How Did I Get Here?: Navigating the unexpected turns in love and life. Barbara Angelis De
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came flooding back. At least now he could name what was happening: “I am a prisoner. I have been captured by the enemy. I am in some secret camp. I am in a filthy cell. I have two guards who take turns watching me.” As terrible as these realities were, they were his. According to this brave soldier, those realities became his link to sanity and psychological survival.
Here is the point I have been making:
To go through powerful times of questioning and challenge, and leave our process unnamed or, worse, mislabeled, is to condemn ourselves to feeling frightened, disoriented and as if we are somehow doing something wrong. We must give our times of transformation and rebirth their rightful names.
Every individual existence is brought into rhythm by a pendulum to which the heart gives type and name. There is a time for expanding and a time for contraction. One provokes the other and the other calls for the return of the first. Never are we nearer the Light than when the darkness is deepest —Swami Vivekananda
It is easy to see where you are when it is light out. It is easy to discern your location when there are signs posted identifying it. But what happens when we come to places on our path that we don’t recognize, or have experiences that we haven’t heard described? What do we do when we, like the brave soldier, find ourselves frightened and disoriented and totally in the dark? How do we know where we are? What name do we give to something or someplace we don’t understand?
For most of us, the name we choose is crisis:
“My boyfriend just broke up with me, and I’m in an emotional crisis.”
“I just quit my job, and I’m in a career crisis.”
“Our daughter has started hanging out with the wrong crowd and taking drugs, and we’re going through a family crisis.”
“I was just diagnosed with diabetes, and I’m going through a health crisis.”
“Crisis” is often the word we use to describe unwelcome experiences or situations that we wish were not happening. After all, when asked if the word crisis defines something negative or positive, most people would answer negative. Who wants to go through a crisis, even a minor one? Who looks forward to a crisis? “Can’t wait until my next crisis! This one was over way too soon,” is probably a statement you will never hear. Many of my friends and acquaintances would describe themselves as “in crisis” right now, going through divorce, illness, career challenges, difficulties with their children, loss of parents, financial hardships, and I am certain that not one of them would speak about these experiences with fondness.
Is crisis the proper name for these times? What does the word actually mean? I was surprised and intrigued to discover that the original and literal meaning of the word crisis does not denote a negative condition, in spite of the fact that this is its common usage. The etymology of crisis traces the word back to its Greek origins from the root krinein—to separate, to decide, to judge. The Greeks first used the word krisis in a medical sense to describe the turning point in a disease, and then to indicate a moment in judicial proceedings when a certain direction was taken. A “krisis” was a critical juncture, a time of decision.
I like this expanded definition of crisis. It resonates with my own experience, and those of thousands of people with whom I have worked over the years:
What feels like a crisis is, in truth, a turning point, a moment of judgment, of decisiveness, of transformation, when we have an opportunity to separate from an old reality and chart a new course.
Perhaps, then, the naming of our challenges needs to begin with these questions:
What if that which you’ve been calling a crisis, a mess, a disaster, a bummer, chaos, confusion, mayhem or madness is actually something else?
What if there is something here for you to do other than just endure and survive, rather than feeling condemned to resist or suffer, rather than concluding that you are stuck or thwarted or lost?
What if this place in which you find yourself is not a roadblock, but a true krisis—a turning point?
Turning Points and Transitions
You seldom sit at a crossroads and know it is a crossroads. —Alex Raffe
One of my first solitary adventures as a young girl was taking the train from the small suburb of Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, where I had lived since I was born, to downtown Philadelphia. I would walk to the station on Saturday morning, buy my round-trip ticket, and wait with excited anticipation for the train to arrive—I was going into the city all by myself! I didn’t do anything very original when I was in town, just things that seemed exotic to a twelve-year-old in the innocent times of the early 1960s. I’d go to Sam Goody and look through the latest records. I’d stop at Woolworth’s drugstore and admire all of the cosmetics, potions and makeup that I knew I would be using one day soon. I’d order a root beer float and French fries for lunch at a soda fountain. Then I’d walk back to the station and wait for the train to take me home. I never ventured more than three or four blocks from the main terminal, just to be sure I didn’t get lost, but as far as I was concerned I might as well have been thousands of miles away in Paris or Venice or some other magical city—for at least a few hours, I was free and completely on my own.
It doesn’t take much for me to recall the sights, sounds and sensations of those expeditions downtown, particularly those memorable train rides. I can still feel the rough wool fabric of the hard seat, scratchy against my legs as I pressed my face against the soot-covered window and watched the landscape appear to stream by. I can see the conductor standing in the aisle punching my ticket with his silver implement, the tiny white circle floating to the ground to join hundreds of others in a carpet of paper snow. Most of all, I can hear the conductor’s singsong voice as if triumphantly announcing the name of each station as we approached: “Melrose Park! … Tabor! … Fern Rock! … Wayne Junction! … North Broad Street! … Last stop Reading Terminal downtown Philadelphia!” As each station was announced, I knew I was getting closer to town, and my exhilaration would grow. Those names became like a string of soothing mantras I would recite in my head. I had never been to those places and had no idea what they were like, but the repetition of each one reassured me that I was, indeed, on the right train, going to the right place.
Those were simple times and simple journeys. Now, many years and many challenging times later, I look at my life odyssey and shake my head at how different it has been from that comforting and predictable ride from Elkins Park to downtown Philadelphia. There have been no announcements identifying what emotional terrain I was traveling through, no warnings to let me know I was about to enter this or that station, no one telling me when I was supposed to get on or when I was supposed to get off, no schedule to consult to make sure I didn’t miss the right train.
It would be so much easier, wouldn’t it, if our lives were like my childhood train rides, and if those important transitions we needed to be aware of were announced in advance. I can just imagine how it would sound: “Relationship Reevaluation coming up in three months!” … “Next stop, Career Change!” … “Now approaching Health Crisis!” … “Arriving at Turning Point—all passengers must change trains …” But this is not how it is.
How, then, do we know we have arrived at a turning point in our life? How do we correctly identify and name what feels like a crisis as actually an important crossroads?
First, it helps to understand that not all turning points look or feel the same.
Turning Points That You Know Are Probably Coming
Some turning points are obvious. You know you’re approaching them, even if you don’t admit it to yourself or to anyone else. You’ve been unhappy in your job for too long, and the company itself is being reorganized, with firings about to be announced. You