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How to thrive
IN A CRISIS Marie Taylor unpicks the hallmarks and lays out practical tips you and your team can take
W
hen our environment seems to change every day, never more so than in the midst of a pandemic, there is more potential than ever for people to be tipped into a state of crisis – and there are any number of things that can be the cause. It might be a mental health crisis, identity crisis, an accident, a lawsuit, a family disruption or the loss of a job or loved one. Crises can also be caused by positive experiences too. Most people would consider the birth of a child to be a blessing, or a marriage to be a time of joy. But sometimes that can initiate a crisis too. In this article, we will explore the steps you can take in a crisis and the route to turn it around. WHAT HAPPENS WHEN WE ARE FACED WITH A CRISIS When crisis strikes, there are a number of states we go through as we try to process what is happening. These include some of the following… Shock The first thing that happens is a person goes into a state of shock. People report a sense that things
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are surreal. They experience the feeling life is turning into a movie they are watching. They also experience a brain fog and thinking becomes difficult. Shock is a difficult thing to describe. It’s the feeling of stasis and the more you resist the worse it gets. Some crises, though, don’t allow for the luxury of sitting still, particularly if it involves immediate danger. We’ll consider a four-step plan to tackle these circumstances later. But if you are not under immediate threat, the way to deal with that initial shock is through stillness. The body needs an intense amount of focused presence and stillness in order to deal with the flood of hormonal chemicals that put you into fight, flight or freeze mode. It’s not possible, in that state, to deliver sound judgement and objective decision-making. So when you’re in shock, you’ll need to resist all your urges and powerfully do nothing. Reactivity This is a self-preservation strategy. You may succumb to knee-jerk reactions and follow a pattern of behaviour that worked successfully at some point in the past. A person who has learned the best way to defend themselves is to fight back will immediately get
defensive, agitated, and will get into more fights and disagreements. A person who has learned to take responsibility is going to react by immediately blaming themselves. When we are reacting, we are not accepting what’s happening. We are proactively resisting and trying to come out of the crisis situation unscathed. This resistance, or refusal, to accept makes it a time of extreme frustration, anger and heightened anxiety. If you find yourself in that moment of reactivity, the most effective way through it is to recognise that it is happening. There is an intense polarisation between the part of you that’s trying to protect yourself and that which is trying to mitigate or minimise. Meaning An obsession with the ‘meaning’ of a crisis is still a version of a refusal to accept what has happened. It rests on the belief that if you could fully understand it you could in some way prevent or mitigate the consequences. When searching for meaning you’ll become obsessed with finding out the truth (the could’ve, should’ve, would’ve). In this phase you’re going to want to tell your story as many times as you can so you can grasp
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