How to get un-stuck

Have you ever felt stuck in your life, in any way?  Of course you have, we all have.  We all have different places where we get stuck.  Some people are stuck in love, some are stuck in their career, others in their self-expression.  We can get stuck in a place where our needs aren't being met - we're lonely, or we're struggling to make ends meet - or we can get stuck in a place where our basic needs are met, but on some level we feel there could be more, and we're not sure how to get there.  Perhaps we're in a good relationship, but we wonder if there could be more intimacy or a deeper sexual connection.  Perhaps we're in a good job, but we feel we could be doing something more meaningful.

Where are you stuck today?  If you could make a change in your life, what would you shift?  Even if you don't know what "moving forward" would look like, what part of your life would you like to move forward in?  Take a moment with this question.  Write down an answer.

Having noticed that we're stuck, what do we do next?  There are so many options available to us these days.  Some work better than others.

Releasing the Golden Cord

I've been on a pretty intense path of personal growth and transformation for the past ten years.  During that time, I've changed almost everything in my life.  I released my first marriage and entered another; I moved from Minnesota to Maui; I even changed my name.  But I had always hung on to my old job as a software engineer.  It took a lot of time away from the work I truly feel called to do, but it was good money.  I always thought "maybe next year I'll let it go."

In late August of this year, I got a surprise gift from the divine.  I was laid off.

I'm in tremendous gratitude for the way my job has served me.  I was a remote employee for a great company, from my house (or wherever I happened to be at the time), for 15 years.  It gave me great health care, covered the monthly mortgage on my old house.  It's paid for 15 years of largely organic food.  It's supported all my travel, and paid for every workshop I've gone to as I've immersed in my new life and new being.  And now it's blessing me with a severance agreement which gives me breathing room to build my new support and manifestation structures and practices.

Thank you, my former employer; I appreciate you, I hope I showed up well for you, and I release you.

I know that I am not in the practice of running my own business, so this is a big transition, and it's risky, but my experience is not one of fear.  I am so, so grateful that I was chosen to be released; I know my colleagues are more in alignment with their work there.  And even though I was ready to move on, it was not a step I was ready to make on my own.

Now, I am on fire!  I am ready to create!  I processing dozens of ideas about how to move forward in writing, coaching, and workshop creation.  I'm grateful to have more space in my life to drop in to my practices, and to support being a priest-in-the-world by beginning in my own body, by doing my own work.  I'm grateful to have more time to loving and creating with my beloved.  And I'm looking forward to dropping in deeper to community here in Maui, which is so rich with growth opportunities for the leading edge of human consciousness and embodiment.

May the changes that come unexpectedly into your own life be as rich with opportunity.  Look for not just the silver lining, but for the immense vista of possibility that unfolds in the closing of a door.

Blessings,
-Apollo

Seeing your Shadow

When I created my business, I chose to work with Light. "Core Light" represents the inner wisdom, energy, and divinity we all carry.  My name, Apollo, was chosen in part because of the association with the light of the Sun. But to heal and awaken on this planet, to support growth and transformation, light alone is insufficient. We also need to have the courage to step into the darkness of our own beings, and engage with the mysteries of Shadow.

Shadow is a mythic term. It's the primordial darkness, the things we cannot see. In Jungian psychology terms, it's all those parts of our self that we've disowned, and cut ourselves off from; but we still carry them, and sometimes they drive us. In the poet Robert Bly's treatment, shadow is "the long black bag we drag behind us". The things we've relegated to shadow are things we don't want to look at - things that are embarrassing, or don't match our idea of who we are. But if we don't engage with it, if we leave it unconscious, it pops up in our lives and personalities in unexpected ways. Also, there's gold lying in the darkness. Reconciling with those disowned parts of ourselves can bring us to a new level of wholeness, integration, and peace.

What's frustrating about working with shadow material is simply that we can't see it directly. (Everyone else may be able to see it...) By it's very nature it's something that's invisible to us.  But there are ways to recognize shadow indirectly.  Here are...

The Top Three Ways to Recognize Shadow in your Life

Welcome and Aloha.

I'm Apollo Grace, a healer, transformational guide and workshop facilitator living on Maui.  I'm here to open my heart and my mind to be of greatest service to your life and being.  Thank you for connecting.

I live on the slopes of Haleakala, the primary mountain of Maui, in the town of Kula, at 2600 feet.  Haleakala translates as "House of the Sun"; it's to the east of most of the populated areas of the island, so we see the sun rising over it each morning.  House of the Sun is also a good name for my blog; my name, Apollo, is based on Apollo the Sun God, who drives the sun across the sky each day in a chariot.  (Apollo is also the god of healing, and of dreams and intuitive revelation... more about that in a future post...)

My life's work at this point in my life - my mission and purpose - is to support healing and awakening in as many people as possible, with as much ease as possible.  What I've seen in my own life is that transformation and growth doesn't have to be hard.  It has hard moments in it - moments of doubt, of fear, of having to face terrible feelings or seemingly overwhelming challenges.  It may have periods of time that are harder or darker than others.  But the overall path, the formulas of transformation, are not fundamentally hard, and the life that results can be beautiful, meaningful, and largely easy.