As we face each new phase of life, there will be a crisis to ensure we submit to life’s purpose for us which is to grow and live consonant with truth. And remember, every crisis seen properly is an opportunity.
Some crisis points:
- When we leave home and begin adult living, we must choose between personal autonomy to follow our dreams—or—follow the expectations of mother and father for us to marry, have children and a safe career, and continue the denial of family trauma by passing it on to the next generation
- At age 28-32 entering full adulthood, we must choose to break more fully from our family to find our own voice and mission in life—or—realign more completely with family values, no matter how compromising
- In midlife with its legendary crisis, we must choose to self-investigate and journey within—or—continue to conform to external patterns that please the family, but kill our soul
- When we retire, we must choose to use our new freedom from the work-a-day world to assess our history and grow wise—or—grow old, leaving our lives uninspected, even as our unresolved history takes a toll on our physical and mental health. We attribute getting old, bitter and ill to time—not trauma
- When we face death, we must choose to die consciously, facing and growing through this final earthly transition—or—continue our oblivion, as we die from illness or accident, unconsciously numbed with medication, and sometimes, and sadly, pain that is physical, with its source in trauma denied
These developmental crises and the choices we make define us. Are we fully alive—or—dead in the alleged safety of our trauma-based family and culture?
We will experience recurrent crises throughout our lifetime until we submit to life’s terrifying and transforming power that impels us to heal, grow and evolve. We can delay and buffer these crises again and again, but the buried urgency to live true will not go away. No matter how forcefully we repress life’s promptings, they will not die—unless we kill them with our own death. Remember, life like its ally love, never dies.