Crisis as a Self-Growth Tool

                           By Jay Ray

In my practice as a Psychotherapist, it was fairly obvious that people didn’t spend their money to come and see me for fun. They came because they had reached a point in their lives where things had become unmanageable. A crisis point had been reached. Nobody likes going through crisis. In fact I think we spend a good deal of our energy trying to avoid it. It is this avoidance that is the prime cause of crisis itself. We grow up with our choices vetted by our parents and other caregivers for correctness to their beliefs. They do this for a varieties of reasons. Some for our protection. Some for theirs. Either way, we grow up believing there is a right and wrong choice which is dependent, not on our needs of the time, but on others opinions.

   We search for what right actually is, and we search for it in the minds of other people, not our self. For everyone of the ten billion people on the planet, each one is going to have a different idea of what is right for us. So which one do we choose? Most of us, unfortunately, get so bamboozled by the process, that we put the whole thing in the "too hard basket" and that’s where we would like to leave it. But guess what? A crisis eventuates. Lets see how this happens. Take a very simple thing like getting up in the morning. It’s a choice. We may not see it as a very important choice on the scale of things but, if left long enough it becomes life or death. So, your laying there quietly contemplating whether or not to get up. You may have lots of considerations. You might be very tired. You could also not want to face the other choices that you know are head of you today. You just keep putting the decision off. But sooner or later, you will come up to a choice point that can not be ignored without severe consequences. It might be that you need to relieve yourself. If you put that decision off long enough your going to have severe bladder and kidney problems. That can be life threatening. Silly? Each of us makes these choices every moment without even realizing we are doing it. But if we should stop making these choices, it wouldn’t be long before a crisis would be knocking on our door.

These are, by and large, the easy ones. We have been taught consistently that these choices have to be made and are right to make. Its called “Potty Training”. But what about all the choices without such clearly defined messages? What about choices that your parents themselves didn’t know how to make? Maybe they thought they didn’t have the right to make. Choices like leaving your father or going for a better job that took them into a better wage bracket but away from the family. What about beliefs like money being the “root of all evil”? What about all the other people that don’t have the "luck" to get a good job? These cultural beliefs permeate our unconscious. With all that going on inside, it is a safe bet that many decisions ended up being to retain the existing circumstances, despite the consequences.

For every area within which your parents or major caregivers were unable to send you a positive learning experience, they sent you a negative one or none at all. That leaves you with a gap in your library of life skills. One thing is for sure. Life will present you with an opportunity to learn those skills eventually, because survival issues come up for us time and time again, until we learn the skill and become proficient at it. Lets look at the skill of walking. As a child, the desire and need to walk didn’t go away after the first fall. The issue came up again and again until you toddled off on your own two feet to learn the next lesson. If at some point you had refused to take that next step, you would have had a crisis on your hands? That crisis may have been that, unable to walk, you would have ended up dependent on others permanently.

So you see crisis is a very important feedback mechanism. It tells you when you have refused to make the choices that you need to make, in order to continue growth and learning. Learning how to look after yourself physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually. All levels of existence. It gives you an intensified situation that you can’t get out of, that contains within it, all the elements of development that you personally need to become more skilled. To be better equipped to be who you came here to be. To even help you find out what that is.

All too many of us refuse to learn from the crises offered us. We do the same things over and over again, ending up with the same disastrous consequences. We all do it, as growth is a lifetime endeavor. Whenever you’ve learned one lesson, there are plenty more to keep you interested for the rest of Eternity. Most people that came to me in crisis were looking for a way to "fix it". I often heard people say "if I could just get over this I would be alright". To a degree that’s true, but if you haven’t learned the vital piece of information that created the first crisis, it will return. Inevitably bigger that the last. It’s like the story of the farmer that couldn’t get his donkeys attention. He went away and got bigger and bigger sticks, until the donkey couldn’t ignore him any longer. He was standing there with a tree in his hands. Life will get our attention whatever it takes.

