The Isolation of Men

My friend Mike committed suicide a couple months ago.

He wasn't alone.  When I went to my men's group that week, the 8 of us present could count 7 different men we collectively knew that had killed themselves in the last month.  In the US, men commit suicide four times as often as women.  Over 30,000 men killed themselves in the United States in 2010.

What's happening here?

We may never be able to understand why a particular person chooses to end their life.  I'll never know what went in to Mike's final decision.  But we can look at the condition of men generally, and see some factors that lead men to be more likely to kill themselves.

Men in our culture are notorious for not asking for help.  When it comes to our problems, we have a powerful tendency to try to figure it all out on our own.  When I was depressed in my teens, and had sexual issues around age 30, this was very much my M/O. I had different theories each week of what was going on with me, and how to fix it.  But it wasn't until I sought out therapy in each case that I really began to shift the problem.

This tendency shows up strongly in the statistics on depression, as compared with suicide.  Typical depression statistics show that it impacts women twice as often as men; and yet, men are committing suicide 4 times as often.  What accounts for this?  Depression statistics cannot measure men who don't talk about their depression - who aren't seeking counseling help, or help from their family or friends.  So I would imagine that there are hundreds of thousands of men in the USA right now who are struggling with depression and choosing to have those struggles on their own.

And there's so much help available.  There are men who have been in a similar place, and can hear about what's going on without judging you as dangerous or inadequate.  There are counselors, coaches, self-help programs, and transformational workshops that can directly address and shift this sort of pattern.  As an initiate of the Mankind Project, I know that I always have my weekly MKP meeting to bring forward any pattern that isn't serving me.

What will it take for men to open up about our suffering?  What will it take for you to open up about yours?  Here's an exercise: write down one issue in your life - emotional, sexual, financial, whatever - that you've been suffering alone on.  Then make a list of at least three resources that are available to help you with that issue.  Once that's done, ask yourself - why are you choosing to suffer alone?  Sit with this question for a while, until you get a really clear answer.  Next question - would it be beneficial for you to get support?  If the answer's yes, make a choice between the resources you listed and go ask for help right away.  You have nothing to lose but your isolation.

PS - to take it to the next level - if you want to inspire others and yourself in a bigger way - post your answers to the above questions in the comments section below!

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.