Life Crisis: 3 Reasons It Happens + How to Get Through It

If you’re going through a crisis right now and nothing makes sense, you feel lost, stuck, questioning everything, then I hope this article will help you. Here I want to share a different perspective on crisis that may bring you some clarity during this difficult time.

It’s Normal to Feel Lost

The main thing I want to tell you is this: it’s normal when we can’t find the reason for the crisis while we’re in the middle of it. It’s normal to feel lost, hopeless, or ready to give up.

I went through this many times, as probably everyone else in their life. Usually, we can find the meaning only after the crisis ends and some change happens, some inner shift or something major in our life. Then we can look back and see, “Ah, that’s why it happened.”

The problem is that sometimes it takes weeks, months, or even years for things to start making sense again.

Three Possible Reasons for Crisis

Through my own experience and work with clients, I’ve identified three main reasons why crises happen. Understanding which applies to you can help you navigate through it more consciously.

1. Crisis as a Result of Avoidance

The first reason is when crisis happens as a result of avoidance, either of problems or emotions.

Think of it like a toothache. You notice pain but don’t go to the dentist. You take a painkiller and ignore it until suddenly there’s unbearable pain that nothing helps. All because you didn’t deal with it early, and it escalated.

This example is physical, but it happens in any area of life. Something wants our attention, money, health, relationships, work. You ignore it because you’re busy or it doesn’t feel urgent enough. Then it bursts, and you can’t deny it anymore.

Sometimes it’s emotional problems from the past: suppressed emotions, unprocessed pain, inner conflicts. At some point, our system can’t cope anymore. We don’t have enough energy to keep suppressing it.

If this resonates, you might find my video on emotional healing helpful.

2. Crisis as a Push Toward Growth

The second reason is when crisis comes from fear and sticking to your comfort zone.

Maybe things are okay. You’re managing, not struggling too much. But there’s not much growth or fulfillment. Deep inside, you have some big goal or dream, but you’re not doing anything toward it.

Sometimes you don’t know what to do. Other times, you know exactly what needs to be done, but it feels too risky, or something else takes priority.

This creates a big inner conflict. One part wants to feel safe, keep things normal, even if you’re not really happy. Another part wants growth and expansion, and it sees you’re not going there.

When the conflict deepens and the part that wants safety dominates your time, the other part eventually explodes. You make certain choices or face situations that look like a crisis.

For example, someone unhappy with their job wants to do something completely different but is scared. They keep going, not feeling fulfilled. Then one day they lose the job. It looks like a crisis, but it may be exactly what pushes them toward their real dream.

Crisis can force you to change—your beliefs, perspective, habits. If you have a vision of what you want, ask yourself: How is the version of me who has that life different from me now? Something needs to change, and sometimes crisis initiates that transformation.

My article on manifestation explores why things sometimes get worse before they get better.

3. Crisis as Spiritual Awakening

The third reason is less obvious, it’s caused by our soul and happens on a spiritual level. This is what sometimes initiates a spiritual awakening.

People going through spiritual awakening often notice the same pattern: crises arise in multiple areas of life, everything feels like it’s falling apart, or something breaks inside without clear external reasons.

This is called the Dark Night of the Soul, one of the stages of spiritual awakening. It can be really challenging, especially if you don’t understand what’s happening.

This crisis is different because it’s caused by breaking the shell of our ego. Our attachment to ego identity, fears, and desires is so strong that we lose connection with our soul, our inner self, our true purpose and feelings covered by stories, identity, and beliefs.

The ego is rigid, and it may require strong pain to open it, to start dissolving this structure. Only when people go through deep pain do they truly transform. Something changes that’s difficult to describe, not mental or even emotional, but something you feel.

If this is your case, you know it deep down, not through analysis or conclusions.

After this process, you often find yourself as a completely different person. Your values, priorities, how you live your life, everything can change.

What To Do When You’re in Crisis

Those were three possible reasons for crisis. Sometimes it’s a mix of them. But the most important question is: what do you do with all this?

The Power of Acceptance

Finding meaning and accepting it already helps because what usually works against us is fight and resistance. When we resist, argue, or blame—other people, circumstances, God, ourselves—we can’t move toward healing.

When there is resistance, we’re not accepting the experience coming to us. And until we accept what’s coming, we can’t go through it.

Very often we want to avoid crisis at any cost. I’m the same. No matter what anyone tells you—even if someone says, “It’s good that it happened, it will be better”—there will still be resistance.

We can remind ourselves to be a bit more accepting, a bit more present, and focus on what we can do here and now instead of the loop of how bad everything is. When you fall into victim mentality, it’s much harder to change something.

When you’re more accepting, when you believe maybe there’s a reason, maybe you’re going somewhere—even if you don’t fully believe it—it gives you energy to go through it.

Hope can help us. The problem is we can lose hope in strong crises. Sometimes we have to accept even the hopeless state. It usually passes. The less we fight, the less we resist, the easier the transition.

We can’t avoid what we must go through. But we can make it more or less painful, quicker or longer.

Helpful Resources and Practical Steps

There are authors and books that helped me through difficult times:

• Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now and A New Earth
• David Hawkins’ book on letting go technique—I return to this again and again because it helps see and feel things differently

Depending on what caused your crisis, here’s what can help:

If your crisis comes from avoidance: Recognize that you have to face what you were avoiding. “This is my reality. After I deal with this, it will go away. It won’t haunt me anymore.”

If crisis is pushing you toward growth: Ask what needs to change in you. What is this crisis forcing you to do? What emotions need processing? What changes in your life, your relationships, your perspective?

Don’t expect too much from yourself. If you’re already processing emotional pain, uncertainty, anxiety, fears—be more gentle with yourself.

Sometimes in crisis, we can’t find anyone to help us. This connects us with our own power, intuition, and answers. Sometimes being alone is about finding something inside, not outside.

Things that can help:

• Work with your emotions when they’re strong
• Journaling—write daily to get things out
• Talk to someone who can just listen without giving advice
• Watch or read something supportive to shift your state
• Practice self-acceptance—even if you created this situation, accept that you did the best you could with what you had

You might also find my articles on self-acceptance and self-love helpful.

Remember: This Is Temporary

This is temporary. When crisis comes, it feels like it will never end. But it will. And when it does, you’ll look back and understand why it had to happen. You’ll see how it changed you, redirected your life, opened doors you didn’t know existed.

Until then, be gentle with yourself. Allow yourself to not have all the answers. Allow yourself to feel lost. That’s part of the process.

If you want more supportive content, you can check my other blog posts or find information about life coaching on my website.