THE 12 RULES OF SURVIVAL

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THE 12 RULES OF SURVIVALBy ce Deepsurvival. Comhttp://www.deepsurv ival.Com/As a journalist, I've been writing about accidents for more than thirtyYears. In the last 15 or so years, I've concentrated on accidents in outdoorRecreation, in an effort to understand who lives, who dies, and why. To mySurprise, I found an eerie uniformity in the way people survive seeminglyImpossible circumstances. Decades and sometimes centuries apart, separatedBy culture, geography, race, language, and tradition, the most successfulSurvivors -- those who practice what I call "deep survival" -- go throughThe same patterns of thought and behavior, the same transformation andSpiritual discovery, in the course of keeping themselves alive. Not onlyThat but it doesn't seem to matter whether they are surviving being lost inThe wilderness or battling cancer, whether they're struggling throughDivorce or facing a business catastrophe -- the strategies remain the same.Survival should be thought of as a journey, a vision quest of the sort thatNative Americans have had as a rite of passage for thousands of years. OnceYou're past the precipitating event -- you're cast away at sea or told youHave cancer -- you have been enrolled in one of the oldest schools inHistory. Here are a few things I've learned that can help you pass the finalExam............1. Perceive and BelieveDon't fall into the deadly trap of denial or of immobilizing fear. Admit it:You're really in trouble and you're going to have to get yourself out.Many people who in the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, died simplyBecause they told themselves that everything was going to be all right.Others panicked. Panic doesn't necessarily mean screaming and runningAround. Often it means simply doing nothing. Survivors don't candy-coat theTruth, but they also don't give in to hopelessness in the face of it.Survivors see opportunity, even good, in their situation, however grim.After the ordeal is over, people may be surprised to hear them say it wasThe best thing that ever happened to them. Viktor l, who spent threeYears in Auschwitz and other Nazi concentration camps, describes comfortingA woman who was dying. She told him, "I am grateful that fate has hit me soHard. In my former life I was spoiled and did not take spiritualAccomplishments seriously."The phases of the survival journey roughly parallel the five stages of deathOnce described by Kubler Ross in her book On Death and Dying:Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. In direCircumstances, a survivor moves through those stages rapidly to acceptanceOf his situation, then resolves to do something to save himself. SurvivalDepends on telling yourself, "Okay, I'm here. This is really happening. NowI'm going to do the next right thing to get myself out." Whether you succeedOr not ultimately becomes irrelevant. It is in acting well -- even sufferingWell -- that you give meaning to whatever life you have to live.2. Stay Calm ­ Use Your AngerIn the initial crisis, survivors are not ruled by fear; instead, they makeUse of it. Their fear often feels like (and turns into) anger, whichMotivates them and makes them feel sharper. Aron Ralston, the hiker who hadTo cut off his hand to free himself from a stone that had trapped him in aSlot canyon in Utah, initially panicked and began slamming himself over andOver against the boulder that had caught his hand. But very quickly, heStopped himself, did some deep breathing, and began thinking about hisOptions. He eventually spent five days progressing through the stagesNecessary to convince him of what decisive action he had to take to save hisOwn life.When Lance Armstrong, six-time winner of the Tour de France, awoke fromBrain surgery for his cancer, he first felt gratitude. "But then I felt aSecond wave, of anger... I was alive, and I was mad." When friends asked himHow he was doing, he responded, "I'm doing great... I like it like this. ILike the odds stacked against me... I don't know any other way." That'sSurvivor thinking.Survivors also manage pain well. As a bike racer, Armstrong had had longTraining in enduring pain, even learning to love it. Stockdale, aFighter pilot who was shot down in Vietnam and spent eight years in theHanoi Hilton, as his prison camp was known, advised those who would learn toSurvive: "One should include a course of familiarization with pain. You haveTo practice hurting. There is no question about it."3. Think, Analyze, and PlanSurvivors quickly organize, set up routines, and institute discipline.When Lance Armstrong was diagnosed with cancer, he organized his fightagainst it the way he would organize his training for a race. He readeverything he could about it, put himself on a training schedule, and puttogether a team from among friends, family, and doctors to support hisefforts. Such conscious, organized effort in the face of grave dangerrequires a split between reason and emotion in which reason gives directionand emotion provides the power source. Survivors often report experiencingreason as an audible "voice."Steve Callahan, a sailor and boat designer, was rammed by a whale and sunkwhile on a solo voyage in 1982. Adrift in the Atlantic for 76 days in afive-and-a-half- foot raft, he experienced