Winter 2003 "Resolving Personal Crises"

ur newsletter will promote principles of personal success for women. These ideas will illustrate success in the working world, in interpersonal relationships, and in developing self esteem and confidence. Each member will bring special knowledge about attaining personal goals and adding a sense of discovery and excitement to women's lives.

	"...you can become your own personal coach. Practice engaging your Higher Self or Observing Self. Begin to notice patterns of reacting coming from the past. These are usually self-protective, defensive behaviors. Do you really need these any longer? Can you find the courage to let them melt away and allow buried feelings of grief to emerge?"
	"Any repetitive behavior in which we allow ourselves to engage (and keeping on and on “in crisis” is repetitive, to be sure) is allowed, by us, to stay in our lives for a reason. And, to my way of looking at it, if we uncover that reason, and understand the good things we’re getting from the so-called crisis, then we’ve taken a necessary first step toward resolving it."
	"...most people who are in a “personal” crisis don’t see it as just that: personal. In other words, what is happening on the outside of us is being internalized, or the problems inside of us that we have been avoiding or resisting fixing have now brought us to the point of crisis because we haven’t addressed them."
	"Kathy had also been concerned about the impending war with Iraq, and wished she could do something meaningful to express her opposition in conjunction with Theater Artists Against War and their Day of Action of March 3rd. During her meditation on Saturday, January 4, an inspiration emerged: produce a reading in New York of the 2,300-year-old Greek anti-war comedy by Aristophanes, “Lysistrata,” and use the proceeds from the production to benefit two humanitarian organizations working in Iraq."
	"We really are our own best sage counsel. We ourselves, mostly by ourselves, can resolve our own personal crises. For they are just that: ours, and personal. We can reflect; we can choose, and we can act."

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Dr. Gail Feldman is a clinical psychologist, award-winning author, and public speaker. Her last book, "From Crisis to Creativity: Taking Advantage of Adversity," is now available in the UK from TimeWarner re-titled, "Taking Advantage of Adversity." Her latest book, now in the stores, is "Releasing the Goddess Within." She is trained in hypnotherapy, regression therapy, and eye-movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR). For more information, please call her office at 505-266-8488; you may also send email to: GFWrites@aol.com, or visit her Website at www.gailfeldman.com.

believe it is out of the crucible of crisis that we grow ourselves into full maturity. That perception alone, that there will be a pearl at the end of the grinding-down, can help us as we persevere through the purgatory of life events that lay us low and sometimes feel impossible to cope with.

     There are so many types of crisis: From a Murphy’s Law day, in which everything seems to go wrong, to the Job’s Law of Life, where there are deeply serious losses of life and limb, and close relationships. Our personal traumas, large and small, and the difficult road of recovering from them, constitute the developmental journey that eventually brings us insight, life skills, and even wisdom.

     In my practice of clinical psychology, I hear people describe every kind of crisis, obstacle, trauma, tragedy, conflict, and disaster. From the resulting symptoms, we begin to understand the impact on the individual’s mind and emotions - how fear shows itself through the grief of depression, anger, obsession, and dissociation from triggering events and from other people. In these states of post-trauma, we lose our natural ability to be comfortably social and successfully engaged human beings.

     Meg, a super scientist, survived an accident that caused numerous injuries. For the first time in her forty-two years, her life required a total focus on herself - a routine of rehabilitation that took precedent over everything else. Meg had chosen to live alone. She had few friends, and she had removed herself from any contact with her remaining family of three brothers. After hearing her history, it was apparent why she had chosen a rather isolated life: the brutality of the physical, verbal, and emotional abuse she sustained growing up was nearly incomprehensible.

     Her military father had required that she stand at attention while he beat her and when finished, he would declare her “dismissed.” It failed to work once when she passed out, but overall, the tortures were administered with almost scientific precision. She left home as soon as she could.

     The accident forced Meg to learn to care for and nurture herself in the most basic ways - eating, walking, sleep, and hygiene. And then, many physical and rehabilitative therapies had to be added. In her frustration one day, over having to pay attention to herself instead of her science, she said, “I have no idea how to put myself into the equation.” Years earlier, she had factored herself out and dissociated from life beyond her work. While on the surface it appeared that the accident was the crisis to be resolved, it was the split within herself that needed healing. It was time for her to “come home” to herself and be her own loving parent.

