Navigating Curves in the Road

If you are a humanitarian worker, you have chosen a path through life that will likely have more than a few curves in it. These curves in the road (such as witnessing or experiencing traumatic events, not being able to live up to your own ideals, facing moral dilemmas with life and death consequences) can spark strong emotions and cause you to question your deepest assumptions and beliefs about the way the world works and your identity and place in it. In that sense they are spiritual challenges.

So what happens when we hit curves in the road of life? Every person and situation is different, and our specific reaction will depend on many things (including what happened, what it meant to us, our history, and what else is going on in life). There are, however, some fairly common types of emotional and spiritual reactions to curves in the road, and it’s important to understand these. Becoming more conscious of our own reactions to challenging situations or events can, over time and if we want to, enable us to choose to respond differently.

Here are three common types of reaction to curves in the road of life:

Resist: Resistance might include denial, a refusal to accept the situation, avoidance, and feelings of disbelief, betrayal, anger, and energy.

Surrender: This can include a yielding of control and outcome, fatalism, total acceptance that can look like passivity to outsiders, and feelings of apathy, fatigue, disengagement, helplessness, or freedom.

Transform: This can include grappling to understand and identify purpose and meaning, to “redeem” or positively transform the event or situation, and a variety of feelings – from confusion to peace – along the way.

There is no single right reaction to a curve in the road; each of them can bring both benefits and pitfalls. For example, the anger that can come with resistance may help you mobilize energy to change things. Denial or avoidance can temporarily protect you from feeling overwhelmed or paralyzed. In general, however, while resistance and surrender can be effective short-term coping strategies, they often prove less helpful and effective over time.

These three types of reactions are also not discrete categories. When confronted with a curve in the road, most people have an initial tendency toward either resistance or surrender. Transformation comes later, if at all. But many people also cycle in and out of all of these reactions at various times – sometimes in relation to the same event. In the months after being assaulted, for example, someone may initially experience resistance-type reactions, then surrender, before transformation, and then the entire cycle may repeat itself slightly differently.

Today: Think of a curve in the road that you have experienced. What was your initial reaction? How did that reaction help or hurt you? Did your reactions change over time? If so, how?

This week: Think about this example, and how you generally confront curves in the road. Can you see any patterns in your reactions and responses? How are these related to underlying assumptions and beliefs that are being challenged?

402 SOUTH MARENGO AVE.  PASADENA CA 91101
WWW.HEADINGTON-INSTITUTE.ORG PH: (626) 229-9336