his survival voyage as takingplace under the command of a "captain," who gave him his orders and kept himon his water ration, even as his own mutinous (emotional) spirit complained.His captain routinely lectured "the crew." Thus under strict control, he wasable to push away thoughts that his situation was hopeless and take thenecessary first steps of the survival journey: to think clearly, analyze hissituation, and formulate a plan.4. Take Correct, Decisive ActionSurvivors are willing to take risks to save themselves and others. But theyare simultaneously bold and cautious in what they will do. Elder wasthe only survivor of a light plane crash in high sierra. Stranded on a peakabove 12,000 feet, one arm broken, she could see the San Joaquin Valley inCalifornia below, but a vast wilderness and sheer and icy cliffs separatedher from it. Wearing a wrap-around skirt and blouse, with two-inch heeledboots and not even wearing underwear, she crawled "on all fours, doing akind of sideways spiderwalk," as she put it later, "balancing myself on theice crust, punching through it with my hands and feet."She had 36 hours of climbing ahead of her -- a seemingly impossible task.But Elder allowed herself to think only as far as the next big rock.Survivors break down large jobs into small, manageable tasks. They setattainable goals and develop short-term plans to reach them. They aremeticulous about doing those tasks well. Elder tested each hold beforemoving forward and stopped frequently to rest. They make very few mistakes.They handle what is within their power to deal with from moment to moment,hour to hour, day to day.5. Celebrate your successSurvivors take great joy from even their smallest successes. This helps keepmotivation high and prevents a lethal plunge into hopelessness. It alsoprovides relief from the unspeakable strain of a life-threatening situation.Elder said that once she had completed her descent of the first pitch, shelooked up at the impossibly steep slope and thought, "Look what you'vedone...Exhilarated, I gave a whoop that echoed down the silent pass." Evenwith a broken arm, joy was Elder's constant companion. A good survivoralways tells herself: count your blessings -- you're alive. Viktor lwrote of how he felt at times in Auschwitz: "How content we were; happy inspite of everything."6. Be a Rescuer, Not a VictimSurvivors are always doing what they do for someone else, even if thatsomeone is thousands of miles away. There are numerous strategies for doingthis. When Antoine Saint-Exupery was stranded in the Lybian desert after hismail plane suffered an engine failure, he thought of how his wife wouldsuffer if he gave up and didn't return. Yossi Ghinsberg, a young Israelihiker, was lost in the Bolivian jungle for more than two weeks afterbecoming separated from his friends. He hallucinated a beautiful companionwith whom he slept each night as he traveled. Everything he did, he did forher. People cannot survive for themselves alone; their must be a highermotive.Viktor l put it this way: "Don't aim at success -- the more you aim atit and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it." He suggeststaking it as "the unintended side-effect of one's personal dedication to acause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one's surrender to aperson other than oneself."7. Enjoy the Survival JourneyIt may seem counterintuitive, but even in the worst circumstances, survivorsfind something to enjoy, some way to play and laugh. Survival can betedious, and waiting itself is an art. Elder found herself laughing out loudwhen she started to worry that someone might see up her skirt as sheclimbed. Even as Callahan's boat was sinking, he stopped to laugh at himselfas he clutched a knife in his teeth like a pirate while trying to get intohis life raft. And Viktor l ordered some of his companions in Auschwitzwho were threatening to give up hope to force themselves to think of onefunny thing each day.Survivors also use the intellect to stimulate, calm, and entertain the mind.While moving across a near-vertical cliff face in Peru, Joe Simpsondeveloped a rhythmic pattern of placing his ax, plunging his other arm intothe snow face, and then making a frightening little hop with his good leg."I meticulously repeated the pattern," he wrote later. "I began to feeldetached from everything around me."Singing, playing mind games, reciting poetry, counting anything, and doingmathematical problems in your head can make waiting possible and evenpleasant, even while heightening perception and quieting fear. Stockdalewrote, "The person who came into this experiment with reams of alreadymemorized poetry was the bearer of great gifts."When Lance Armstrong was undergoing horrible chemotherapy, his mantra becamehis blood count: "Those numbers became the highlight of each day; they weremy motivation.. . I would concentrate on that number, as if I could make thecounts by mentally willing it."Lost in the Bolivian jungle, Yossi Ghinsberg reported, "When I found myselffeeling hopeless, I whispered my mantra, 'Man of action, man of action.' Idon't know where I had gotten the phrase... I repeated it over and over: Aman of action does whatever he must, isn't afraid, and doesn't worry."Survivors engage their crisis almost as an athlete engages a sport. Theycling to