     Jenny, a fast-minded CEO of a non-profit in Los Angeles, was at risk of losing the position she’d dreamed of having because of a hair-trigger temper with men. “I need a personal coach,” she said. In a situation where she felt a man was becoming dominating or dictatorial she would blow-up, and feel quite right in doing so. Neither she nor her husband could understand what was happening.

     Jenny told me she had no history of abuse growing up, just teasing from her siblings. In hypnosis, she re-experienced an evening with her best male friend in college. They had studied together and then had a few drinks, after which he decided he wanted to “be my lover instead of my friend. I had to fight really hard to get him off of me, and I could never see him again after that.” After making this connection to her unconscious reactions to powerful men, Jenny could mourn the incident and integrate the loss. Because she had not been raped, Jenny had not realized that the incident was a traumatic marker for her, causing her to view certain men as dangerous. We worked on her ability to stay in her “observing self” and therefore be her own personal coach. She began monitoring the actual threat in any interaction and practicing, mentally rehearsing, appropriate responses.

     Regardless of the origins of the life crisis, you can become your own personal coach. Practice engaging your Higher Self or Observing Self. Begin to notice patterns of reacting coming from the past. These are usually self-protective, defensive behaviors. Do you really need these any longer? Can you find the courage to let them melt away and allow buried feelings of grief to emerge? One young mother who could no longer keep secret a childhood molestation said, “I feel like I’m just going to cry forever because my childhood was stolen from me.”

     The tears won’t last forever, but they may be intense and continuous for a time. Tears are a way of releasing and cleansing the past. They represent the compassionate self-care that could not be provided at the time of the wounding.

     Forgiveness is a key ingredient in recovering from the pain of the past. I’m not speaking of forgiving the perpetrator. That can feel like acceptance of their behavior. You may only be able to pray for the person who harmed you. Praying for them is a serious act of spiritual power. In Aramaic, the language of Jesus, the verb “to forgive” means “to untie a knot.” So, as you forgive yourself for feeling weak or defective in some way, you release yourself from the tie to the person and the experience in which you were diminished.

     As you forgive yourself and practice compassionate self-care, you are integrating the past and strengthening from difficult life events. You can claim greater understanding of the types of suffering that occur to all human beings, and in so doing, you actually come home to the wholeness of your Self.

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Lenann McGookey Gardner is a Harvard M.B.A. and an independent management consultant specializing in improving companies' sales and marketing results. She works with smaller businesses, as well as large companies, worldwide.  Call Lenann when you want to grow your sales by closing the most desirable, highest profit business. Lenann is a winner of the American Marketing Association/New Mexico's "Services Marketer of the Year" award. Visit her on the Web at www.YouCanSell.com.

he older I get, the more I think that most of life is just a matter of discipline.

     And the more I realize how much people (me too, of course) just don’t LIKE to be disciplined!

     Give us a quick fix, easy money, results for little or no effort, resolution of whatever it is, right now!

     But it just doesn’t work that way, does it?

     Whatever the personal crisis that’s plaguing you this week, month, year or decade, I think it’s interesting to look at how that crisis holds you down – and what that crisis does FOR you!

     Yes, I said, “What it does FOR you.” Any repetitive behavior in which we allow ourselves to engage (and keeping on and on “in crisis” is repetitive, to be sure) is allowed, by us, to stay in our lives for a reason. And, to my way of looking at it, if we uncover that reason, and understand the good things we’re getting from the so-called crisis, then we’ve taken a necessary first step toward resolving it.

     Think about it: do “crises” go away on their own? Some do. This can happen when they have deadlines attached. For example, I had intended to apply for a CMC (Certified Management Consultant) designation last year. The deadline for applying in “the old way” (the way I wanted to do it) was August 31. I had work, and then an unexpected death very close to me in August, and suddenly the deadline had passed, and my application wasn’t in. Crisis over.

     I didn’t get what I wanted, but I also didn’t have to worry about it anymore, as the new, more challenging rules for the CMC will be in effect for the foreseeable future!

