Who Are You? : Part 1

Welcome to Your Crisis: How to Use the Power of Crisis to Create the Life You Want
by Laura Day

The moment your life falls apart is also the moment your new life begins, says Laura Day. It is the moment when illusion and deception fall away and naked truth emerges. Crisis can be extraordinarily painful. But, when approached head-on, it can also be a source of power, hope, and vision-and the start of the life you really want. Bestselling author Laura Day has helped countless individuals through their life's worst moments: the death of a loved one, the end of a marriage or friendship, the loss of a job. In this inspirational new book, she draws from that depth of experience to guide her readers out of crisis and toward the flourishing lives beyond, providing step-by-step advice and exercises that are as practical as they are revolutionary.

Crisis can be the most authentic version of self-transformation. Points of crisis bring us face-to-face with our deepest doubts and fears, and our most essential aspirations. And this means that our response to change is every bit as important as the change itself. Laura Day identifies several types of reactions to crisis-people may respond with denial, anxiety, rage, or depression. She tells readers how to rethink each response, and she gives practical and personalized tools for turning the lowest times of life into life's greatest gift. Through the exercises, rituals, and activities Day prescribes, readers can learn the best practices for rebuilding a more meaningful life. Getting through crisis is part acceptance, part reinvention, and this book provides invaluable lessons for closing one life chapter and beginning the next. Remember, as Laura Day says: Rock bottom can be the best place to start.

Laura Day's direct, hands-on, and compassionate brand of self-help affirms as it challenges, with a radiant wisdom that has earned her praise from Demi Moore, Deepak Chopra, Brad Pitt, and famed scientist James Watson, as well as appearances on Oprah and The View. With the accessible and provocative style that made her book Practical Intuition a bestseller, Laura Day helps readers embrace where they are and pick up from that point. Welcome to your crisis.

Chapter 1

A Recurring Question to Contemplate

Who are you? That simple question is far more profound than a first glance might suggest. Many people describe themselves in terms of their career (lawyer, carpenter, lab technician, NASCAR driver) or in terms of their relationships (wife, mother, best friend).

You are about to discover that how you define yourself largely determines not only how the world perceives you, but also how effective you are in that world.

Which brings us to your first exercise.

Exercise: Who Are You?

Without giving you any particular expectations, I'd like you to answer each of the following questions with one sentence: Who are you? Who were you before your last crisis? Who do you fear you are? Who do you wish you were?

You'll want to refer to your answers in the coming days, weeks, and even years, so use the journal you've devoted to the exercises in this book.

Discussion

As I mentioned, there are countless ways to approach the task of describing yourself. Here are two examples:

I am someone healing from knee surgery. I used to be a professional dancer. I guess now I'm someone who will never dance again. I wish I were healthy and able to dance.

I am an entrepreneur. I started a catering business when I lost my job in sales. I enjoy what I do, though sometimes the hours are brutal. I don't have as much free time as I used to; I suppose that's the trade-off for career autonomy.

Notice how you describe and define yourself. You are not, however, your self-description. You are not who you were. You are not your fears. You are not your wishes. You are a web of interdependent facts and feelings. If you confront these facts and feelings realistically and systematically, you will become someone you admire and your life will become something you treasure.

Your self-descriptions will change in the coming days, as you work through these chapters.

How You Define Yourself Determines Your Vulnerability

How we define ourselves determines, then, how vulnerable - or how resilient - we are to life's changing fortunes.

The wrenching changes that we experience in our lives are often painful because we identify so completely with how we describe ourselves. We identify with how we are defined by the structures around us: by our jobs, our relationships, our families, our successes. If we are fortunate we gain a better sense of our connection to others and to the world around us as we get older, and we begin the process of integrating ego into something that extends infinitely beyond it.

This concept is important because the crises in your life attack the very core of your sense of self. It is easy to understand how a person who identified herself, say, as a wife would feel that her life were over when her marriage ended. A successful young entrepreneur loses her company. Who is she now?

Transforming your sense of self enables you to rise above life's challenges - indeed, doing so enables you to use these same challenges to enrich your self-worth and your potential in life to enjoy, create, and achieve.

As long as you cling to a narrow definition of yourself, you are vulnerable to any number of crises. Your self-concept is especially elusive when you are experiencing a major life change: you are no longer who you were, but you are not yet who you are becoming.

The importance of knowing who you are applies not just to individuals but also to groups, organizations, and companies. A company will begin its life providing one product or service, but when the world changes, the company's belief about what is important - the company's sense of self and identity - has to change as well. How ironic that Steven Jobs, the man who cofounded Apple as a computer company - only to be forced out - would return to lead Apple's rebirth as one of the world's premier consumer electronics companies.

You Are an Ecosystem

You will find it helpful to think of yourself not as an isolated being but as a vast ecosystem.

Consider a natural ecosystem and its enormous web of interconnected parts. The myriad parts of any ecosystem are intimately interrelated, woven into a complex, yet fragile, system.

That system is in dynamic balance; any minor fluctuations are easily absorbed by the system. Sometimes something from outside the ecosystem alters it dramatically. A new predator species arrives. A persistent drought exhausts the ecosystem's water supply.

Such disruptions are not readily absorbed but rather reverberate throughout the entire ecosystem. One species dies out, threatening the survival of another species that had depended on the first. A third species, previously preyed upon by the first, multiplies wildly. And so on.

Copyright © 2006 by Laura Day

About the Author

Laura Day has been teaching her private seminar, "Practical Intuition," all over the world for the past ten years. Her students include doctors, journalists, CEO's, financial analysts, and celebrities. She lives in New York City with her son, Samson.