Prepping – Preparing the Mind

You can have the most guns, the biggest stockpile of rice and beans, and all the best shelter, and still not be prepared to survive.

Mindset is the absolute most important thing you have to prepare for an emergency. Whether it’s a zombie apocalypse, a hostile nation bombing us, or a fire in your dryer hose, having the right knowledge and mindset is what will allow you to survive.

It’s easy to figure out infrastructure things. Do you have X number of cans of protein, and X number of bags of carbs? Check. You’re done. Even stuff like first aid is pretty straight forward. The way you take care of a broken leg is going to be largely the same no matter the situation you’re in. It’s less easy to teach yourself how to behave in an emergency.

Years ago, I was a part of St. John Ambulance. When I first joined, I took the standard first aid courses available. I then went on to take more advanced ones. At that point, my captain took me out to events to see how I’d do. The answer was, I did alright on the technical front (I knew what equipment to use, in what order) but I did shitty on the attitude front. It wasn’t that I was squeamish (frankly, doesn’t matter if you can get the job done). It was that my reaction to nerves was to giggle. Let me tell you that most hockey players do not want a giggling young adult female tending to their gaping wounds. I had to find a way to fix it.

My captain was a practical man. He decided to just work it out of me. He took me with him to some of the most brutal scenes I’ve ever witnessed. I’ve held the hand of a woman who was dying because a seatbelt eviscerated her and help was much too far away. I’ve held gauze in the open wound of a hockey player who had his neck slashed accidentally. I’ve ridden on the chest of a man while giving compressions, while being rushed to an ambulance, on the bus, and into the hospital. After a while, I stopped giggling. It wasn’t that any of it became normal. There is no normal when you are dealing with dying people. It’s that I stopped responding with the giggles.

I still giggle, and sometimes cry, and often get shakes. It’s just that those are now my reaction AFTER the emergency is over. During the emergency, I go all deadly calm, I talk softly and move slowly and deliberately, and I get shit done. There’s time for panic and upset after, but when an emergency is … well, emerging, you just Git’er’done.

So how do you train yourself for dealing with emergencies? I’ll admit, boot camp for medics is not a fantastic way to deal with it, and sometimes it’s not effective. My captain could have scared me off (I was barely 18 at the time, and on my own for the first time), or he could have terrified me by dropping me in the deep end. Someone could have ended up dead. But he trusted me, and he trusted himself to handle me if it was necessary. You don’t have my captain, though. So how do you train?

First, get yourself training in a number of different things. For me that’s first aid and spiritual counselling. For you, it might be firearms training and jujitsu. It doesn’t matter; become good at a couple or three things. Martial arts of any kind, from yoga to kung fu, will train you in calming your mind. Learn to meditate. Practice your skill set, and constantly grow it.

While you’re doing that (because that part takes time… years to decades), read. Try The Art of War by Sun Tzu. Also, The Book of Five Rings by Miyamoto Musashi. While I haven’t read it myself, The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene is supposed to be very good. Also consider Kwame Nkrumah’s classic Handbook of Revolutionary Warfare.

In between reading, play chess. Pick up a copy of Settlers of Catan. Find other strategy games and play them with your family. Make teams and work together, each trying to defeat the other. Heck, go play paintball somewhere, and go home splattered with neon paint and bruises, but with knowledge.

And as with everything I talk about in these articles… practice. Do mock drills. Prepare for a power outage by having someone randomly shut off power to the house at the main circuit. Prepare for floods during a bad rain storm (because practicing those skills when it’s nice out is stupid). Practice tactical drills. Learn how to dig a latrine. Practice, then practice some more. Keep doing it. Find out where your soft spots are, like me and my giggling. Identify them now, when we’re in a “not emergency” time, so that you can deal with them, and either change them or eradicate them.

Practice all the time, because when whatever Bad Thing [tm] happens, it’s not going to give you any warning. Learning to think tactically, learning to calm yourself and keep doing whatever needs doing, these are invaluable lessons that will apply to everything you do in the world. It’ll help you in business, in raising your kids, and in learning new skills.

Any other good books to add to the list?