Coping in Crises

When crises strikes how do you cope? Who do you call first or do you get quiet?
Do you drop right down into the middle of it or do you fall apart?

Everyone always describes me as being overly emotional but the truth is that I am a great person to have around in and for a crises. I can slow down, stay clear away from the swarming frantic bugs, and get down to business.

My resume is extensive in the area of chaos and I know how to survive.

I can see the forest through the trees. Even when it's on fire.

And I have an odd secret weapon.
*I see things before they happen. Sometimes.

Last night I dreamt what happened today. Actually the first part of what happened today took place in a dream I had 3 nights ago. Preparation, I guess.

My grandmother used to move furniture in crises. It's easy to figure out that how we behave in crises is determined by how ok or not ok we are with having circumstances we can't control in our midst. If you are a person who thinks you can and do control a lot of your life, then crises might be tougher for you.

I used to think I would implode if I had to live in the unknowing for more than a few days, or, gasp, weeks. And then someone very close to me was diagnosed with an incurable cancer.

At that point I had to become very familiar with living in constant unknowing. And I could not control the outcome, so I had to just be.

In my own crises I think of who I can call. It wasn't always this way, this knowing that to reach out for help was my best defense. Asking for help was not a possibility for all of my life until about 10 years ago so when I say that, now, my first response to my my own crises is that I reach out and call and tell someone where I'm at, through tears and sobs and incoherent emotion, this is a big deal.

At some point I had to learn the hard way that I could no longer be my own and everyone else's superman.

Asking for help is an amazing thing because it lets someone else know where you're at. If you have developed trust and respect with said person you can often get a bottomless well full of hope and advice and support. Yes, sometimes they might say I told you so, but rarely with malicious intent.

Having a sense of humour is an important part of dealing well in crises. Although there is no perfection scale in crises management, we all know that some are better than others.

One of the things I like about crises, if you can allow me to say such a thing, is that we can only deal with the right now. In crises, the right now is what needs to be seen to. Sometimes my bad neighborhood of a mind can shut off when I'm in crises. By that I mean the dryer-cycle of awful, dreadful outcomes and worse implications and so forth and so on icki-nesses, goes away when all I have to do is deal with the now. The right now.

I have never slapped anyone when they went into shock but I once shook someone very hard. Going into  shock is such a wonderful safety mechanism for our bodies, but in that scenario I may have lost said person forever unless I tried to wake him up to think a little more clearly.

I take comfort in the fact that everyone has been in crises. So we all know how to deal with it whether we know it, think so, or not.

Today a friend reminded me that there is no perfect when it comes to the really hard stuff. You just do what your heart says. You do what works for you and hopefully you won't hurt anyone in the process but sometimes you will.

Crises is amazing because it let's us know who we are and who those around us are. It brings out the best and worst in people. Crises reminds and informs, feeds and starves, opens up other possibilities and ends others.

There is no preparation for the last time you see someone, the last time you do something, the last time you gave whole-heartedly. Crises always brings to the surface, brings to a head, a situation, which you knew was possible, or likely, but did not want to see or know.

Because of this *strange ability of mine, I am rarely allowed to hide from that which is possible. My own mind rarely allows me to bury my head in the sand or lie to myself or pretend that my truth is not so. But regardless, with crises brings tumultuous waves of emotion. If you can't express how those waves crashing over you, affects you, at least not right now, or until you can un-cock the gun, deliver someone to an emergency room or calm a hysterical person, you can do so later. Even in severe crises, rest is possible, one day.

And then we can see why.

Why this? Why now? Why me?

For everything is a lesson. To grow, to teach, to remind, to welcome, to nurture, to help us get to where we are meant to be going.

Or at least that's how I see it on a good day.

Comments

[barbara]

Your posts this week have been so personal I don't know how to respond. Just wanted you to know I'm still reading.

[Anita]

I hope that today's crisis had a better ending than its beginning.

Let us know if there's anything I can do to help, in the meantime, other than send thoughts your way.

[hungrygirl]

Great post, Shuna.

Been working thru my own little crisis the past month. Trying to get out of the Superwoman syndrome, not always successfully. Sorry to hear you're going thru something, but always good to get anothers' perspective.

[alison]

excellent post and just what i needed to hear right now. love your perspective.

[anonymous]

I'm so glad I found you. It's like you wrote this for me. Thank you. You had written a previous post about practicing asking for help that was very helpful to me, but I needed reminding for the current crisis.I'm going to call my cousin and ask her for help in what's going on. And maybe I'll make a pie with the perfect pie crust I learned in your class.

[Diane]

Crisis is inevitable, and there's no hiding how you react, or shut down, when in it. Things shrink and expand simultaneously in crisis. I hope that this wind blows over you without too much damage.

[Tea]

I've been battling my own stuff these past few months, and I always find that once I get through it I am grateful for the lessons, for the happening, for the painful parts even. The hard places are where I learn the most, even though they may not be the most pleasant.

Sending warm thoughts to you, whatever place you find yourself in.

[banditsf]

This is a great post for contemplation. 35 years old and dead. The best thought I have right now, as I am someones 'rock' (just quoted from a note left for me this morning) in Lake Charles, LA, is that he knows what I do in crisis and I know what he does...I have cleaned, laundered, cooked, sorted while we have cried, laughed, ate, sat, swapped recipes and just been while he has smoked. This is the current crisis of many over 13 years, thankful we can do what we do in crisis and it is comforting to both. When there are no words for death, as you know there aren't, we do this. Will make red beans and rice with my new recipe when I get back.

[Julie]

Shuna, you wrote this post the day before my birthday, but I just found it now, partly because the crisis that I'm going through is so deep I'm barely even reading blogs anymore.

I've lost people through death, I've lost them through betrayal and just plain bad behavior. But there are some people you simply trust, you simply never expect that they could have been lying and cheating and stealing for years. And you trust for what seems at the time like the best reason in the world -- because they're blood, and you simply cannot conceive that they would be anything other than wholly trustworthy. Because who would do this to their own family?

Sometimes your genetic family member turns out to seem not to be your family. And sometimes other parts of your genetic family rise from the dormant parts of your life to remind you that you do indeed have family, whatever your own blood may have done.

Sorry for ranting on. But I have found reserves of strength these past few months that I never, ever knew I had. On Friday we confront this situation. Send me energy, as your post already has.