It may feel strange to write out things you don’t like about yourself. Try to stay present with each question before making judgments or questioning the exercise. *keep in mind, if you identify with any of the examples I just gave, I have zero judgment about you-these are examples of my own shadow self that I am practicing accepting and loving* You can take this in any direction that feels helpful-whether that means your parts of self are personality traits (like always making jokes in serious moments), emotions (like jealousy or rage), or behaviors (like getting too drunk at parties). You’ll follow a set of prompts that will move you through the process of identifying, understanding, and hopefully, learning to accept and possibly love. You’ll first identify the part, then give it an actual, human name. The idea is to make an invitation list and name these parts of self. Your shadow selves are parts of yourself that you repress, feel ashamed of, or don’t like. (this exercise is pulled from “day 12” of Write to Heal.)įor this exercise, I’d like you to make an invitation list for a dinner party, and the list includes your shadow selves. Shadow Work Exercise: Invite your shadow parts to dinner.

If you’d rather just follow the prompts here, keep reading! I like to offer digital downloads alongside the prompts here so you have options. Shadow work comes in many forms, and if this feels important for you to investigate further, I invite you to look deeper into ways you can meet, greet, and learn to accept (and maybe even love) all that you are. It's about lessening the distain or judgment or attachment to parts of ourselves that really, at the end of the day, are only demons if we demonize them. Shadow work isn't about needing to love the parts we do not like.

What if this wasn't about liking tomatoes or delighting in the folds of my belly? What if, instead, it was about appreciating tomatoes? Being ok with them slipping into a sandwich instead of it ruining my day? Finding a gentle curiosity and knowing that flesh isn't evil, and a soft belly doesn't make me a different kind of person. Why would I want to learn to love tomatoes when they make my mouth curl up in disgust? Why would I want to find the fleshy parts of my belly lovely when I've been told I need to hide them all my life? Why bother trying to like something I've spent so much time hating? Why do Shadow Work? How can naming all that I don’t love help me love myself? These parts of self might arise in our dreams and be unknown to us in waking hours, or perhaps we are all too familiar with these parts as they have come out to play in drunken stupors or lashed out in fits of fury when we’ve “lost control” of our emotional world. What is Shadow Work?Ĭarl Jung describes the shadow as the repressed desires of the unconscious mind-parts of self we’ve shoved away for fear they won’t be accepted, or worse, deemed evil or bad by our communities. A dinner party where you’ve invited your personality traits that irritate you, body parts that feel foreign to you, thought patterns that scare you, or behaviors that bother you. If you’re new to shadow work, I invite you to see this exercise as a meet and greet with the parts of yourself you’ve cast away. If it is, this will be a welcome challenge. Shadow work may be a familiar concept to you.

Shadow work journal and workbook pdf