Sample Chapter
Crisis
Seed of Possibility
WITHOUT EXEPTION, all of The Miners saw a crisis as a positive thing. They had clear, well thought out perceptions of the value of crisis. The consensus among them was that crisis created change. Several said that although people are naturally inclined to want to stay within their comfort zone, staying in one place creates stagnation.
A few of the Miners even said that they welcomed crisis in their lives.
“The more I grow and advance, the more crises I attract in my life,” one Miner said. “I didn’t enjoy the experience at the time, but the growth and learning experience were priceless.”
The view of crisis as a beneficial goes against the commonly held belief that a quiet, peaceful life is ideal.
Several saw the hand of God in crisis. They believed that their crises had put them on the path they were meant to be on, and where they learned their best lessons. One of the Miners had been selling drugs, but thanks God every day for getting caught. He was offered a choice between prison and a residential drug treatment program. He chose treatment, succeeded, and eventually created a residential drug program that has helped thousands of indigent addicts. He noted that the Chinese character for crisis includes danger and opportunity. The Miners were familiar with danger, and seized its opportunity aspect when it showed itself.
All The Miners saw crisis as bringing a gift. Some of the gifts they described included: expanded creativity, new perceptions and belief systems, increased understanding of self and others, an increased trust in the goodness of the universe, increased awareness of their own strength, and faith that things work out for the best in the end.
Most of The Miners believed that they were actually at their best in the midst of crisis. They believed they drew on resources they otherwise didn’t use to their full capacity. They stretched themselves and grew in response to crisis. One of The Miners who had taken on a victim identity as the result of chronic abuse in childhood, described working with adjudicated adolescents in situation in which The Miner was in real physical danger if she didn’t stand up for herself. These on-going crises brought forth an inner strength that would have lain dormant had she not needed it in this dangerous environment.
Several saw crisis as something that forces us to change direction, often to get out of a destructive pattern. Sometimes crisis takes the form of a physical illness, often when we continue to ignore more gentle and subtle signs from life. One way of seeing is that “life keeps hanging on our hood.” The more we ignore it, the louder the banging becomes.
Most of The Miners had childhoods filled with almost constant crisis. That led them to have a great ability to manage and learn from crisis. Almost all said that before they did much of their internal healing, they’d been through nonproductive crises. This was a reenactment of old patterns learned in their abusive environments. But, as they kept coming across these crises, they began to look more and more within to discover their own belief systems and perceptions, and subsequently learned to see and use crisis more productively.
It’s a part of human nature to want to avoid crisis, but crises can be those situations in which we don’t have any choice but to see things differently and take risks. Those are some of our greatest gifts. Crisis forces us to change direction, to get out of a rut, and do something different.
One of The Miners saw crisis from a highly spiritual perspective. She said, Crisis disrupts ego and self-will, and if we surrender to it, it moves us in alignment with God’s will.”
