Have you ever reached an intricate part in your self love and self-care journey and had no idea why? Shadow work prompts for letting go may be the missing key.
Embarking on a self-love journey isn’t always easy, especially when there are hidden parts of ourselves, deep in our subconscious minds, that we are unaware of. To truly love ourselves mean to love our shadow traits as well.
Where Did Shadow Work Come From?
When Carl Jung created the powerful tool that is shadow work, he believed that our unconscious mind comprises shadow parts of ourselves that are unknown to our conscious awareness.
Shadow work means taking a deep dive into past events to bring our inner shadow to our conscious life. This can help to uncover our deepest desires, the desires of our inner child, and also understand ourselves on a deeper level and get in touch with our higher self.
Shadow work can be an excellent tool for your mental health. Adding it to your healing process can help you create a safe space within yourself to heal in a healthy way.
Check out our related post on shadow work:
35 Shadow Work Prompts for Self-Love
Why You Should Consider Shadow Work Prompts for Letting Go
The benefits of shadow work are plentiful. Here are a few reasons worth mentioning:
- Healing past trauma can help you become a better best friend, parent, partner, and overall human being.
- Letting go of negative emotions is a great way to make room for more positivity and motivate you to achieve your goals and dreams.
- Catering to your dark side and shadow selves can help heal deep wounds prohibiting you from thriving personally and professionally.
- Bringing awareness to your shadow self may help you focus on the most important thing (s) in life: personal growth and personal development.
- Uncovering your shadow side may be a powerful way to understand yourself better and learn all the bad things that keep you from fully loving yourself.
The good news is that shadow work can be done without professional help, although seeking a therapist is always recommended.
I have compiled 33 shadow work journal prompts to help bring about positive change in your life and help eradicate negative beliefs about yourself and others.
Keep reading if you’re ready to let go of toxic traits, heal trauma, and live your best (and most emotionally regulated) life.
33 Shadow Work Prompts for Letting Go
- What is one thing you regret? Take some time to reflect on why you are regretful. What feelings come up when you reflect on this regret (e.g., disappointment, embarrassment, shame.). What emotion(s) would you like to feel instead?
- Consider something you regret doing or allowed to happen. In what ways has the regretful action forced you to grow and change for the better? Point out some positive impacts that came out of that regretful action.
- What is something you haven’t forgiven yourself for that is hindering you from fully loving yourself? Try to think of why you feel you aren’t worthy of forgiveness? Then, list all the reasons why you are worthy of forgiveness.
- Think about something you haven’t forgiven yourself for. Write an apology to yourself explaining what is hindering you from actually forgiving yourself, and read it out loud.
- Think of a few things that you haven’t forgiven yourself for. Make a “forgiveness bucket list” and add all the positive ways you will work to earn your own forgiveness.
- Write a detailed letter to yourself expressing grace and forgiveness for something you’ve done in the past that wasn’t in your best interest or went against your better judgment.
- Think of a situation that is hard for you to move past. Write down why you can’t move forward and explain how each makes you think. Read your feelings out loud and allow yourself to feel seen and heard.
- Think of one negative emotion you seem to feel often. Write down what happens when you feel this emotion and any patterns you notice. Explain why these emotions arise at those times and which emotion you’d like to replace them with.
- Think of a negative emotion you feel often. Pretend you can converse with this emotion and write down what it would request from you. How might you begin to start healing this emotion.
- What bothersome physical symptom often arises for you (e.g., headaches, tight jaw, neck pain, backaches)? Think of the times or events that trigger this symptom and the emotions that come with it. How can you start showing love to yourself when these symptoms arise?
Related posts on feeling triggered:
55 Affirmations to Protect Your Energy When You’re Triggered
11. Consider the areas in your life where you feel stuck. Why do you feel stuck (e.g., fear, lack of resources)? What qualities do you need to possess to overcome the feeling of being stuck?
12.Think of an area of your life you’d like to grow in but feel stuck. What emotions come up? What qualities would you need to develop or prioritize to rise above this feeling?
Related posts on feeling stuck in life:
50 Affirmations for Creativity When You Have A Mental Block
13. What grudge are you holding against someone else. What do you think you are carrying this grudge, and how is it making you feel? Write a letter to yourself explaining why you are hiding resentment and the reasons you should let it go.
