10 Shadow Work Questions
From November 2021.
OK. Wow. What a week. What a month. What a year.
Before we begin, make sure you’ve got my Me and My Shadow shadow work workbook!
Here we are about a 3rd of the way through November. We still don’t know what the Holidays will look like. We’re still not sure how long this pandemic will last. We’re not sure what kind of tomfoolery the sitting President of the US will pull over the next couple of months.
Some things feel better, some things are still filled with uncertainty.
In my online tarot, shadow work and speaking course Digging Up Your Roots: Using Tarot for Shadow Work (click here to grab it at a reduced rate!), you get a few tough questions every day to answer, and you begin by pulling a tarot card. You journal everything out - the big, the little, the seemingly silly. And over time, it all starts to connect in weird and wonderful ways to form a stronger and more aligned picture of yourself.
I built it using tarot for a few reasons (not the least of which is because I just love it as a tool), but you don’t need to use tarot for shadow work. And shadow work will absolutely, without question, make you a better speaker. It will help you increase your visibility. It will allow you to feel strong enough to speak up for a friend. For yourself. You will breathe easier. You will stand with more conviction.
Why?
“These are tall promises, Megan.”
Yep, I know. I don’t mess around with words or with actions.
The reason you’re afraid to tell your boss to stop belittling you in front of your coworkers is because you have deep rooted fears that you haven’t confronted that work inside, in the shadows, to keep you from growing. It’s the same reason you can’t tell your partner what you really like in bed, why you feel ashamed loving certain things that you love, and why certain words can spin you into a depression.
That’s how fear works. In the dark, disguised usually as something else, ruling your subconscious with reckless abandon because that is a door you haven’t yet opened.
The keyword is: yet.
Shadow Work as Growth
One of my signature programs, Thriving Visibility, also includes shadow work, because the growth I’ve seen from clients who are asking themselves the hard questions has been astronomical.
But I want to introduce the concept slowly to you. Roll it out and give you a chance to take a test drive. So I’ve developed 10 Shadow Work questions that I’ll post below. You don’t need to use tarot to accompany your answers (though, if that’s your jam, you should go for it!). All you need is a journal, or a Word/Google doc and the commitment to dig in and learn something new about yourself.
But before you begin, please grab my FREE Me and My Shadow shadow work workbook. It’s packed with resources to help you get set up in a supportive way.
As we do in Digging Up Your Roots, before you begin this work, you MUST say the following out loud to yourself: “I commit to seeking care from a mental health professional if anything comes up from this shadow work that I don’t feel equipped to handle on my own.”
Also, you might want to have kleenex handy. <3
Answer the following 10 questions with as much detail as possible. Anything that comes up - any memory, connection, seemingly strange thought - should be documented. I recommend answering 1 question a day for 10 days, giving yourself 15-30 minutes each time.
10 Shadow Questions to Foster Speaking, Visibility and Confidence Growth
What is the earliest memory you have of speaking in public? How was your speech/performance taken? Do you recall any positive feedback? Constructive criticism? Negative feedback? Who gave the feedback?
What are you most afraid of? How long have you felt afraid of this? Can you recall a change in your life that contributed to this fear? Are you responsible for this fear, or is it a result of something that happened to you? How do you feel internally about this fear? Do you feel shame about it? Can you talk about it with others?
Journal about a time that you stood up for a friend. How do you remember your body feeling? (Fast breathing, heart racing, sweating, memory loss, etc.) What did you say? Did it affect change? Was your friend appreciative?
Journal about a time that you stood up for yourself! How do you remember your body feeling? (Fast breathing, heart racing, sweating, memory loss, etc.) How did you feel afterwards? How do you feel about it now? What happened as a result?
What is one thing you haven’t been able to say? Why not? Go over your answer, looking at the “why not” and dig a little deeper. Where does this come from? What is your earliest memory that connects to this? What happened?
Do you consider yourself to be a victim? Do you feel like so many things have happened to you that you’ve had to overcome a lot? (You probably have - you’re doing great.) Now, go back and think about how you contributed to the circumstances. What role did you play? To be very very clear, this is not in relation to abuse. This is an exercise in understanding how you contribute to your circumstances. Think: partner arguments, friendship loss, etc - not abuse. Any abuse that happens to you is never, ever your fault.
What is the most embarrassed you’ve ever been? What happened? How did you handle it in the hours proceeding? The days? The years? Now? What happens to your body when you think about it? Why were you embarrassed? Was it fair that you were embarrassed? How much of a role did you play? What if you forgave yourself? What kind of space would that open up internally? What if you accepted it and forgave yourself and integrated it into your body as “this is one part of a much bigger person”?
What role does shame play in your life? What is the earliest you can recall feeling ashamed? Is anybody else involved? How were you spoken to about it? How did it make you feel? Was it fair? Starting there and moving forward, what patterns do you start to see about shame and how you make decisions?
Go through your answers to the questions from 1-8. Every time you note something you did - a behaviour that you don’t like, a choice you wish you hadn’t made, a memory that feels awful - make a star or an asterisk. Now, starting at the first, and making your way through, I want you make a fresh journal entry for today that lists each of those moments, and beside it, and with compassion (as though you were comforting your friend), write “This happened because [assign reasons, not blame, to circumstances, people, or yourself] and I accept it as part of who I am.” (Another piece you can add to this, if it feels right to you, is to imagine that person in time [i.e. you] outside of yourself, facing you. Now, give that person a hug, and invite them to come back into your body and integrate in the conscious realm.)
Journal everything you’ve learned from doing this exercise. Long lost positive memories, important forgotten details, a renewed love for yourself, a new sense of justice, an acceptance of bad behaviour on your part. How do you feel now? What can you use to carry forward? If you’re left feeling worse than when you started, you likely need some help to work through deeper issues. Start by making a doctor’s appointment. If you don’t have a doctor, go to a walk in clinic and ask for help finding a therapist. There are also many online options available these days.
One of the things that can be really cathartic after doing this exercise, is to say some of this stuff out loud to somebody you trust. Because once it’s no longer just internal, you can really lean into it and own these new ways of looking at old stuff. This integration of your good side and your “bad” side. The idea that fear doesn’t drive this fucking boat - you do. You. Do.
You got this. (If you STILL haven’t downloaded the free guide, grab it here.)
Love shadow work and want to dive deeper? Grab my course Digging Up Your Roots, currently on sale for $222!
I would LOVE to know how this exercise works for you. Please leave a comment below, or send me an email. And don’t forget to share this exercise with friends. It isn’t easy stuff to do, but as I’m sure you’ll know by now, it is incredibly rewarding.
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