Make sure to pack gratitude in your emergency preparedness kits!
In a matter of less than a half hour I have come across several articles on gratitude. It is written about often yet I wonder how often it is really practiced, Two articles I found very interesting were Wes Hopper's "Power Of Gratitude" (attached below) and Elaine Currie's article "Postive Thinking - Think Like a Hurricane Survivor" ( also included below).
In hurricane preparedness we must not forget to do our emotional emergency preparedness as well. As human begins we are not just a body but an emotional / spiritual person as well. How we react emotionally to our situations will in many ways shape the outcome.
One of the emergency preparedness checklists that we all need to develop as part of our emergency preparedness plans is to have a gratitude checklist that we write BEFORE any threat of a hurricane storm occurs. In that emotional emergency preparedness gratitude checklist we need to list that we have the following:
- Life
- Memories of happy times
- Formal and informal education
- A future we can sculpt and create
- Loved ones far and near
- Emergency help & resources
- Gift of hope
- Another day
When troubles come our way, and they will, we need to have a number of reminders that not everything is lost even when our homes and jobs are gone. By having an emergency gratitude plan we can be reminded that there are always things and circumstances that we can be grateful for.
Daily I try to remind and encourage everyone to have an emergency preparedness kit with the emergency preparedness necessities to keep the body going thought he initial disaster. That is important but unless we also have an emotional disaster preparedness that includes positive attitude and gratitude that kit of food, water and other emergency supplies will do little to help quality life back into our lives. Remember there is a big difference between just living and having a quality life no matter what the situation.
When a disaster hits, it is natural to have periods of despondency. I am in no way trying to say that there will not be tears, frustration. Pain, anguish and sorrow in a hurricane disaster, there is no escaping that reality. That is part of the hurricane disaster scene unfortunately. That is the ugly side of a hurricane occurrence. It is in those difficult times that we need to also have our emergency preparedness tips of inspirational thoughts as well as mental health emergency preparedness and recovery information to help with disaster sustainability and recovery. It helps give us courage when emotional strength is a bit weak at the knees.
We are not just a body but a heart and an emotional side as well. In your disaster kits place a list of some of your most favorite inspirational quotes that can be of support to you and your loved ones during an emergency crisis. Get as much emotional disaster response information to include in your plan as possible.
Each person will have different items in that emotional recovery plan. If you don’t know where to go for that sort of information, check out my new Train For A hurricane book. This book not only focuses on the physical issues associated with preparing, surviving and recovering from a hurricane but it also address the whole person including the emotional and the financial components of hurricane preparation, survival and recovery.
Here are some suggestions on ways to start to prepare your emotional emergency preparedness kit. Say your home is destroyed by a hurricane. I hope and pray it never happens but if it is you can still have reminders of your cherished items. Spend a rainy, gray, blah weekend taking digital pictures of all your most cherished items. Get the family and loved ones involved and enjoy a fun filled day of taking pictures and telling stories. Then go to a free internet site with mega amounts of storage and download the pictures. It certainly doesn’t cost anything and you will have a lifetime plus of memory pictures for you and your family.
Then if something should happen to your possessions you will still have pictures as fond reminders of them. They can also be used as proof should you be able to claim some of them to an insurance company for reimbursement of tangible worth. I say tangible worth because many items will be priceless to you no mater the dollar amount.
Get your scanner out or borrow one from a friend and scan in all your family pictures, children’s keepsake pictures, cherished recipes in the old family recipe box and then put them in a safe internet email account. It is a free way to have all that you treasure in picture form in a safe place.
While you are doing all of this, take the time to recall and enjoy the fond memories. Smile and laugh and if necessary spend a few tears. That is what life is all about. Relish in the gatherings, perhaps write a brief account of the stories and make that virtual email account a scrape book of memories. So if a disaster should ever occur from a hurricane to a sink hole you will have out in cyber space a place that can still be called a little bit of home. Let that cyber space be an emotional emergency preparedness kit cyber scrapbook.
As for one of my most cherished inspirational quote -- my grandmother, who was blind in one eye and declining in health, cross-stitched a simple sailboat sampler that I have hanging at my office door. It has some of the best advice I could ever receive and remember. It says:
Don’t wait for your ship to come in---
Swim out after it!”
On a little card on the back of the frame she also wrote:
”Hope there will always be a ship of success out upon the sea of life waiting for you. So---swim, swim for them.”
Merry Christmas Mary Therese 1975 Grandma
Find out what inspires you, be grateful no matter what the circumstance and then start swimming!
COMMENTS WELCOMED!
Are you or have you been in a hurricane disaster? Do you know someone who is recovering or has been affected by a hurricane in the past? Please share your thoughts and stories here on this blog.
All I ask is that everyone be respectful and sensitive of each other and that identifying information about a person who is not the author be limited to protect their privacy.
Be Safe!
Terrie
Dr. Terrie Modesto, Critical Incident Thanatologist
The Power of Gratitude
Wes Hopper
http://mail.google.com/mail/?ik=e179ab4788&zx=1a1w25mq8h07y&rtm=1191485873781
"You cannot exercise much power without gratitude,
for it is gratitude that keeps you connected with Power."