14. Think of someone you are holding a grudge against. Write this person a letter expressing your feelings. Read this letter out loud to yourself and write down how you feel. You may give this letter to the person, keep it, or discard it.
15. Do you feel like you cannot enjoy the present moment? What past event do you think takes up a lot of mental and emotional space? Why do you feel stuck there? Make a list of things you’ll do to let go of the past and start enjoying the present moment.
16. Consider where you are and what you have learned thus far. Then, write a letter to your younger self giving the best advice on living a life full of meaning and happiness. How much of this letter do you apply to your actual life?
Related posts on choosing a happier life:
50 Simple Actions To Help You Choose Yourself Everyday
17. Think of a past mistake you’ve made that you blame on someone. Explain why you blame your mistake on the other person. Where can you begin to take accountability for your actions and forgive the other person?
18. What person or situation has hurt you and left an open wound hard to move past? Why has it been so hard to move past that feeling? Do you think keeping this wound open will negatively or positively impact your life? Why or why not?
19. What part of yourself do you neglect when protecting self-care? Why do you feel you neglect this part of yourself? Then, create a list of all the reasons this neglected part of you deserves love and affection.
20. Which part of your life must be erased to become your most authentic self? Think of why you’d like to erase that part of your life and write down which emotions arise. Write down how to bravely face these emotions to become your best self.
21. Do you find to hard to “look not the bright side”? Have the negative experiences, and negative beliefs made it difficult to look at life positively? Create a list of things you are grateful for and all the positive things in your life.
22. Pretend you are the main character in a happy movie. How would you want your life to be? Write down how you feel about yourself, think of yourself, and want to make others feel. Now, what’s the first step you will take to complete this life a reality?
23. When is the first time you recall being hard on yourself? What was going on in your life that made you feel you didn’t deserve grace? If you can go back in time, think of different ways you could’ve given yourself grace.
24. Think of when someone made you feel you weren’t worthy of grace, forgiveness, and/or love. Write how this made you think and pretend to tell that person what you needed from them.
25. Make a list of your core values. Is there anything about you that is prohibiting you from prioritizing your core values in your life? Are these things unfavorable to you? How might you begin fixing those parts of yourself?
26. Think of the different parts of your life where others abandoned you (e.g., friends, family, caretakers). Explain how these negative experiences shaped you into who you are today. List some bad things and good things that came out of these experiences.
27. Think of the biggest lie you tell yourself about yourself. In your personal experience, who benefits from this lie? What will happen if you stop telling yourself the lie?
28. Think of the biggest regret you have in your life regarding a loved one. Would forgiving them mean removing them from your life, or would you be able to forgive and still reserve space for them?
29. What is one thing you wish you had in your life. Imagine the only way to obtain that thing is to forgive yourself or another person for something that occurred in the past. Could you do it? Why or why not.
30. Think of a time you didn’t listen to your inner voice and regretted it. Make a list of different methods you will try to show yourself more grace for the past. Then, make a second list of ways you will pay more attention to your intuition the next time.
31. When was the last time you felt depressed or anxious? When do you recall the first time you had similar feelings? Do you notice a pattern, or are these feelings random?
32. How do you feel when you engage in negative self-talk? What feelings come up for you? Are they negative feelings or positive?
33. Draw a line down a piece of paper. On one side, write down some negative thoughts you have about yourself. On the other side, turn your ideas positive with an opposite statement. Then, read them loud to yourself.
Implementing Shadow Work Prompts for Letting Go
You can implement a little shadow work in many ways in your daily life. An excellent way would be to treat them like journal questions. Incorporate them into a journal entry, or get a separate notebook for shadow work journaling.
When the process of shadow work is done correctly, you can go about your self-love journey and spiritual practice with more of an open mind and inner peace.
The worst thing about being on a journey of self-discovery is there is so much pressure to do things on our own. So if you know someone who may benefit from these powerful shadow work prompts, share them!
The best version of yourself is on the other side of your shadow work healing. Which shadow work questions will you be adding to your self-care routine? Let us know in the comments below.
If you enjoyed this article, checkout our related self-care posts:
Self-Care Worksheets for Women: 9 Ways to Promote Mental Wellness
