More than a linear succession of events, our life is made of discontinuitiessudden changes that imply acceptance and grief, but also new challenges and opportunities. The key to overcoming these moments of crisis is to return to the center of our being and recover our hidden abilities.
Human existence, although it follows a thread of continuity, is discontinuous, with successive stages and moments in which we face new challenges. From birth to the end of life there is a succession of constant changes: We are always in the process of being something new, different, of transcending ourselves.
The central tendency of the human being is the search for a meaning for his existence.. The formation of the person is possible to the extent that he or she overcomes the typical crises that arise throughout the different phases of life and gives meaning to his or her life journey.
Existential crises in the phases of life
The original meaning of the word crisis is “judgment.” (as a final decision on a process) and, in general, termination of an event.
The crisis resolves, therefore, a situation at some stage of life, but, at the same time, defines entry into a new situation that poses its own problems. In the most common meaning, and as we usually understand it, crisis is that new situation and everything that it brings with it.
A priori we cannot assess a crisis as something positive or negative.since it offers equal possibilities of good or bad resolution. However, in general, a person’s biographical crises tend to be clearly beneficial.
One of the characteristics common to all crises is their sudden and, generally, accelerated nature. Crises never emerge gradually and always seem to be the opposite of all permanence and stability.
The biographical or personal crisis delimits a situation that precipitates us to an accelerated phase of existencefull of dangers and threats, but also possibilities for personal renewal.
Dangers and opportunities
In all crises of life, danger and opportunity occur at the same time.. The person does not live prisoner of a personality forever forged during childhood or adolescence, but rather changes over time, so the possibilities of success in the face of a crisis are almost unlimited.
Another characteristic of the crisis is that, usually, as soon as it appears, the human being looks for a solution to get out of it. It can therefore be said that the crisis and the attempt to resolve it occur simultaneously.
Within the common characters of people there are multiple differences when it comes to facing crises. Some crises are more normal than others: they are the typical ones for which there are “prefabricated” solutions.
Others are unique and they require a true effort of invention and creation to emerge from them.
Some crises are ephemerals, others are more permanent; We know when they start but almost never when they end. The solution to the crisis can also be of very different types, sometimes being provisional and sometimes definitive.
Traditionally, from the psychopathology of reaction and trauma, has been differentiated between vital events (we all go through them) and traumatic (crisis triggers).
Recently we have begun to talk about “critical events” (divorce, loss of job…), events that fall within the common human experience but that, in some cases, can precipitate a crisis and that, in any case, will require a great extra effort to adapt on the part of the affected person.
What do biographical crises teach us?
Perhaps the most interesting thing about existential crises is that they force the person to connect with their own chronological historyto stop and take stock (take perspective, review your priority table, redefine your desires…) of your life path, at each stage of life.
In a capitalist world where, as poorly interconnected and egoic individuals, we spread ourselves in the search for immediate satisfaction (anchored in the drive for the “now”, without past or future), We watch helplessly as our temporal field becomes impoverished tremendously.
Lack of time has become something of a cultural disease (an African saying points out that all white people have a watch, but they never have time), an essential lack that makes us completely incapable of learning from the past and projecting ourselves into the future.
It is the phenomenon, repeatedly analyzed, of the space-time contraction of modern societies.
We wander more and more through non-places
spaces without identity or history (large stores, airports, shopping centers, supermarkets…), displaying a solitary, provisional and ephemeral personality.ç
This is what the philosopher Zygmunt Bauman defines as “liquid modernity”. which designates the fluid and volatile state of current society, without very solid values, in which uncertainty due to the dizzying speed of change has weakened human ties and where ties are fragile and expire too soon to help us understand the meaning of our days.
Biographical crises put us at the center of our being and force us to review ourselves as human beings.. By virtue of these, a kind of abyss opens between a past – which is no longer considered current or influential in present life – and a future that has not yet been established.
Crises force us to look at ourselvesto live in our time, to narrate our personal story.
Ways to deal with them
Experts show that the ways of facing such critical periods shape the character and forge the existence of people. The key to healthy adaptation is to find our own capabilities to get out of the difficulties we are in.
Despite the anxieties that inevitably overwhelm each person, We all have the ability to overcome a crisis and knowing how to actively search for and find a solution. To show ourselves eager to know more. To know how to rest when our effectiveness declines due to fatigue, and to reorganize ourselves to return to the fight as soon as we have recovered our lost strength.
Within us is the ability to know how to accept, and even to get help, considering this not as a sign of weakness on our part, but rather of maturity.
The passage from one stage to another is always impregnated with a certain psychological tension that is a symptom of evolution, growth, maturation.
From the psychological point of view, it would be appropriate to move from one stage to another consciously and gradually, finding in each of them its own meaning as well as new values and objectives.
According to the philosopher José Ortega y Gasset, to live is to find oneself in the world, to find ourselves enveloped and imprisoned by the things that constitute our circumstances. But life is not only about being among things as one of them, but about knowing how to live, being aware of what one does.
Life is not any substance foreign or pre-existing to the subject that lives.
Life is pure activity, and it has to constantly make itself in time, in space. Life is choice.ç
The challenges of the 4 vital stages
What are the challenges we face in each of the stages of our lives? We review existential crises and the way we face each moment.
1. Childhood
So that the child enjoys adequate growth and can enter the social world, It is important that you not only have a loving, warm and caring environment, but that it can provideGive him appropriate limits and the ideal environment so he can feel safe.
Share as much time as possible with our children, Avoiding “cyber babysitters” as much as possible (television, consoles, tablets, mobile phones…), will help them develop in later stages.
2. Adolescence and youth
According to different worldwide studies, Happy adolescents, upon reaching adulthood, enjoy better physical and mental health.
Unicef points out that 70% of mental disorders begin before the age of 24.
It is necessary, therefore, to provide the adolescent with tools so that he can interact autonomously with the outside world, respecting his need for intimacy and helping him to foster healthy bonds with friends.
Given the omnipresence of technology, increasingly overwhelming in the lives of everyone and even more so in the lives of young people, today more than ever it is important to reinforce outdoor activities, stimulate reading and thinking and continue sharing spaces for relationships with our adolescents.
3. Maturity
Perhaps this is the most stable period of the human being.. The sense of “self” expands, the person becomes an active part of society and work shapes individual life.
Faced with the pressures of an increasingly hurried life, it is essential to try to compose the puzzle of our demands and desires with a minimum of balance. To achieve this, it is very important enjoy space and time for yourself.
4. Old age
It is the last stage in people’s lives. At this point, It is important to adequately face retirement and take advantage of the opportunity to carry out those activities or tasks that we have been putting off due to lack of time. It is not age in itself that is most important, but how we live it.
To take into account:
- The personal crisis rushes us into an accelerated phase of our existence and it presents itself at the same time as the opportunity to resolve it
- They put us at the center of our beingthey force us to look at ourselves, to live in our time, to narrate our personal story
- The key to healthy adaptation is find our own abilities to get out of difficulties