When All Hell Breaks Loose (8 page)

Knowing that by using the words "I AM" you force into your physical life whatever statements you put behind it, why would you say anything negative after these words? People's habits are powerful, and most of the world has strong, oftentimes subconscious habits about thinking they're wormlike losers. Many of us have that soft spot that loves to be self-pitied and affirm how shitty things seem to be in our lives. Habit is accumulated energy that has been charged with a certain desire. Get over it and stop being a victim of circumstances that you have created in your life. Gently but with great firmness and determination, demand that positive habits replace unproductive ones. Don't fight the negative habit and give it any more power than it already has. Simply focus your attention on what you would rather have, hold it there with unwavering conviction, and support its certain manifestation with positive "I AM" statements. Negative habits will dissolve when they are no longer being fed by your powers of attention, thought, feeling, spoken word, and action. Thus, change your habits and you will change your life.

Your Responsibility to Life

"W
E ARE WHAT WE REPEATEDLY DO
. E
XCELLENCE THEN, IS NOT AN ACT, BUT A HABIT
."

—A
RISTOTLE

 

To put the above teachings into practice regarding the goal of this book, it's important that you
don't
focus your attention upon disaster and chaos. This is not denial; it's common sense in dealing with the impersonal Law that shapes all of our lives. Don't focus your attention on lack and limitation. Don't focus your attention on survival situations and fear.
Don't focus on things that you don't want in your life
, as "where your attention is, there you are."

This book is meant to encourage you to take a joyous, positive, proactive stance about your family's preparedness. This is a book about creating a positive mind-set and self-reliant skills that contain the energy, courage, and confidence to shatter doubt and fear. I'm not saying that you won't be scared in an emergency—you will be—but don't compel fear into your experience by dwelling on doomsday scenarios so common in the world.

I'm not saying that ignorance is bliss, either. Pay attention to enough of the world news to keep in the loop regarding important information for the welfare of your family, but keep your focus riveted on the positive. Do not get bogged down in the negativity happening in the world. If you find yourself enmeshed in the chaos again, gently yet firmly switch your attention to something positive without beating yourself up. Once you make the act of dwelling on the positive a
habit
through repetition and refuse to give in to negative influences, the gathered momentum will make it much easier to stay peacefully centered in the face of emergencies. It takes the same amount of effort to think about something positive as it does to think about something negative. Yet the energy return you get by dwelling on the positive far outweighs your initial investment; increased positive energy will assist you in all aspects of your life. In summary, preparing for a disaster doesn't mean you should help create one with your powers of attention, thought, feeling, spoken word, and action.

The Attitude of Gratitude

"M
AN TAKES THE GIFT OF A NEW DAY TOO LIGHTLY
."

—K
UTHUMI

 

There is a powerful force that you can use to keep your feelings positive and attract to you all that is required to be happy. This force is the self-generated feeling of gratitude within the individual. All of us, at one time or another, have indulged in the destructive, self-centered activity of self-pity. We whine and pout that we are not good enough, not pretty enough, not rich enough, not whatever enough, to ever be happy and complete. We do our complaining in heated homes, with full bellies, having almost everything we truly need, while an unexplained force beats our heart and allows us to breathe.

Many people have become numb to what they have and how fortunate they are. While rarely acknowledging the source, we take for granted the abundance in life we receive, and we have a selfish expectation that it will and should always be there for our use. All of us have done so and all of us have experienced the repercussions of "you don't know what you have until it's gone." People who enroll in my longer field courses on primitive living skills and survival skills find out quickly how very challenging it is to get one's needs met from the wilderness. In short, we almost always get our asses kicked and return to civilization with great humility. At the same time, my clients' feelings of gratitude go through the roof. They are filled with thoughts and feelings of thankfulness and truly FEEL, some for the first time in their lives, how fortunate they are, and how very little a human being needs to be happy. Using simplicity and blunt truth, Nature has retaught them to honor what they have and generates within them inner gratitude and appreciation, along with greater personal strength and insight.

The magic of gratitude is that it attracts more abundance into one's life. The very power of heartfelt gratitude freely poured out to the world in acknowledgment for all the gifts you enjoy initiates more wealth. Like attracts like, remember? If you're feeling down in the dumps, put your attention back onto the things in your life that you're thankful for. Hold your attention there and you will feel better as you'll instantly begin to generate uplifting feelings of gratitude and appreciation. The average American will have hundreds of people, places, and things for which they are truly thankful. The vibration of gratitude, and all productive feelings, are tangible, positive forces that will help keep you shielded from many troubles in the first place.

Why am I rambling on about this "esoteric hippy stuff" and not talking about what kind of food and ammo to buy? Please wake up and accept your eventual freedom! Dealing with the
cause
of an emergency is far superior to dealing with its effect.
You are your most important survival tool!
The prevention of emergencies begins with your life and how you choose to use your powers of attention, thought, feeling, speech, and action. Your ultimate safety and security lie in the right use of these powers. You are the master of your own world, so stop complaining, blaming, justifying, and passing the buck. Refuse to buy into other people's fearful nonsense! Refuse acceptance of their limitations. It is only their opinion and
it has no power!
Most of all, refuse to live within a self-generated world of limitation and victimhood. Cowboy up, gently yet firmly correct your self-limitations, and own your power! Psychological self-reliance is truly the cake upon which all preparedness gear is but icing, and you know what happens when you eat too much icing. Survival scenarios are 90 percent psychology and, to a large extent, your psychology dictates your physiology, in which lies the chemical cocktail called stress and fear.

E
stimates claim that nearly 40 percent of Americans will be exposed to a catastrophic event during their lifetime. As you can imagine, such an estimate would be much higher for developing countries around the world. Low-level stress and anxiety will be guaranteed during disasters, and while not yet manifested as full-blown fear or panic, they will psychologically and physiologically affect the body in much the same way.