As the Bhagwan once said "what you resist, persists". If you want to begin using your own personal crises in a more constructive way, you may have to formulate a new attitude and approach to them. You will need to stop seeing crisis as something that must be avoided at all cost and begin to see it as an old friend, with some bitter but healing medicine for you. Actually, the more friendly you become to your own crises, the less bitter the lessons become. I’ve actually begun to appreciate the learning that mine have given me. Many years ago, as a busy and successful therapist, I was trying to split myself between two practices, a difficult relationship, and financial plans to take care of my old age. No one could tell me that I should sit still and get my own priorities in order taking care of me. I wouldn’t listen. I was quite convinced I could do it all. But crisis taught me what nobody else could. On the 29th of Oct 1989, I burnt out. I had a breakdown. The bottom line was I could not do it any more, and I was terrified. It has taken all of these years to glean the learning out of my crisis, but it continues to teach me even today, if I'm willing to learn. Each of us has our own special lesson to grow through. Each of us has our own needs to meet and creativity to express. Even if nobody else on the planet has the answers, crisis will be there with help when else fails. It will push you over the edge if you won’t jump of your own free will and choice.

I have often used the analogy of an explorer cruising through life at a fine pace. She has one drawback. That is that she knows nothing about crevasses and how to jump them. Suddenly, right in front of her, is a massive hole and she is going too fast to stop. Heart pounding with fear, she tumbles over the edge and with a bit of luck her speed carries her to the other side. Whew! What an experience. She made it, but it all happened too fast to know how. At least she knows these holes are out there now. If she is smart, she will slow down, keeping her eyes open for another in the future. If she is anything like the rest of us, she will soon have forgotten until the next time. After a few near misses though, the imprint will be made on her consciousness, and she will start looking out for her next opportunity to learn how its done. Sure enough, up in front of her looms another crevasse, but this time she's ready. She’s felt the speed needed to scale the distance based on her other learned skills. She knows her own strengths and weaknesses and this time she does it. She did all the other times too, but this time she knows how. She knows that she can. Now she has added the jumping of crevasses to her life skills.

This is how it is for all of us. If there was no crisis in our life, we would not grow. You might feel safe, but it’s an illusion. Some time, in some life you are going to have to deal with the learning that you are avoiding. Why not NOW? Why not embrace your other friend, change, before its compadre crisis needs to encourage you. One of my favourite sayings is:

“THOSE THAT DON'T GO QUIETLY, THE UNIVERSE DRAGS BY THE NOSE!”

Another more gentle way of putting it is:

“IF YOU CHANGE THROUGH CHOICE, YOU WONT HAVE TO DO IT WITH CRISIS!”

Now if this has unnerved you, don’t worry, while you’re still having crisis in your lives, you know you’re still alive, and that the Universe has more for you to learn and do.

There once was a holy man called Joseph. He was a tailor. Joseph had three marriageable aged daughters, all who seemed no closer to the alter than they did the year before year. On top of that, his wife never stopped nagging him about all the things she thought he should do. So each Sunday Joseph would kneel at his alter and he would pray. He would say "Oh Lord, who art all powerful. Could you not find just one small husband for at least my oldest daughter? Is it your will that an old man like me should suffer so? Could you not at least quieten my wife for the rest of the day?”

Each Sunday this went on for years, and God was getting pretty fed up. He looked at the beautiful women that were Joseph’s daughters and how hard his wife worked. He looked at how well Joseph’s tailor shop was doing and became he very angry.

He said "JOSEPH!"

"Yes Lord. Is that you Lord?” And Joseph fell on the floor in dismay.

“Of course its me, Joseph. I’ve been up here listening to you for all these years now. You want so many things, Joseph now you want to win the Lottery. Is that right?"

"Yes Lord. Oh yes Lord!"

"JOSEPH!"

"Yes Lord?"

" THEN WHY DON'T YOU GO AND BUY A BLOODY TICKET?"

I'll leave you with another thought. You’ve got to be in life to share it’s bounty. If you are not getting that bounty, see what it is about life that you are still resisting. Don’t wait for the next crisis. Decide to make a new choice now.