     Other crises, though, seem to persist almost indefinitely. Long term grieving for a lost relationship comes to mind. I’ve certainly done that! And my focus on all the good things that had gone from my life when the relationship ended covered up the many things about the relationship that DIDN’T work, and that didn’t make me, or anyone else, happy in it.

     Long term grieving after a death, I suppose, is another example. (Depending on how one defines “crisis”, of course. I’ve seen long term grieving creating drama and inaction for lots of people, over considerable amounts of time, and that, to me, is a crisis!) Though the experts tell us there’s no “appropriate length” for grieving, and that the “one year is enough” idea is bizarre and unrealistic, I have known those who, essentially, grieved for decades. Is it possible that the grieving process was giving them an excuse for achieving little in their lives? Perhaps. At least, it seems to me, that’s worth considering.

     Closer to my life’s work, there’s the issue of underperformance in one’s work leading to a crisis of one’s job being in jeopardy, or one’s business failing. At work, underperformance ranges from doing less than one promised to do last year, when one received a performance appraisal – to entrepreneurs who persistently put their heads in the sand when it comes to some essential aspect of developing their businesses.

     Why do so many business owners wait until they’re practically bankrupt to call in a consultant who might help them resolve the challenges they’re facing in their companies? Well, it’s for the same reason that people who need to diet think, “I’m going to go on that diet -- another day!” It’s painful to start, it’s restrictive to change one’s way of operating, and it’s probably going to involve some discipline that they’d just as soon not introduce!

     And yet, how many good things come to us without our exhibiting the discipline to work for them? Do we value the things that come easily? I’d submit that we often don’t – not the way we value the things we had to discipline ourselves and sacrifice for!

     Resolving a crisis often takes a plan – and clear thinking about what you WILL and WON’T allow yourself to do, or to accept from someone else, or to stand by and observe. And it takes acting on that clear thinking, of course, and continuing to act on it over time, when you’re tired, when you’re bored, when you’re overwhelmed. Oh, and it takes one other thing: being woman enough to admit when the plan isn’t working, when progress isn’t there, when the crisis isn’t lifting, and having the courage to develop yet another plan, and work THAT.

     Resolving personal crises isn’t easy. I’ve let the loss of relationships ruin entire years of my life. I’ve let cruelty reduce me to too many tears. I’ve let self-pity get in the way of action. And I’ve fairly frequently simply retreated into “I’m overwhelmed” when I should have been acting. Perhaps you have, too. Isn’t it time – aren’t we old enough? – to break those patterns, accept the occasional crisis as a part of life, and approach it a bit more maturely? I hope so. And I’m challenging you – and me – to act on that!

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Janet L. Hall is a Certified Kinesionics Practitioner/Herbalist/Nutritionist and owner of Alternative Wellness Center in Albuquerque. She is a member of the Association of Specialized Kinesiologists of the U.S., and also a member of the American Herbalists Guild. The People Living Through Cancer organization recently awarded Janet a plaque for her caring, dedicated and professional treatment of those she works with who are dealing with cancer. Janet is also the consulting Kinesiologist and Nutritionist for A New Hope, a foundation for eating disorders. Janet can be reached at (505) 294-WELL, or docchall@netscape.net.

rises... everyone has them. You know, the times when you feel the whole world is crashing in on you… those times when there seems to be an unresolvable problem that you can’t see getting any better.

     Talk about crisis! Those who know me know I’ve dealt with quite a few in the past! No, I’m not talking about a run in my pantyhose or a broken fingernail - I’m talking about an eating disorder/depression, the suicide of a spouse, the near death of a child, uterine and breast cancer, and an abusive relationship - not easy things to deal with. Out of each crisis I tried to discern just what that crisis was teaching me, what I could learn from it, and how I could prevent it from happening again.

     I know from experience in the health/emotional field that most people who are in a “personal” crisis don’t see it as just that: personal. In other words, what is happening on the outside of us is being internalized, or the problems inside of us that we have been avoiding or resisting fixing have now brought us to the point of crisis because we haven’t addressed them.

     I also know, after surviving cancer, what can seem to be a purely physical crisis can be a very personal, emotional one. When I stated that problems inside of us we have been avoiding or resisting fixing can bring us to crisis, I speak firsthand. Our minds, bodies and emotions are all one, so symptoms and illnesses can be caused by our thought patterns, repressions and emotional disharmonies.

