Seeing the title of this book, "Shadow Work Diary", makes people curious. What is a shadow and what is shadow work? With these curiosities, I opened the book.
The author of this book is Kayla Shaheen, a cognitive-behavioral therapist.
Recognize the shadows, know Jung.
That's right, shadows.
The shadow theory was developed by Carl Jung in his 1917 book On the Psychology of the Subconscious, in which he called shadow the inner alter self. Jung defined shadows as negative personalities, those qualities that we usually want to hide, and which are also the content of our personal subconscious.
Discovering the shadows, facing the shadows, and exploring the shadows is also a process of self-acceptance.
Just as a person has a shadow in the light, it will always exist and will not disappear. And the shadow in psychology is the same, it cannot be removed, and there is no other way than positive acceptance.
Through shadow work, we can explore our own spiritual world from it. For example, you can explore fear, ego, anger, sadness, anxiety, jealousy, and so on.
The whole book is like a workbook, through different exercises, to achieve different practice purposes.
For example, what kind of person you feel is, what is the way you escape, what makes you feel bored, and what makes you feel excited.
Then reflect on some questions.
For example, why you sometimes fall into a scarcity mentality, and what self-improvement techniques you should use to turn negative thoughts into beliefs that make you more empowered.
Different fill-in-the-blank exercises and different reflection questions, after a period of time, there will be an activity to release negative energy, and the author lists many options, you can choose one to release the trapped negative energy.
So how do we integrate our own shadows? In the book, the author proposes a visual meditation practice through which we can integrate our own shadows.
The whole book is not like a psychology book as we generally think, it is more like a companion workbook, with example questions and sample essays, guiding us on how to do the problems, how to embrace and transcend our shadow selves. Personally, I really like this type of book, it's great. #记录我的2024##春日生活打卡##春日扭蛋机#