Nevena (Nev), Instagram @iamnevenag, is a Toronto-raised shadow worker and guide of Serbian/Balkan descent who works mostly with women. She combines shadow work with nervous-system regulation, breathwork and body work. She recorded from Belgrade at the end of an 11-month journey into her ancestral homeland.
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- Meeting at a Squamish day retreat
Tamir and Nev met at a day retreat in Squamish, British Columbia. A few weeks later she left on her own for the Balkans, a solo move into the depths that Tamir frames as walking through a…
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Stories told
- Immigrant child discovering her roots
Nev's parents moved to Toronto in 1996, when she was nine months old, and she grew up Canadian with only brief summer trips to the Balkans. Living there, she came to understand her father's…
- Leaving Canada on a full-body impulse
Soon after meeting Tamir, Nev had a 'full-body knowing' that she could no longer live in Canada, though she had few logical reasons. With no expectations, she packed up and went to the…
- Women who call in avoidant partners
Nev describes a pattern she often sees in clients. A woman says she is fully open to love but keeps attracting emotionally avoidant partners. Underneath, unresolved trauma has closed her…
- From turbulent reactivity to neutrality
Nev says she began her journey very turbulent and reactive in romantic relationships and friendships, set off 'at the drop of a dime' by comments. After years of shadow work, conflicts now…
- Growing up Serbian Orthodox and strict
Nev grew up in a strict Balkan family in the Serbian Orthodox faith, which gave her a lot of shame. She notes that her clients from strict religious homes now mostly call themselves…
- A mother's 'no, that's dangerous'
Nev remembers her mother's intense fear response, a constant 'No, no, no, that's dangerous'. She uses it to show how childhood curiosity gets punished and dulled as we grow older.
- Mistaking the shadow for intuition
Nev, who calls herself extremely intuitive, says that early in her journey she often acted on 'intuitive hits' that turned out to be her shadow speaking. She only realized afterward, after…
Words spoken
What is repressed and suppressed is the most harmful for us. That which we bring out into the light, and that we actually look at with our two eyes and we consciously acknowledge, is so much less of a big deal. ... Once it gets brought into the light, it just dissolves.
- Curiosity, not courage, carries you through
The fear of the unknown never disappears, but for people who truly want to change, curiosity outweighs it. This is the curiosity children have before adults teach them that everything is…
- Facilitated breathwork with supportive touch
Nev uses breathwork, grounding and body work, with supportive touch given with permission, to lower adrenaline and cortisol and bring clients out of functional freeze before deeper shadow…
- Naming what's repressed dissolves it
What stays repressed does the most harm. Saying it out loud and looking at it directly makes it far lighter, which is why talking openly about sexual shame brings breakthroughs.
- Neutrality under triggers measures integration
How reactive you are when triggered shows how much of your shadow is unintegrated. An integrated person doesn't need to react or project; they make a simple yes-or-no choice based on their…
It doesn't matter what you learn. If you're in a state of overwhelm, there's nothing you can do with what you've learned. You're just going to freeze and it's going to turn into shame.
- Walk through the portal, led by curiosity
When a full-body impulse or intuitive knowing points toward the unknown, trust it and go, letting curiosity rather than the absence of fear move you. Tamir adds that you plant the idea and…
- Your roots explain inherited patterns
Immigrants and their children can lose touch with the people who came before them, and with it the source of the patterns and shame they carry. Living in her ancestral culture let Nev…
- A loud shadow masquerades as intuition
The stronger your unintegrated shadow, the more easily you get 'intuitive hits' that are really the shadow pushing to surface. Clear intuition is earned by acting, getting it wrong, and…
- Ask what you gain from your suffering
Take a recurring suffering you call unwanted and ask 'the questions nobody wants to ask': what do I stand to receive from this, and why might I be creating it? Finding the answer shows you…
Looking at your darkness is the source of your greatest power. Looking into those voids, into the unknown, into those patterns, whatever it is, it will give you so much power. It will push you to evolve as a human being.
When you find out your existential kink and everyone's existential kink, it's no longer dark. It becomes fun. You can play with it because now you see yourself and you're not owned by that shadow any longer.
For those humans who want to change, they just have a deep desire to shift. That fear is always trumped by curiosity.
- Find the payoff in your suffering
Suffering we insist is 'outside of me' is often suffering we create because we get something from it. Naming that payoff, your existential kink, takes away its darkness and turns it into…
If you see a portal, you should absolutely walk through it. That is my life philosophy.
- No one can integrate your shadow for you
Repression runs unconsciously and protects itself, so shadow work can't be forced. The person has to be fully willing and, above all, feel safe, or the mind won't open.
Nothing in this life should be taken at face value.
The only way to really purify that intuition is to sometimes make the mistake of listening to something that you were convinced is your intuition and end up so tied up, realizing it's your shadow self only after the fact.
- Regulate the body before excavating the mind
Deep inner work done from functional freeze pushes the stress response over the edge and feels overwhelming rather than healing, and then it turns into self-blame. Breathwork and grounding…
- Shame often reflects caregivers' dysregulation
Much of what we were punished or praised for as children reflected our caregivers' stress and dysregulated nervous systems, not real morality. The unconscious still treats those rules as…
There's so much in us that's been shamed, that's been rewarded and punished, not because of any real metric of morality and what's good and bad, but rather just because of someone's distortion or the way that somebody's life ended up. There's no real sense behind it.
- Speak your shame out loud
Bring repressed shame, including sexual shame or trauma, into the open by naming and talking about it: 'giving it a name and a face'. Nev says this alone often dissolves it.
- Stated reasons differ from real motives
Every behavior has a conscious explanation and a hidden aim. In people who haven't done the inner work, these almost always differ, and the hidden aim usually comes down to avoiding…
- Use trigger reactivity as a gauge
When triggered in a relationship, notice whether you react and project or stay neutral. Strong reactivity marks an unintegrated shadow to explore. In conflict, reduce the decision to a…
- Visit your ancestral homeland
For anyone who wants to know themselves at the root, spend time in the land and culture of your ancestors to understand the patterns, beliefs and shame you inherited. Nev says it isn't…
We are actually oftentimes, and I would say all of the time, the root cause of our own suffering. And I would take it a step even further to say that we actually get off on our own suffering.
- What you attract mirrors what you deny
Painful experiences that keep recurring are mirrors of a repressed self that wants to be integrated. The trait you blame in a partner is often the one you can't see in yourself.
The portal to the unknown opens the moment that we realize that we can no longer survive in the known.
Once you confront it and you actually take a look directly into it, it no longer holds power over you. You actually now wield it rather than it wielding you.