Remember what happened to Alice in Wonderland? She fell down a rabbit hole into a strange land where the rules didn't make sense and the all the signposts were backwards.
Alice kept asking for help to find her way but got confusing instructions.
The queen of the land threatened to take off her head if Alice didn't follow orders, but the orders were impossible to execute.
Over the last year or so, I have been feeling like Alice.
The world seemed crazy.
And I know many who feel the same.
We have fallen down a hole and can't get out.
The signposts don't make any sense.
The landscape is different.
What we are "supposed" to do is impossible and real directions seemed hard to find.
But as I have stumbled around myself and have helped others navigate through their changes, I have found out something very helpful and comforting.
That something is my essential self.
What's the essential self? Our heart and our soul -- those parts of us that are our character, are the same.
They have not changed, no matter what else has.
The essential self is as distinctive as the shape of our head or the way we walk.
Whatever happened externally, the inside is much the same.
On the inside is our values, our integrity and yes, our quirks and eccentric ways.
Whatever made us valuable and unique is still there and usable, even if dented and scratched.
Whew..
Realizing that was a great relief.
I can count on those things within me that I have honed over my lifetime...
they are not going to desert me.
I can feel safe.
I have only lost the outside stuff, not what is really valuable.
Realizing this, a quiet joy began to emerge because while everything else can be replaced or discarded, I, the essential me, will never go away.
And while I'm not grinning like the Cheshire Cat, I am smiling more and that's a good sign.
And yes, as the song says.
"Still crazy after all these years" and I refuse to lose that.
And I hope you are the same.