my experience with shadow work + prompts

What is shadow work?

Shadow work to me is essentially diving deeper into the hidden parts of yourself and being able to question and explore the dark parts that you could have been repressing. I decided to start working on my shadow because as I was improving my self-concept, I always had doubts and I wanted to find out what I was still missing. I was saying my affirmations and taking care of myself but something was still lurking. This is because I wasn’t being completely honest with myself and I knew there was work that needed to be done but was too scared to do it.

How it started.

The main things I wanted out of this experience were healing and closure, which is what shadow work is amazing for. I started off by examining my emotions. I looked at what made me angry, and why I reacted so strongly in certain situations. I asked myself what it was that made me sad and what my response to those situations was. Then I started to notice a pattern: I acted out of fear. I was scared to be vulnerable and open up so I disguised my true feelings with overarching emotions like anger and sadness; I wasn’t really angry at the problem, I was angry that I wasn’t able to say how I really felt.

I would never have realised this if I didn’t look deeper. If I didn’t ask myself the questions that were often very emotional and painful, I wouldn’t have learned so much about myself in such little time. I also spent a lot of time on my mental health and this led to me discovering struggles that I seemed to have been facing forever, but never knew the name of. Through shadow work, I feel like I’ve become a much calmer, present person but also learned so much about myself that was just below the surface.

How did I do it?

The way I went about it was by making a list of prompts and completing one a day. I was still mindful of my thoughts and emotions throughout the day, but every evening, I would go somewhere quiet, away from distractions, and really think about the prompt. This was not a 2-minute process, but I really sat with it for at least 10 minutes. There is no time requirement for this, I just took a while with it because I had so much to unpack. I have made a google doc with prompts I used. Keep reading!

Overall, I know that my healing journey has just started but I love the direction that it is heading. Even if you are scared to look inwards, just do it! It’s painful at times, very emotional and you’ll ask yourself why you’re doing this when it brings up memories that you might want to be forgotten but I promise you, you can’t look to the future without acknowledging how far you’ve come. It’s so worth it and I could never recommend it enough.

Here is the google doc with prompts like I promised <3

So yeah, I guess that’s it! This was originally an Instagram post I made a while back and I just really wanted to share this with more people. I have a gorgeous community over on my Instagram but I’m dipping my toes into this whole Tumblr thing.

And who am I? That’s one a secret I’ll never tell

You know you love me,

xoxo

Gossip girl 💋