Descending to Helheim: Using Norse Myth for Shadow Integration

Let's talk about going down.

Not metaphorically. Not symbolically. Actually descending—in consciousness, in trance, in the shamanic journey with seidr—to the underworld, to the realm of the dead, to Helheim where the ordinary dead dwell.

Every shamanic tradition has underworld work. The descent. The journey to the land of the dead. The confrontation with what's been lost, what's died, what's been buried. It's not optional. If you're walking a shamanic path, you will descend. The only question is whether you do it consciously or whether life drags you down against your will.

Norse cosmology gives us Helheim, ruled by Hel (the being, not the place), daughter of Loki. This is where most people go when they die—not Valhalla, not Fólkvangr, not the halls of glory. Just... Helheim. The quiet dead. The ordinary dead. The ones who died in beds, of illness, of age, of accidents. The ones who didn't die in battle or get chosen by gods.

Helheim isn't punishment. It's not Hell in the Christian sense. It's just where you go. It's beneath the living world, accessed through caves and dark places, across rivers, through gates. It's dim, quiet, cool. The dead there aren't suffering. They're just... there. Existing in a different state. Removed from the vitality of life but not destroyed.

This chapter is about using Helheim—as cosmological territory and as mythic shadow integration framework—for deep psychological and spiritual work. About learning to descend consciously to meet what's dead in you, what you've buried, what you've lost. About working with the myths of descent (particularly Baldr's death and Hermóðr's failed rescue) as teaching stories for shadow integration.

About learning that sometimes the work isn't rescuing or fixing or healing. Sometimes the work is just descending, meeting the dead, acknowledging what's been lost, and letting it stay dead.

That's harder than it sounds. We want to resurrect everything. We want to fix, heal, save, transform. But some things need to die. Some things need to stay in Helheim. And learning which is which is part of the work.

The Underworld Journey as Necessity

In shamanic traditions globally, the practitioner must descend to the underworld. This isn't optional. It's initiatory. It's how you develop the capacity to navigate between worlds, to work with death and loss, to retrieve what's been lost while leaving behind what needs to stay dead.

The descent pattern appears everywhere:

Inanna's descent to the underworld
Orpheus descending to retrieve Eurydice
Persephone's time in Hades
Christ's harrowing of Hell
The shaman's dismemberment in the lower world

It's universal because it's necessary. You can't be a whole human without confronting death, loss, grief, the parts of yourself that have died or need to die. You can't develop as a practitioner without learning to navigate the underworld territories.

What the underworld journey actually is:

On one level, it's literal shamanic journey work in ecstatic trance. You enter altered state, you travel to underworld territories in non-ordinary reality, you do work there, you return.

On another level, it's psychological. The underworld is the unconscious, particularly the shadow, the repressed, the denied. Descending is bringing conscious awareness to what's been buried.

On a third level, it's about actual death and grief. Working with ancestors, with the dead, with loss. Not just metaphorical death but the reality that people you love die, parts of yourself die, versions of your life die.

All three levels are operating simultaneously when you do descent work properly. It's not just psychology. It's not just metaphor. It's actual work in non-ordinary reality that has psychological and spiritual consequences.

Why people avoid the descent:

Because it's hard. Because it involves facing what you've been avoiding. Because you have to feel the grief, the loss, the death that you've been keeping at arm's length. Because you might find out that some things you thought were retrievable are actually gone.

Many practitioners do years of upper world work (accessing wisdom, connecting with guides, finding inspiration) while avoiding lower world work. Upper world is easier, brighter, more comfortable. Lower world is dark, heavy, confronting.

But you can't skip it. Eventually, life forces the descent. A major loss, a depression, a breakdown, a crisis. If you don't descend consciously through practice, you'll be dragged down unconsciously through suffering.

Better to go willingly, with preparation, with guidance, with tools.

What happens in the descent:

You might meet:

Ancestors (recent or distant)
Past versions of yourself that died
Lost relationships, dead dreams
Parts of yourself you exiled
Literal spirits of the dead
The reality of your own eventual death

You might retrieve:

Lost soul parts
Forgotten memories
Abandoned gifts and capacities
Understanding of patterns
Wisdom from the dead

You might leave behind:

Old identities that need to die
Relationships that are over
Dreams that aren't yours anymore
Toxic patterns that need burial
Grief you've been carrying

The descent isn't comfortable. But it's necessary. And there's a strange relief in it—the relief of finally facing what you've been avoiding, of touching the grief you've been holding at bay, of acknowledging death instead of pretending it doesn't exist.

