Depth Coaching - Shadow Work
Slavic archetype coaching rooted in the matryoshka tradition. We open each layer - the outer persona, the guardian, the dreamer, the shadow - until we reach the doll that holds your original nature.
Work together
All work begins with identifying which layer holds the pattern that brought you here. Sessions are conducted via video; a session recording is shared within 48 hours.
Identify your dominant doll layer, the mask you present to the world, and the layer currently asking for attention. Foundation reading before deeper work.
$120 - 75 min
Single-session deep dive into a specific shadow figure. We name it, give it voice, and locate its protective intent. Suitable for recurring patterns or inner critic work.
$150 - 90 min
A six-week container moving through each of the seven doll layers in sequence. Includes the Archetype Quiz widget, written layer summaries, and one integration call.
$680 - 6 x 75 min
A 40-page written archetype portrait - each of your seven layers profiled with shadow descriptions, activation practices, and folk-rooted ritual suggestions. Delivered in 10 days.
$190 - async
Integrative work connecting childhood conditioning to present-day patterns using IFS (Internal Family Systems) and Slavic folktale imagery as a symbolic container.
$130 - 90 min
Twelve months of monthly sessions following the folk calendar. Each month carries a different archetype theme keyed to seasonal energy. Limited to 8 women per cohort.
$1,440 - 12 x 60 min
The tradition
Each tool is chosen because it speaks in images and stories - the native language of the psyche.
Baba Yaga, Morozko, Vasilisa - Eastern European folk figures as psychological maps, not decoration. Each archetype carries specific wound and gift patterns.
Richard Schwartz's IFS model - the self as a system of parts. The doll layers map directly to IFS managers, exiles, and firefighters.
Dreams as communications from the unlived layers. We work with dream figures as doll-layer ambassadors, not as symbols to decode.
Shadow work held in the body rather than the mind. Locating where the guardian lives (chest? jaw?), where the shadow tightens, where the origin doll breathes freely.
Folk-rooted writing practices: letters to the shadow, archetype dialogues, threshold rituals. Used between sessions to keep the layer work alive.
Voices
Composite impressions from sessions. Names and identifying details changed.
"I came in knowing I had a critical inner voice. I left knowing her name, her age, what she was protecting, and how to actually work with her instead of fighting her every morning."
Graphic designer - Berlin
"The Layer by Layer container changed the way I understand the choices I kept making. The folk imagery made the shadow feel human rather than monstrous."
Therapist - Toronto
"The Archetype Quiz on Miroslava's site was the hook. I did it expecting nothing and spent twenty minutes reading about myself. Booked a session the same evening."
Educator - Warsaw
The practitioner
I grew up in a household full of matryoshkas - not as decoration but as teaching objects. My grandmother used them to explain emotional layers: the face people show, the one they guard with, the frightened one inside, and the small still one at the centre that does not change. The framework stayed with me through my training in psychology and depth coaching.
I trained in Internal Family Systems at the IFS Institute (Level 2) and spent three years studying Slavic folk literature as a parallel symbolic system. The overlaps were striking: every major folk archetype has a direct IFS correlate. Baba Yaga is not a villain - she is the Self appearing in its most uncanny form.
My work is for women who have done enough therapy to know the theory but have not yet made friends with the part that keeps pulling the rug out. I am based in Prague and work with clients internationally. Sessions are in English or Czech.
About the work
Shadow work is the practice of bringing unconscious patterns - the beliefs, reactions, and figures we disown - into conscious relationship. Carl Jung called the shadow everything we cannot see in ourselves. Depth coaching makes it workable, not just visible.
The seven-layer model maps the psyche as nested containers. The outermost doll is the social self; moving inward reveals the protector layer, the wounded layer, the creative layer, the shadow layer, the child layer, and the original nature at the core.
Women navigating significant transitions - career change, relationship patterns, identity shifts after motherhood or loss. You do not need prior therapy experience, but you do need curiosity about your own interior. Courage is optional on day one.
Eastern European folk wisdom carries a sophisticated psychology dressed in story. Vasilisa the Wise, the Firebird, the Tsarevna Frog - these are not metaphors but working maps. We use them because images move the psyche when arguments cannot.
Begin
All sessions via video. You will receive a preparation questionnaire one day before. Sessions recorded and shared within 48 hours.