Introduction

One of the most striking features of our minds is how little we understand them. Although we inhabit ourselves, we seldom manage to make sense of more than a fraction of who we are.

Shadow journaling will help bring things to the forefront of our minds so we can begin to understand ourselves on a deeper level.

What is the Shadow? “Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual’s conscious life, the blacker and denser it its” ~ Carl Jung. Carl Jung’s analytical psychology spoke to how the shadow represents the “dark side” of our personalities. The shadow self is the unknown part of you, it is the psychological term for all the things you can not or will not see in yourself. The shadow is not bad. It is just hidden. And because it is hidden, it runs around without supervision often causing damage and pain in your life. The shadow may appear as rage, jealousy, hatred, greed or selfishness. It affects every aspect of your life. The more you can shine light on it the less power it has over you.

With Shadow Journaling we will explore ourselves and move towards the art of self knowledge using prompts for your own self directed journaling.

A suggestion: Read through each question completely one time. Then return to each question, slowly go through them, one at a time to give yourself space and self respect during this time of reflection.

We began long before we were actually conceived. Our characters are deeply tied to aspects of our parents' lives that they may have been reluctant to directly discuss. So, let's begin with this.

What was your mother like as a teenager?

And your father?

Now imagine your mother and father with their mother and father, what might the emotional atmosphere have been like for them?

We enter through a very particular door: a class, an economy, a moment in history, a particular position in the nation's ever swinging pendulum between despair and hope.

What was the corner of the world like you were born into? And its mood?

How might this have marked you?

The way our parents behaved towards one another gives us an enduring notion of what all relationships might be like.

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Projection