What I've Learned From Hurricane Irma And Life's Other Storms
Photo Copyright 2010 Susan M. Sabella
On Sunday, September 10th Category 2 Hurricane Irma swept through Florida.
The week leading up to and after Irma taught me many lessons.
Here's what i've learned:
We can choose to rise to the occasion or fall.
Our reactions to what is going on around us will make or break us.
Safety first, be alert to other people's reactions.
No man or woman is an island we all need each other to survive.
When you least expect it, people can be loving and giving.
There's always hope.
Be prepared a week early for a hurricane because the closer you get to it, there's less supplies like water and gas, not to mention having to deal with people who are in a frenzy to get things and also the opportunists that loot stores and rob people.
Get some camping gear like a propane stove to cook, flashlights and candles.
Use the walkie talkie app Zello, it really works when the cell towers aren't.
Marco Polo by Google worked, too you can send short videos.
A few days before the hurricane, I had witnessed some people in a frenzy.
I also witnessed someone running out of a Walmart in Tarpon Springs as he stole something.
He ran out of the store saying "Start the car, start it right now we need to go!!!"
My mother who was in a riding cart was ahead of me and I was right behind her.
As I looked around I seen people in a frenzy to get water and other supplies.
Reality set in that we may be in danger.
You'd think the apocalypse was coming...
This experience taught me to always have plenty of drinking water on hand.
3 gallons a water per day per person is recommended.
I recently did a sermon at The Temple of Love and Healing in St. Petersburg Florida.
Below is that sermon both in audio and in print form:
I'd like to talk about getting through life's storms, weather-related
and stress related.
We can't avoid these experiences but we can deal with them.
No matter what storms life throws at you just know this too shall pass and what is yet to be will be even better than what you had before.
It's always darkest before the dawn.
Do you notice after a rainstorm a lot of times following there is a beautiful rainbow?
Even though there was a rainstorm something beautiful came out of it.
The same thing goes for life's other storms, you may hit some turbulence but once it's done necessary changes are made to put you on a better path.
It's been quite an eventful time before, during and after Hurricane Irma.
Through Hurricane Irma we've experienced upheaval, leaving our homes to find a safe place to go, scrambling to make sure we were all stocked up on necessities and anticipating the fear of what Hurricane Irma was going to bring us, asking ourselves if we would survive or even have a home to come back to.
We've also seen the best and worst in other people's reactions to Irma's pending visit.
During preparations for the storm, I've witnessed some looting but most importantly, I have witnessed more people being kind and helping each other.
It's all in the way we react to the events in our lives whether it is a weather-related or stress-related.
Our reactions to the events in our lives determine the outcome not only for ourselves but for everyone around us.
But like all of the other storms in our lives, this too shall pass and the sun will shine again and we may be lucky enough to see a beautiful rainbow, too.
I've seen rainbows two days in a row. Yesterday and the day before.
I'd like to quote
2 Corinthians 4: 17-18
“For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long.
Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever. So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen.
For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever.”
Like I mentioned earlier, our reactions to life's events determine our outcome.
My father James taught me something important early morning on the day Hurricane Irma was paying her visit.
He taught me how to get out of panic mode.
I started getting chest pains and a thousand thoughts were flooding my mind of last minute things I needed to do as I was packing my vehicle to the brim with all our necessities, family photos and jewelry.
I couldn't find my kitty Mysti and started panicking.
We live in a ground level apartment next to a canal.
Definitely not a good place to be during a hurricane.
My landlord stopped by a few days earlier to tell my husband David and I to evacuate as we were expected to get a 10-15 foot water surge from the Gulf which literally meant us, our apartment and our kitty would be underwater completely.
Thoughts rushed through my mind about not finding my kitty and what would happen if those waters were to submerge our apartment and her.
The heavy winds were picking up and the rain was starting to come down like a monsoon hours before Irma's projected arrival.
Now Me, “calm and cool Rev. Sue” was officially in panic mode.
I felt like I was going to have an anxiety attack and was ready to pass out.
I yelled out “God please help me”!
Now, let me tell you, God works pretty fast sometimes.
5 minutes later my father James pulled up and seen the look on my face.
Total and utter panic. I froze. I was soaking wet from the monsoon rain.
My father asked me “Are you okay?”
I just couldn't fake it. I said “No, i'm not please help me”
My father then said “ Stay still, don't move and breathe”.
I did that and you know what, it worked.
He then helped me put the rest of what I needed into my vehicle.
I drove to a safe house far away from the water.
I unloaded everything and started feeling better, then I went back to the apartment to get my kitty Mysti.
She was in her usual hiding place under the kitchen cabinet and my neighbors Hank and Katrina helped me out by holding Mysti
and going with me for the trip to my safe house.
This experience taught me that whenever something causes me to panic, to just stay still, don't move and just breathe.
This experience also taught me that no man or woman is an island, not be too proud and accept any help as it comes to you as it is God's way to work through not only you, but other people, too.
When our electric was down, our neighbors brought food and cooked it on another neighbor's little camping grill.
It was great to see people working together.
I also learned to be prepared for the worst but to also hope for the best.
Something I heard a lot from my friend and neighbor Hank and also
on Bay News 9.
When I break the word hope down it goes like this:
H for holding O for onto P for promising and E for expectations.
So hope for me is Holding Onto Promising Expectations.
At first we were all told Hurricane Irma would possibly be a category 4 or 5 which as you know would have caused much devastation.
I believe that so many people including us were hoping, praying and believing for a better outcome that it lessened to a category 2.
Believe it or not, our minds and spirit are so powerful we can affect the weather AND our world as is the power of prayer.
I learned this first hand from Tropical Storm Debbie a few years ago.
