Shadow Work for Witches: What It Is, How to Start, and 40 Journal Prompts

Shadow work is the practice of looking, on purpose, at the parts of yourself you usually keep out of sight: the envy, the temper, the old habits, the things you'd never admit wanting. In witchcraft it's done with a journal, a candle, and usually the dark of the moon. This guide covers what shadow work means, where the idea comes from, how to start, and 40 prompts to write to, five sets of eight, from easy to not.

One line before anything else. Shadow work is journaling and ritual, not therapy, and it doesn't replace the care of a professional. If something comes up that feels too big to hold alone, that's what a counselor is for, and asking for one is part of the work, not a failure of it.

What Is Shadow Work?

Shadow work is the practice of noticing and accepting the parts of your personality you've pushed out of awareness. The word "shadow" comes from the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung, who used it for the side of a person that doesn't fit the self-image they carry around. Jung called it the psyche's blind spot. It holds whatever you decided, usually young, that you weren't allowed to be: angry, needy, ambitious, lazy, loud, soft.

The shadow doesn't go away because you ignore it. According to Jung, it gets projected: you see it in other people instead. The coworker who's "so full of herself" is often carrying a piece of ambition you won't let yourself have. The friend whose neediness drives you up the wall may be showing you your own. That's the first trick of shadow work, and it's a useful one: whatever makes you unreasonably irritated in someone else is worth a second look in yourself.

Two things people get wrong about the shadow:

• It isn't all bad. Jung was clear that the shadow can hold good things too: creativity, confidence, playfulness, anything a person was taught to hide. Some of the best material in shadow work is a talent you buried because someone once made fun of it.
• The goal isn't to get rid of it. Jung's word was integration: you acknowledge the shadow and take it back into yourself, so it stops running the show from behind the curtain. You don't stop being someone who gets angry. You become someone who knows it, and chooses what to do with it.

Jung did shadow work through dreams, active imagination, art, and writing. Witches kept the writing and added a candle.

What Is Shadow Work in Witchcraft?

In witchcraft, shadow work is a journaling and ritual practice usually done in the dark of the moon, the waning year, or Scorpio season, when the whole calendar is already pointed inward. It's a modern practice. It grew up in the witch community of the 2010s and 2020s, borrowing Jung's idea and giving it a witch's structure: a time, a candle, a question, a closing.

What makes it witchcraft rather than plain journaling is the frame around it:

• Timing. The dark moon, the last sliver before the new moon, is the classic time. So is the stretch from Samhain to the winter solstice, when the year itself is doing its own shadow work. Many witches also use Venus retrograde and Scorpio season for it. Our moon phases guide has the dates.
• A threshold. You light a candle to begin and snuff it to end, so the work has an edge and doesn't follow you to bed.
• A record. The writing goes in a journal, a Book of Shadows, or a dedicated notebook. The name "Book of Shadows" is a coincidence (it predates Jung's popularity among witches), but a lot of people enjoy it.
• A release. Some of what you find wants a ritual ending: a page burned, a cord cut, a behavior put on ice.

The point of all this structure is simple. Shadow work asks hard questions, and a witch's frame gives you a safe, bounded place to ask them.

How to Do Shadow Work: Getting Started

To start shadow work, pick a notebook, choose a time, light a candle, write to one prompt for ten minutes, and close by snuffing the candle. That's the whole method. Here's each part:

1. Get a notebook you'll only use for this. Not your spell journal, not your planner. The pages need to be private and a little bit apart. A plain blank book is fine, and so is a composition book from the drugstore.
2. Pick a time you can keep. Once a week is plenty. The dark moon is ideal, but a Sunday night works too. Shadow work done every day gets heavy fast.
3. Set the room. Dim the lights. Light a black chime candle (black for release and protection in candle color tradition) or a plain white one. If you work with stones, a piece of black obsidian, black onyx, or smoky quartz on the desk is traditional for this kind of work.
4. Open. Say what you're doing, out loud: "I'm here to look at what I usually don't." If you like a rhyme:

Candle lit and page turned down,
show me what I've hidden, and I won't look away now.

