Triage Your Life: From Crisis to Clarity

Concentric Circles of Care — The hand's position over the ripple calls to mind Adam's as God reaches for him, in Michelangelo's The Creation of Adam

The Creation of Adam by Michelangelo Buonarotti, 1511 AD, Sistine Chapel, Vatican City

Many People Believe They Were Put on Earth for a Reason

My reason has changed over time. I have had the following purposes: to learn as much as I can; to be a good daughter and sister; to marry my soulmate and become a mother; to seek happiness; to relieve suffering where I found it; to shepherd new mothers and families through the postpartum maelstrom; to educate; to build and heal relationships. Since late 2023, my purpose has been to listen to the Divine Energy that guides the universe. That Energy—which I will henceforth call God—led me to a new perspective and a new purpose. What I didn’t realize for a long time was that purpose isn’t just what we do—it’s how we decide where to put our attention when everything feels urgent.

For most of my life, I felt I was a pinball being knocked from crisis to crisis. My mind was always on call, waiting for something to grab my attention away from whatever I was doing. When I had three kids, I listened for the loudest most desperate voice to know which one to attend to first. As a result, whoever suffered in silence—unfairly—got the least attention. Imagine an emergency room operating that way.

Fortunately, God has shown me that triage is a better way to understand which needs must come first.

Triage means deciding who needs help first when resources are limited, based on urgency and severity. Time, energy, money, attention—none of these are infinite. There is no place on Earth where resources are endless. A family is certainly not such a place.

God's Plan—Biology's Imperative—Has Built-In Triage

Every creature, from bacterium to human, has one main mission: to stay alive (long enough to reproduce). Therefore, our very first responsibility is always to ourselves. There are many sayings that convey this principle: put your own oxygen mask on first; if Mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy; you can't pour from an empty cup. Therefore, when there is chaos and you don't know where to start, start with yourself. Are you stressed or angry? Calm yourself first. Unless the house is on fire, there is no urgency to address anything outside of your own needs.

When you are calm, you can decide which needs your attention first—the overflowing sink, the crying child, or the phone ringing. (Which is the right answer? It depends. Is the child crying because they're bleeding, or because their toy broke? Could the phone call be a doctor you're waiting to hear from, or is it likely a telemarketer? You can't figure out which to address first unless you are calm enough to respond appropriately rather than react out of panic.)

Nature Triages Without Sentimentality

Jack London's To Build a Fire shows exactly how this law of biology works. A man is alone with a dog in the bitter cold wilderness. He attempts to take care of himself (not the dog) by building a fire (which will also benefit the dog). As he runs into difficulties, the first parts of his body to succumb are his toes, then his fingers, as his body tries to prioritize his internal organs by reducing blood flow to the extremities. (If you want to know what happens to his fingers, toes, and organs, read this most excellent story.)

How to Triage: The Eisenhower Matrix

Triage doesn’t mean reacting to the loudest alarm. It means distinguishing urgency from importance. Dwight Eisenhower formalized this distinction into a simple matrix: urgent vs. important. Panic collapses those two categories; calm separates them.

This matrix (see below) illustrates how to organize competing needs. What is important and urgent (such as the house being on fire) must be dealt with immediately. The important but not urgent needs (e.g., estate planning) are often procrastinated into oblivion. Triage ensures those things get done.

Who Gets Triaged: Concentric Circles of Care

In the center is myself. Some may call that selfish; I call it self-care. Without self-care, you cannot care for anyone else. No other person besides me will be with me from birth to death, so I need to be my own closest friend. No one else will look after me better than myself, and no one but me should have that responsibility. The circles have edges, representing the boundaries people must enforce so that other needs don't start pushing out the need for self-care.

Outside of the center are some inner concentric circles. The first one outside of myself is my husband and kids. They are inextricable, as my kids' father's health and happiness are necessary for our kids' wellbeing. But there are advantages to considering my husband before our kids—it allows us to work as a team on their behalf, rather than as two isolated adults trying to help them and getting in each others' way. Parents being a united front is a good example of a healthy marriage, which kids need to see, even adult kids.

One's offspring must be in that first circle because they're both closest to their parents' heart and also their responsibility (as the people who brought them into the world). As adults, they are responsible for themselves too, but they should have their parents to fall back on when support is needed. I want my husband and kids to have "right of first refusal" when I have time available for others. In the next ring is my parents, extended family, and closest friends. Finally, the outer rings are acquaintances and neighbors, followed by society in general. Ripples attenuate the further you get from the center, representing the fact that no one has unlimited energy.

Notice that the rings do not have sharp edges. This is to symbolize the following, for example: now that my kids are grown adults, there may be some times when I have to put someone else, such as an aging parent, first, based on greater need or urgency. I might put an acquaintance before a family member if they're having an emergency. Triage is not a rigid system; there needs to be room for nuance. Animals don't have this complexity. That must be nice!

A Gentler, Wiser Calling

I now know I must respond rather than react, listen before acting, and place care where it will do the most good, starting with caring for myself. Triage is not a cold or clinical way of living; it is compassion guided by clarity. It honors the reality of limited resources while allowing love to flow outward in an orderly and sustainable way.

When I tend to myself first, I am not shrinking my capacity for others; I am strengthening it. When I understand my responsibilities as ripples rather than demands, I can move through the world with less guilt, less frenzy, and more intention. This perspective has given me permission to be human, to have limits, and to trust that meeting the most important and urgent need in the moment is enough. In listening to God, I have found not a mandate to do more, but an invitation to do what matters, calmly, consciously, and with love.