The term crisis tends to bring with it thoughts of difficult events and our worst fears including our own mortality. Part of what amplifies our distress is how we approach a crisis cognitively and behaviorally. There are a few things you can do to tap into your own natural ability to cope with a crisis and perhaps even capitalize on it.
Rethink How You Understand the Term
Many things we consider good or positive events are in fact crises. The birth of a child, going to college, starting your first job, transitioning from one developmental stage to another all involve a crisis – a turning point, change. We think about these crises differently because we have been trained to think about these events as desirable or something to be proud of. All of these events are hard on us and they all represent a level of acceptance that our life will be different, harder in some ways and easier in others. Each of these events represents a real loss, whether it’s material, social or emotional – but because they are socially desirable and celebrated transitions we tend to tolerate them better and adapt far more effectively.
We can also be mindful of the benefits of those crises we would rather not confront. A job loss IS painful, does have real consequences and there are real benefits to it as well. Increased time with your children, an opportunity to exercise more, more time to look for a better job or increase and add to your skill set. This is not about lying to yourself – more like expanding your attention to include the gains.
Remember you’ve been here before
Think back to the crises you’ve experienced in your life before this crisis. As painful as they may have been, you got something from them. This is not to say that it should have happened, it was destined to happen or that it was part of some divine plan – only that it happened. As terrible as it may have been, you found a way to cope with it and survive – even if how you coped with it wasn’t great, you survived.
I hear ALOT of horror stories in my line of work and there hasn’t been a horror story where someone wasn’t able to identify something they’ve gained. Empathy for the pain of others, resilience, gratitude about the present, pride and gratitude in comparing the then to the now.
Crisis is Inevitable
Crises are part of the human experience – your pain connects you to the rest of humanity. Even in the most horrific conditions, people have been able to find some comfort. We all experience pain to varying degrees. We can choose to beat ourselves up for feeling distress about something that seems to pale in comparison to the pain of others. We can increase feelings of shame or inadequacy by comparing our lives with those we believe would not know or understand our pain. We can, as an alternative, understand that on some level – in some small way – our pain is one thread that binds us to the other – even if we never experienced it the same way or at the same level, we’ve all tasted it to varying degrees. When we’re not in crisis we’ve imagined it and have been terrified by the prospect of it happening. This perspective allows us to freely lean on others or to allow others to lean on us. It gives us the opportunity to use and solidify meaningful relationships or create new ones.
Pain is not the same as Suffering
A painful reality is one that we cannot change right now – when we live in the expectation that it will change, it should change or that it does not exist we invite suffering. One of the challenges clinicians face in trauma work is to help folks understand that while trauma impacted and changed their lives, there was a life outside of the traumatic event(s). We bring this up not to minimize the meaning of the event, but to point out that there was a value and meaning to life despite the trauma – that trauma, does not rob survivors of everything.
Not suffering can mean throwing yourself into what you can control, what is possible to change. It may mean accepting, in the case of chronic pain, that you may not play sports with your kids the way you wanted to but it doesn’t mean you can’t get involved. It involves distracting away from what you can’t change right now and taking full advantage of the moment you are in right now, enjoying the person you are with right now, solving the problem that’s solvable right now.
You write the story
For most of us, the crisis is not the final chapter – it is not our forever- reality, it is what sucks right now. Over time it may change OR we may change how we feel about it OR we will learn to have a good life in spite of it. Maybe all three things will happen. Wherever we are in the story, we have some influence on how it progresses or ends. I can give countless examples of individuals I’ve worked with, including those who had or were caring for someone who had a terminal illness, that decided to make the chapter count.