Getting Out of Chronic Crisis

This is a post about living life in crisis mode, and getting out of chronic crisis mode.

One morning I ran an errand, and on the way home, I turned onto a little street where it was just me and a city bus. The city bus had big flashing words going around it electronically, in orange: EMERGENCY ON BOARD CALL 911

I was the only person around and so I supposed I was the only person to see the message.

I took out my cell phone and called 911, talking with the police as I followed the bus around town.

Finally the police met up with me and the bus, coincidentally right at my church parking lot. The police pulled the bus over to address the emergency...

...and the emergency turned out to be that the bus driver was pretty new and had accidentally turned on the "emergency call 911" signs. But no one was even on the bus except the driver and everything was fine. There was no real emergency.

The police came over to me where I was parked in my church parking lot, and thanked me for calling and following the directions, but explained that there really was no crisis after all.

The only real crisis was the bus driver mistakenly advertising that there was a real crisis.

This fake real crisis had still ended up involving an innocent bystander and the police, but in the end, that's what it was: a fake real crisis (as opposed to a real real crisis).

I remember driving home that morning in a sort of haze. What a strange thing to happen on a Tuesday.

I got home, and no sooner had I unpacked my kids from the car than I got a call on my cell phone from a struggling client. This client's case had been SO severe and extreme, she had actually moved in with me for several weeks as we worked on her case literally around the clock. Just the night before we had gotten to a place where we agreed she was stable enough to be on her own, and I had taken her back to her own place.

And now she was calling, in complete devastated crisis mode.

I remember answering the call, dreading what horrible thing she must be going through--

--only to find that the crisis was not really real at all. I don't remember what she said was going on, but what I do remember is suddenly vividly remembering the experience of just minutes before: the bus with the CALL 911 message flashing on its sides, and the policeman coming up to me at the church and saying, "there was no real emergency--the problem was the driver accidentally pushed the emergency button."

As I looked into the energy in play, I saw how this person's energy field was ENTANGLED with the energy of "emergencies."

It was as if this person's energetic system had NO concept of how to live or how to exist without being in constant crisis mode.

So we had done all this work, and resolved all this stuff--

--but NO amount of healing and resolution could ever make a real dent as long as this person's energy field was in permanent crisis mode. Because she would just have to invent a new crisis, once her old ones were gone. It was the established pattern.

Once I could see the problem, I could shift it for my client. We turned off the "permanent crisis mode" and resolved the underlying reasons WHY her energy field was so thoroughly devoted to CRISIS.

After that, things were MUCH better.

When we have grown up in a state of extreme stress, we can accidentally train our systems to NEED crises to function.

Have you ever been so tired and fatigued you could barely move or think clearly, but then an emergency happened and you were able to get going?

I think of how in my own life, if I'm running on just a few hours of sleep, I might be lethargic and semi-dysfunctional in my normal life, but the second I hear the tell-tale sounds of metal on metal that mean my baby found some of her brother's scissors, I am running like a gazelle to go keep everyone safe. Suddenly I'm awake and alert and moving quickly through my home, easily discerning between what is and isn't dangerous, to keep my children safe.

Human bodies are created to be able to maintain function--and sometimes even increase and improve function--when under emergency stress.

Think of the old lady able to lift a car off her grandson, etc.

Stress floods us with adrenalin that can keep us functioning even when our other systems that we're supposed to rely on are not functioning due to overwhelm or depletion.

Sometimes our bodies draw on this capability of functioning under high stress as a primary source of energy, when the rest of our energy has been depleted.

We can see this in experiencers of trauma, victims of severe and extreme abuse, and also in workaholics and people who tend to compartmentalize their trauma and not face it until it actually threatens to shut down their physical body.

When we experience massive amounts of stress of any kind (physical or emotional trauma, work and financial stress, general life stress like taking care of babies at night for months on end, etc), we can end up depleting our basic physical body energy and needing to rely on extra boosts.

