how on earth do you go about working through things with shadow work?

alrighty. let's get to it.

I've had a thorn in my side for years. usually it's not that big of a deal but it's started coming up a fair bit more. I know why it's a thing, I know why I'm so afraid of it, and I know every little thing that's triggered it, but for the life of me I can't figure out how to move past it.

I could say "accept that it happened, and that it's not that common of a thing" but anxiety doesn't exactly listen to reason. I thought about meditating on it to try and figure it out but the last time I used meditation instead of journaling for shadow work it didn't end very well.

TLDR: read the title.