In my opinion, it was just as bad as a hurricane.
The wind and rain was just pelting my bedroom window.
I watched as the window was starting to contract from the heavy winds.
I was actually starting to get afraid but then a calm came over me,
and I heard that still, quiet voice in my mind say “Play some meditation music and visualize Debbie going back out to sea”.
So I started playing a meditation CD by Steven Halpern and as I calmed myself down I was able to visualize Debbie going back to sea.
About 10 minutes later, the storm got much quieter.
My side of the block did not get flooded. I lived two blocks from where i'm living now, on a canal.
Was it coincidence the storm subsided and my side of the block wasn't flooded? I think not.
I don't believe in coincidences though I believe in hope and faith,
as well as the power of our mental visualizations and projections, too.
If we all realize how truly powerful our mental projections are, the world would be a much better place for us to live in.
More peace and less bad weather, too.
Thought projections are real and according to Swami Panchadasi's book
“The Human Aura”
We can actually project our thoughts outside of our bodies and create a ripple effect, much like throwing a pebble into a pond and watching the surrounding water being affected.
The same goes for our thought projections both good and not so good.
I've experienced both good and not so good thought projections.
10 years ago I was still married to my ex husband John.
John's Uncle Ronnie lived with us and he was schizophrenic, but also a very angry person as we found out.
He had amazing mental and emotional projection skills though he didn't know it.
I remember waking up around 3 in the morning and hearing Ronnie cussing and yelling. The next thing that happened scared me...
I actually seen a brownish/black smokey looking mass in the hallway leading to my bedroom.
This looked like something straight out of a Harry Potter movie.
It was a massive thought form that had a face and hook shaped hands and the rest of it was a swirling mass of smoky looking tendrils.
As it finally reached my bedroom, it glided over me and I felt how dense, sluggish, angry and awful this thing was. It was also powerful too it exited out of my bedroom window rattling the window blinds.
I didn't react to it, I just observed it.
I found out nearly 10 years later what this ugly thing was:
a negative thought form.
Like a pebble tossed in the water, we affect each other for better or for worse.
Dr. Masuru Emoto was a Japanese author, researcher, photographer and entrepreneur who claimed that human consciousness has an effect on the molecular structure of water.
Emoto's conjecture evolved over the years and his early work explored his belief that water could react to positive thoughts and words, and that polluted
water could be cleaned through prayer and positive visualization
Since 1999, Emoto published several volumes of a work entitled
“Messages From Water”, which contain photographs of ice crystals and their accompanying experiments. Emoto's ideas appeared in the movie
“What The Bleep Do We Know”!?
The human body is comprised of 70 percent water so we truly do affect each other through our thought projections, feelings and the things we do positive or negative.
So we must be mindful of our thoughts, words and deeds as they will be reflected back to us good or not so good in the form of people, situations and yes, even our weather system and even the planet as a whole.
Let's take a look at some of the recent events going on.
I believe they are all related.
Civil unrest and violence in the United States caused by bigotry.
The Eclipse last August in the U.S. Which symbolically means a shadow is cast on the United States to show what needs to be healed which to me is bigotry and indifference.
But on the bright side, the sun always shines after a solar eclipse, which to me is symbolic of something better and brighter after the eclipse passes.
A chain of hurricanes these past few weeks.
Hurricane Harvey hitting Texas, then Hurricane Irma hitting Florida.
And most recently Hurricane Maria hitting the caribbean islands and Puerto Rico.
Not to mention the two earthquakes in Mexico this past week.
Kim Jong IL's missile threats to the U.S.
There's a lot of hostile energy out there.
I believe we can heal each other and the planet as long as we are mindful of our thoughts,words and deeds.
If we projected out healing visualizations, thoughts, and prayers we would have a more loving, peaceful and safe world to live in.
I believe life's storms weather-related or not force us to see what we need to change, or maybe to appreciate our loved ones, home and the everyday things we take for granted like electric, water, cellphone and internet use.
After life's storms we must remember there is always a morning after a dark night, a chance to begin again.
No matter what life throws at you just know there is a reason for it and something much better is on it's way.
In the meantime just remember when you're upset and anxious about your current situation just stop what you're doing, stand still and breathe.
This will calm you down. I've done this and I know it works.
Don't be too proud to accept help, God works through other people as well as through you.
You don't always have to do it alone.
Observe what's going on around you and how other people are reacting
this may just save your life.
Be kind to one another and assist when you can, we need more of this in the world.
Belief, hope and faith will carry you through the dark times.
Project hopeful thoughts instead of fearful ones.
Stressful situations will make us rise or fall,
it's all about how we react to them.
Storms weather-related and stress-related push us to our limits and change our life's course even when we're not ready for them.
Life's storms have a purpose, the winds of change push us to our destiny.
This is transitions to transformation in motion.
Will we rise or will we fall?
The choice is up to us.
Remember there is a rainbow waiting for all of us at the end of each storm.
I've seen two rainbows this week two days in a row.
I wanted to mention also I now have a kitten that was rescued from Hurricane Irma. It's a boy kitten so I couldn't call him Irma. So I named it Stormy.
He is such a sweet, loving kitten and we have such a strong bond I can't explain except it is a miracle. Without Hurricane Irma I wouldn't have such a sweet, loving boy.
And this brave, loving kitten was found in some bushes. It's mother most likely put him there and he survived Irma's hurricane speed winds.
When my neighbor's uncle found him he could barely walk and was weak but he sure had the will to live.
He truly is a miracle and no doubt he is special because he survived.
Stormy has a lot of spunk and a lot of love to give and I am truly blessed to have my new fur baby.
After life's storms there is always a new beginning.
Much love to you all,
Rev. Sue