     When we experience symptoms, these are messages from the body alerting us to what is happening or to what needs to happen. In other words, the body is telling us that something we are exposing ourselves to, or a habit, pattern or dysfunctional way of being MUST GO! So, if we listen to and heed these messages, they will teach us, prevent crisis and illness, and help us grow in our lives.

     If we ignore or resist these messages, our bodies will be affected. Before I had cancer, I was refusing to go on with my life after my husband’s death. I was doing what is called “over-grieving.” So, my body started out with symptoms of fatigue, irritation, depression, and sleep problems. Ignoring those warning signs over the long term, and not getting adequate rest, led to a compromised immune system. I began to catch colds, flu’s and viruses, and had digestive problems.

     If we refuse to look at these messages, the body will persist in trying to alert us again by allowing the newly developed conditions to become chronic. If we still refuse to acknowledge what our problems are, and run from having to face and change them, or allow our bodies to be affected by something in our environment, then the chronic condition sometimes leaves us with a lasting reminder of our situation.

     What next happened to me coincided with that process. I had emergency surgery - gallbladder removal, which by the way, they tell you you don’t need. Ha! Not true! The gallbladder is a very, very important digestive organ. The gallbladder usually stores bile that the liver produces for digestion of fats. If it is removed, the liver overworks to produce enough bile “on the spot.” So after the operation, I began to have not only digestive, but also liver and colon problems.

     If all else fails, the body will allow the situation to deteriorate further into more serious illnesses. Since my liver was malfunctioning, clearing out toxins and other things my body needed to dispose of, became an overwhelming task for it. On top of that, I lived in an area with a great deal of pollution that was being emitted from a nearby plant. My estrogen levels soared, and I developed uterine and breast cancer.

     FINALLY getting the message, I then took the necessary steps to get healthy again through alternative medicine, which then led to my becoming a Practitioner of Kinesiology and teaching these methods to others - a major life change! So then, crises are generally trying to tell us that it is time to STOP or CHANGE something in our lives.

     And it is the same with a crisis over an abusive relationship. The dynamics of the relationship need to stop and change, or the relationship needs to end. When I came to crisis with that situation and had to re-evaluate everything in my life, I was astounded to see just how many women are actually physically battered and abused. But I was even more astounded to learn how high the numbers are of emotionally abused women, as I myself was. Those are reported numbers. If you were to ask a group of women what emotional abuse is - very few, if any would recognize it, but many would be living with it. New Mexico rates unbelievably high for domestic violence, and emotional abuse is extremely unreported.

     At the outset of this article, I mentioned that those in personal crisis could be internalizing something that is outside of them. A clear example of this can be seen in abusive relationships. Abused women generally come to a personal crisis at some point. They internalize their partners’ abusiveness as though they have done something wrong, are worthless or bad - that they deserve it. No one deserves to be abused, and clearly the abusive partner has a serious problem, but the women internalize their partners’ behaviors instead.

     People question why women stay in abusive situations. Why don’t they get out? Because they have internalized what was happening to them as deserved. They have lost all of their power, they may be as addicted to their abuser just as heavily as someone gets addicted to drugs or alcohol, and they have little or no self-esteem or identity of their own left.

     It’s very interesting to note that many times women don’t have self-esteem problems prior to entering into the abusive relationship. It can occur over time - even to very successful, powerful women - with an eroding of their self-esteem. That’s how powerful emotional abuse is. It is likened to brainwashing, because the victim is isolated, receiving double messages, subjected to chaos, and hears constant degrading remarks or things that very subtly erode their self-esteem or question their worth. You may be unhappy in your relationship, but not know why or how to resolve it.

     There’s more to domestic violence than hitting! Abuse has many forms.

     Does your partner: Call you bad names or put you down? Control what you do, whom you see or talk to, or where you go? Stop you from seeing or talking to friends or family? Take your money, make you ask for money, or refuse to give you money? Make all the decisions? Tell you you’re a bad parent or threaten to take away your children? Look at you in ways that scare you? Act like the abuse is no big deal, it’s your fault, or even deny doing it? Destroy your property or threaten to kill your pets? Shove you, slap you or hit you? Force you to have sex when you don’t want to? Intimidate you with guns, knives, or other weapons? Force you to drop charges? Threaten to kill you or commit suicide? Withhold affection or give you the silent treatment?

