Shadow Work: Exercises

Before reading this post you should read the previous two posts; Shadow Work: An Introduction and Shadow Work: Are You Ready?  As I discussed in both of those posts shadow work is a very individual process so I can’t give you an exact road map to go about it but I can give you a variety of exercises for you to incorporate into your shadow work in a way that will help you on your journey into your shadow self.  These exercises come from my own shadow work and from my experience in mental/behavioral health.

The first step is to dedicate time to your shadow work, either daily or weekly.  Just make sure it’s a schedule you can keep. 

What do you need to do shadow work?  You don’t need a whole lot to do shadow work just a pen or a pencil and some paper.  A journal would be pretty handy but you can use a regular tablet if that’s all you have.  Some other things that you don’t have to have but might like to include; highlighters, post-its, stickers, music, candles, or incense.

Where do I start my shadow work?  Shadow work is not linear.  Most folks have the impression that they must start back with their childhood but that’s not the case.  You can pick any point in your life you want to start with.  Say you’re having trouble in your life right now with anger, start working with your most recent incident and see where it leads you.  Everything is connected in your psyche and one thing will lead to another.

While doing your shadow work remember the 5 A's discussed in Shadow Work: An Introduction.

Journaling is a very valuable tool and it’s one that I don’t recommend you skip when you undertake your shadow work.  Start your journal out with an entry about why you want to do shadow work.  Be sure to date your entries.  There are a lot of ways to work with a journal and you’ll have to decide which is right for you.  Don’t be afraid to change things as you go if you feel you need to.  If you really can’t decide where to start you can begin by writing your whole life story.  You can write it the whole way through or stop as you find things to explore and then pick back up once you’ve worked through that area.  Like I said earlier, shadow work is not linear and one thing will lead to another.  If you’re having trouble in a relationship with a certain person you can start writing about that relationship and see where it leads you or write about a specific situation going on in your life.  Look for other times in your life where similar influences where at play and see what patterns you can find and what kinds of observations you can make.  If you’re not much of a writer you can try doing an art journal.

One recommendation is to meditate before you start any shadow work to get your mind in the right state before you begin for the day.

When looking for a place to start you can do a meditation where you sit down with your shadow personality and interview it.  Pretend you are Barbara Walters and ask the really tough questions.  These questions can give you starting points to explore further.  Don’t know what to ask your shadow personality, start with simple things like, “How do you like the weather?” and move on to things like, “How are you affecting my current relationship?”

Here are two more meditations you can try and they are best if done in conjunction.  First is to review a memory from your point of view.  (You can use your journal to help you pick a memory to review.) Relive it with all of your senses and emotions.  This is a very good exercise to do with your inner child.  What observations can you make about this memory?  With these observations how can you now better process the events than you did when they happened?  Next review the same memory but this time instead of viewing it as yourself view it as if you were a third party, detached and observing the scene.  What observations can you make from this point of view?  With these observations how can you now better process the events than you did when they happened?  If you’re really feeling bold you can try to review the memory a third time from the other person’s point of view and ask yourself the same questions. 

While you are doing shadow work things are going to bubble up from your subconscious through you dreams.  Keep a dream journal beside your bed to record your dreams as soon as you wake.  You can purchase books on dream interpretation or Google the symbols in your dreams to find the meanings.  Just remember that ultimately dreams are your own language so if you think a symbol means something other than what the meaning you find says go with your own personal meaning.

There are many reasons through the course of your shadow work for you to perform a ritual.  Ritual helps to solidify your work.  Some rituals you might want to perform are for closure, release, break throughs, and clearing blockages.  If for any other reason during your work you feel you need a ritual then you should heed that pull.   Write your own rituals to get the most out of them.   Remember shadow work is a very individual process and your rituals should reflect that.  Make your rituals as elaborate or simple as you feel is appropriate.  You know what is right for you.

Tarot’s connection to our subconscious makes it a valuable tool in this undertaking.  One way you can use tarot is to draw one card when you sit down to do your shadow work and let it guide you as to where to begin your work that day.  Another way you can use tarot is to devise your own shadow work tarot spreads to work with.  Some questions you might want to ask either for one card draws or as part of a larger spread are; what aspect of my shadow self am I most uncomfortable with, how does my shadow self undermine my goals, what kind of work do I need to do to integrate this part of my shadow personality, what is my action plan for working with my shadow self, how does my shadow personality affect my relationships, or what obstacles/blockages are there to my shadow work.  These are just some examples of the kinds of questions you can ask. 

This Japanese healing art can be a great asset when working with the shadow personality.  It helps with healing, releasing, and integration.  If you are a reiki you can do your own sessions.  Otherwise book a session for either an in person or distance working.  Once a month is a good general frequency for sessions but you can do them weekly when you are working through some of the messier bits.  Incorporating crystal therapy into the reiki intensifies the benefits.

As you identify aspects of your shadow self you may find that they cause specific chakras to be imbalanced.  You can seek out a professional who will help you to align your chakras or you can work on balancing them yourself.  The internet is full of exercises that you can follow to balance your own chakras and repair your aura.  During the shadow work process you may find it necessary to give intense focus to a specific chakra and work with it for a period of time in order to balance it.

For visual people diagrams may help them through their shadow work.  You can diagram things like shadow fragments and you chakras, masculine and feminine aspects, aspects that stem from your mother/father, aspects and your career/romantic relationships/or relationships with friends and family.  The diagrams can be done in any way that feels right to you, there’s no right or wrong way to diagram your shadow personality.

Doing shadow work is a very active process, it requires a lot of work on your part.  You must work to find your shadow aspects, heal, and integrate them.  At times it will be a very uncomfortable process as you face things you’d rather not acknowledge about yourself.  The benefits though of working toward an integrated self are worth the time, blood, sweat, and tears that shadow work requires you to put in.  Your path through shadow work will be distinctly your own but these exercises give you some tools to navigate through your shadow personality.