Hel: A Stark Lesson in Shadow Work

Hel is the daughter of Loki (the trickster) and the giantess Angrboda. Her siblings are Fenrir (the great wolf) and Jörmungandr (the world serpent). The gods feared this family for their power, their wildness, their refusal to fit into neat categories.

So they banished Hel to the underworld. But here’s what’s crucial: they didn’t diminish her power. They just relocated it.

Hel’s appearance reflects her liminal nature: half living, half dead. Half light, half shadow. She embodies the truth we try to avoid: we all contain both life and death, beauty and decay, light and darkness.

She doesn’t hide her death-side. She doesn’t perform only her beautiful half. She shows up whole, and in that wholeness, she is sovereign.

Unlike many underworld deities, Hel doesn’t judge the dead. She doesn’t sort them into “good” and “bad,” “worthy” and “unworthy.” Those who come to her realm, Helheim, simply… exist there. It’s not heaven or hell in the Christian sense. It’s just the place where certain dead go, and Hel receives them all.

This is revolutionary for shadow work:

Most spiritual teachings emphasize “raising your vibration,” “manifesting positivity,” or “healing” your darkness. Hel offers something different: What if some things don’t need to be healed, transformed, or transcended? What if some things just need to be accepted?

• What if you could stop fighting your depression and just be depressed sometimes?
• What if you could stop trying to “manifest” your way out of grief and just grieve?
• What if you could stop judging your trauma responses and just acknowledge they exist?
• What if you could be half-living, half-dying, and that could be okay?

Our culture demands we “stay positive,” “choose happiness,” and “manifest abundance.” Anyone who can’t perform constant optimism is seen as broken, negative, or not spiritually evolved enough.

Hel says: Bullshit.

Some days you’re not okay. Some seasons you’re in death. Some years you’re grieving. Some parts of you are decayed and will never be restored. Some wounds leave scars that don’t fade.

Hel’s realm isn’t for those who died gloriously in battle (they go to Valhalla). It’s for those who died ordinary deaths: sickness, age, quiet endings. It’s for the unheroic, the unsexy, the unglamorous truth of most human experiences.

Hel teaches us to honor:

• The grief that doesn’t resolve neatly
• The depression that isn’t about “low vibration”
• The anxiety that exists despite all your healing work
• The parts of you that died and won’t resurrect
• The ordinary, unglamorous struggle of being human

This is radical acceptance.

Hel’s half-living, half-dead appearance is a map for our own experience. We’re all partially alive and partially dying at any given moment:

• Alive: Hope, growth, new possibilities, healing in progress
• Dead: Grief, loss, dreams that failed, parts of self that won’t return

Most spiritual teachings tell us to focus only on the alive half, to “let go” of the dead half. But Hel shows us both halves simultaneously. She doesn’t hide her decay to make others comfortable.

W_hat if you stopped hiding your decay?_

What if you let people see that you’re:

• Still affected by old trauma even though you’ve “done the work”
• Sometimes depressed for no fixable reason
• Carrying grief that will never fully resolve
• Partially broken in ways that won’t mend
• Half-dead while also being half-alive

Hel reigns sovereign while showing both faces. You can too.

Hel doesn’t try to resurrect the dead or make Helheim into Valhalla. She simply tends her realm. She presides over what is. She accepts without trying to change.

This is a profound practice for shadow work:

Pick something you’ve been trying to “heal” or “fix” for years:

• A pattern you can’t seem to break
• A wound that won’t close
• A feeling you can’t transform
• A part of yourself you’ve been trying to change

Now try Hel’s approach:

1. Sit with it without trying to fix it. Don’t journal about “why” or strategize “how to heal.” Just be with it.
2. Say: “This exists. This is part of my reality. I’m not trying to change it right now. I’m just acknowledging it’s here.”
3. Feel what it’s like to stop fighting. To stop improving. To stop “working on yourself” for a moment and just exist with your shadows.

This is temporary acceptance. It’s giving yourself permission to stop performing healing and just be.

Hel was banished to the underworld, but she made it her domain. The gods feared her, but they couldn’t diminish her. She rules her realm absolutely.

When life banishes you to your shadows, you have a choice;

You can see it as exile and spend all your energy trying to get back to the light.

Or you can do what Hel did: claim sovereignty exactly where you are. Rule your shadows. Reign over your darkness. Make your underworld times your domain rather than your prison.

This looks like:

• Accepting your depression while depressed rather than fighting it constantly
• Acknowledging “I’m in a death phase” without shame
• Setting boundaries around your capacity:
• “I’m in Helheim right now. I can’t be social/productive/positive.”
• Letting yourself be half-dead when that’s your truth

1. Create two faces: one representing your alive self, one representing your dead/dying self. You can draw them, find images, or simply visualize.
2. Light a black candle (for Hel’s realm) and a white candle (for the living world).
3. Place your hands over your heart and say: “Hel, sovereign of the in-between, I acknowledge both my faces. I am half-alive: [name what’s alive in you: hope, growth, healing]. I am half-dead: [name what’s dead/dying in you: old dreams, parts of self that won’t return, ongoing struggles]. I stop trying to resurrect what wants to remain dead. I stop pretending I’m all alive. I accept my wholeness, life and death together. Like you, I can reign sovereign while showing both faces.”
4. Sit in this truth. You are both. And both are okay.

Hel’s realm isn’t a place of torture or punishment; it’s a place of rest for those who died ordinary deaths. It’s for those who didn’t go out in glory. It’s for the quiet, unremarkable, deeply human endings.

Your Helheim times are the same:

They’re not dramatic transformation moments. They’re the quiet, grey, in-between times when you’re not healing dramatically or falling apart spectacularly; you’re just… existing. Barely. And that’s enough.

Hel doesn’t demand anything from those in her realm. She doesn’t require productivity, positivity, or performance. She simply allows them to be.

You can offer yourself the same grace.

When you’re in your Helheim season, you don’t owe anyone:

• Positivity
• Productivity
• Explanation for why you’re not “better yet”
• Performance of healing
• Hiding your death-face

You can just be. Half-alive, half-dead, wholly sovereign.

Hel sits on her throne, showing both faces, claiming full sovereignty in the realm the gods feared. You can do the same: reign over your shadows, accept your in-between nature, and stop apologizing for being both alive and dying at the same time. This is wholeness. This is power. This is Hel’s gift.