Helheim vs. Valhalla: The Ordinary vs. The Glorious Dead

In Norse cosmology, where you go when you die depends on how you die.

Valhalla is Odin's hall, where warriors who died in battle go. They fight all day, feast all night, prepare for Ragnarok. This is the glorious death, the heroic death, the death that gets remembered.

Fólkvangr is Freya's realm, where she takes half the slain (the other half go to Valhalla). Also warriors, also chosen for glory.

Helheim is where everyone else goes. The vast majority of people. The ones who die of illness, age, childbirth, accidents, ordinary causes. The quiet dead. The unheroic dead. The ones who don't get songs sung about them.

This distinction is psychologically important.

Valhalla represents:

The glorious, heroic parts of life
Achievements and victories
What gets celebrated and remembered
The ego's preferred story
The parts of yourself you're proud of

Helheim represents:

The ordinary, unheroic parts of life
Losses and failures
What gets forgotten or minimized
The shadow's territory
The parts of yourself you're not proud of

Most shadow work happens in Helheim, not Valhalla. The glorious dead don't need integration—they're already claimed, already honored. It's the ordinary dead, the forgotten parts, the unheroic losses that need attention.

Modern shadow work often focuses on the dramatic:

The big traumas
The obvious wounds
The spectacular failures
The heroic recovery stories

That's Valhalla work. It's visible, dramatic, story-worthy.

But most of what needs integration is Helheim work:

The quiet losses that weren't dramatic enough to grieve properly
The ordinary failures that just hurt
The slow erosion of dreams you can barely remember having
The parts of yourself that died gradually, not spectacularly
The relationships that ended with whimpers, not bangs

Valhalla gets the glory. Helheim gets most of the dead. Shadow work reflects that reality.

When you descend to Helheim, you're not meeting your heroic lost parts. You're meeting the ordinary dead. The version of yourself who died when you took the safe job instead of the risky dream. The relationship that ended messily. The parent who died of cancer without drama or meaning. The pet you lost. The friendship that faded. The person you were before trauma changed you.

Not glorious. Just dead. And needing to be met, acknowledged, mourned properly.

The work is: Stop looking for the glorious death, the meaningful loss, the trauma that explains everything. Start looking at the ordinary dead—all the small losses, the incremental deaths, the unheroic endings. That's where most of your shadow lives. That's what Helheim holds.

Baldr's Death: The Shadow of Perfection

The myth of Baldr's death is one of the most psychologically rich in Norse mythology. It's ostensibly about a god dying, but it's really about the shadow of perfection, the necessity of death, and what happens when you try to make something invulnerable.

The Myth (Retold as Shadow Work Parable):

Baldr is the best of the gods. Beautiful, wise, beloved by everyone. He's the golden child, perfect in every way. He starts having dreams of his death—disturbing dreams that won't stop.

His mother Frigg, desperate to protect him, goes to every being in the nine worlds and extracts an oath: they will not harm Baldr. Fire, water, iron, stones, diseases, animals, plants—everything swears not to hurt him.

Everything except mistletoe. Frigg thinks it's too young, too weak to bother with. She doesn't get its oath.

Now Baldr is invulnerable. The gods make a game of it, throwing things at him. Nothing can hurt him. Everyone thinks it's wonderful. Baldr stands there, perfect and untouchable.

Except Loki sees this and recognizes something everyone else is missing: this isn't health, it's stasis. This isn't protection, it's denial. Making something invulnerable doesn't make it alive. It makes it frozen.

Loki (in some versions disguised as a woman) asks Frigg if everything swore the oath. Frigg admits: well, not mistletoe, but that's too small to matter.

Loki finds mistletoe. He gives it to Höðr, Baldr's blind brother, and guides his hand. Höðr throws the mistletoe. It pierces Baldr. Baldr dies.

Immediately, everything shifts. The invulnerable god is dead. The perfect one is gone. The golden child has fallen. And the gods, who thought they'd protected him, realize they've failed. Or worse: that their protection was part of what killed him.

The Psychological Pattern:

This is the myth of the perfect child, the golden child, the one who's been protected from everything, who's never allowed to fail or hurt or be touched by darkness. And what the myth teaches is: that protection kills.

