Making It Through Hurricanes And Tough Times

by Chaplain Tim P. VanDuivendyk
System Executive for Spiritual Care & Chaplaincy
Memorial Hermann

How do we make it through devastating effects of hurricanes, storms or even personal storms? There are many ways for making it through tough times-such as: the pathways of thinking through, feeling through, and taking action through. All take courage, faith and hope. All pathways are important but we each tend to have a favorite that we lean on. Remember, that one is not better than the other, and that the most effective way to make it through tough times is to use all the pathways available.

The following are some suggestions for making it through hurricanes and tough times. Which are helpful for you?

• Know and recognize the effects of stressors and storms on your body, mind and spirit. These effects may include one or more of the following: sadness, numbness, frustration, anger, fear, fatigue, anxiety, preoccupied thoughts, inability to concentrate, withdrawal, restlessness, change in sleeping and eating patterns. You can probably name more. When we can name what it is that is happening in us and around us, we take the first step in coping with it and managing their effects.
• Accept that life is a struggle and that struggles can bring growth and transformation! Our high expectations can cause us to idealize how life should be, rather than face the way life is. We need to bend without breaking. Labor and contractions often bring birth and new life.
• Develop the capacity to cope with change, hurricanes and personal storms! We have seen change, experienced high winds, floods, lost homes and more. Be ready for change but when it comes be sure to grieve. We need to take time to grieve and then stand up and tackle life and move toward transformation.
• Talk about your feelings and thoughts with a friend. Expressing and releasing our emotions and talking through our thoughts can clear out the soul and make way for hope and new ways of understanding. So many well-meaning people are busy talking us out of our feelings and thoughts rather than helping us talk out our feelings and thoughts. We need to be listening and talking with each other.
• Become a team…a community! Every one has weaknesses and strengths during beautiful days and stormy days. We need each other in order to make it through the storm, challenges and healthcare mission. When tough times come we need head and heart, brawn and brains, and varied personal and professional skills and gifts. Being different does not make us a team. Embracing different-ness, inviting different-ness, using each other’s different-ness is what makes “just a bunch of people or just a bunch of hospitals/entities” a team…a community…a system. We need each other through the storm.
• If you have been through storms or trauma before, i.e. Katrina or Rita, and the present situation causes anxiety or fear from the past to resurface, know that this is not uncommon. Talk with a physician, clergy, social worker, therapist or other mental health professional.
• Don’t awfulize! Awfulizing is when 75% of our life is good and 25% of life is bad yet we focus constantly on the 25% totally missing the gifts of life. We make ourselves and everyone else around us miserable and encourage negativity. Please don’t awfulize and miss the good things in your life.
• Don’t minimize! Minimizing is when life is 75% bad and 25% good yet we focus constantly on the 25% that is good, thus avoiding problems. This person believes if you don't talk about the problem it will go away. The truth is that if you don't talk about it, it will come back and bite you on the backside.
• Get busy serving, helping and loving others. We know from research that when we help or love others, we become less stressed out and sense we are part of the answer. This is the mystery of love--by pouring out love into others somehow we are mysteriously filled up at the same time. For example: give blood, send a note, donate money/food, join a rebuilding or clean up project, etc. . Making a difference for others can make a difference in our own soul and spirit.
• Believe in a Divine Creator, Sustainer and Comforter who walks with you through the storm- walks beside you, before you and behind you through these tough times. Remember, when those days come when you are too weary, overwhelmed or exhausted to hold onto God, God holds on to you!
• If none of this helps, stomp your feet in frustration, have a good cry, take two aspirins and start all over again in the morning. Humor is the capacity to see through things. Spirituality is the capacity to see through things. In these tough days, I hope you will find both and laugh. Humor and spirituality will see you through these tough times.

Source: MH Brand Communications

Last updated: 2009-05-05