Falling Into the Rabbit Hole (and Climbing Out Again)

We all have our Rabbit Holes.

It could be a person, a place, a food, a drink, etc.—but it's some kind of trigger for us, where, all of a sudden, we move from our orderly world into a disorienting alternate reality. You know, life happened.

I'm joking, but I'm serious.

We all have some sort of hole we fall down, again and again, and find ourselves wondering, "How did I get HERE again? Why am I here?" and "I don't understand this" and "Damn it! Not this again!"

Whoops. You thought you had a handle on life. You read the books, you watched the videos, you evaluated and weighed and measured everything, whether it was your food or your emotions. You HAD this shit.

Until you didn't.

What's that Mike Tyson saying? "Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face."

Yup. And now you're in that Rabbit Hole. What to do?

Climb out. I just did. It's January 4th, 2016 and I just fell into the same Rabbit Hole that I fell into in 2013. And 2014. And 2015.

But this time, I was a bit more prepared. I was starting to climb out and then my phone rang.

My friend listened to my Rabbit Hole story about a person, and then said this: "Go into Contacts on your phone right NOW, while we're talking. Go to that person's name."

"No," I said. "I can't delete them."

"You don't have to delete them," he said. "Just do this: Switch their first and last names. Then, in the first name slot, write 'Rabbit Hole'—now, when they contact you, the first thing you'll see is 'Rabbit Hole' and you can decide if you want to go down the hole. But if you do go down it, you'll at least remind yourself what you're getting into."

Whoa. Brilliant.

I did it, and then I climbed out of the hole. It was a lot clearer above. I could breathe again. Even though it was a rainy day, there were pockets of bright sky everywhere.

See, that's the thing about Rabbit Holes. We fall down them, but we forget how to climb back out, or that it's okay to take a friend's hand and let them help us climb back out.

It's just a hole. You fell into it. Take that hand. Climb back out.

Get your bearings. Walk forward again, and maybe the next time you can walk around that hole.