What Does a Crisis Give a Person?

A crisis offers a person the chance to truly examine their inner clock, which sometimes runs fast and sometimes lags behind. In these moments, we can see what we wanted to achieve and what we have actually accomplished by the age of 20, 30, or 40. It becomes clear which needs we have neglected, what we have sacrificed, and what we have lost along the way. Overcoming a crisis allows us to reset our internal clock, but this requires honest and difficult self-examination to understand why we rushed or delayed certain things in life.

Usually, we don’t want to reflect on our lives, nor do we have the time. Life moves quickly, and daily routines distract us from realizing the finite nature of our journey. We hide from the truth about ourselves, our surroundings, and our own self-fulfillment. We justify ourselves with busyness, difficult circumstances, the need to earn money, illnesses, and obligations to our parents and children.

At the start of life, when we don’t yet have a collection of masks to wear, a small child captivates us with their authenticity and spontaneity. Unfortunately, as we grow older, most of us lose the ability to remain true to ourselves. Only extreme, existential, or crisis situations force us to reconsider our essence and our purpose in this world.

It’s a good thing that unconscious, automatic living doesn’t last forever. The monotonous, habitual path of life, filled with routines and obligations, is suddenly interrupted. Suddenly, we need to find a new job, take on new responsibilities, deal with betrayal, loneliness, or disappointment. Sometimes, a terrible loss or a life-changing diagnosis instantly transforms everything, exposing false values and desires.

During a crisis, people often replay the same painful memories—betrayal, loss, or resentment—over and over. Time seems to stand still. The future feels invisible, indistinguishable from the painful present. Former dreams and goals lose their meaning. Our behavior becomes dependent on random things: a phone call, a change in mood, a phrase on TV.

When a crisis hits, our familiar world collapses. Among the ruins, we are forced to search for the reasons behind our personal catastrophe and reflect on our lives. Sometimes, this deep contemplation leads to surprising discoveries. What once seemed important now feels trivial, while things we never considered before become the true meaning of our existence.

A crisis, with all its pain, demands a thorough, well-reasoned answer to the question of meaning—a new and extremely difficult challenge. Solving it is the only way to get back on track or discover a new path. But this positive outcome takes time, so a crisis never passes quickly.

To move forward, we need to find the strength to fully understand all aspects of our recent life and examine the space and time of our personal world. Crises become beacons, preventing us from getting lost in the chaos of life. They force us to rebuild our worn-out inner world, reevaluate close relationships, and let go of those that hold us back. Our ability to keep our internal clock running smoothly and relate to time in a healthy way depends on how we handle crises.

Not everyone reaches personal maturity, often because they don’t handle crises constructively. Why does this happen? Sometimes, we’re unwilling to do the inner work a crisis demands. We’re not ready to take risks, don’t want to suffer, fear loneliness, or lack self-belief. It’s easier to close our eyes to what’s unsatisfying, give up on secret dreams, and avoid taking steps toward a new life.

This is when boredom, depression, worthlessness, and emptiness take the stage. Instead of growth, there’s stagnation; instead of trust in the world, there’s growing disappointment.

A crisis is a kind of step—forward or backward, up or down. If we choose to work through it, we try to create a new life story with new horizons. If we fail, we return to old versions of our life, giving up on some things forever and losing others for good.

The Impact of Crisis on Personal Development

Let’s look at how a crisis affects each of us. If you’re currently in crisis, it’s hard to see its impact amid the chaos. But if you’re on a more stable stretch of your life’s journey, you can recall past crises you’ve successfully overcome.

Then you’ll see that each crisis helped you become more independent—from both external circumstances and internal obligations. You began to value your autonomy, protect your boundaries, and keep a healthy distance. You freed yourself from the influence of others’ opinions, demands, and expectations. You learned to consider advice and warnings, but ultimately made your own decisions, listening to yourself first. You respected your inner freedom and found new ways to defend it from intrusive interference.

Past crises required you to look at your life with fresh eyes, leading to new insights and creative solutions to accumulated problems. You created a new life story, regardless of whether you had the talent of an actor or a writer. Crisis encouraged you to reinvent your daily life, not relying on ready-made recipes for parenting, resolving family misunderstandings, planning vacations, or advancing your career. You learned to improvise, trust your intuition, and use your imagination.