Baldr represents:

The parts of yourself you've tried to make perfect
The identities you've tried to protect from failure
The aspects you won't let be touched by shadow
The golden child role (for those who had it)
The version of yourself that can't be wrong, can't fail, can't be less than ideal

Frigg's protection represents:

The desperate attempt to keep something safe from all harm
The belief that if you just prevent every possible danger, nothing bad will happen
The refusal to accept that vulnerability is part of life
The parent (internal or external) who can't allow risk or failure

Mistletoe represents:

The tiny thing you dismissed as too small to matter
The vulnerability you didn't protect against because it seemed insignificant
The shadow element you thought was beneath your concern
The thing you didn't even see as a threat

Loki's role:

The trickster who sees what everyone else denies
The force that won't let stasis continue
The agent of necessary change
The one who introduces the death that has to happen

The lesson:

You can't make anything in yourself invulnerable. You can't protect yourself from all harm, all failure, all shadow. The attempt to do so creates stasis, not safety. It creates a false self that's protected but not alive, defended but not real.

And eventually, some small thing you dismissed—some tiny vulnerability you thought didn't matter—will be the thing that breaks through. The perfect image will crack. The invulnerable self will die.

That death is necessary.

Baldr has to die. The perfect image has to die. The protected, defended, invulnerable self has to die. Not because it's bad, but because it's not real. It's a construction, a defense, a frozen state pretending to be life.

The shadow work:

Where are you trying to be Baldr? Where have you made yourself invulnerable? What parts of yourself have you protected so thoroughly that they're no longer alive, just defended?

Common patterns:

The person who can never show weakness or vulnerability
The achiever who can't let themselves fail
The caretaker who can never need care
The strong one who can't let themselves break
The spiritual person who can't acknowledge their shadow
The one who always has it together, always has the answer, always knows what to do

That's Baldr energy. Protected, perfect, and dead without knowing it.

The work is letting Baldr die.

Not maintaining the perfect image. Not protecting yourself from all possible harm. Not being invulnerable. Letting yourself be pierced by the mistletoe, by the small vulnerabilities, by the shadow elements you've been dismissing.

What that looks like practically:

Admitting you don't know. Showing weakness. Asking for help. Failing at something and letting it show. Being imperfect and not immediately fixing it. Letting someone see you as less than you want to be seen.

It feels like death. It is death—death of the protected self, death of the perfect image. But that death creates space for something real to emerge. Something alive, not just defended.

Hermóðr's Failed Rescue: When You Can't Save Someone

After Baldr dies, the gods are devastated. They can't accept it. So Hermóðr, another of Odin's sons, volunteers to ride to Helheim to try to bring Baldr back.

The Myth (Continued):

Hermóðr rides Odin's horse Sleipnir for nine nights through dark valleys until he reaches the river Gjöll that borders Helheim. He crosses the bridge, goes through the gates, finds his way to Hel's hall.

Baldr is there, sitting in the seat of honor. He's dead, but he's not suffering. He's just... there. In Helheim. Where the dead are.

Hermóðr pleads with Hel to release Baldr. Hel agrees, but with a condition: if everything in the nine worlds weeps for Baldr, she'll release him. But if even one thing refuses to weep, Baldr stays dead.

Hermóðr returns with this news. Messengers go to everything in the worlds. And everything weeps for Baldr—gods, humans, animals, stones, trees, metals. Everything.

Except one giantess (who might be Loki in disguise). She refuses. "Let Hel hold what she has," she says.

So Baldr stays dead. He stays in Helheim. And that's where he remains until Ragnarok.

The Psychological Pattern:

This is the myth of the rescue attempt that fails. The desperate effort to bring back what's dead. The negotiation with the underworld. The attempt to undo loss.

Hermóðr represents:

The part of you that can't accept loss
The desperate attempt to rescue, fix, save, bring back
The belief that if you just try hard enough, you can undo death
The refusal to let go

The journey to Helheim:

Descending into grief, into the reality of loss
Facing the underworld, the place of the dead
Seeing what's actually there, not what you wish were there

Hel's condition:

The impossible demand
The "if only everything were perfect, this could be undone"
The recognition that loss can't be reversed
The test that's designed to fail

The one who refuses to weep:

Reality itself
The part that won't participate in denial
The element that says "no, this is dead, and it stays dead"
The trickster again, forcing acceptance

The lesson:

Some things can't be rescued. Some deaths are permanent. Some losses can't be undone. And the sooner you accept that, the sooner you can stop the desperate rescue attempts and actually grieve.

