What is a crisis? When old meanings are lost...

About crises What is a crisis? It is when old meanings are already lost, and new ones have not yet been found. A kind of hang-up - and neither here nor there. A very unpleasant hang-up, as a rule. Especially if it lasts not a minute or two, but a long time. A very long time. Confusion, freezing, stupor, worry, lack of meaning, lack of support - these are the true accompaniments of a crisis. The enemy of experiencing a crisis is the impulse to urgently do something, urgently find support, urgently gain confidence, come up with meaning. This enemy appears quickly, and its insidiousness is that such impulses seem useful and can pretend to be desires, although in fact - this is more often a reaction, panic, protection from these unpleasant experiences of uncertainty, freezing (which can be expressed, among other things, in depression), lack of support. Any growth occurs through crises. And, since personal therapy involves personal development, any change in automatic patterns is accompanied by a crisis. "Well, I've realized this. What should I do about it now?", "Okay, I've realized how I'm ruining my life, but how can I live differently?", "Tell me, what should I do now, huh?". Any point of choice is a crisis. Sometimes short and easily resolved. And sometimes very difficult, requiring internal work and energy expenditure. A kind of maturation. Today, while working, a wonderful metaphor came to me, which, in my opinion, reflects any crisis. I remembered how a butterfly becomes a butterfly. First it is a caterpillar (before that, this caterpillar, perhaps, was a butterfly's egg, but my depth of knowledge is not enough to say this unequivocally). And so, this caterpillar lives, it does not look like a butterfly at all, but rather more like a worm. And all this creature does is absorb food. Which, if translated into reality, means it accumulates energy, builds up resources, does a huge amount of work. And then, when there are enough resources - and it has eaten a lot of food, and the weather is such, and the season has come, it is like this - bam, and pupates. And so this caterpillar has pupated, and it seems like it is no longer a caterpillar, and not yet a butterfly, and in general, it sits behind the foggy wall of the cocoon, numb and does not move. My childhood attempts to do good to the butterfly and bring it out of this crisis ended sadly. Since then, I realized that the best support in a crisis is to stay with the butterfly in what is. That if it has pupated, then it means it has accumulated resources, now its job is to mature, remaining in this paralysis/pupation for exactly as long as it needs to turn into a butterfly. And when all previously collected resources are assimilated (and this always takes time), then the butterfly itself will tear this cocoon apart, get out of it (this is like a new birth, or rather, rebirth) and fly where it feels necessary. Then its wings will be a support for it. Then its food will be of a completely different quality, then it will be able to communicate on various occasions with the same as itself. With this metaphor I want to express the fact that it is always inconvenient and unpleasant to be in a crisis. Sometimes it is unbearably painful. But, paradoxically, attempts to ignore this crisis and do good to yourself with magic kicks "we urgently need to do something about this" drag out this crisis, because they distract from the internal work of assimilation (integration into experience) of those new resources that were collected earlier. The best self-support in a crisis is not to devalue this state of yours, because there is every reason for it, it is impossible to avoid it in the process of growth. Resourcefully stay with yourself and accept yourself as you are. "Yes, I am in a crisis now", "Yes, I feel confused and unsupported now", "I don't know what to do NOW", and "I have the right to do this", "There are reasons for this", "I will not abandon myself as I am, the crisis does not cancel my value and goodness". The best support for others in a crisis is to remain as you are. As long as necessary. Do not rush, do not press, do not do good or save. Maintain respect. However, such support is possible only when you have the skill to treat yourself in this way in your own crises.