Are you trying to find a method of shadow work for getting over someone after a breakup?
Well, I'm sorry to hear that—but you've come to the right place.
Heartache is a painful growing experience that lets you reflect on yourself and gain awareness of potential you didn't realize before your recent relationship.
People are wired to seek attachment and be reciprocated. And much of life is about seeking a secure and mature attachment.
However, it appears your invisible bond has been severed.
Understand that the loss of heartbreak is worse than feeling sad. Instead, you feel an emptiness within you.
It goes much further than a feeling.
This is a form of trauma because it shakes your state of self. Profound losses can change you—and it hurts.
But it must be experienced and felt through.
Before we get more into shadow work for getting over an ex, let's quickly go over a few key ideas.
What is Shadow Self & Shadow Work?
Your shadow self, or shadow, is the side of yourself you have no awareness of. It holds all the qualities you disowned during your formative years.
Although you learned to repress these qualities and push them outside of your awareness, they still live underneath the surface.
They unconsciously guide your actions and are the unseen cause for many of the troubles in your life.
Shadow work is the intentional practice of becoming aware of your unconscious shadow and integrating these neglected qualities into your being—becoming whole.
This is a process of building self-awareness, self-acceptance, and universal Love.
"Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate."
Carl Jung
NEXT READ: Everything About Shadow Work (Comprehensive In-Depth Guide)
Shadow Work for Getting Over Someone After a Breakup
So precisely, what is heartbreak?
It's a defeat of the ego or that which demands control. This is not an easy experience, but it's a fact of life that can provide you with deeper maturity.
Resisting this defeat is preventing your grief and blocking this essential growth.
What Happens After A Breakup?
It shifts people to a more independent mindset, where they learn they can't control another person.
This is especially true for the young and naïve sort of love and heartbreak. Where there's a huge tendency to be idealistic while projecting disowned qualities.
In relationships, we project our underdeveloped qualities onto others, allowing us to vicariously experience these qualities our partners have.
Having a partner to express this underdeveloped quality allows us to avoid developing that quality within ourselves.
So when we experience a breakup, we also lose the piece of ourselves that we projected onto our partners.
The quality is still within us, but the vicarious experiencing is gone. Which is something we've identified as a part of us as part of a relationship with our ex-partner.
Shadow Work for Getting Over an Ex
The Higher Self attracted you to your past partner because they held a quality it wanted to bring to your attention.
The Higher Self uses projection to get you to confront a part of yourself it wants you to develop.
This is typically in the form of shadow material, or moreso your golden shadow.
The first love tends to be the most arrogant and hot-headed. Parents would try to temper their child's innocent passion for their relationship, only to be met with rage.
After experiencing heartbreak, our future relationships have tempered expectations where we don't expect our partners to complete us.
Instead, we approach relationships with less dependency and seek to build a relationship with two whole people—not trying to find someone to compensate and fulfill one.
How Do You Heal From Heartache?
Time heals these inner wounds.
How? On its own.
The unconscious is always at work, trying to mend the psyche. Heartbreak is one of those cases where most people just wake up one day and aren't hurting as much anymore.
So long as you have surrendered to your grief and accepted your losses—
Meaning you no longer fantasize that the person will come back.
You've let the person go and have taken back your projections.
Accepting this love-and-loss experience as a part of life.
Shadow Work Prompts After Breakup
- What were the qualities that you initially admired in your ex-partner? In what ways have you developed this quality within yourself since before your relationship?
- If you didn't find a quality you admired or found alluring about your ex-partner, what do you think that says about you? In what ways do you think this contributed to the relationship's incompatibility?
- Many times, the qualities we find most attractive about our ex-partners become the very same reason why we grow tired and despise them. For example, "boyish charm" eventually becomes "immaturity." In what ways do you believe you two have outgrown each other? How well do you think you've integrated your partner's admirable qualities into yourself?
- Write down the last things you'd like to say to your ex-partner. In the end, declare that you don't need closure from them—because regardless, there is more love in the world now that you both aren't in a relationship than when you two were. Burn or throw away this writing in, however, resonates with you the most symbolically.
- The Universe works in a way where everything that happens brings more Love into this world. What activities will you spend more time enjoying? Who are the people you will enjoy more of your time with? In what ways will you grow during the time you stay single? When you are in solitude, you are unconsciously growing and maturing. Before you decide you're ready for your next relationship, write down the qualities you are looking for in a partner.
Did you enjoy these Shadow Work Prompts? Check out the rest in our Shadow Work Journal!
The Shadow Work Journal: 240 Daily Shadow Work Prompts contains the following:
- 30 Shadow Work Prompts for Relationships
- 30 Shadow Work Prompts for Anger
- 30 Shadow Work Prompts for Anxiety
- 30 Shadow Work Prompts for Self-Love
- 30 Shadow Work Prompts for Healing Trauma
- 30 Shadow Work Prompts for Abandonment Issues (Codependency)
- 30 Shadow Work Prompts for Depression
- 30 Shadow Work Prompts for Forgiveness (Letting Go)
Here are some resources I recommend:
A Light Among Shadows is a guide to self-love and being that helps you overcome negative self-talk, instill genuine self-acceptance, and overcome self-hate and resentment by making sense of people’s level of consciousness and your spirituality.
Shadow Work for Beginners Series helps you beat negative patterns and beliefs, integrate your shadow, heal your inner child, reclaim your projections, build emotional maturity, and take back your life by becoming whole.
Shadow Work for Relationship Series helps you heal your attachment style, navigate relationship issues, and build a healthy, mature relationship.
Advanced Shadow Work is an ongoing publication with continued in-depth insight and practical advice you won't find anywhere else on the internet for practicing shadow work, self-awareness, inner healing, spiritual development, and more!
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Book of Shadows (incl. Shadow Work Journal) is your own special journal that you fill up with your energetic intentions as you scribe your own inner practices to be passed down to others.
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