Some people might turn to energy drinks, but some people turn to subconsciously adding MORE stress to their lives--unknowingly gambling on the body's amazing ability to compensate for additional stress by drawing on adrenalin to continue functioning.

(And really, turning to energy drinks equates to the same thing. If you need external boosts like that to keep yourself functioning, it's a sign that your body is under severe stress and needs REST and NUTRITION, not energy drinks. Energy drinks are gambling on the body, too.)

What does a life look like in chronic crisis mode?

It can look like having major health issues crop up on vacation.

It can look like having stuff repeatedly break down in the middle of important things.

It can look like unexpected tragedies happening as a part of everyday life.

It can look like significant health problems and ever-increasing stress, stress, stress on your body, mind, and spirit. ~~~~

All of our subconscious minds are MASSIVELY involved in the presentation and experience of our lives.

What I mean by this is: our own subconscious beliefs and expectations actually do make a big difference in what happens in our lives.

On a religious level, this is linked to the principle of FAITH. Biblically speaking, there's a principle that states that if you have faith and believe that God will take care of you, you WILL be taken care of--and if you don't have that faith and belief, well, the bet can be off. In the Bible we see faith rewarded over and over again as God intervenes on behalf of those who believe they will be assisted in their time of need.

On a more scientific level, to me this links back to quantum physics and the Observer Effect. The Observer Effect is about the idea that the very act of observation changes the outcome of an event on an atomic level.

I know it's not a study or something, but it IS very easily readable, so here is the Wikipedia page on the Observer Effect in physics. You can read there how human observation can alter quantum phenomena.

To me, faith and the Observer Effect are very linked. If you view faith as consciously visualizing and trusting in your salvation, whatever salvation may mean in that moment (salvation from your broke checking account, from your car trouble, from whatever), then faith is essentially choosing to pre-observe and believe with confidence in your desired outcome.

Really, ALL of us operate on faith ALL of the time: the question is just where our faith is. Is our faith in God and a loving Universe that wants us to be happy, faith that God and/or a benevolent Reality will provide for us and save us from whatever evil might come our way? Or is our faith in the entropic nature of the Universe--faith in disorder, in the idea that bad things easily happen to us?

When you approach life from a religious and/or quantum physics perspective, it becomes obvious that the ATTITUDE and BELIEFS you carry as the primary Observer of your own life make a huge, huge difference to your outcome.

I bring this up because it's important to understand that actually, YES: we CAN influence the function of the items in the world around us, just by how our MINDS are functioning. If our observations can affect subatomic phenomena and the function of atoms, of COURSE our minds can affect the other structures in this world that are made up of atoms.

What we choose to believe--or proactively mentally observe--can change our outcomes.

When we come at life from a place of assuming there must be a crisis, we are going to get crises.

When we come at life from a place of consciously and bitterly proactively observing failures around us and within us, we are going to experience more stress and failures.

When we come at life from a place of expecting trouble, we are more likely to experience trouble.

We can see this on a quantum physics level, on a religious level with the principle of faith, AND on a social psychology level. Hopefully you have noticed by now in your life that when you have acted with confidence and positivity, people treat you very differently than when you act with insecurity and negativity. Our attitudes vastly affect our social outcomes, our personal outcomes, and even the outcomes of the random things in our lives that we interact with.

When we opt out of a crisis mindset and opt into a positive faith mindset, our entire lives can change.

Our lives can change on a social level--people really do like you better if you are positive and upbeat!--and our lives can change on a health level, a financial level, a romantic level, on every level.

Choosing to change what we OBSERVE can make all the difference.

Choosing what to BELIEVE can make all the difference.

Every moment, every electron involved in the molecular structures of your beliefs is interacting with and informing every other electron in the universe--telling all the other energies in the universe HOW to interact with YOU.

Shifting your belief system can shift how EVERYTHING interacts with you. People, stuff, and even your own internal self. ~~~

Back to crisis mode.

When we feel like our lives are in crisis mode, it is crucial to understand that "crisis mode" is the SYMPTOM of our problems--not the actual problem in and of itself.