During and after a disaster, people will display a wide variety of bodily responses: from extreme courage or panic, to disbelief, to total apathy, as they try to process and make sense of the chaos. Survivors (and ultimately their rescuers who may become "secondary victims" from working long hours under hellish conditions) will display various types of physical, emotional, cognitive, and behavioral changes that are decidedly different from their normal mannerisms. Acute feelings of loss, whether the loss is a loved one or a beloved physical object, will play themselves out on the screen of the human psyche in many ways. Some survivors may numb out. They are often called the "walking wounded" and appear dazed and confused, while others seize the moment and exhibit altruism in their assistance to others. Like Forrest Gump's box of chocolates, "you never know what you're gonna get" with your loved ones' behavior after a major catastrophe. Even the most psychologically tough, professionally trained disaster experts are no match for the extremes of what can happen during and after a major calamity. Because of this fact, many emergency response personnel, both civilian and military, have mandatory "debriefs" after traumatic events.

After the disaster has passed, loved ones may exhibit headaches, sleeping problems, apathy and depression, moodiness and frustration, anger, changes in appetite, guilt, isolation, and the feeling of being completely overwhelmed and powerless. Children will especially be influenced by the chaos. They strongly depend on daily routines for normalcy in their lives. They may revert to behavior from their earlier years such as bedwetting, thumb sucking, or having nightmares. They may cry and scream and become clingy, or withdraw altogether into isolation. It's also been reported that some children disassociate from the experience completely, pushing the disaster entirely out of their memory.

Although the focus of this book is mostly physical in nature, concentrating on the goods required to maintain life in the physical form, I have stated several times the supreme importance of maintaining your psychological health. No physical supplies or skills matter if you're a psychological wreck.
After a traumatic experience, it is very important that your family take the time to talk about how they're feeling. Talking with each other
will relieve stress and help everyone know that they are not alone in this predicament. As you communicate with each other,
listen without blame or judgment
. The last thing survivors need is another helping of guilt or more "what if?" scenarios floating through their heads. If you're a lone survivor, either at the start or the finish of a calamity, search out others for communication. Keep busy and stay active but not at the expense of cloaking your feelings that should be shared with others. Take care of your body; give it rest, feed it, and keep it well watered. Survivors that seem hell-bent on saving the world can implode from self-generated stress unless forced to take a break. Any tribe is only as strong as the weakest link, so everyone must watch out for the welfare of everyone else.

Kids are especially vulnerable to survival stresses. Don't let children fall through the cracks and allow you, or them, to ignore their feelings. Talk with them about their feelings and
listen
to what they say. Give kids as much information as they can understand about the emergency: how it happened, that it's over, and that they are now safe. Spend extra time with them and hug and touch them often, reassuring them that the situation is over. Kids will watch you like a hawk to see how you react to an emergency. If you BS them, they will quickly pick up on it, so be honest, but
you must also demonstrate a commanding presence to make them feel like you have things under control. . .even if you feel that you don't
.

Men and women deal with stress differently, and some of the results may surprise you. Don't let mom or Aunt Martha mother everyone else at the expense of her own health. Dad and Uncle Pete may come from a generation that expected men to tough it out and not talk about their feelings. During the Great Depression, it was often my grandmother who kept the hope fires burning as my disheartened grandfather slumped at the barren kitchen table, head in his hands. Be as supportive, tolerant, and loving as you possibly can in this time of strain for the entire family. When everyone knows they're on the same page by having the courage to share like feelings after a disaster, the stress can be carried upon many shoulders, not just a person or two.

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder

Posttraumatic stress disorder
(PTSD) is often thought to only involve combat veterans, but nothing could be further from the truth. PTSD affects hundreds of thousands of people and can be experienced by anyone (research has shown that more females are affected than males) who has undergone or witnessed life-threatening events such as serious accidents, disasters, violent assaults, or war. In fact, 10 percent of the U.S. population has been affected at some point by clinically diagnosable PTSD. In essence, PTSD is a powerful physical and emotional response to reminders of a traumatic event, the effects of which may last for weeks, months, or even years after the initial event.

People at greater risk for developing symptoms of PTSD are those who were "in the middle" of the disaster itself, had multiple stressors at one time, and/or have a past history of trauma. Recent traumas may also trigger old pain and unresolved fears. Events such as direct threats to life, exposure to grisly deaths or maimed bodies, extreme destruction and loss, lack of family support, and the effects of fatigue, hunger, thirst, and sleep deprivation during an extended catastrophe will hammer a person's ability to function.

The symptoms of PTSD can occur years after the traumatic event but usually appear within three months after the incident, and fall into three distinct categories:
reliving, avoidance
, and
hyperarousal
. Reliving refers to "flashbacks" of the past disaster that come up unexpectedly in a person's life. These flashbacks can be mild or severe and can heavily influence an individual's normal lifestyle. Some flashbacks can be so intense that the person will think they are living through the experience all over again during waking hours. Nightmares are also very common. Avoidance is common in people with PTSD, and they will often avoid building or maintaining close relationships with friends or family. They will also go to tremendous lengths to avoid situations that resemble the initial trauma. People with PTSD may have trouble working out their anger, grief, or fear, which can continue to affect their behavior without their being aware of it. People affected may also become hyperaroused and feel constantly threatened by their initial trauma. They may have trouble remembering information, a difficult time concentrating, and a hard time sleeping. Their "fuse" may be short and they may get angry or reactive with little or no provocation.

Statistically, half of those with PTSD recover within three months without formal treatment. People who feel they can't regain control of their lives and who have persistent behavioral changes for more than a month should consider seeking professional mental health assistance.

The Physiological Fear Factory