     If you said "yes" to even one of these questions, you may be in a abusive relationship. There is a New Mexico hotline for domestic violence that gives information on all types of abuse and assists women. That number is 1-800-526-7157. In Albuquerque, Haven House has group support meetings that educate, teach and empower abused women and help them to re-identify themselves. The number for Haven House is (505) 896-4869, and it was the first step in resolving my abusive relationship crisis. Baseline Core Therapy, a very powerful procedure, was the next step.

     It is possible to resolve and get past crisis. What we have to do is see what the crisis is “really” about, and take the necessary steps to get it corrected! Better yet, if we keep working on our emotional and spiritual selves - we’ll prevent it!

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Jane Blume, Editor/Publisher of our Defining Women newsletter, celebrates 37 years of professional work in communications this year. Jane founded Desert Sky Communications in 1989 to help businesses, non-profit organizations and individual entrepreneurs "get the right messages to the right audiences." Desert Sky's services include public relations, marketing and advertising strategies and execution; writing and editing; corporate identity; photography; facilitation; and innovative radio programs. For more information, call Jane at (505) 294-1976, email to  or visit www.desertskycommunications.com.

recent  article in the Travel section of the Albuquerque Journal suggested that if a person is going through a personal crisis, such as a divorce, then taking a trip (i.e., changing one’s surroundings) is good therapy.

     Not all of us have the resources to go on a trip in such a situation, but sometimes it does pay to change the subject. Our daughter did.

     As the New Year of 2003 dawned, Kathy, a professional actor, was going through a rough patch. Some recent auditions had not worked in her favor; there were no exciting acting prospects on the horizon; and she was not able to work at her day job at a transcription service in New York City because she had severe tendonitis in both forearms. Living with frustration and uncertainty, not sure what to do next, and having a strong interest in Zen Buddhism, she embarked upon some prolonged sessions of meditation.

     Kathy had also been concerned about the impending war with Iraq, and wished she could do something meaningful to express her opposition in conjunction with Theater Artists Against War and their Day of Action of March 3rd. During her meditation on Saturday, January 4, an inspiration emerged: produce a reading in New York of the 2,300-year-old Greek anti-war comedy by Aristophanes, “Lysistrata,” and use the proceeds from the production to benefit two humanitarian organizations working in Iraq. That same day, Kathy received an email from an actor/casting director friend, Sharron Bower, expressing interest in working together on a project. A partnership was born, and some friends were notified by email.

     (For those of you who aren’t familiar with the play: Greek women are distressed that their husbands are away fighting prolonged wars. Inspired by the title character, Lysistrata, a group of them take over the public treasury [the first sit-in-?], and then they deny their husbands sex until they agree to stop fighting and make peace. Some real-life examples of Lysistrata-like actions have taken place in recent years in Turkey, the Sudan and Mexico.)

     Sunday the 5th was a pivotal, if not fateful, day. Kathy’s friend Jason, a graduate student in directing at Columbia University, put her in touch with a playwright who was working on a translation of “Lysistrata.” Over two conversations, Kathy and Sharron decided to “think big”: why not make this a national project? No, international! A friend in Seattle emailed a commitment to produce the first, non-New York reading (“I was sitting in church wondering what theater artists could do”). Sharron, who is also a Web designer, started working on the Project’s website. More emails to friends went out. Kathy wrote to the veteran National Public Radio personality, Susan Stamberg, about the effort.

     By Monday, January 6, a temporary website was up and running. Kathy came up with the idea for what became a stunning logo that thoroughly “brands” the venture. By midnight, contacts in Austin, Texas had completed the casting of their reading.

     On Wednesday the 8th, Kathy and Sharron composed a letter to everyone they knew. The Lysistrata Project’s permanent website went “live.” On Thursday the 9th, the letters went out, and friends in Burlington, Vermont agreed to spearhead the project there.

