Dealing with anxiety and panic

[Gerard Zwaan]

If we only watch the images and read about the current situation in Haiti. There is panic within the population. And there is anxiety cause they don't know what to expect.

During the pole shift itself this will be much worse. And i feel that during the coming changes this panic and anxiety will only increase. I think that a pro active attitude helps to deal with what lies ahead of us. As by being ready both in a practical way and in a mental way is the key to making it trough it.

It's not only about having your survival gear ready. But your mental attitude is also a key if you want to make it trough the changes.

[Rosemary Stephen]

Hello Gerard

Well you beat me to it Gerard. I was thinking along the same lines. I totally agree with you on this point. The reaction experience by most people in Haiti is possibly trigger by numerous factors. The first being the unconscious exposure to the earth rumbling prior of the quake. The second is the actual earth quake. Although it last less then a few minutes, people experience anxiety as they try to flee the noise and rumbling. The third is when the quake is over and people feel a need to get out. Once out, the sight of destruction overwhelms them. They will be looking for family members to see if everyone is OK and try to get personal effect that have values to them. Where people fails is that they do not have a plan that will help them focus. They tend to rely on other to tell them what to do, instead of getting thing ready. When someone step up to the plate, and start telling people what what they should do, people tend to react positively. Other, will take advantage of the situation by being self center and be the first in line to get what they want. If they do not get it, they resort to criticisms, loudness and violence.

This is a type of pattern that repeats its self any time there is an unpredictable event that affect regular routine. When looking at the Military, they know that they will be involved in something that is out of routine. This is why, they always practice a plan prior to being deployed on a military duty. This is what people need to do. Just practice a fake scenario just to see how well people interact and what type of glitches will surface. Glitches are analyzed and solution created to resolve these. Children should be encourage to participate as they see details that we adults are not always able to see. And they will not be so scare when the actual pole shift will occur.

Well if you have a teenager like I do, that might not work has plan. They will literally sabotage the training and the plan. " Mom, this is boring, I know how to do it... you don't have to repeat it over and over again... are we done yet... can I play with my friends... you always make me do stupid things... Make sure my friends do not see me".

Anyone has any idea how to resolved this. Please let me know if you do.

[Beenthdonedat]

Just to be fair the majority of Haitian citizens are behaving exemplarily in view of the circumstances (Dead bodies everywhere, canines eating corpses, stench of hell, dead children, etc, ALL AROUND) The people that I would expect to cause trouble even during times of plenty are the ones running around stealing and weilding machetes as far as I gathered from what I saw.
There are two main ingredients in the Haiti situation that are contributing to the whole mix the way I see it regardless of their causes:
The attitude of just waiting for the help to arrive (which I watched shifting, now people are living the capital by the tens of thousands) and the lack of coordination and true focal leadership to get the help there where it matters quick.
I gotta tell you, my hat is off to DOCTOR SANJAY GUPTA, the CNN reporter (nominated for the surgeon general position which he himself withdrew from) he just put the mic down and started treating patients. At one point he was left alone in a tent with over 15 patients after all of the help and doctors went to a different location.

[Beenthdonedat]

Doctors abandoned Patients

Port-au-Prince, Haiti (CNN) -- Earthquake victims, writhing in pain and grasping at life, watched doctors and nurses walk away from a field hospital Friday night after a Belgian medical team evacuated the area, saying it was concerned about security.

The decision left CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Sanjay Gupta as the only doctor at the hospital to get the patients through the night.

CNN initially reported, based on conversations with some of the doctors, that the United Nations ordered the Belgian First Aid and Support Team to evacuate. However, Belgian Chief Coordinator Geert Gijs, a doctor who was at the hospital with 60 Belgian medical personnel, said it was his decision to pull the team out for the night. Gijs said he requested U.N. security personnel to staff the hospital overnight, but was told that peacekeepers would only be able to evacuate the team.

He said it was a "tough decision" but that he accepted the U.N. offer to evacuate after a Canadian medical team, also at the hospital with Canadian security officers, left the site Friday afternoon. The Belgian team returned Saturday morning.
Video: Field hospital shutting down
Video: Doctors told to evacuate
Video: Haitian hospitals lack basics
Video: Is aid arriving fast enough?
RELATED TOPICS

* Haiti
* Earthquakes
* Port-au-Prince

Gijs said the United Nations has agreed to provide security for Saturday night. The team has requested the Belgian government to send its own troops for the field hospital, which Gijs expects to arrive late Sunday.