Experiencing a life of constant, chronic crises is a sign that there are serious, fundamental flaws in MINDSET. Beliefs. Faith.

Constant crisis mode is often a symptom of false beliefs and unresolved energies in the person's electronic field that MUST be corrected.

Basically: when life is just a series of crises, sometimes it's a GIFT and an INVITATION to look within, and to proactively resolve the false beliefs that are creating an unpleasant series of events as an Observer Effect cascade. ~~~~~

This all comes back to the purpose of life.

People have debated this for millennia at this point, but for me, I would just sum it up in one basic sentence.

To me, the purpose of life is to bring our entire beings into complete alignment with Universal Law.

To me, as a religious Christian, I see God as the absolute ultimate in adherence to Universal Law. To me, God's power and the structure of the Universe itself are inherently intertwined. To keep the Ten Commandments, to honor God's ways, are to bring oneself into alignment with the true nature of reality.

To me, the entire purpose of life itself is for all beings to have a bounded space and time to proactively bring our Selves into as complete alignment with God and Universal Law as possible.

To me, this explains basically everything we experience on this planet. To me, our misfortunes and maladies are not random or coincidental: they are ALL the product of AGENCY--and the soul's desire to choose with knowledge and experience to align with Universal Law, or not.

I write about this at length in my book Deep Past Resolution.

But to sum it up quickly: to me, everything difficult we go through is an INVITATION to look within and change.

When we are perfect at accepting reality as it is, nothing can harm us.

When we are perfect at living in integrity with every action and every decision, nothing can harm us.

To me, our acceptance, our grace, our integrity--these are things that grow our PEACE, our HAPPINESS, and even our POWER.

To me, every "negative" thing we go through in life is an opportunity to learn to CHOOSE into faith and positive action. ~~~

A life in "crisis mode" has the capacity to be an immense GIFT to us.

A life that invites crisis after crisis is a life that contains a MESSAGE to its agent: a message of CHANGE. A message that says: something is not working--and perhaps that something is a belief held within.

A message that says: it's time to change how you think.

I know how this can all sound. Believe me, I fully get it. It might sound completely and utterly crazy to say that by changing your attitude and beliefs you can change your life--that by changing your attitude and beliefs you can change the amount of crises that come up in your life.

I'm not asking you to believe it.

But if you would accept an invitation, I'll invite you to experiment with it.

To experiment with shifting your thoughts--your attention--your energy--

To experiment with letting go of any subconscious "need" for crises.

To experiment with changing beliefs and attitudes and seeing how the world responds--both the external world and your internal world.

This is one of my favorite exercises for quick emotional shifts--you can try it for releasing energies of attracting crises, or needing crises in your life.

The fact is, you DON'T need crises. You DON'T need crises to learn and grow and be a good person. You DON'T need crises to keep yourself going. You DON'T need crises to use as excuses to keep yourself from doing things you otherwise should be doing.

What you DO need is rest.

Validation.

Internal and external honesty.

Resolution of past trauma.

Peace.

Calm.

Love and acceptance.

Rest.

And did I mention rest?

Your body needs plenty of love, acceptance, rest, and self-care--it needs proper nutrition and hydration and emotional support.

Your body does NOT need crises.

So today, I'm giving you permission to breathe out your crisis mentality, if you have one. Breathe it out on behalf of your crisis-stricken ancestors. Breathe it out on behalf of your children.

Today, I invite you to consider choosing into a new mindset of positivity and faith. Consider just giving it a little try. You don't need to be positive forever--but just maybe try it for a day and see what happens when you consciously focus on upleveling your mindset to be just that much more positive, just that much more faith-full in a benevolent reality, just that much more confident that good things can come your way, and that you DO deserve the good things.

I really and truly believe that YOU do deserve the good things.

So choose them. Choose to believe that they can come to you. Choose to believe that you deserve it, too.

See for yourself how things can change for you.

You can choose out of a life in crisis mode--you can choose into a calmer, more peaceful life. I believe in you!