Crisis as a Self Growth Tool
by Jay Ray
In my practice as a Psychotherapist, its fairly obvious that people don't spend their money to come and see me for fun. They come because they have reached a point in their lives where things have become unmanageable. They have in fact reached a crisis point. Nobody likes going through crisis. In fact I think we spend a good deal of our energy trying to avoid it. It is that avoidance that is in fact the prime cause of crisis. We grow up with all our choices vetted by our parents and other caregivers for correctness. They do this for varieties of reasons. Some are for our protection, some for their own, but for sure we grow up knowing there is a right and wrong side of choice and that were better get it right.
The problem then arises as to what right actually is. For everyone of the ten billion people on the planet, each one is going to have a different idea is to what is right for you. So which one do you choose? Well most of us get so flummoxed by the process, that we put the whole thing in the "too hard basket" and that's where we leave it until guess what? Your right, a crisis eventuates. Lets see how this happens. Lets take a very simple thing like getting up in the morning. Its a choice. We may not see it as a very important choice on the scale of things but believe me, 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 of the decision, but sooner or later, you will come up to a choice point that can not be ignored without severe consequences.
The first might be that you need to relieve yourself. Well if you put that decision off long enough your going to have severe bladder and kidney problems that can kill you. Silly you say? Well each of us makes these choices every moment without even realising we are doing it. But should we stop making those choices, it wouldn't be long before a crisis was knocking on our door.
Well those ones, by and large are the easy ones because we have been taught fairly consistently that these choices have to be made and are right to make. But what about all the choices without such clear conditioned messages. What about choices that your parents themselves didn't know how to make or thought they didn't have the right to make like leaving your Father, like going for a better job that took them into a better wage bracket. What about money being the root of all evil? What about all the other people that don't have the "luck" to get a good job? With all that going on it is fairly safe to bet the decisions ended up not to, despite the consequences.
Every area that your parents or major care givers were unable to send you a positive learning experience they sent you either a negative one or none at all that leaves you with a great gap in your life skills. But one thing is for sure, life will present you with an opportunity to learn eventually, because all survival issues come up for all beings time and time again, until we become efficient at it. Look at the skill to walk. As a child, the desire and need to walk didn't just go away after the first time you fell flat on you bum. No. The issue came up and up until you toddled off on your own two feet to learn the next lesson. If at that point you refused to take that next step, guess what you would have had on your hands again? Yes a crisis!
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 growing and learning how to look after yourself either physically, emotionally, mentally or spiritually. It gives you an intensified situation that you cant get out of that contains within it all the elements of growth that you need in order to become more skilled and better equipped to be who you came down here to be and to even help you find out what that was.
All to many of us even refuse to learn from crisis. These are the people that you see doing the same things over and over again and ending up with the same disastrous consequences. We all do it. Lets face it, growth is a lifetime job so whenever you've learned one lesson there are plenty more to keep you interested for the rest of eternity. Most people that come to me in crisis, or with problems are looking for a way to "fix it". You often hear people say "if I could just get over this I would be alright. "Well to a degree that's right, but if you haven't learned that piece of vital information that created the first crisis for you, you can bet your sweet life it will return, probably bigger. Like the farmer that couldn't get the 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.
So as the Bhagwan said "what you resist, persists." So if you want to begin using your own personal crisis in a more constructive way, you have to formulate a new attitude and approach to them. You will need to stop seeing them as something that must be avoided at all cost and try to begin to see them as an old friend with some bitter but healing medicine. Actually the more friendly you become to your crisis, the less bitter the lesson becomes I've found. I've actually begun to appreciate the learning that mine have given me.
About Four years ago, as a busy and successful therapist I was running around trying to split myself between two practices a difficult relationship, financial plans to take care of my old age, but no one could tell me that I should sit still and get my own priorities right and take care of me. I wouldn't listen. I was quite convinced I could do it all, and some. But crisis taught me what nobody else could. On the 29th of Oct 1989, I burned out, had a breakdown, call it what you will. The bottom line was I could not do it any more, and I was terrified. It has taken all of these four years to glean the learning out of my crisis but it continues to teach me if I'm willing to learn. Each of us has our own special piece of learning to grow through, each of us our own needs to meet and creativity to express. Even if nobody else on the planet as the answers, your old friend crisis will be there with help and the answer if all else fails, to push you over the edge if you wont 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 and that is she knows nothing about crevasses and how to jump them. Suddenly there right in front of her is a massive great hole and she's going to 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. Wheew! What an experience. She made it but it all happened too fast to know how. At least she knows these hole are out there now and if she is smart she will slow down and keep her eyes open for another in the future. If she is anything like the rest of us she will soon forget until the next time, but after a few near misses, the imprint is made on her consciousness and she starts earnestly 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 analysed the speed needed to scale the distance based on her other experiences. She knows her own strengths and weaknesses and this time she does it, just as she did all the other times but this time she knows how and she knows that she can. From then on she has added the jumping of crevasses to her life skills.
This is how it is for all of us. If you have no crisis in your life, your your not growing. You might be safe, but it wont be for ever. Some time, in some life you are going to have to deal with the learnings that you are avoiding, so why not NOW? Why not embrace your other friend Change now, before crisis needs to come in and encourage you. One of my favourite sayings is that, "for those that don't go quietly, the universe drags by the nose!" Another more gentle way of putting it is that if you change through choice, you wont have to do it with crisis! Sometimes if you're like me, and your resistance is to great, fear not, you will grow anyway.
Now if this has put the wind up you all, don't worry, while your still having crisis in your lives, you know your still alive, and that the Universe has more fore you to do. So take heart, and enjoy it while you can. One of these days you'll be God and then all the fun might stop.
Finally let me end with a religious joke and if there are any Jewish people in the audience, please forgive me for my indulgence and laugh with me.
There was a Rabbi called Joseph and he was a tailor. Joseph had three marriageable aged daughters, all who seemed no closer to the alter than they did last years. On top of that, his wife never stopped nagging him about all the things she thought he was slack about. So each Sabbath Joseph would pull his shawl over his head in the Synagogue and he would pray. He would say "Oh lord, who art all powerful and strong. 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 Sabbath this went on and on for years, and GOD was getting pretty pissed off. 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 very angry.
The last straw came one day when Joseph was going on about his poor finances pleading with God that he should let him win the lottery, and God spoke. He said "Joseph!"
"Yes Lord. Is that you Lord?" and Joseph fell on the floor in dismay.
"Of coursed it's 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?"
"Why don't you buy a bloody ticket?"
Well I'll leave you with the thought, that you've got to be in Life to share it's bounty. That if you are not getting that bounty, see what about Life you are resisting, and don't wait for the next crisis before you decide to do something about it.
Jay may be contacted via email. For further article by Jay you can visit Jay's website.
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