At some point in our lives, we have all experienced personal, family or work crisis situations. Sometimes we do not know how to face that moment or its consequences. What is the message of crises and what can we do to overcome them? Keep reading.
Our life is a continuum of experiences in the midst of which we seek to achieve goals and obtain emotional well-being. Sometimes, however, the conjunction of some factors or circumstances conspire to generate complex states in which we are out of control and lost in a sense of clarity and a sense of security. We commonly refer to this state as “crisis”.
A crisis is a moment of tension and change that induces us to go through uncertainty and to use creativity, since it is a time of cycles that close to give way to new ways of seeing ourselves and our lives. We usually experience crises as tense moments, because we insist on wanting to perpetuate what has already passed, has died or has withered. Crises are recognized by the emergence of intense emotions, confusion, radical changes in the way of seeing things, as well as the presence of unusual and unmanageable situations.
A favorable view of crises is to perceive them as spaces for personal growth, opportunities for review, decision and self-knowledge, as a parenthesis that leads us to discover mental and emotional patterns that struggle to renew themselves.
There are good examples of this. Thanks to a health crisis, Julio Iglesias gave up football and became a singer. Today he is a record man with more than 500 million records sold. Due to a money crisis, Stephen King was born as a writer and is now the most widely read author in the world. As I have pointed out in my book The Message of the Wise: “… there are bitter remedies that heal”.
Each crisis brings significant changes. The death of a family member, an accident, a divorce, or failure to achieve an important goal, can be enough to substantially modify the way of life we lead.
It should be understood that seizures rarely appear suddenly. In general, they are the product of accumulative processes, of which we are not aware or that we ignore, until some trigger overflows the glass and we are affected in our routines and stabilities. Thus, we are suddenly forced to change a habit, leave a job, renew a relationship, change housing or go back to school. Crises push us to create a leap and then create a new balance.
An economic crisis can be seen as an invitation to meet our true vocation, to develop creativity, to improve relationships, to change the workplace or to review the way we handle money. A relationship crisis can reveal the need to address blocked or ignored aspects of the relationship or, to say goodbye, definitely. A health crisis could be the cry of the body to show us the exhaustion, fear, tension or carelessness that we do not see, and to push us to overcome sadness, resentment, guilt or emptiness. It could be what is required to observe that we are going very fast, that we are anchored in self-abandonment or that we have forgotten the pleasure of living.
Sometimes we self-generate crises, and we use them, without even noticing it, as symbolic resources to gain the attention of our loved ones. Also, they are scenarios created to be able to rest without feeling guilty, to have the courage to change our lives, or ways to give up and surrender. I believe, like Stanislav Grof and Roberto Assagioli, that many of the crises that we call illness or madness are actually transitional stages in a complex process of evolution and inner growth.
To overcome crises, we must accept that they are processes of change, and a normal part of human life, for which we are largely responsible. They are messengers of changes, which often require professional help. And that should be approached not with resistance, but with openness to see its lessons. And to understand that reducing crises requires living more alert, grasping the signs of change when they appear, learning to be more anticipatory, expanding our options to depend less on unique options, and accepting what cannot be controlled. Bottom line: Less expectations, more options, and more acceptance. Thanks for reading me. www.laexcelencia.com.