1. Write to one prompt for ten minutes. Don't edit. Don't make it sound good. If you run out of things to say, write "I don't know what else to say" and keep going; the next sentence is usually the real one.
2. Read it back once. Underline one sentence that surprised you. That's your takeaway for the week.
3. Close. Snuff the candle (don't blow it out; snuffing keeps the ending deliberate), close the book, and say "Done for tonight." Then do something ordinary: wash a dish, step outside, eat something.

Ten minutes, one prompt, one candle. If you want more than that, do it next week.

What You Need

• A notebook kept only for this
• A pen you like
• A candle, black or white, and a snuffer or a spoon
• Optional: a dark stone, a glass of water, a blanket

40 Shadow Work Prompts

These 40 shadow work prompts are grouped in five sets of eight, from gentle to pointed. Start with set one. Don't skip ahead because set one looks easy; it's the foundation the others stand on.

Set 1: Shadow Work Prompts for Beginners

1. What's a compliment I have trouble accepting, and what do I say to myself when I hear it?
2. What did I love doing as a kid that I stopped doing, and who or what made me stop?
3. When was the last time I said "I'm fine" and wasn't?
4. What do I do when I'm alone that I'd be embarrassed for people to see?
5. What's one thing I'm proud of that I've never said out loud?
6. Which of my own habits do I make excuses for?
7. What's a rule I follow that I never agreed to?
8. If nobody would ever find out, what would I do differently this week?

Set 2: Triggers and Projection

1. Who irritates me far more than their behavior deserves, and what are they doing that I don't let myself do?
2. What's the last thing that made me defensive, and what was I defending?
3. Whose success makes me feel small, and what does that tell me about what I want?
4. What quality do I criticize most in other people? When have I shown it myself?
5. What do I assume people think of me, and where did that assumption come from?
6. What kind of person do I secretly think I'm better than?
7. When I lose my temper, what's the sentence underneath it?
8. What's a trait I admire in someone else that I've decided I'm "just not"?

Set 3: Family Patterns

1. What was I praised for growing up, and what have I been doing to keep earning it?
2. What was I punished or shamed for, and where did I put that part of myself?
3. What's something a parent or caregiver always said that I still hear in my own voice?
4. Which family role did I play (the easy one, the funny one, the responsible one), and am I still playing it?
5. What did my family not talk about, and how do I handle that subject now?
6. What did I need as a child that I didn't get, and how do I try to get it now?
7. What do I do exactly like a parent, even though I swore I never would?
8. Which family pattern stops with me, and what will it cost to stop it?

Set 4: What I Want and Won't Admit

1. What do I want that I think I'm not allowed to want?
2. What am I envious of right now, honestly, and what's the wish inside the envy?
3. What would I do with my life if I weren't afraid of being judged for it?
4. What's a dream I've told myself is "unrealistic," and who first used that word on me?
5. Where in my life am I settling, and what story do I tell to make it okay?
6. What do I pretend not to care about because caring would hurt?
7. What would the bravest version of me do about the thing I've been avoiding?
8. What do I want people to say about me when I'm not in the room?

Set 5: Shame, Grief, and What I Hide

1. What's something I did that I've never forgiven myself for?
2. What's the worst thing I believe about myself, and whose voice says it?
3. What have I lost that I never properly mourned?
4. What do I hide from the people closest to me, and what am I afraid would happen if they knew?
5. When have I been cruel, and what was I protecting?
6. What's a part of my body, my past, or my personality I've been treating as the enemy?
7. What would I say to the version of me from ten years ago, and what would they say back?
8. What's one thing I'm ready to stop carrying, and what would I need to put it down?

Set 5 is the one to follow with a closing ritual. Keep a glass of water on the desk and give yourself permission to stop mid-prompt.