     By the morning of Friday the 10th, theater artists in San Francisco, Palm Springs, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Vienna, Munich, and Damascus had committed themselves to producing readings, and an activity in England was likely. Five days after Kathy and Sharron had decided to dream big, the Lysistrata Project had gone international. That afternoon, a producer from National Public Radio called, and Riverside Theater in Iowa signed on - the executive director had heard about the Project from contacts in Delaware and England.

     Over the weekend of the 11th and 12th, the Project added performances in Chapel Hill and Chicago, Athens, Jerusalem, Denver, Los Angeles and St. Louis; Kathy’s beloved high school theater teacher agreed to produce a reading in Bern, Switzerland; and she asked me to write a “template” press release that would be posted on the website for the far-flung organizers to download and adapt for their own use.

     On Monday the 13th, the National Public Radio producer scheduled Kathy for an interview on the January 16th edition of NPR’s nightly news magazine, “All Things Considered.” Upon hearing the news, I became mildly hysterical. Within the first half hour after the interview was aired, there were 200 more hits on the website.

     While all of this activity was going on, Phil and I were coming to grips with the fact that we wouldn’t be able to hold our heads high if Albuquerque, New Mexico failed to deliver. At the very least, we said, we could have a reading in our living room. During the January 18th anti-war demonstration (the same day as the massive ones in Washington, D.C. and San Francisco) we ran into some like-minded friends who convinced us to make a firm commitment to that option.

     (Fortunately, we have moved the Albuquerque project out of our living room to a staged reading at The University of New Mexico.)

     At some point along the way – we’re not sure exactly when - a filmmaker came forward and began making a documentary about the Project. Other industry professionals agreed to help Kathy and Sharron contact celebrities to participate in the New York reading and locate a venue for it. On January 18th, when the Website had received 4,000 hits and 70 readings had been scheduled, a specialist in on-line auctions volunteered to create one that would be international in scope – and take place in February - to fund both the Lysistrata Project and the humanitarian organizations that the Project supports.

     At the end of the first week of February, the hits on the Website have topped 24,000, and 352 readings have been scheduled in 30 countries. The U.S.A. will see productions in 44 states, Washington, D.C. and the Virgin Islands. Some of our country's largest metropolitan areas will have multiple events: there will be 14 of them in the New York area alone.

     We do not know where all of this will ultimately lead, but this we do know: The Lysistrata Project has become the “First-Ever World-Wide Theatre Event For Peace,” and Kathy has found a purpose larger than herself to be inspired by. The speed of the Project’s expansion has been stunning. We are amazed – and very proud - of what she has accomplished.

     I invite you to be proud, inspired, and involved, as well. Visit www.lysistrataproject.com  - and find a performance “in a city near you.” And, you might consider making a donation to the Lysistrata Project.

     (Albuquerque readers: our reading will start at 7 p.m. on March 3rd in the auditorium of UNM's Continuing Education building, and we're suggesting a $5.00 donation at the door; proceeds will benefit the Albuquerque Center for Peace and Justice. There will also be a reading at the Santa Fe Playhouse and in the village of Los Lunas.)

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Carol Akright is a Certified Financial Planner (CFP), stockbroker and insurance agent specializing in intergenerational planning, retirement funding and wealth building. She is Registered Principal with Associated Securities Corporation of Los Angeles, a full service brokerage firm. A financial educator as well, she lectures nationwide at both public and corporate seminars on investment strategies, "Dream Funding," and other financial topics. She is the author of FUNDING YOUR DREAMS GENERATION TO GENERATION (Dearborn Trade, 2001), and can be reached at (505) 897-1970 or akrightcr1@aol.com. Her website is www.fundingyourdreams.com.

o you ever feel as if you’ve become your friends’ personal therapist when they’re in the midst of crises? I often find myself on the other end of long telephone conversations, listening, offering input, and listening some more during multiple phone calls at all hours of the day or night. Most times, I don’t mind. Indeed, I feel flattered that they seek me out as a source of sage counsel. At other times, I feel burdened and frustrated, because usually I can’t really help them decide what they need to decide for themselves, and I get weary when the cycles of analyses double back to thoughts we’ve traveled before -if not this time, then previously in their lives. I want them to make a choice and get on with it!

