shadows of the tree
april 2 | weekly warm-up
Reflect on the prompts below and choose one to focus on for this exercise. Once you’ve chosen one and answered it, think about an experience or season in your past that showcases this dynamic. (Your Tree of Life may be helpful.) Journal about how your awareness, thought process, and emotional response to this shadow have evolved, leading you to new self-understanding. How does this theme show up in your current writing projects?
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What do you obsess over but feel guilty about obsessing over it?
In what ways do you feel unsatisfied, no matter how hard you try to feel grateful?
Which parts of yourself do you judge?
What are the emotions that you find difficult to let yourself feel?
Which emotions were invalidated during your childhood?
Which sides of yourself do you tend to mask?
What do you wish people saw in you?
Where do you compromise your authentic self to please other people?
This week, we’re going to start transitioning from Roots and Origins to Shadow Work by looking at the Tree of Life exercise as a source of ideas for writing about the hidden parts of our inner experience.
The Tree of Life exercise asks us to reflect on the roots and origins of our beliefs, skills, values, hopes, dreams, legacies, and more. But it doesn’t directly ask us to identify the shadows that developed in our psyches within those experiences. We’ll get more into the meaning and application of shadow work in the coming weeks, but for now, let’s think about a few shadow themes that come to mind when we look at our trees.
One of the shadow themes that came up for me is accomplishment. It’s a pattern I see hidden in many of my peak experiences, as well as valley experiences. And it’s something that I obsess over and feel guilty about obsessing over. As I look at my Tree of Life, many of my peak experiences and core values center around accomplishment. I’ve placed a high value on being an achiever, and often my sense of well-being has been tied to whether I perceive myself to be achieving enough. The work I do in tying my personal experiences in with this theme will be helpful as I work on my current work-in-progress when I get to the chapter on worthiness.
I’ve provided some reflection prompts in the exercise above to help you choose a shadow theme that might be useful in what you’re currently working on in your writing practice and projects.