Responding to the CNN report that Gupta was the only doctor left at the Port-au-Prince field hospital, U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky said Saturday that the world body's mission in Haiti did not order any medical team to leave. If the team left, it was at the request of their own organization, he said.

Edmond Mulet, the U.N. assistant secretary general for peacekeeping operations, told reporters later that local security officers deemed the makeshift hospital unsafe.

"It seems that we've heard some reports in the international media that the United Nations asked or forced some medical teams to not work any more in some clinic -- that is not true, that is completely untrue," Mulet said Saturday.

CNN video from the scene Friday night shows the Belgian team packing up its supplies and leaving with an escort of blue-helmeted U.N. peacekeepers in marked trucks.

Gupta -- assisted by other CNN staffers, security personnel and at least one Haitian nurse who refused to leave -- assessed the needs of the 25 patients, but there was little they could do without supplies.

More people, some in critical condition, were trickling in late Friday.

"I've never been in a situation like this. This is quite ridiculous," Gupta said.

With a dearth of medical facilities in Haiti's capital, ambulances had nowhere else to take patients, some of whom had suffered severe trauma -- amputations and head injuries -- under the rubble. Others had suffered a great deal of blood loss, but there were no blood supplies left at the clinic.

Gupta feared that some would not survive the night.

He and the others stayed with the injured all night, after the medical team had left and after the generators gave out and the tents turned pitch black.

Gupta monitored patients' vital signs, administered painkillers and continued intravenous drips. He stabilized three new patients in critical condition.

At 3:45 a.m., he posted a message on Twitter: "pulling all nighter at haiti field hosp. lots of work, but all patients stable. turned my crew into a crack med team tonight."

He said the Belgian doctors did not want to leave their patients behind but were ordered out by the United Nations, which sent buses to transport them.

"There is concern about riots not far from here -- and this is part of the problem," Gupta said.

There have been scattered reports of violence throughout the capital.

"What is striking to me as a physician is that patients who just had surgery, patients who are critically ill, are essentially being left here, nobody to care for them," Gupta said.

Sandra Pierre, a Haitian who has been helping at the makeshift hospital, said the medical staff took most of the supplies with them.

"All the doctors, all the nurses are gone," she said. "They are expected to be back tomorrow. They had no plan on leaving tonight. It was an order that came suddenly."

She told Gupta, "It's just you."

A 7.0 magnitude earthquake flattened Haiti's capital city Tuesday afternoon, affecting as many as 3 million people as it fanned out across the island nation. Tens of thousands of people are feared dead.

Haiti, the poorest nation in the Western hemisphere, lacked adequate medical resources even before the disaster and has been struggling this week to tend to huge numbers of injured. The clinic, set up under several tents, was a godsend to the few who were lucky to have been brought there.

Retired Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honore, who led relief efforts for Hurricane Katrina in 2005, said the evacuation of the clinic's medical staff was unforgivable.

"Search and rescue must trump security," Honoré said. "I've never seen anything like this before in my life. They need to man up and get back in there."

Honoré drew parallels between the tragedy in New Orleans, Louisiana, and in Port-au-Prince. But even in the chaos of Katrina, he said, he had never seen medical staff walk away.

"I find this astonishing these doctors left," he said. "People are scared of the poor."

CNN's Justine Redman, Danielle Dellorto and John Bonifield contributed to this report.

[Kathleen Exar]

a first time ditto, Haiti is tellig us what to expect, preparing us more. The 'world' is trying to help and still having major problems geting in there.... All the world will be in the soup together when the shift comes.... it is so difficult to stay positive and calm about all this, but it will be the only way to flow with the changes...Kathleen

[Gerard Zwaan]

I don't think this had anything to do with mercury being retrograde.
Check out
http://poleshift.ning.com/group/ecandpc/forum/topics/are-things-set...


Sandra Swayze said:

Unfortunately Haiti's earthquake happened during a mercury retograde which governs communications, logistics, borders, structures. Problems will arrise in these areas and has for Haiti. The retrograde has stopped so these areas should start to clear up within the week.

