Crisis is not a problem to solve, but a passage to cross — a liminal space where meaning breaks down and vertical growth becomes possible.
I write this because so many of my clients — and myself — have faced crises that felt unbearable. And yet, again and again, I see that what feels like collapse can also be the very path of transformation. Crisis is not an exception to life, but its teacher.
I have witnessed the power of crisis so many times. It shakes us emotionally, often painfully, yet it also opens the door to transformation. Without crisis, our existing mental models remain unchallenged, our sense-making unquestioned. It is in the imbalance — when what once worked no longer does — that we find the conditions for vertical growth. Crisis is not only disruption; it is feedback that our current way of being has reached its limits, and that a deeper transformation is asking to unfold.
Crisis and vertical development
In Robert Kegan’s and Bill Torbert’s frameworks of vertical development, crisis plays a necessary role. Without it, we don’t receive feedback about the limits of our current mental models. Cognitive imbalance is required for the brain to restructure. Kegan shows how people move from the “socialized mind” (defined by others’ expectations) to the “self-authoring mind” (where one creates one’s own values and direction) to the “self-transforming mind” (where one sees through even one’s own system). Each shift requires the old frame to fail — crisis is often the trigger. Torbert’s “action logics” similarly illustrate how our strategies collapse under pressure, forcing the emergence of new ones.
Vertical development is not just learning or growth. It is a transformation — the form of one’s mental structures and models changes. Without a crisis, there is no transformation.
The predictive brain learns through error. A crisis is simply an error on a larger scale — a signal that the old programming, the existing abilities and habits, no longer work. In neuroscience terms, the brain constantly predicts reality; when those predictions fail, it updates. A crisis is the ultimate failed prediction, where small corrections are no longer enough. That’s why it can feel unbearable — and also why it opens the possibility for reorganization.
Crisis as ending, liminality, and beginning
Transformation includes an ending and a new beginning. But in between lies the liminal space: uncertainty, doubt, incompetence, lack of clarity — yet also progress, new possibilities, and growth. This space feels deeply uncomfortable, where the old identity dissolves but the new one is not yet formed.
In this space, we desperately want answers, clarity, and sure-proof ways of living. But why do we value answers so much? Why can’t we sometimes stay with the questions, with curiosity, instead of demanding clarity?
Crisis is one of the best invitations to learn about ourselves. It asks us not to run from unpleasant emotions but to sit with them, inquire into them, and listen to what they reveal about our values, beliefs, fears, and desires.
In hindsight, many crises appear as gateways into discovering something new about ourselves and possibilities we never imagined. Through crisis, we develop skills, acquire knowledge, shift our worldview, and form a richer philosophy of life.
Crisis as a test of strength
How could anyone become strong, emotionally intelligent, and mature without experiencing crisis? How else do we discover our limits — or our limitlessness — and the depth of our capabilities? Strength comes not from the crisis itself, but from how we engage with it. And when a crisis is not engaged with consciously, it can become destructive, leading not to transformation but to breakdown, bitterness, or trauma.
The wisdom of the etymology of the word crisis
The word crisis comes from the Greek krisis (15th c.), meaning a decisive point in the progress of a disease, or a vitally important turning point where change must come — for better or worse. The root means to separate, decide, or distinguish. In this sense, crisis is always about discernment: it demands a decision, a separation of what must die from what can be born.
A crisis, by definition, is a decision and a turning point.
What makes crisis transformational rather than destructive?
- Frustration and unpleasant emotions become motivators, pushing us to search for new approaches and restore balance.
- Acceptance and responsibility: instead of blaming ourselves, others, or the situation, we return to our deeper selves, taking responsibility for seeking new possibilities.
- Curiosity: self-reflection and discovery, staying with the questions, lingering in uncertainty rather than grabbing at premature stability.
- Agency: realizing we cannot control the outcome, but we can shape our participation in the process. This echoes Torbert’s “action inquiry” — the idea that transformation lies in how we participate in the moment, not in the event itself.
- Experimentation: genuine transformation comes less from relentless thinking and more from lived experience, trial and error.
- Patience: crisis is a process. It doesn’t mean endless pain until it is “solved.” It means a journey with ups and downs: discoveries, empty, helpless moments, frustration, and new sparks of motivation.
We cannot control the outcome of crisis, but we can influence how we participate in it.
Vertical growth through crisis
Vertical growth means changes in sense-making — seeing more, holding more, integrating more. Crisis disrupts existing meaning-making structures.
Meaning is usually conditioned, inherited from culture, or shaped by personal experience. But once the internal or external context changes, old meanings collapse.
New meaning must emerge — about ourselves, others, and the world. This collapse is what feels like “losing the ground under our feet.” But the ground was never permanent; it was constructed meaning. Crisis forces us to rebuild it more widely and deeply.
The danger lies in clinging to outdated meanings, shaking our heads in disbelief, and wanting things to stay the same. A crisis is both a death and a birth: an ending, plus new beginnings. We feel the death keenly — the loss of confidence, clarity, identity — but hidden in it is also the possibility of birth. Crisis encodes the possibility of transformation, if we are willing to navigate it.
Authenticity and crisis
Many people suffer in crisis because the shifts in their context feel like threats to their “authenticity” — their familiar identity and personality.
I have often challenged the idea of authenticity as a stable self. I believe in authenticity, but not in the notion that it is static, comfortable, or final. We do not have fixed selves — not in personality, identity, or capability. What feels “authentic” may simply be what feels familiar.
Crisis, paradoxically, is an invitation to deeper authenticity. It calls us to discover soul, in the Jungian sense — the deeper layers of who we are and who we might become.
There is no formula for crisis
People often struggle in crisis because they lack a GPS. No ready-made rules, no formulas. Crisis feels like chaos. They try to solve it like a math problem — searching for a formula to apply and get the correct result. But the formula must be created along the way. And what even counts as a “correct” result?
A crisis is not a logical problem. It shakes belief systems, values, emotions, and sense of identity. It disrupts psychological, cognitive, and spiritual structures. It belongs to the realm of complexity, where the “solution” is emergent and co-created, not given.
The measure of transformation is not how quickly we escape a crisis, but how deeply we let it remake us.
My personal experience
I am not here to prescribe how to survive a crisis. I empathize with anyone going through one. It is difficult. I know it firsthand. I have lived through personal and professional crises.
What I want to share is this: no book or course has ever transformed me as much as working through crisis itself.
Yes, a crisis can bring loss — of the things and people we valued, of confidence, of the structures we trusted, sometimes of the very identity we thought was “us.” But it can also generate courage, deeper self-esteem, resilience, and wisdom. It expands our freedom, adaptability, and tolerance for uncertainty. It enriches our identity and deepens our humanity.
No crisis, no transformation.
We cannot choose our crises, but we can choose to let them grow us beyond who we thought we were.
-Leda