feeling moves around.
A couple of times I’ve also done Sam Miller’s parts work exercise, which takes it a bit deeper, but generally I just do the 90-second process.
And then I had another realisation about feeling uncomfortable feelings when I’m at work or busy and I’m not in a position to sit down for 90 seconds and really feel it.
I usually start obsessing about how I can get rid of those feelings, or thinking about essential oils to put on my skin, taking a Bach flower remedy, taking some co-codamol, or taking a homeopathic remedy.
And maybe all of those things are okay. Of course they are. But maybe the first thing I can do is allow myself to feel it. Just because I’m working doesn’t mean I can’t do that.
I realised I have a tendency to panic instead of allow.
And I don’t mean that we should ignore physical symptoms or refuse ourselves pain relief when we need it. Sometimes we absolutely need to do something practical. I’m simply wondering what happens if allowing comes before automatically panicking and trying to make the feeling disappear.
My migraine experience
When I had a migraine on Saturday, I went to bed and I just lay there and focused on the pain. That was something that Jennie had talked about in the women’s circle that I attended on Friday.
As I lay there focusing on the pain, I felt like I transcended the experience of it. It was amazing. I just kind of went into a really beautiful meditative trance.
Afterwards I got up and the headache was still there, but it didn’t seem so bad.
I’m not saying that focusing on the pain made the migraine go away. It didn’t. But my experience of the pain had changed.
And I think that’s the really interesting bit.
Maybe we don’t always have to fix uncomfortable feelings the moment we feel them.
Maybe we can allow ourselves to feel them, without panicking about the fact that they’re there.
I truly believe that feeling these uncomfortable feelings is alchemy. It’s where the magic happens. If you truly want to be Happy and get what you want, this is the first, and arguably, most important step.
What about you? What’s your experience of dealing with uncomfortable feelings?
Let me know in the comments.
This is the kind of thing we talk about in Happiness Club.
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This post was originally published on HappinessClub.co.uk and is also available as a vlog and blog post on the Happiness Club Substack.
