A Shadow Tune-Up Exercise

[Joan Marie]

I just ran across this older post I made. I was within another thread, but I thought i would re-post it on it's own (with some minor changes) as it is a really good exercise for shadow work.

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In a Mary K Greer workshop about Jung and the Shadow, she gave some examples of kind of everyday things we do that reveal or trigger some aspect of our shadow to us (if we are looking for it, that is.) For example:

• 1. You promise yourself you will behave a certain way and then you don't.

For example, you're waiting for some one who is late. You promise yourself when they show up you will be cool about it. Then they show up and instead of being cool you act pissy, exactly what you promised yourself you wouldn't do. That's the shadow.

• 2. You stubbornly stick to an opinion past the point it makes any sense to do so, unable to let it go.

• 3. You criticise or find fault with someone, maybe gossip about it.

• 4. You obsessively seek attention or recognition for something.

• 5. Not doing something you want to do because you think you aren't good enough.

She asked us to choose one of these and think of an actual situation when we knew we had behaved this way.

Divide your deck into Minors, Courts and Trumps.
Then draw 3 cards, 1 Minor, 1 Court, and 1 Trump and ask:

The Minor = When does this happen?
The Court = What energy is at play?
The Trump = The Archetypal energy involved.

It was an interesting beginner shadow work exercise, but it's also very useful for any kind of tune-up you might need.

[Starlight]

Thank you for posting this, Joan Marie.

Can you explain the difference between cards 2 and 3? Is the energy in card 2 a feeling/emotion? Or something else?

Thank you!