Home > Work > The Five Gifts: Discovering Hope, Healing and Strength When Disaster Strikes
1 " Catastrophic events serve a higher purpose. "
― Laurie Nadel , The Five Gifts: Discovering Hope, Healing and Strength When Disaster Strikes
2 " We can plan our work and work our plan; however, being organized and methodical will not protect us from the unexpected. "
3 " Moving forward requires us to reframe our basic assumptions about life. "
4 " You are like a baby bird that has fallen out of the nest, too weak and fragile to fly back. You need to learn how to feed yourself soul vitamins so that you can regain your energy and the will to live fully. "
5 " Humility—the first gift—can help us surrender to an event outside our control, one we couldn’t prevent and was not our fault "
6 " With the Five Gifts, we can solve our problems without shooting each other. "
7 " You won’t find the Five Gifts on anyone’s wish list but when your emotional tank is on empty, they will be there to help you replenish your energy. "
8 " In uncharted territory, we need new thinking, new ways of processing intense emotions, and new behavioral choices. "
9 " Breathing is our primary nonverbal language. Sharp, uneven breaths convey a message of stress even though someone might insist she is perfectly all right. "
10 " The second gift––patience––helps us deal with not knowing how long this is going to last. "
11 " Patience allows you to shift attention in a positive way. "
12 " We have to expect the unexpected and keep going, even without a map or direction. "
13 " The unrealistic belief that we are somehow entitled to go through life unmoved by other people’s suffering further limits our ability to cope with our own. "
14 " Our capacity to disregard and discount viscerally painful experiences is so ingrained that we have come to believe that “moving forward” means not allowing ourselves to be moved at all. "
15 " It’s impossible to predict how the heart heals or how long it is going to take. "
16 " Like breaking a leg, a serious injury to the psyche often gets us benched while the regular game of life goes on. It may seem strange that forgiving ourselves for having such perfectly human reactions is harder than forgiving whatever caused them. "
17 " It may not be elegant but it’s true: There is no place for bullshit in a disaster zone. "
18 " Disasters make us aware that the life force within us needs tending daily. This is why we are here.” – Dr. Anne Redelfs "
19 " Heading into any one-year anniversary, our emotional climate shifts. We enter a new season of the heart. "
20 " Empathy connects us to another person’s experience without judgment. "