Are You Crisis Centered?
We all know people who are crisis centered. These are the ones who wait for the next crisis and who are not proactive. Crisis centered people wait until something goes seriously wrong before taking action. They know that something is going wrong in their marriage but they wait until they uncover infidelity to address the marital issues or they know they are failing at work but wait until the boss calls them in and fires them. I contend that we live in a crisis oriented society where we are perfectly comfortable waiting until "the shit hits the fan" and then we take notice. Suddenly we are feeling overwhelmed and don't know what the hell to do. I think there are more crisis oriented people than there are ones who are proactive and work on their issues on an ongoing basis or do prevention work. The person who is addicted to coke will wait until they loose their job, their home and then their job before they decide to do something about their addiction. Are you crisis centered? You are crisis oriented if:
1. You often wait for things to get really bad to do anything about it:
If you are the type of person who waits for something bad to happen in order to finally take action or do something to resolve a situation you knew was an issue then you are crisis oriented. Many of us wait until life circumstances get seriously out of control to do anything about it. Waiting for that moment when it looks like we are drowning emotionally is a sign that we are crisis oriented and procrastinators.
2. You avoid taking actions that will prevent a crisis from happening:
People who are proactive do things to avoid things to grow into a crisis. They take action before the crisis hits. They do what they need to do to avoid the crisis by taking actions that will help resolve an issue before it gets serious. We cannot avoid everything but we can avoid a lot of crisis in our life by just taking note of what is going wrong and attending to it early on. In a marriage it may be counseling or ending the relationship. With a car it is maintaining the oil changes in order for the car not to break down and manifest more serious issues. When we avoid taking action knowing it is the best thing to do we are living in crisis mode.
3. You live in a perpetual state of denial:
When we live in denial we lie to ourselves about what is really going on in our life and what we need to do about it. We may believe that our child's behavior will get better when it is not getting any better and the teachers are all reported it to us. We wait because we don't want to face the truth of what is going on. Our wife is staying out till 2am on a work day numerous times yet we don't ask her where she is and she is not saying. We deny that things are as bad as they look and feel. We do this because we cannot face the truth. Livng in a perpetual state of denial is only going to result in a crisis.
4. You are not doing maintanence or preventative life work:
When we don't pray or meditate and we feel anxious and disconnected often we are not doing the maintanence work that some would say works. When we don't communicate our needs to someone we love we are not doing the maintanence work we should do in order to avoid a crisis or blow up. Eventually if we do nothing we get nothing and in the long run it blows up in our face. The fact is that doing preventative work like going to AA when we are trying to stop drinking will result in a crisis sooner than later. In order to avoid some things that we can and do have control over we must do some intentional work like: counseling, exercise, communication, couples work, family therapy and other actions that can help us to live in a joyful state rather than a crisis state of living.
Waiting for a crisis is like waiting for a bomb to fall. When that bomb falls it will be destructive and so will life when we wait for things to hit that fan. Living in crisis mode is living in denial and living in denial will only result in crisis. Waiting for a crisis does not make sense yet many of us do this all the time. After all what is the point of taking action if things are currently going well or at least well enough. Why say anything to my kid about drugs today, he is not on drugs that I know of? Crisis oriented people are the ones who find out that their spouse has been having an affair for a year with the neighbor, the mother who finds out her daughter is pregnant, the dad who finds out his son has been taking steroids to buff up and the man who finds out he has cancer after skipping numerous check ups. Are you crisis oriented? Why?
1. You often wait for things to get really bad to do anything about it:
If you are the type of person who waits for something bad to happen in order to finally take action or do something to resolve a situation you knew was an issue then you are crisis oriented. Many of us wait until life circumstances get seriously out of control to do anything about it. Waiting for that moment when it looks like we are drowning emotionally is a sign that we are crisis oriented and procrastinators.
2. You avoid taking actions that will prevent a crisis from happening:
People who are proactive do things to avoid things to grow into a crisis. They take action before the crisis hits. They do what they need to do to avoid the crisis by taking actions that will help resolve an issue before it gets serious. We cannot avoid everything but we can avoid a lot of crisis in our life by just taking note of what is going wrong and attending to it early on. In a marriage it may be counseling or ending the relationship. With a car it is maintaining the oil changes in order for the car not to break down and manifest more serious issues. When we avoid taking action knowing it is the best thing to do we are living in crisis mode.
3. You live in a perpetual state of denial:
When we live in denial we lie to ourselves about what is really going on in our life and what we need to do about it. We may believe that our child's behavior will get better when it is not getting any better and the teachers are all reported it to us. We wait because we don't want to face the truth of what is going on. Our wife is staying out till 2am on a work day numerous times yet we don't ask her where she is and she is not saying. We deny that things are as bad as they look and feel. We do this because we cannot face the truth. Livng in a perpetual state of denial is only going to result in a crisis.
4. You are not doing maintanence or preventative life work:
When we don't pray or meditate and we feel anxious and disconnected often we are not doing the maintanence work that some would say works. When we don't communicate our needs to someone we love we are not doing the maintanence work we should do in order to avoid a crisis or blow up. Eventually if we do nothing we get nothing and in the long run it blows up in our face. The fact is that doing preventative work like going to AA when we are trying to stop drinking will result in a crisis sooner than later. In order to avoid some things that we can and do have control over we must do some intentional work like: counseling, exercise, communication, couples work, family therapy and other actions that can help us to live in a joyful state rather than a crisis state of living.
Waiting for a crisis is like waiting for a bomb to fall. When that bomb falls it will be destructive and so will life when we wait for things to hit that fan. Living in crisis mode is living in denial and living in denial will only result in crisis. Waiting for a crisis does not make sense yet many of us do this all the time. After all what is the point of taking action if things are currently going well or at least well enough. Why say anything to my kid about drugs today, he is not on drugs that I know of? Crisis oriented people are the ones who find out that their spouse has been having an affair for a year with the neighbor, the mother who finds out her daughter is pregnant, the dad who finds out his son has been taking steroids to buff up and the man who finds out he has cancer after skipping numerous check ups. Are you crisis oriented? Why?
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