What's Sanity When Your World Seems Insane?

 k

             First, let's be clear that in using the word sanity here we are not talking about the legal definition where being sane means knowing right from wrong and being mentally competent to stand trial.  Nor are we using the word insane to mean lacking the capacity to participate rationally in legal proceedings. Neither are we referring to any diagnostic state of psychological health or mental illness, as most individuals who are dealing with a diagnosed emotional difficulty are  considered sane even though they are suffering much distress.

          Instead, we are using sane in its everyday sense as most of us do to mean feeling normal in our usual circumstances.  Insane as used in this booklet in its everyday sense means feeling radically out of step with the world around you, with your life as you want it to be, and out of balance with your friends, family, and sense of normalcy. 

We should also clarify what is meant by troubling times.  Some of you who are reading this guide may be experiencing the troubling times of personal, unique, circumstances.  You may be going through a relationship or personal breakdown, or enduring the chaos of parenting.  Perhaps you are dealing with an illness and find your energy and resources challenged.  Maybe you recently started your own business and it's rough going these first few years, causing tension in interactions with others as well as testing your personal courage and your tolerance for uncertainty.  Any of these might be troubling times for you.

Others may be caught in the negative impact of world events.  You may have a relative in the armed forces, and be experiencing an unrelenting fear for their safety.  Maybe your job was outsourced and you've been unable to find comparable work due to the slow economy. Perhaps you are involved in the processes of an election year and feel like the outcome has life and death stakes.  Such events and involvements could be troubling times for you.

Whatever the cause, you've probably picked up this self-health guide because you are feeling like the world around you ---whether your individual personal world or the multiple shared situations of the planet we live on--- has gone crazy and you wonder if you too are losing your mind.  You might not even be sure any more what sanity is supposed to look and feel like.

Let me assure you that if you have enough awareness to feel or see or suspect that things aren't right, and you're questioning how things got the way they are, you aren't losing your mind.  Quite the contrary.  You are, in fact, becoming more conscious. 

Where the troubling times are related to your personal, unique circumstances, this feeling of going crazy or being in an insane world is actually the emotional ---and often the bodily felt--- sign of a new psychological process of self-reflective evaluation that is growing within  you.  This is a good sign because it's a signal to stop what you're doing in the way that you're doing it, to change how you are thinking or what you are thinking about, and look for creative alternatives.

Where the troubling times are related to world events, it may be as if you are the little child who saw that the emperor had no clothes.  You may be the only one in your crowd to see the world as it really is.  It's the being alone in your awareness that feels like a loss of sanity.  Or, it may be that you can’t get information you need to make necessary decisions, or that events are beyond your control, leaving you to feel powerless and confused.In reality, it's a waking up, a seeing beyond the veils of illusion.  This is also good, because it's a choice point in your life, an opportunity to take a different direction in your perspectives and actions.