     Everyone handles personal crises differently. Some people are more emotionally resilient than others. We have all known those we would describe as “the walking wounded,” who have deep emotional problems that even years of therapy have not resolved. I have compassion for anyone in this situation. Some never enjoy full resolution of their dilemmas. Other individuals seem to go along in life with relatively few troubles, and then they hit a snag. This is when friends are most helpful, I find. A good therapist, also, can help put problems into perspective with an objective point of view.

     I divide personal crises into two main categories: short-term (acute) and long-term (chronic). I approach each of them differently.

     When I faced an immediate, new crisis, such as when I came down with breast cancer, my first reaction was to stop what I was doing, ask what could I do about this today, and turn the crisis into a project, which I tackled with detailed fervor to resolve as fast as I could. In my medical crisis, I found the tumor on a Sunday. By Monday I was at my doctor’s office, went for x-rays at the radiology center, and within ten days I had selected a surgeon and had the lumpectomy. I wasn’t going to delay one bit on handling that situation. Emotionally, I drew on life-long reserves of personal willpower to push down panic, cried a bit when I felt overwhelmed, and called in all the troops (family, friends and medical experts) to give me comfort, ideas and tools to make a decision, on which I then took action.

     I like the project approach, because it takes an emotional issue and turns it into an intellectual, fact-finding process. Part of the fact-finding, though, is to go inside myself, during some quiet time, and ask myself, “How am I feeling about this? How am I doing?” Then I tell myself, “No matter what, I’m going to be OK.” Sometimes I believe that. Other times, I’m dubious. Still, such affirmations make me feel better at the moment. If I’m wrong, at least I have time to get used to the idea that everything isn’t going to be OK.

     When the crisis is long-term—an unfulfilled desire, a broken dream, the loss of a loved one, the protracted effort to reach a career goal, I must confess I’m not as good at dealing with it. I worry, over-analyze, second-guess, and in general, drive myself and my friends crazy reviewing all possible outcomes and my reactions to them. I don’t phone them as frequently as they call me, but I do call them. Too often, I go outside myself for answers. I take a class, a self-help seminar, call my Mother and go over it with her, or seek input from my closest friends, whose opinions I value. Then I wait a bit, tackle the problem from a new angle, and put a lot of strain and push power into controlling the outcome I’m seeking.

     The perfect example is my long-standing desire to have a child. I’ve wanted to have a child since I was 25 years old. Now I’m 55. For 30 years, this has been an unresolved personal crisis. Deep down, my heart is broken over this lack in my life. I feel that if I go to my grave without experiencing motherhood, I will have missed something profoundly important to my personal happiness and fulfillment. I’ve tried every angle— first, the usual approach—getting married and trying to get pregnant. Then I spent thousands of dollars over a seven-year period in fertility work. When my husband decided enough was enough, let’s give up on it, I cajoled, humored, intermittently gave him space, and then went at it again; and this past year, we finally did apply to adopt a teenager.

     As it worked out, it wasn’t the right situation. Now he’s decided it’s too late. But have I? Not on your life! It raises some pretty tough questions, though, and these do give me pause. Do I give up my marriage to get a child? That seems like a “Sophie’s Choice.” Do I give up on my dream? I can’t see doing that. Deep down, I know I’m going to be a mother, somehow, and soon. So, I’ve decided that this particular personal crisis (and I think most of the long-standing, chronic kind) is best resolved in the words of an ancient Chinese philosopher, Lao Tzu:

“ Always we hope
someone else has the answer.
some other place will be better,
some other time
it will all turn out.

This is it.
No one else has the answer.
No other place will be better,
and it has already turned out.

At the center of your being you have the answer.
You know who you are and you know what you want.

There is no need
to run outside
for better seeing.

Nor to peer from a widow.

Rather abide at
the center of your being;
for the more you leave it
the less you learn.

Search your heart
and see
the way to do
is to be.”

     We really are our own best sage counsel. We ourselves, mostly by ourselves, can resolve our own personal crises. For they are just that: ours, and personal. We can reflect; we can choose, and we can act. I commit to that process for myself. I hope you do, too. I wish you peace and resolution, even as I work toward them myself.

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