The Shadow Work Workbook: Self-Care Exercises for Healing Your Trauma and Exploring Your Hidden Self

by Jor-El Caraballo

Explore and embrace all parts of yourself with the help of the mental health self-care practice of shadow work so you can dig deeper into discovering who you are and pursue a happier, more fulfilled life.

Shadow work—the process of exploring your pain, trauma, and imperfections—is a powerful tool to help you embrace and accept yourself, even the parts that are difficult. The Shadow Work Workbook gives you everything you need to get started with a clear explanation of what shadow work is, how it works, and how it helps you, as well as guided meditations and accompanying journal prompts and affirmations to walk you through your own shadow work. Written by licensed therapist Jor-El Caraballo, this book is the perfect companion for your self-exploration journey.

Genres: Self Help, Nonfiction, Psychology

256 pages, Paperback

Published September 13, 2022

About the author

Jor-El Caraballo is a licensed therapist and cofounder of Viva Wellness, a therapy practice based in New York City. Caraballo received a BA in psychology from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington and MA and EdM degrees in psychological counseling from the Teachers College at Columbia University. He has been featured as a mental health expert across many magazines and websites, including Mind Body Green, Men’s Health, Healthline, Insider, Self, and more, sharing advice and insight on self-care, interpersonal relationships, dealing with trauma, and more.

Reviews

[Franciekat]

Currently 1/3 of the way through this workbook. The author spends a lot of time reminding the reader to ground and practice self-care. This is good for therapy newbies, and ethically responsible for a clinician, but disregards that working with the shadow is often painful, and avoiding this pain is what buries it in one's psyche in the first place.

Maybe it's the concise writing style, or the lack of mythological references, but so far the book only makes a token reference to depth psychology. This winds up feeling like "Jung light", a paradox in working with the shadow.

On the other hand, unlike many Jungian books on the shadow, which tend to be long on theory and short on applicability, this book's strengths are its' practical exercises. The author is especially skilled at explaining common psychological concepts, like what does it mean to sit with your feelings? Or, how do you access intuition when you're not sure what that feels like?

[Eugenie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Whatever you hate in others is actually a part of you that you want to reject that is present within yourself. So true

[kathy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you Jor-El Caraballo, @katerockbooktours , @adams_media , and @simonandschuster for gifting me this amazing book that is filled with information about mental health and the work ook you can do for yourself to live a mentally healthy life.

I am so grateful to have this book in my life. I look back in my life and wish I had this book when I was a struggling artist who couldn't afford therapy. I also wish I had this book when I was working my very demanding job so that I could take a few minutes for myself.

Not everyone can afford a therapist and this book can really help! Even if you can afford therapy, sometimes it is really hard to open up to someone, but with this book, you can open up to yourself in the comfort of your own safe space.

[Aysia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Started working with this today and already had a world-altering realization. I’m so grateful to Jor-El.

[Amy M · Rating 4 out of 5]

While doing the work in this book didn't help me as much as I wish it did, it was still eye-opening and helped me become a little bit more self-aware of the things that I've struggled with in the past and those that I do on a daily basis. It also helped shed a little light on why I do the things I do and feel the way I feel. I would really recommend this to anyone looking to start doing Shadow Work, and as I continue my spiritual journey, I might even go back and review my answers to these prompts in the future.

[Linda · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is based on Carl Jung’s work on the psyche. He founded analytical psychology. His theory was that the psyche had conscious and unconscious parts. The unconscious part was the shadow which held repressed memories you want to avoid. You have to identify and face them to heal. This book contains self-care exercises to help you and affirmations which remind you of healing thoughts.

[Pablo Reina · Rating 2 out of 5]

Lacks depth although good presentation of important yet basic mental health pillars

[jewelthinks · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book and its exercises are best suited for beginners to therapy and shadow work. The questions were a bit too simplistic for someone like myself, who has already done extensive work in this realm.

[Erika Bucci | erikalaceyreads · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an amazing workbook on mental health, self care and healing trauma. I absolutely love it! I was super excited to receive this as both a licensed social worker/mental health therapist and someone who has endured traumas in life. I highly recommend you get a copy for yourself and/or someone else!

thank you to @katerockbooktours @adams_media @simonandschuster and the author for providing me with a copy of this book for the tour!