Who Are You When Things Fall Apart?
How do you react when something monumental and unexpected occurs? When the unforeseen knocks on your door, when a staggering event brings you to your knees, when something unthinkable, unpredictable, or tragic upends your life without warning?
The death of a loved one. The demise of a close friendship. A miscarriage after months of trying. A near death experience. Losing a job after giving it your all. A natural disaster destroying your home.An unexpected health diagnosis. A betrayal you didn't see coming. A brutal divorce.A catastrophic accident that changes everything.
What do you do when something so big, so shocking, so life-altering happens? How do you respond to that which is entirely beyond your control? Who do you become when your world narrows, the path suddenly disappears beneath your feet, the direction you were heading no longer exists?
Do you know who you are in such a moment? When there’s a clear before and after and you can no longer go on in the same way you once did?
For some of us these moments come around only once or twice in a lifetime. For others, we’ve experienced far more than our share of wild and formidable trials, the ones that fundamentally alter our sense of self and reorganize our perception of the world.
How well do you truly know yourself in these moments when the life you once knew is ripped away in an instant? Do you recognize yourself, how you react, cope, and behave? Who are you when things fall apart?
How does your nervous system Digest the shock?
When something stuns you to your core, what’s happening viscerally in your body and nervous system? Are you aware of the somatic sensations guiding your behavior? Are you able to register what’s occurring and meet the challenge directly, or do you resist acknowledging the tragedy playing out before you?
There can be a tendency to freeze, where your body shuts down overwhelmed by the intensity of it all. You might look functional on the outside, attending to tasks, executing with precision, but inside your body is contracted, rigid, and unyielding. Unable to feel what’s happening in the present. Running on autopilot, disembodied, unable to sense anything below the neck. Closed off. Suspended in that moment of horror, incapable of processing, integrating, and moving forward.
There can be a tendency to flee, where your body seeks an escape, pretends this isn’t happening, focuses on something else, something easier to drown out the inner agony. You’re no longer present, living in an illusion, a false reality that numbs and masks any sorrow. Blocking out anything that serves as a reminder. Refusing to look closely, to shine a light on what’s just torpedoed your world. Anything to distract and fake a sense of normalcy.
There can be a tendency to fight, where your body kicks into high gear, your stress response takes charge, you dominate so you aren’t overtaken. You leap into action, overdoing and over functioning, aggressive and determined. You face the problem with all you’ve got, and then some. Highly alert, hypervigilant, ready to go to battle. Triggered, lashing out, activated in the extreme.
There can be a tendency to fawn, where your body elects to please and accommodate, to imagine the situation’s actually alright, nothing’s really the matter. A false sense of safety in exchange for self-abandonment. Self-denial as self-protection. Going along to get along means you won’t have to face an unknown threat, just the one to which you’re accustomed.
Which one of these patterns do you adopt in times of crisis? How does your body naturally cope with what you didn’t see coming?
What’s the Story Playing in Your Mind?
What happens when your brain falls into chaos, seeking an answer, demanding explanation? Trying to make sense of the illogical, to grasp the implausible, make meaning out of that which is utterly, fundamentally, not understandable?
The agitated thoughts, the ragged ruminations, the talking and venting in partial disbelief. Frantic rationalizations. Mental delusions. Bargaining for a different outcome. Your mind playing tricks, if only, what if?
Are you stuck in your denial, grappling with the devastation, the decimation, the defeat? Do you recognize your patterns playing on repeat?
Your mind’s searching for resolution, desperate to comprehend, to fathom what this disaster means for you, to settle the question of who are you now, now that things have so wildly collapsed in ruins around you.
A calamity of this magnitude means examining your stories, the ones you tell yourself about yourself. When that sense of self’s been shattered, your reality’s been obliterated, what does that mean for you? Who does that make you now? The stories are up for review and there’s a possibility they might need to be rewritten.
Do you lean into the injustice, the righteous indignation, trying to get people to see your side of things, to back your version of events, paint it as harsh and unfair, and adopt your story as their own?
Do you cast yourself as the victim, leaning into your despair, or do you find the hidden opportunity, the silver lining, the chance to be a hero?
Do you have what it takes to let go of the way things were or do you cling to your old reality, do your utmost to get it back?
Are you able to accept reality or do you fight it every step of the way?
Which Emotions Are You Able to Feel?
Can you hold space for your depth of feeling, be present with the raw mess, accept the emotional storm for what it is, witness yourself as you unravel, face the hurt and heartache, the fear, sadness, anger, and grief?
Do you have the capacity, the internal resources to feel your experience fully? To ride the emotional wave, that rollercoaster of highs and lows, confront the tumult and inner anguish that reverberate throughout your being?
Something so unimaginable, so severe has just taken place. There’s shock, pain, horror too. An unrelenting mix of stress, panic, anxiety, and terror. Are you present to feel these emotions, the ones that simply want to be acknowledged, felt, and held?
Or is it too much to handle, too overwhelming, something you can’t bear to sit with? Are you numb to what’s happening inside? Too paralyzed to discern, attune, or regulate?
Most of us were never taught that emotions aren’t the problem. They don’t need fixing and there’s nothing to solve. Emotions require space, freedom, and acceptance to run their course, moving through the body in whatever way they choose. We have the choice to feel them, honor them fully, or dilute their impact if we lack the skills to surrender.
When reality becomes unbearable, yet you feel powerless to change it, do you turn to isolation, withdrawal, or even addiction to anesthetize the pain?
Or do you stay faithful to your self-care habits? The journaling and meditation, exercise and therapy, time with friends, family, and community? The practices and rituals that are meant to nourish and soothe – are they helping you heal or have they become another way to avoid sitting in stillness with what’s actually happening?
When something demolishes your world do you drown in despair? Or is there some part of you that feels another way? Slightly lighter, a little more buoyant, just a tad upbeat? A part of you that senses subtle glimmers of hope too minute to be measured, a quiet relief at the chance to start over, anticipation of what’s to come. A confusing contradiction, so much upheaval blended with a glimmer of faith.
Can You Linger in the Liminal?
Once you’ve survived the early days and the acute intensity begins to wane, when things start to shift and you enter the liminal space…the doubt, the confusion, the uncertainty and disorientation, all present as you stand at the threshold…all your big decisions, past choices up for review…
The questions become more pressing as you wonder what happens next, what this transition means, whether you’re equipped to navigate.
What is it you want out of life, now that the dust has settled? Are you fulfilled or are you searching? What needs to change or shift?
How quickly do you crave to return to what's safe or familiar? To the predictable and dependable?
Or are you able to breathe through it, let yourself wait at the crossroad as you orient inward and consult your inner knowing. Can you hang out in the in-between, the uncertainty, the unknown with no scheduled end in sight?
As you climb through the wreckage of your former self, coming up against all the loss, can you grieve the earlier version of yourself, the parts you weren't yet ready to part with? The death of ego and identity, the demise of innocence or ignorance. The departure from stability. All torn away by a disruption too great to ignore.
Now that you’ve begun to process, to integrate and take stock, is it time to turn the page, write the next chapter, seek a new ending?
What happens if you choose to linger here just a little longer?
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