Finally, successfully overcoming crises always led to greater acceptance of your life’s reality, with all its possibilities and limitations. After surviving and overcoming crisis, you let go of illusions about yourself, your character, and your relationships. You took off your rose-colored or dark glasses to see things as they really are. You managed to accept your flaws and mistakes without losing self-love or faith in your abilities.

You stopped desperately trying to change your loved ones or teach them lessons. You found enough warmth, patience, wisdom, and openness to see reality as it is.

Our journey through life never follows a strict schedule. The road is only smooth and straight in very short stretches. At different ages, the path widens, narrows, twists, and turns. We move forward, sometimes speeding up, sometimes slowing down or even turning back. Each crisis forces us to look at our journey in a new way and plan our next steps.

During a crisis, we acutely feel that, despite difficult circumstances, we still hold the steering wheel. No one else can get us out of today’s dead end. Only we are the true authors of the main story we write throughout our lives. Each crisis leads to new versions of our story—about ourselves, our fate, our suffering and joys, defeats and victories. How we rewrite this story greatly influences our future.

But what if life had no crises at all? Year after year, we’d live peacefully, following the path set by our parents. A happy fate would create perfect conditions, and a guardian angel would ensure nothing unexpected happened. The years would pass, and we’d keep moving in the “right” direction. No storms, suffering, disappointments, betrayals, or guilt. We’d never know anger, regret, hopelessness, or emptiness. We’d never wake up feeling life is meaningless or that everything we’ve done was a mistake.

For the sake of this imaginary experiment, let’s also remove unexpected joys—crazy love, huge victories, flashes of inspiration, or moments of insight. Intense positive experiences, which no one plans or expects, also break us out of routine, expand our horizons, and let us see life differently, understand our role, and write a new chapter in our story.

So, in this imaginary world, everything is calm and quiet. No laughter, no tears. Boring and monotonous. No movement, not even a breeze. Such a life is only possible in dreams. Without crises, neither personality nor the body can develop. Major upheavals—crises—are necessary for personal health, change, and growth.

But relatively stable, uneventful periods are also needed. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have time to absorb and integrate the lessons learned during a crisis.

Erik Erikson believed that during a crisis, we choose a positive or negative future path. Each personal quality that emerges from a crisis is fundamentally two-sided, like trust or mistrust, autonomy or shame. So, new qualities are internally conflicted from the start, stimulating further growth.

Today, this two-sided view seems too simple. At every crossroads, we face a whole range of possibilities. We create many different stories about ourselves and our lives: as a crisis approaches, they’re sad, anxious, or irritated. In the midst of crisis, our stories become full of suffering and pessimism. As we start to cope, our stories become more victorious, bold, active, and optimistic.

During a crisis, we wake up from our daily slumber and become especially attentive and sensitive—to what’s happening, to those around us, to their attempts to control, manipulate, push, or support us. Even a minor trigger, like a phone call with a surprising tone, can become significant and lead to a complete reevaluation of relationships.

It’s fair to say that crisis awakens our storytelling abilities and pushes us to create new narratives about our past, present, and future. This doesn’t mean we all start writing, but we do create internal stories that change and evolve, especially when we have attentive listeners.

We ask ourselves: “Why did this happen? What are the reasons? Am I to blame for my pain and loneliness?” Those we trust ask their own questions and offer answers. Talking about our experiences is crucial. Honest conversation lets us see our problems from the outside, hear our own story, and connect with its plot. Depending on our relationship with the listener, our story can change in unexpected ways.

This intense dialogue continues even when we’re alone. A movie line or a book quote can resonate deeply during a crisis, helping us rethink things. Even a commercial slogan or a page from a calendar can suddenly carry important meaning. Gradually, we start to see things from a new angle, look at our past differently, and imagine a new future.

As Heidegger might say, crisis gives voice to existence itself. It’s a painful flash of reality that brings new self-understanding and a new vision of ourselves in our evolving world. It’s a vivid backdrop for creating the next version of our lives.