The shadow work:

Where are you trying to be Hermóðr? What are you trying to rescue that's actually dead? What loss are you refusing to accept?

Common patterns:

Trying to resurrect a relationship that's over
Attempting to become who you were before trauma
Rescuing family members who don't want to be rescued
Fixing people who aren't asking to be fixed
Maintaining hope for something that's already dead
Refusing to accept that a dream is over
Clinging to a version of yourself that no longer exists

That's Hermóðr energy. Riding to Helheim, trying to negotiate with death, attempting to bring back what's been lost.

Sometimes it works. Sometimes you can retrieve what's been lost. Sometimes soul retrieval is possible, healing is possible, resurrection is possible.

But sometimes it doesn't work. Sometimes the dead stay dead. Sometimes loss is permanent. Sometimes the answer is "no, let Hel hold what she has."

The wisdom is knowing which situation you're in.

Soul retrieval work—bringing back lost parts—is real and valuable. But it's different from denial dressed up as healing. It's different from refusing to accept death.

Questions to ask:

Is this actually retrievable, or am I in denial?

Retrievable might look like:

A capacity you had as a child that got shut down but could be reactivated
A relationship that's damaged but both people want to repair it
A dream that's been dormant but is actually still viable
A part of yourself that's dissociated but can be integrated

Not retrievable might look like:

A relationship where the other person is gone (dead or done)
A version of yourself that existed before irreversible change
A dream that's fundamentally incompatible with who you've become
A loss that's permanent no matter how much you grieve

Am I working with what is, or fighting against reality?

Working with reality:

Grieving what's lost
Integrating who you are now
Building from where you actually are
Accepting changed circumstances

Fighting reality:

Maintaining hope despite all evidence
Refusing to adjust to new conditions
Staying stuck in "if only"
Demanding that things go back to how they were

Is my "healing" actually avoidance of grief?

Real healing involves feeling the grief, not bypassing it. If your healing practice is helping you avoid feeling loss, it's not healing. It's spiritual bypassing.

The hard truth Hermóðr teaches:

Sometimes love isn't enough. Sometimes trying isn't enough. Sometimes even the gods can't bring back what's dead. And learning to stop trying, to accept loss, to let the dead stay in Helheim—that's also sacred work.

That's the descent too. Going down to Helheim, seeing Baldr there, and instead of trying to rescue him, just... sitting with him. Acknowledging the death. Weeping for what's lost. And then riding back up without him, living with the loss.

Using Descent Myths for Personal Shadow Work

Both the Baldr myth and Hermóðr's journey provide frameworks for personal shadow integration. Here's how to use them practically:

The Baldr Death Process:

Identify your Baldr. What part of yourself are you trying to keep perfect, protected, invulnerable? Where are you refusing to let yourself be touched by failure or shadow?
See Frigg's protection. How have you made this part invulnerable? What oaths have you extracted? What defenses have you built?
Find your mistletoe. What small thing have you dismissed as not worth worrying about? What "minor" vulnerability are you ignoring?
Let the death happen. Stop protecting. Let yourself be pierced. Let the perfect image crack. Feel what it's like when the invulnerable part dies.

This might mean:

Showing weakness when you always appear strong
Failing at something publicly
Admitting you don't know
Asking for help
Being imperfect and letting it be seen

Grieve the death. Don't immediately try to resurrect a new perfect image. Let yourself feel the loss of who you were trying to be. That's real grief. Honor it.
See what emerges. After the death, after the grief, something new emerges. Not the perfect defended self, but something more real, more alive. Don't force it. Let it emerge naturally.

The Hermóðr Rescue Process:

Name what you're trying to rescue. What loss are you not accepting? What are you trying to bring back from the dead?
Make the descent. Literally journey to Helheim. Go to meet what you think you're rescuing.
See what's actually there. When you find what you're looking for in Helheim, see it clearly. Is it actually asking to be rescued? Or is it at peace with being dead?
Ask the question. "Can this be brought back, or does it need to stay dead?"

Let the answer come from the dead thing itself, not from your wishes.

Accept the answer. If the answer is "it can be brought back," do the work of retrieval. If the answer is "let Hel hold what she has," then let go. Stop trying. Accept the death.
Grieve properly. Whether you retrieve or release, there's grief. Feel it. Don't bypass it. The grief is how you integrate the experience.
Return changed. Come back from Helheim different. Not because you succeeded or failed in the rescue, but because you made the descent, faced death, and came back knowing something you didn't know before.

