The Most Common Response To Life Crisis Are Denial,
Resistance and Acceptance
Each one of us faces troubles
and crises in life that take different forms and different shapes. For an
adult, crises could be facing bankruptcy,
loss of a friend, a death in the family or thinking about death,
wondering about the nature of death. For a man, upset at where society is
going, experience a desire to change the world for the better or looking into
the mirror and you no longer recognize yourself, a crisis could be the loss of
a job or desiring to quit a good job, unexplained depression or sadness when
doing tasks that used to make you happy. To a teenager, a crisis might be a
pimple on a first date, exploring new musical tastes or sudden desire to learn
how to play an instrument. In these examples, time often reveals a latent humor
in the crisis that we never realized when struggling to overcome it.
Three common responses to
crises:
The first is denial. We tend to
bury our heads in the sand and hope the problem will somehow mysteriously and
painlessly disappear in a short period of time.
“Self-acceptance comes from meeting life's challenges
vigorously. Don't numb yourself to your trials and difficulties, nor build
mental walls to exclude pain from your life. You will find peace not by trying
to escape your problems, but by confronting them courageously. You will find
peace not in denial, but in victory.” J. Donald Walters
The second common response is
resistance. This is when we fight what’s happening or fight ourselves in a
ineffective effort to somehow regain something that is lost.
“The mind commands the
body and it obeys. The mind orders itself and meets resistance. Resistance is
thought transformed into feeling. Change the thought that creates the
resistance, and there is no more resistance.”
The third response is
acceptance. We may not necessarily like our situation, but we acknowledge it is
real and we are willing to deal with the truth of what is going on around us no
matter how harsh or how hard that problem might be.
“Understanding is the first step to acceptance, and only
with acceptance can there be recovery.” Joanne Kathleen Rowling
“Self-acceptance comes from meeting life's challenges
vigorously. Don't numb yourself to your trials and difficulties, nor build
mental walls to exclude pain from your life. You will find peace not by trying
to escape your problems, but by confronting them courageously. You will find
peace not in denial, but in victory.” J. Donald Walters
“Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to
overcoming the consequences of any misfortune.” William James
Denial and resistance generally prolong the pain and delay
the resolution of a crisis. In contrast, acceptance of these crises opens the
door for us to hope. According to Harrison Salisbury, ‘There is no short cut to
life. To the end of our days, life is a lesson imperfectly learned.’ That
means, we have to move out of denial and resistance and learn to accept and
move on. For me, life is a continual process of change. I’ve learned to be
honest, to accept not just my failures and shortcomings, but also my strengths.
It has been said that the pace at which we learn is in
direct proportion to our determination to rise above uncertainty and go beyond
the limitations. Part of learning is to become responsible for our own lives
and actions. Whether you like it or not, you are ultimately accountable for
your action and decisions, regardless of circumstances.
John Keats said, ‘Failure… is , in a sense, the highway to
success, inasmuch s every discovery of what is false leads us to seek earnestly
after what is true’. When you live in denial and resistance, you delay finding
out what is actually true.
Challenge yourself:
Do not live in denial, do not keep resisting: learn to
accept and move on. Make sure you are the kind of person who moves on to
acceptance and therefore on to change.
Posts