[The Shadow]

To be fair, most people in Haiti were so poor to begin with, that they had little resources to deal with life even before this crisis. How many in the first world are going to be kicking themselves once events get underway when they realize how easy it would have been for them to have bought supplies, made plans, etc.?

[David Ian Swan]

Right Shadow, Haiti was a disaster BEFORE the earthquake. Like asking where the heavy equipment is to lift the buildings???...some kind of joke??

But that is a lesson. After the PS.. there will be no outside help coming.

[David Ian Swan]

I agree with Karen. Hard to know unless you are there. Gupta would have had a film crew and probable security...not exactly "on his own".

In any emergency situation you have to be careful that you know your abilities... so that you don't become a casualty along with those you are trying to help. I am not young and fit anymore...so I cannot dive right in as I used to.

Karen Lee said:

Indeed Dr. Gupta should be applauded! But I can assure you that most of the people judging them so harshly would NEVER be in Haiti in the first place, and if they were, most would not stay behind against direct orders intent on securing thier safety... Remember STO's work for the good of the whole, the larger group of people affected; if Doctors are attacked then thousands of victims may not be treated, possibly without medical care for months... If they didn't leave, and were attacked, all medical providers would be held/moved back away from the epicenter, thus the ones needing medical attention the most, would not get it! It's easy to judge, but not so easy to be part of the program.

[David Ian Swan]

To get back to Gerards point..I also believe that ATTITUDE is SO important. And being able to transmit and boost the attitude of those around you. You have to be realistic.. it is not going to be a bed of roses for a LONG time. But after a PS a lot of people will have no idea what has happened and what the future holds. You can give them hope ...of sorts. It is not the end of the world... just the world as we knew it. Things will get better. We will learn to get our "joy" in different ways. There is HOPE. ( for those in a reasonable location anyway).

[Kathleen Exar]

Kathleen Exar said:

I have a bag of tricks...Tapping & Breathing techniques that are strong and fast working... results in very short time. I can post them when I get a second.... I have been teaching my high school students just keeping it simple such as, when the world is going crazy do this..... When you are starting to have an anxiety attack do that..... I've been thinking that with all the people that will be off of their medications including all the anti depressives, anti anxietiy and pain meds and on and on....it's not gonna be pretty. We are going to need quick and dirty tricks to help others and ourselves come from a place of 'Center". 1st installment below... side note...I saw a saying today at the Kabbalah Center I wanted to share... SHIFT HAPPENS!

Lesson one- LEFT NOSTRIL BREATHS, calms/ engages the parasympathetic nervous system, cools one..... RIGHT NOSTRIL BREATHS activates/ engages sympathetic nervous system....... cover one nostril and breathe in through other.... long , slow and deep 4x starts the shift....10x deepens.... have them do as many as you can get them to do

[Kathleen Exar]

go Karen! You taught Lesson 2! Tapping really works too!

Karen Lee said:

Great advice Kathleen! Here's another "rescue remedy" you may already use, but may not realize it!

After/during a sudden "shock' our thymus gland function get out of sync and may need to be "reset". Notice how when observing a disaster you naturally clutch, or pat the center of your upper chest and automatically you repeat "Oh no, Oh my, Oh my God, Oh my"). By covering/clutching this area you are trying to protect your thymus gland from negative energy frequencies (sudden shock, fear, worry, greif, loss). The " patting" of this area is a natural shock remedy that overcomes negative energy and re-energises the bodys energy center. Below is a method you can use after suffering shock/PTSD (post traumatic shock) or depression, (or low energy); it's called the called the "Thymus Thump". I recommend you teach it and practice it with your family.
Locate the top of your breast bone just below the two bumps where your collar bone joins; with a clenched fist, pound this area rythmically several times, while smiling and thinking of someone you love; and at each thump, forcefully say "Ha-ha-ha". This will reestablish thymic dominance, and should be repeated 'as needed' during ongoing stress. If you catch yourself holding this area unconsciously, you are being exposed to, or creating to too much negative energy, or you are under to much stress (all of which which may be unconscious). Notice how when you have "a frog in your throat", if you allow yoursef to have a good cry/sob, the frog dissappears (the frog is an accumulation of negative energy), and sobbing helps reset your depressed thymus function.