Seeing your home and all its memories destroyed in a catastrophe is a blow that strikes you to the depths of your soul. Some never recover from the trauma, while others emerge stronger from the experience. Until disaster strikes, you may not know how you will respond. And when it does, staying positive can feel impossible, even unfair. However angry or sad you are, staying angry and sad is counterproductive. As with most things, attitudes often become self-fulfilling prophecies. Try to stay positive when disaster strikes and the consequences will be much easier to deal with.

Steps to stay positive:

• Count your blessings. Your house may be a pile of sticks, but if you and your family are alive and well, you have a lot to be thankful for.

• Realize that you are not alone. When a disaster hits a community, the entire community is affected. While your suffering may be great, others are also suffering. Your neighbors are literally feeling your pain. Many disaster victims have found great comfort in comforting one another.

• Realize that help is available. As devastating as it can be, it is doubtful that you are completely alone. Emergency aid from local, state, and federal agencies, as well as nonprofit organizations, will come in the short term, while long-term aid, including disaster assistance, grants, loans, housing and other disaster relief programs will follow. Be sure to go to Disaster Recovery Centers set up by disaster response agencies and personnel and learn what help is available to you. As you become better informed about what the future holds and what help is available, you will feel less insecure, which makes it easier to stay positive.

• To take action. While it can be tempting to play the victim role and continue to grieve over your losses, taking action can have a healing effect. It propels you forward and shows that you have some control over your situation. Empower yourself by volunteering to help others worse off than you, cleaning up debris as soon as it’s safe to do so, starting the insurance claims process, applying for aid or loans, etc. If you see a need, do what you can to fill it. For example, instead of worrying about your kids missing school for months at a time, organize study groups for neighborhood kids to keep them focused and on track.

All of the above steps can help you move from a state of shock and aggravation to a state of peace and action. But what if he is disabled or has lost family members as a result of the disaster? Staying positive in these situations is much harder when you feel like you don’t have any blessings to count or that you’re too hurt to do anything other than stay in your hospital bed. Here are some tips that can help:

• Allow yourself to grieve. If you’ve lost loved ones, grieving is a natural process that you shouldn’t ignore, even if you have insurance papers to file and no place to call home. You may need to move quickly and feel like you don’t have time to fully cry. When this happens, promise yourself that you will soon honor your lost loved ones. Give yourself permission to attend to your immediate emergency needs now so that you can properly grieve once you are in a safe place.

• Seek and accept help. Counseling, medical care, and assistance programs are available after disasters, and people everywhere will want to help. Many disaster victims are hesitant or even resistant to accepting help, but you do need support. By allowing your neighbors, family, friends, or volunteers to help you, your eventual recovery will be much easier.

• Remind yourself that being positive doesn’t mean you have to be happy. In fact, you can be incredibly sad, but positive. Tomorrow is another day. You can survive.

Disasters, terrible as they are, often bring people and communities together. Many disaster victims find that they are stronger than they thought and that, despite the bad luck that has befallen them, they are equipped to survive. You, too, are equipped to survive a disaster, and one of the most effective tools you have is your ability to stay positive.