Learning from experience is not a foregone conclusion.
In fact we are as likely not to learn if there is anyway we can avoid it. Here is a learning model given to me by my good friend Arthur Gobey. Here we are living life, ready for the next experience. At our side is our tool kit with tools for our Earthwalk.
We don’t go far before we run into a… yes a crisis.
The first step in learning is to identify the crisis
How do we know it is a crisis? Well, we will feel it. Our emotions are complex but in a crisis, we are likely to feel FEAR, ANGER and SADNESS, our three friends. Though we may ignore them, each emotion tells us something different:
- Fear says “you are in danger”.
- Anger, “your boundaries have been invaded”.
- Sadness, “you have lost something”.
There are other emotions associated with the cycle of change but look for these three in a crisis. Acknowledging our emotions is the start to benefiting from them and managing our reactions and behaviours. Now the question for you as you read this is: When last did you have a crisis? When last did you feel fear, anger or sadness yet chose not to identify the core issue?
So what is a crisis, really?
Is it the event or our perceptions of the event? A terrifying event for one person may be exhilarating, perhaps even commonplace for another. A friend of mine once got stuck on a cliff face in the mountains. As he clutched, calling for help I was able to walk up to him, tie a rope round his waist and belay him down. What was freaking him out was just a steepish incline for me.
The stressor is not the event but our our perceptions of the event. This part of us allows us to watch movies, or even very poorly animated cartoons and experience a full run of emotions.
Within each crisis we have a critical choice
We can choose learning or we can choose denial. If we choose denial we decide against learning. When we reject learning, our path takes us to the next crisis, usually a replay of the previous one. Only we don’t recognise the similarity because we are in denial.
But if we decide to learn, what do we do? Learning is a broad, deep field but in a crisis, learning begins as we embrace the pain. This means:
- Acknowledging, rather than denying, the painful emotions.
- Setting aside our favourite distractions to fully experience the emotions. Turn off the TV, Don’t phone your friends, close the fridge (or the bar). Make a conscious decision to put aside the tools you use to distract yourself from the pain.
- Choosing to look your pain in the eye. Feel it! Sit with it.
- Describing, for yourself the details of the pain.
- Finding out why it is painful. Perhaps a past wound was stimulated.
This will allow you to:
- Reflect on what to let go of and what to take on.
- Find out how to deal with similar situations in the future.
- Initiate new practices and habits.
- Know when you are heading towards the same crisis again.
Victor Frankel spoke about finding meaning in suffering:
- Suffering without Meaning Leads to Feelings of Emptiness and Despair…
- Finding Meaning in one’s Suffering Leads to Triumph
Victor Frankel said many wise things. He said “When we are no longer able to change our situation – we are challenged to change ourselves”. This may be relevant to the pain you feel right now. But there is another thing he said. He lived out, in the most abject circumstances, this law of life. He said: “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
So there it is. And if you get it right guess what? You get more tools for your toolbox. You develop perseverance and resilience, which is the capacity to deal with adversity. You may develop learning skills. And you may learn new specific skills.