talismans. They discover the sense of flow of the expert performer,the "zone" in which emotion and thought balance each other in producingfluid action. A playful approach to a critical situation also leads toinvention, and invention may lead to a new technique, strategy, or designthat could save you.8. See the BeautySurvivors are attuned to the wonder of their world, especially in the faceof mortal danger. The appreciation of beauty, the feeling of awe, opens thesenses to the environment. (When you see something beautiful, your pupilsactually dilate.) Debbie Kiley and four others were adrift in the Atlanticafter their boat sank in a hurricane in 1982. They had no supplies, nowater, and would die without rescue. Two of the crew members drank sea waterand went mad. When one of them jumped overboard and was being eaten bysharks directly under their dinghy, Kiley felt as if she, too, were goingmad, and told herself, "Focus on the sky, on the beauty there."When Saint-Exupery' s plane went down in the Lybian Desert, he was certainthat he was doomed, but he carried on in this spirit: "Here we are,condemned to death, and still the certainty of dying cannot compare with thepleasure I am feeling. The joy I take from this half an orange which I amholding in my hand is one of the greatest joys I have ever known." At notime did he stop to bemoan his fate, or if he did, it was only to laugh athimself.9. Believe That You Will SucceedIt is at this point, following what I call "the vision," that the survivor'swill to live becomes firmly fixed. Fear of dying falls away, and a newstrength fills them with the power to go on. "During the final two days ofmy entrapment," Ralston recalled, "I felt an increasing reserve of energy,even though I had run out of food and water." Elder said, "I felt rested andfilled with a peculiar energy." And: "It was as if I had been granted anunlimited supply of energy."10. SurrenderYes you might die. In fact, you will die -- we all do. But perhaps itdoesn't have to be today. Don't let it worry you. Forget about rescue.Everything you need is inside you already. Dougal on, a sailor whowas cast away at sea for thirty-eight days after his boat sank, advisedthinking of survival this way: "Rescue will come as a welcome interruptionof... the survival voyage." One survival psychologist calls that"resignation without giving up. It is survival by surrender."Simpson reported, "I would probably die out there amid those boulders. Thethought didn't alarm me... the horror of dying no longer affected me." TheTao Te Ching explains how this surrender leads to survival:The rhinoceros has no place to jab its horn,The tiger has no place to fasten its claws,Weapons have no place to admit their blades.Now,What is the reason for this?Because on him there are no mortal spots.11. Do Whatever Is NecessaryElder down-climbed vertical ice and rock faces with no experience and noequipment. In the black of night, Callahan dove into the flooded saloon ofhis sinking boat, at once risking and saving his life. Aron Ralston cut offhis own arm to free himself. A cancer patient allows herself to be nearlykilled by chemotherapy in order to live.Survivors have a reason to live and are willing to bet everything onthemselves. They have what psychologists call meta-knowledge: They knowtheir abilities and do not over or underestimate them. They believe thatanything is possible and act accordingly.12. Never Give UpWhen Apollo 13's oxygen tank exploded, apparently dooming the crew,Commander Jim Lovell chose to keep on transmitting whatever data he couldback to mission control, even as they burned up on re-entry. Simpson, Elder,Callahan, Kiley, Stockdale, Ghinsberg -- were all equally determined andknew this final truth: If you're still alive, there is always one more thingthat you can do.Survivors are not easily discouraged by setbacks. They accept that theenvironment is constantly changing and know that they must adapt. When theyfall, they pick themselves up and start the entire process over again,breaking it down into manageable bits.Survivors always have a clear reason for going on. They keep their spiritsup by developing an alternate world, created from rich memories, into whichthey can escape. They see opportunity in adversity. In the aftermath,survivors learn from and are grateful for the experiences that they've had.As Elder told me once, "I wouldn't trade that experience for anything. Andsometimes I even miss it. I miss the clarity of knowing exactly what youhave to do next."Those who would survive the hazards of our world, whether at play or inbusiness or at war, through illness or financial calamity, will do sothrough a journey of transformation. But that transcendent state doesn'tmiraculously appear when it is needed. It wells up from a lifetime ofexperiences, attitudes, and practices form one's personality, a core fromwhich the necessary strength is drawn. A survival experience is anincomparable gift: It will tell you who you really are.............DEEP SURVIVAL: WHO LIVES, WHO DIES, AND WHY (Paperback)By ce Paperback: 318 pagesAverage Customer Review: 4 out of 5 stars based on 73 reviews.Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,941 in Bookshttp://www.amazon. com/exec/ obidos/ASIN/ 0393326152/ newheavenneweart

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