The Shadow Self: November Spirituality Journal Prompt

Journaling

There is still time for you to ponder the November Spirituality Journaling Prompt this month. This can even be a part of your end of the month journaling review. I like to ask myself the same questions each month plus a Spirituality Question that gets me thinking and gives me a chance to connect to my truest most inner self, my spirit. If you’d like to see what questions I ask myself each month check out my November Plan With Me, which includes all of those questions that I ask myself at the end of the month to see how I’m doing. See what I’ve learned and just to see where I’m at, this monthly life review also helps my mental health.

This journaling practice definitely gives me pause for reflection, which I feel like I don’t have enough time for in my life. Taking pause is something that I have a hard time making and taking the time. But with this practice its built into my routine at the end of the month with my journal.

The reason this article and video hasn’t come out until now is because it was emotionally taxing for me to do this journal prompt. Honestly, I did the journal prompts with the intention of reflecting immediately on camera to share the journal prompt and my answer.

I just couldn’t do it.

I needed to get myself some space, and now I’m ready to share with you my answer for the November Spirituality Journaling Prompt. This month’s question has to do with Shadow Work and getting to know your inner self.

It’s been a really interesting journey to journal on and to reflect on. I think you’ll find a lot of insight into yourself and realizations that you didn’t realize were there. So let’s dive in a get to know ourselves better and work on connecting with our soul and spirit. The prompt for this month is: describe a person you have a strong negative reaction to and their negative qualities. After that, erase their name and replace it with your own and ask yourself for each point: what am I feeling? why am I feeling this? If you find that you don’t have the answers… just wait… they will come to you.

November Spirituality Journaling Prompt

  1. Describe a person you have a strong negative reaction to and their negative qualities.
  2. Erase their name and replace it with your own.
  3. Ask yourself for each point: what am I feeling? why am I feeling this?

My Experience

I found this journaling experience was really unsettling, and I was very very surprised at how it made me feel. It made me feel incredibly sad and anxious. Just plain, disrupted. I also felt more and more ramped up as I worked my way through this journaling exercise. BUT, I did have some revelations at the end of this, which is the whole point of this exercise.

I realized what my values are, the standards that I want hold myself to, and that I’ve been holding others to. I also had the revelation of recurring themes that are happening throughout my life. Then I realized that I have got some major work to do on myself.

I had such a shake up when I did the journaling exercise. At the end of the first part of this exercise I found that I ended up with nine points about the person that I was describing that I have a strong negative reaction to.

My Answer to This Shadow Work Spirituality Journaling Prompt…

After I erased their name and wrote my own, I felt really really unnerved and freaked out by the revelations and insights that followed. One of the points that I can share with you is, “I Jenny, Person I have a negative reaction to, don’t take care of my home, my body, and my health.”

I didn’t realize how important those things were to me until I erased the name of the the person that I was having a strong negative reaction to and replaced with with my own. Then I realized the standard that I hold myself to, and that I was holding other people to, was a bit high. and sometimes that’s not always fair.

Then I reread the answers to myself as, “I Jenny, do or don’t do this negative thing.” The answers caused me to pause for reflection. As I went through each of the nine points and wrote down the feelings and emotions that I was having initially, I wrote out why I was feeling those emotions and having those visceral reactions.

The reasons were giving me a lot of insight into my true self and into the way that I honestly and deeply feel about my own self, which was a huge huge revelation. This journaling exercise has given me a lot of really big revelations. Shadow Work like this is scary and taxing. It’s just difficult to get through and difficult to recover from.

The emotions I was feeling through this journaling practice were: uneasy, ashamed, panicked, unsafe, embarrassed, mad, hurt badly, very sad, not thought of, forgotten, shocked, and scared of how I’m perceived.

Those themes, feelings, and emotions, just kept repeating themselves repeating, and repeating themselves, through each of the nine points that I wrote.

Lets go back to that last one that I shared with you, “I Jenny, don’t take care of my home, my health, and my body,” which is not true. But this is a negative thought that I have about myself from time to time. I am not doing enough and not living up to the standard I’ve set for myself in those areas. I need to stop the negative talk, we all need to stop the negative self talk and stop projecting our fears about ourselves onto others.

I still have a lot of work to do when it comes to the standard that I hold others to. I need to either practice what I preach, and actually do those things in my own life, and really take that to heart… Or I need to let this standard and expectation go and stop holding myself and others to such a high standard.

I need to realize that they are human, and I am human too. I need to realize that my expectations are just a little too high and sometimes can be toxic.

The reason that I felt embarrassed in my journaling prompt was because my pride was hurt and I want people to know that I care, and that those things are important to me. I want people to know that I take pride in my home, and I take care of my home, and I take pride in my body and my health, because it’s something that’s important to me.

It was interesting that I felt embarrassed. I think that has a lot to do with my mental health struggles and just the normal pressure that we put on ourselves when it comes to life, interacting with others, how we’re perceived, and the expectations that we hold ourselves to. I was surprised that I was embarrassed and that my pride was hurt after this journaling exercise. I’ve got some work to do on that. I’ve been reflecting about it since writing this journaling prompt. And let me tell you, it’s was hard.

Shadow Work is hard and very difficult. BUT it will help you a million fold. It will help you understand yourself more. Shadow Work will give tell you if you’ve been unrealistic with your expectations of yourself and others. You are not alone. It’s a common this to put too much pressure on yourself and others.

I’d really love to hear what your answer is (if you can share it) in the comments down below or email me. I really love to hear from you. I love getting emails from you. It’s amazing to be able to interact with you on a much more personal level in actual genuine back and forth conversations. It makes me smile and it just warms my heart whenever I get these messages from you all.

I am very very grateful and thankful to have you as a community and to know that I’m not alone when it comes to mental health struggles or just normal everyday struggles. Sometimes I’m just too hard on myself and I’ve got to remember that I’m human. It really helps to have a community to support me and also have a community that I can support back as well.

Related Posts

25 Awesome Gifts For Journal Lovers

25 Awesome Gifts For Journal Lovers

You just found out that someone in your life loves journaling (or maybe it’s you!!!) and you’re excited that you finally know what to get them as a...

How To Dream Journal

How To Dream Journal

Dream analysis and understanding was one of the first things I learned about as a teen searching for answers to understanding my place in the world,...

Take the next step and JOIN THE TRIBE.

Every Owls & Indigo tribe member:

✦ Receives every new article in their email inbox.

✦ Will be the first to learn about new projects.

✦ Gets access to all free downloads.

Thank you for joining our Tribe.