Meeting Your Dead: The Practice of Helheim Work

Helheim work isn't just about metaphorical deaths. It's also about meeting your actual dead: ancestors, past versions of yourself, lost relationships, people who died.

The practice involves:

Meeting ancestors: Your bloodline ancestors, both recent (grandparents, great-grandparents) and distant (the long line stretching back). Some are healed, some are wounded. Some have wisdom, some have warnings. Meeting them in Helheim creates connection to lineage, understanding of inherited patterns, access to ancestral wisdom.

Meeting past selves: The version of you that died when your marriage ended. The you that died when you took the corporate job. The you that died when your friend betrayed you. The you that died with your first major failure. These are real deaths, real lost versions. Meeting them honors what was lost, retrieves what can be retrieved, releases what needs to stay dead.

Meeting lost relationships: The friendships that ended. The lovers who left. The family members estranged. These relationships live in Helheim even when the people are still alive, because the relationship is dead. Meeting the dead relationship is different from meeting the living person. It's about what was and isn't anymore.

Meeting the dead literally: People who actually died. Parents, friends, partners, children, mentors. They exist somewhere, and Helheim is one territory where you can meet them. Not to resurrect them, not to get closure necessarily, but just to be in their presence, to remember, to say what needs to be said, to receive what they want to give.

Why this matters:

Modern culture is terrible at death. We avoid it, sanitize it, professionalize it, keep it at distance. We don't live with our dead. We don't maintain relationship with them. We act like death is the end of relationship instead of a change in relationship.

Helheim work reconnects you with death as a natural territory, with the dead as accessible (even if changed), with loss as something to be felt rather than avoided.

The practice creates:

Connection to lineage and ancestors
Integration of lost parts of yourself
Proper grieving of actual losses
Relationship with death as a force
Comfort with the underworld territories
Less fear of mortality
More capacity to be present with others' death and grief

Warning:

This work can be intense. Meeting the dead stirs up grief, loss, unfinished business. Don't do it casually. Don't do it when you're already overwhelmed. Do it with preparation, with support, with respect for the reality that you're working with actual death, not just metaphor.

If you have unresolved trauma around death, if you're in acute grief, if you're not stable, this might not be the right time. Get support first. Build capacity. Then descend.

The Necessity of Descent

Let me say this clearly: You can't skip the descent.

You can do all the upper world work you want—connect with gods, receive inspiration, journey to bright realms, learn runes, practice galdr. That's all valuable. That's all necessary.

But if you never descend, if you never face death and shadow and loss, if you never go to Helheim and meet what's there, your practice will remain superficial. You'll be working at the surface, avoiding the depths, staying in the light because you're afraid of the dark.

The völur descended. The shamans of every tradition descend. The initiatory process requires it. You can't become a hollow bone, a clear channel, a genuine practitioner without emptying yourself of what's dead and needs to be released.

The descent is:

Facing your mortality (you will die)
Meeting your losses (what you've lost is really lost)
Acknowledging your shadow (you have darkness, not just light)
Releasing false selves (who you pretended to be must die)
Integrating the dead (they're part of you, whether you claim them or not)

It's not comfortable. It's not easy. It's not the spiritual practice that gets marketed on social media. But it's real. It's necessary. It's what makes the difference between someone playing at spirituality and someone walking a genuine path.

The relief of descent:

Here's what they don't tell you: there's profound relief in the descent.

Relief in finally facing what you've been avoiding. Relief in touching the grief you've been holding at bay. Relief in acknowledging death instead of pretending it doesn't exist. Relief in meeting your shadow instead of exhausting yourself keeping it hidden.

The burden of maintaining the perfect image, of rescuing what's dead, of avoiding grief, of staying only in the light—that burden is exhausting. The descent releases that burden.

You go down into darkness, you meet what's there, you touch death, you feel the grief. And then you come back up, lighter. Not because you've transcended anything, but because you're no longer carrying the weight of denial.

That's the gift of Helheim. Not resurrection. Not escape from death. Just honest relationship with it. Just the capacity to descend, meet what's dead, grieve properly, and return to life more fully alive because you're no longer running from death.

This article is part of our Mythology collection. Read our comprehensive Norse Gods guide to explore the ancient wisdom and mystical power of Norse spiritual traditions.