Respect the trauma/tragedy – recognize and be sensitive to the severity of the situation and how profoundly it affects everyone. Also determine how it is personally interpreted differently by each person with varied scenarios.
1. Seek balance – it takes an equal and opposite action to balance a trauma that has occurred. Replace the past negative trauma that may plague you with present-centered positive deeds, thoughts, words and actions.
2. Be compassionate – always show kindness via a willing ear, sincere smile, make eye contact, learn first names, give a gentle touch or hug – all are simple healing balms.
3. Promote community cooperative compassion – this is accomplished by helping people form natural support groups with shared phone numbers and email contacts
4. Stay mentally and physically strong – don’t succumb to the negative situation. It’s important to be solid when others need you the most.
5. Don’t bring your own personal disaster to a societal disaster – as much as possible, put your personal feelings aside when you are helping others. Further, you can become an emotional casualty yourself if you aren’t careful.
6. Focus – on solutions, not the problems. Rather than focusing on the trauma (past negative), move forward slowly, carefully and deliberately away from the problem and toward the solution (future positive). Don’t become stuck in the past negative. Additionally, encourage selected present hedonism, fun activities as self-rewards.
7. Additionally, honor and respect those who lost their lives or were injured – the best way to honor those who have died or have sustained a life-changing injury is to figure out how best to help those left behind, or all those whom you can help.
8. Be aware of your limitations – walk away if you find yourself slipping into exhaustion,depression or anxiety. Take care of yourself; you can’t help anyone if you aren’t feeling up to the job. Do seek professional help if your mental distress lasts more than a few days.
9. Extend your empathy – not only the victims, but to their loved ones. Even harder is to show empathy toward the perpetrators who must learn to cope with their own guilt and other issues.
10. Avoid judgmental attitudes – as well as generalizations toward ethnic and/or religious groups; further you can focus on understanding, compassion and constructive actions.
11.Encourage the faculties that promote everyday heroes – being socio-centric, optimistic, self-confident and practice being a “hero-in-training,” while challenging the negatives of egocentrism, cynicism, pessimism and public apathy.
