Sandy Teaches Us to See the Light

Early this week, the East Coast faced one of the fiercest storms of the century. This article is by no means a way to lessen the impact it has had and continues to have on people’s lives.

Early this week, we faced the fiercest storm of the century. Some of us are still dealing with the aftermath.

In Boston, we were relatively unscathed. Sandy hit us, but not too hard, and the city of Boston took the necessary precautions and gave its citizens a day of rest. We sat in our apartments or houses (some of us developing severe cabin fever), listening to the the wind and rain for hours on end. Some restless souls took a walk and witnessed trees being uprooted….

The next morning all was quiet…..

It reminds me of the storms that can occur in life….

In life we encounter these sudden upheavals or storms (some we can clearly see from a mile away) where we may feel like we are being uprooted like the huge tree in my brother’s backyard on Long Island.  We work through these storms, these transitions, and inevitably all becomes quiet. The hurt, pain, the fear, eventually goes away…..

Eventually, with time, the wind dies down, the rain stops…. Eventually, with time, the hurt and pain subside and we wake up and it’s a new day.  And there’s this beauty in the uncertainty of who we will meet on the street or become reacquainted with once again…or the sudden opportunity that knocks at just the right time. Those are the moments that we need to hold on to when we are caught in the eye of the storm and think there’s no way out.

It’s so easy to get caught up in the wind in our heads howling why me, why now…. Oddly, winds outside our head—gale force, able to uproot trees or shear roofs—can help us quiet the winds within.  I think Hurricane Sandy teaches us that nothing lasts forever, and eventually, the storm passes and all becomes quiet once again.

Stacy Slawitsky turned to yoga and mindfulness as a means to relieve the stress of a demanding job at a Big 4 Accounting Firm. Her passion to share the benefits of these practices with others led her to start ZenConnect. She conducts stress management programs for companies throughout the Boston area.