Introduction to Shadow Work

Shadow Work is probably my favorite part of my craft. Nothing makes me feel like I have put in effort to better myself quite like shadow work has. It has helped me both in a metaphysical and mundane way. This may be a reason that a large portion of the online witch community pushes newer witches to do shadow work, however, I want to start with this disclaimer: shadow work is not mandatory for you to be a witch. There is no definitive proof that a witch who does shadow work regularly will automatically be more attune with the energy force, with nature, with the divine, or with themselves. If shadow work does not seem like your thing, ok don’t do it. If, on the other hand, you are avoiding shadow work because you don’t want to put effort into healing yourself, then you will see detriments in your craft. Witchcraft requires trust in yourself when casting, and doubt will make it easier for spells to not work or backfire. You should always work on mending the relationship with yourself. Some believe that this simple mending is shadow work, but that is a bit simplified. It is a part of shadow work, but that's not all there is to it.

The Shadow Self

An intrinsic part of shadow work is the understanding of the shadow self. In the simplest terms, your shadow self is all the parts of you you try to suppress (both consciously and subconsciously). Do you have this compulsive desire to lie in unnecessary situations? Have you ever enjoyed hurting someone? The shadow self is sometimes thought of as the devil on your shoulder but it’s different for everyone. Some people try to suppress the angel on their shoulder, by pretending they don’t care about anyone, when in actuality they can’t stop themselves from caring for everyone. The shadow self are all the qualities about ourselves that we try to deny exist in the first place.

In addition to the parts of ourselves we consciously try to hide from, there are the parts of ourselves that we have unconsciously hid from ourselves. These parts usually hold the traumas of our lives. During traumatic events, our conscious brain may modify, alter, or just delete certain actions, emotions, and/or experiences that it believes we will not be able to handle. Although there exists some debate in the scientific world on whether repression can truly occur, as someone with lots of trauma and a multitude of recently unlocked repressed memories, skeptics can kindly Fuck off. In shadow work we ask the questions that will get our brain to start letting the repressed memories slide out of the unconscious headspace into the conscious headspace.

The shadow self is the holder of all of this, and in shadow work you will develop a new relationship with your shadow self. How you develop this relationship will vary from other practitioners based on how you perceive your shadow self. For me I separate my shadow self, conscious self, and higher self into three unique states of being that Can interact in conversation as if separate individuals. I do this in order to create the disconnect I need for more raw answers to questions I'm not particularly ready for but need to hear.

Methods for Shadow Work

The most discussed way to do shadow work is through journaling and answering shadow prompts. Shadow prompts set out an activity for you to perform or a question for you to answer, and they usually are made to be done through writing. However, this does not mean you have to write to do shadow work. For some people, sitting and writing mini essays analyzing yourself after a week of writing reports for work or assignments for school is just too stressful. So what else is there we can do?

Remember shadow work is simply the process by which you access and build a relationship with your shadow self. You can do this in therapy. Therapists tend to have us answer the hard questions about ourselves during sessions. These deep verbal expressions of repressed memory and desires require you to access them. Deep meditations in which we examine the questions we find from shadow prompts. Rather than writing it all down, for some it’s just easier to lose ourselves in deep thought and start answering the questions in our head. Another method is through artistic self expression (poetry, drawing, dancing, singing) are all methods for evoking previously concealed emotions. However, for thorough shadow work one must also examine the emotions they expressed and start making connections. Sometimes simply listening to music with song lyrics that resonate our trauma, can force us to go through our repressions.

For Shadow Prompt Ideas You can Follow My Twitter: https://twitter.com/WitchyWhims_