- - Wallace Wattles
What is so special about gratitude? Of all the mental
attitudes that we can have, why is this one singled out
as particularly powerful?
Conversely, why is the lack of gratitude so destructive
to our dreams? Why is ungratefulness almost
guaranteed to make a mess of our life?
The answer is simple - the principle of cause and effect.
We know that all the external circumstances in our
lives are effects. The cause is always in our beliefs
and attitude that we bring to life. What we think about,
comes about. What we focus on, grows.
Ungratefulness pushes thing away. When we get
something and our reaction is that it's not big enough,
good enough, pretty enough, or valuable enough, the
supply will shut down.
However, as Wattles says, "If your gratitude is strong
and constant...the movement of the things you want will
always be towards you."
Without gratitude we become dissatisfied and find lots
to complain about. We focus on what's wrong, and so
we get more of it. "The Creative Power within us makes
us into the image of that to which we give our attention."
Do you live a complaint-free life? The next time you
catch yourself complaining, remind yourself that you're
just ordering more of it. "to dwell upon the inferior is to
become inferior. The grateful mind is fixed upon the best
and therefore tends to become the best."
The more we express gratitude, the more we expect
to have things to be grateful for. Expectation is a
powerful creative force. As Raymond Holliwell has
written, "Never expect something you don't desire,
and never desire something you don't expect."
I hear people says things lik, "Oh, I always get a
bad cold around Halloween." Well, do you want to
get sick? If not, why do you expect it? Practice an
attitude of gratiude for your health, expect health, and
your Halloween cold will be missing in action.
We live in a constant stream of wonderful blessings
in every area of our lives. Gratitude draws us into
close touch with the source of our blessings. Wattles
even says, "into perfect unity with the mind of God."
That's a pretty good place to be, eh?.
Many more blessings to you,
Wes
give us your comments.
Positive Thinking - Think Like A Hurricane Survivor
http://www.articlebiz.com/article/94934-1-positive-thinking-think-like-a-hurricane-survivor/
Home :: Self-Improvement :: Psychology
By: Elaine Currie
Many people who decide to harness the power of positive thinking have read books describing the wonderful effects they can achieve and have become very excited by the things they discovered. They finish the book in a state of elation, determined to implement the techniques they have learned but, instead of having feelings of gratitude and well-being, their minds stray to wishful thinking or negative thoughts.
The problem can start from day one when the newly hatched positive thinker first tries to feel inwardly positive and grateful. This is understandable: his reason for reading about positive thinking and deciding to use it was born out of a desire for improvement or maybe a longing to change unhappy circumstances. Positive thoughts can easily be hijacked by niggling dissatisfactions.
When he should be giving thanks for the fact that he has warmth and shelter, the thinker finds himself dwelling on the thought that his house is small and shabby compared to the smart home which is one of his goals in life. This negative idea soon becomes a train of negative thought. Following on from thoughts of his unsatisfactory accommodation, comes the thought that his car is several years old and always seems to need fixing. Next comes the thought that there is never enough money to keep the house in good repair and to keep the car on the road. Then he thinks about his pittance of a salary and how he does not get paid what he is worth, it is barely enough to feed and clothe the family and vacations are out of the question. To give the kids enough of an education to get a decent chance in life will mean he will have to put himself into debt.
You can easily see how, in just a few seconds, negative ideas have overwhelmed any embryonic positive thoughts. Instead of feeling of relaxed and happy in the warm glow of positive energy and celebration of life's abundance, the thinker is wasting energy and pushing positive ideas further away by miserably reviewing all the things that he hoped to change.
It can be hard to feel grateful if this is your situation. When your house is too small, you don't have enough cash to keep up with repairs, your TV is on the blink, you worry about stretching finances to cover life's essentials, you don't earn enough, you hate your job but aren't likely to find anything better, you don't have the time or the money to be able to enjoy yourself, life is all work and worry. How can you be expected to feel gratitude?
Imagine surviving a hurricane. You have probably seen many images of the aftermath of a hurricane. Imagine how it must feel to be rescued from the flooded debris which was once your home. Not much is left that is recognisable and, what there is, has been smashed beyond any hope of repair. You are homeless, you have no possessions apart from the wet clothes you are wearing. You are cold. You are out of a job because your workplace went with the hurricane. You don't know whether any member of your family has come through the ordeal. Try to imagine how you would feel.
Now imagine that the rescuers have taken you into a temporary shelter where there is light, warmth, food and a bed for you to sleep in. You have been given dry clothing and a comforting hot drink. You have been reunited with your family who, miraculously, escaped without injury. How do you feel now?
Now dismiss all thoughts of hardship and dissatisfaction and start again. Start by being grateful and happy that you are alive, that your family is safe and you have been given this new day.
Working at home requires a great deal of self-motivation. You can pick up some excellent practical motivational tips at Elaine Currie's free Work At Home Directory at http://www.huntingvenus.com where you will also find the best ways to make money online.
Article Source: http://www.ArticleBiz.com
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