The Shadow Playbook

is a guide to getting out of your own way and living the life you were meant to be living.

Shadow refers to the parts of ourselves that are in the dark, that we judge, or don’t fully own or accept. These may be parts of us we don’t like or aspects we aspire to express.

Shadow Play helps you shine light on shadow and enjoy being more You. You may have heard of shadow work, well, this is Shadow Play, it’s fun, uplifting, light-hearted, and impactful.

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 “The Shadow Playbook is a truly brilliant resource. Cindy Lou’s style is light and deep. Every exercise she offers is a gem. And I can see this book being a well-thumbed treasury for therapists, psychologists, counsellors, and coaches in their work.”


- Robert Holden, PhD author of Shift Happens! Happiness NOW! and Higher Purpose

This Book Offers: 

User-friendly, practical wisdom to help navigate the human condition

Simple approaches and practices to help you flourish in life

Activities to support you in shining light on shadow and revealing a more Authentic You

An opportunity for you to experience greater energy, enthusiasm, integrity, authenticity, loving, intimacy, inner peace, and more.

Regularly engaging Shadow Play can facilitate sustainable change and development, supporting you in living your life more freely and fully.

User-friendly, practical wisdom to help navigate the human condition

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Praise for The Shadow Playbook

Ken Wilber Author of A Theory of Everything and Integral Spirituality
“A wonderful book for getting in touch with the shadow side of your life. Much recommended!”
Ron Hulnick, President, University of Santa Monica Co-Author (with Mary Hulnick) of Loyalty to Your Soul and Remembering the Light Within

“If you’re looking for a book that simplifies the process of Spiritual Awakening, you have struck it rich. This delightful book even makes the process not only relatively easy, but fun as well. You will be glad you engaged with Cindy in the endeavor of your Spiritual Awakening.”
D. Genpo Merzel, Zen Master Author of Spitting Out the Bones and Big Mind Big Heart: Finding Your Way

“The Shadow Playbook is a powerful, uplifting, and playful book. It offers insights and practical spiritual guidance to support you in expanding your awareness as well as mindfulness in living a more awakened liberated life. I personally recommend it as a great and helpful book!”
Rob McNamara Author of Powerful Listening and The Elegant Self

“A must read serving up essentials for us to be more free, whole and capable in our world. Dr. Golin surprises us with a fresh reform of shadow work. Shadow has officially met an exemplary playfulness! Turn these pages, employ the powerful practices and you’ll transform today’s strife into newfound delights.”
Diane Musho Hamilton Roshi, Zen teacher Author of Everything is Workable and The Zen of You and Me

“Working with our shadows and blind spots can be intimidating and scary. But Cindy Lou Golin, a seasoned transformational coach, has made this work accessible, creative, and revealing. You are in safe hands with her guidance.”
Jordan Gruber, J.D., M.A. Renaissance Wordsmith Co-author (with James Fadiman) of Your Symphony of Selves

“A breathtakingly innovative, comprehensive, and useful book, The Shadow Playbook focuses not on working with shadow, but on PLAYING with it! Brava! From her exhilarating takes on working with dreams and assuming (radically) different perspectives, to her seamless use and integration of the healthy selves model, Cindy Lou Golin's truly unique and masterful guide captures the Zeitgeist and points us all to a better possible future.”
Gabriel Menegale Wilson, M.Ed Leadership Facilitator, Founder of Freedom & Fairness Co-author of Compassionate Conversations

“Cindy Lou has created a wonderfully powerful guide in her, The Shadow Playbook. As I engaged the rich array of practices I was gently encouraged to contact parts of myself I often turn away from. The result… a deeper tenderness, compassion, and embrace of myself and others and a fuller contact with the humanity we all share.”
Licia Rester Coach, Co-author The Soul Purpose Method

“Cindy Lou Golin is one of those rare humans who personally demonstrates and skillfully facilitates the power of transformation through self-awareness. Her book is a treasure trove of processes that she has road tested and refined over decades. She brings her wisdom, joy, design genius, and great heart to support us in illuminating and embracing those aspects within ourselves, which have previously resided in the shadows.”
Mardoche Sidor, MD Assistant clinical professor of psychiatry-Columbia University Author of The Art of Living

“One of the 5 questions to answer in life is “Who am I?” In her book, Dr. Golin puts aside all unnecessary details and facilitates your discovery of the answer. This is not just an intellectual understanding of who you are; rather, and more importantly, an experiential understanding. The practices, exercises, and illustrations in her book are well crafted, easy to follow, and golden. Do them. Grab this book and change your life for the better.”

The Shadow Playbook 

is intended to help you become more of who you already are.


Shadow Play calls for letting go of limiting beliefs as to who we thought we were while we expand more fully into our True Nature. In doing so, we learn to enjoy all of who we are, including our shadow. Simply put, by learning to love it all, we become freer. Shadow practice enables us to relax our egoic identity so we can live life more freely and fully from—and as—the essence of who we truly are.


This book is designed to gently support, guide, and hold the ego by the hand as we encourage expansion. We can shift from our egoic identification and instead identify with a part of us that is higher, bigger, truer, and freer. Rather than our ego having us, we can become aware that we have an ego and use it in service of our liberation.
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