Shadow Work Rituals and Exercises

Shadow work exercises are small rituals that give what you've written somewhere to go. Pick one when a journal session ends with something that needs more than a snuffed candle.

• The burning page. Write the thing you're ready to release on a separate slip, read it once, and burn it in a fire-safe dish. Say: "Seen, named, and let go." Scatter the ash outside. This is the simplest release there is, and it works for most of set 5.
• The mirror sitting. Light a candle in front of a mirror and look at yourself for five minutes without fixing your face. Then write what you saw. This one is harder than it sounds.
• The letter you don't send. Write to the person in prompt 19, 23, or 34, say everything, and then decide: burn it, bury it, or keep it in the back of the book. Don't send it. The letter is for you.
• Cord cutting. When a pattern traces back to a specific relationship, our cord cutting ritual is the working for it.
• The freezer jar. For a behavior of your own you want to stop, write it down and put it on ice. It's an unusual use of the spell, and it holds.
• The dark moon sit. On the night before the new moon, do nothing but light the candle, sit for ten minutes in the dark, and write one sentence. Some months that sentence is the whole point.

When to Stop

Stop a shadow work session when you feel flooded, when the writing turns into a loop of the same sentence, or when it's been more than twenty minutes. Those are the three signs. None of them means you failed; they mean the candle did its job and it's time to snuff it.

Stop the practice altogether, for now, if sessions leave you worse for days rather than lighter by morning. Shadow work is meant to be a weekly visit, not a place you live. And the line from the top of this page holds: if what comes up is bigger than a notebook, a counselor or therapist is the right next step, and a witch who asks for help is doing shadow work correctly.

Shadow Work FAQ

What Is Shadow Work?

Shadow work is the practice of noticing and accepting the parts of yourself you've pushed out of awareness. The idea comes from Carl Jung, who called this hidden side the shadow. In witchcraft it's done through journaling and small rituals, usually at the dark moon.

What Does Shadow Work Mean?

It means looking at the traits, wants, and memories you've hidden, so they stop steering you from the background. Jung called the goal integration: taking those parts back into yourself instead of projecting them onto other people.

How Do You Do Shadow Work?

Pick a private notebook, choose a regular time, light a candle, write to one prompt for ten minutes without editing, read it back once, and snuff the candle to close. Once a week is enough.

What Is Shadow Work in Witchcraft?

It's the same journaling practice with a witch's frame around it: timed to the dark moon or the waning year, opened and closed with a candle, recorded in a Book of Shadows, and finished, when needed, with a release ritual like a burned page or a cord cutting.

Is Shadow Work Dangerous?

Shadow work done as weekly journaling isn't dangerous, but it can bring up hard feelings, which is the point. Keep sessions short, stop when you feel flooded, and don't use it in place of professional care if what comes up is bigger than a notebook.

How Often Should You Do Shadow Work?

Once a week, or once a moon cycle, is plenty. Daily shadow work gets heavy fast and tends to turn into rumination rather than insight.

What Do You Write in a Shadow Work Journal?

Honest, unedited answers to one prompt at a time, plus one underlined sentence per session that surprised you. The journal is private; nobody else reads it.

Can Shadow Work Be Positive?

Yes. Jung said the shadow holds good things too, like creativity, confidence, and talents you were taught to hide. Prompts 2, 5, and 16 are built to find them.

What Moon Phase Is Best for Shadow Work?

The dark moon, the day or two before the new moon, is the traditional time. The waning moon in general works, and so does the stretch between Samhain and the winter solstice.

Do You Need to Be a Witch to Do Shadow Work?

No. The prompts work for anyone with a notebook. The candle, the timing, and the release rituals are the witch's additions, and you can take them or leave them.

The shadow isn't the enemy. It's the rest of you, waiting in the dark for someone to bring a candle. The companion to this page is our spell journal guide, which has a free printable for keeping track of what you work and how it turns out.