What Happens When a Crisis Hits Your Life?
If you are alive on this planet, then a crisis will be inevitable! Sorry, but that is the reality of life! Bad stuff happens to good people and good stuff happens to bad people!
Attempting to rationalize why a crisis happened never has worked for me. In the past, I would pontificate and say it was because of “karma” and “they” were just getting what “they” deserved. But then bad stuff happened to me – and I didn’t think I “deserved” it. Sometimes life just “is.” But now as I get older, I can look back and clearly see “the why.”
The education that I received – how I reacted or responded – developed in me my “now” character. At the time I did the best I could with the limited understanding and personal development I had. Then it was about survival. I can see now what I learned. Had that experience not happened to me, I wouldn’t “be” the person that could fulfill my purpose for being on the planet.
Did that make it easier to go through it? No, definitely not. I heard someone say they felt like they were going through hell. The preacher responded, “Not a good place to park – just keep going!”
Now as different crises have hit my life, I can draw on what I have learned. I don’t get so angry. I don’t want to retaliate. I don’t need to be defensive. I don’t need to justify, or give my explanations to look good and hope people will accept “my story” with sympathy. Now I can look at my crisis and say, “What can I learn from this and how can I derive benefit from it so that I can grow?”
In the past my response has been to waste time and energy resisting, complaining or even denying the crisis exists. However, denial doesn’t change the circumstances. Understand that a crisis is simply life’s way of getting our attention that something in our life, our attitudes, our beliefs, or our character needs to change. Sometimes it is about recognizing an old pattern needs to be changed or even eliminated.
A crisis – being larger than a “circumstance” – can be disturbing, often very humbling and sometimes very scary. The benefits of my many crises in life have been that they literally have brought me to my knees and reminded me of what truly matters in my life.
Often it is in the crises that we are forced to let go of the things that don’t really matter. Crisis reminds us that everything in our physical world is temporary. Why reach the top of “our stack” and then ask “Is this all there is?” when we can embrace the idea of letting go of titles and possessions? It frees us up in a powerful way and allows us to move through things much easier and learn to appreciate the really important things – relationships over material possessions. That doesn’t mean that titles and material possessions aren’t important. They just take a lower position on the totem pole.
Crisis creates opportunity for you to become bitter or better by making new choices. Those choices carve out your destiny. I can choose to stay the same or I can choose to make some changes. Either way I will have a result that I must accept responsibility for, and this can be the cruncher. I may want someone else to blame if I make the “wrong” choice. True release comes when we choose to open our hearts to another and ask to borrow some of their faith, strength and wisdom. My experience has been that love and support are around us – more than we realize – we just have to be humble enough to receive them.
Now I have compassion for others and know they are just going through their “stuff” when they are in reaction and crisis. Yes, I can understand them – because understanding comes from having been there myself. To participate in another person’s pain doesn’t mean getting into their pit and wallowing with them. It is about compassion and understanding. It is receiving or giving the support to others which allows us to connect with the people in our life in a meaningful and intimate way. It is about giving a helping hand up and not necessarily a hand out. It is a totally different way to live. It is a connection to a higher power – a God who knows what is happening on the planet. When we remember this, then even in the midst of our crisis pain we can find that deep sense of peace, growth and even joy. Just remembering this is a journey called ‘life’, allows us to benefit from the crises in our lives and use them as catalysts for remarkable transformation.
