Comfort Zone

One of the most dangerous enemy to your sanity in SHTF scenario is lack of the comfort zone - the routine of daily life, understandable mechanics of day to day interaction with the surrounding, ability to fulfill basic needs like hunger, thirst, sleep..
I'd like to point out that lack of food, clean water, or possibility of rest might change your perspective on reality and make you to behave in unexpected way..
I bet many of the readers had experienced lack of basic necessities, but how many of you are able to control your emotions under such duress? How many of you is aware where your anger is coming from and what makes you fear certain, things, thought or actions?

There are a lot strong members here, especially on this forum, I ask you to share your opinion.
Thank You!

Its why you practice so that suddenly spending nights under canvas doesn't scare or put you off your game as its just another part of your life like going down to the bar on a Friday night

reply to post by Maxatoria

Exactly!
I found it very interesting to experience hunger for couple of days and to observe how my body is reacting to the lack of the food and how it affects my mind. Till the certain moment I'm able to "deal" with it, but than it goes bezerk..
But I've noticed as well that when you experience such discomfort next time, your limits are pushed further..
Please don't get me wrong, I don't advocate starving yourself to death, I'm stating that the total survival is not only depending on your body and how it is trained, but also on how trained is your mind....

Meditation is one of your best tools during survival situations.
It can restore your mental and emotional balance and allow to you bear the deprivations that come with such situations.
It is also a key element in awareness and opening your senses to your surroundings.

reply to post by Asktheanimals

Yes,! Thank you!

But what can happen to one who's meditation moment of day became a part of the comfort zone? What if that person has no time for full meditation?
Breathing exercise perhaps?

If you've read FerFal's blog about survivalism as Argentina fell down the ole stink-hole, you may have noticed his point about how much extra spare time you discover, once you are officially unemployed and/or the school is closed during crisis.

He recommends packing a deck of playing cards to deal with the tedium.

I know from personal experience in hunting camp, the tedium of waiting.... Waiting for the rain to let up. Waiting for the storm to break. Waiting for a comrade to pull into camp with the rest of the supplies. Waiting for a group of guys to return from their positions along the south rim so we can redeploy by sunset.

Cards can be silent. There are a thousand games you can play with them. They help strangers socialize, by giving them rules to follow on a group project (the game), yet there is still only one winner, so it remains competitive.

I also pack a Bible, because that suits my personal foundation. Another idea would be a book that has a narrative to it, say Two Years Before the Mast, or Pride and Prejudice. Or you could go with a book like a dictionary, where even sitting for 5 minutes and reading a page or two would be edifying; something like Edible Flora of the Western U.S., or a survival guide would do.

Another idea would be a hymn-book or a book of familiar poetry, that you had studied previously. I am thinking of things that people in prison use to normalize their situations.

A craft would do the trick as well. When I worked in agriculture as a kid, I saw one guy who carried a small block of cedar wood. Every time we were stopped and waiting for something (a load of grain, a delivery of cattle), he had that block of wood out, and was carving a horse for his kid. He worked on it constantly, but in 5 minute increments. Some women might to that with their knitting.

I think a small book or object, that you can begin anywhere, work on it for a minute or two, and then put away quickly would be useful for "normalizing" your situation.

If water is not scarce, sometimes drinking can confuse the body into feeling full.

It is always the best idea to practice drills when creating your contingencies... that way you aren't left surprised that you didn't plan so well.

reply to post by tovenar

He recommends packing a deck of playing cards to deal with the tedium.

I keep one in my BOB. Not only is it self entertainment, but also good for building a relationship with others, if that comes into play.

Originally posted by jazzgul
One of the most dangerous enemy to your sanity in SHTF scenario is lack of the comfort zone - the routine of daily life, understandable mechanics of day to day interaction with the surrounding, ability to fulfill basic needs like hunger, thirst, sleep..
I'd like to point out that lack of food, clean water, or possibility of rest might change your perspective on reality and make you to behave in unexpected way..

There are a lot strong members here, especially on this forum, I ask you to share your opinion.
Thank You!

Re-reading the original post, I think you may have been asking about something else than my previous reply.

Our supplies focus on comfort for the first week. So we have 'comfort foods' for the kids at the top of the food crates: toaster pastries, some non-chocolate candy, some snacks. When little kids are forced to switch to a new diet suddenly, they respond by simply refusing to eat. Of course we are introducing foods like the ones in our stockpiles, but it's difficult and slow; we need preps for right now as well as later on when the kids have an expanded taste palate.

Additionally, we have paper plates and picnic ware for the first 21 meals, as well as moist towelettes and trashbags for the latrine. These are not environmentally sound; but they reduce cleanup effort at a time when you are liable to be scared, bored, and irritated by new food and a total absence of electronica.

Which reminds me, one of the boys has a back-up harmonica, and some juggling balls packed in his go-backpack.

Keeping a journal is a great way to keep perspective and sanity. Soldiers often did this ( as seen in Saving Private Ryan), even though the War Department confiscated them as violations of the Sedition Act.

reply to post by tovenar


Thank You Sir!
All your tips and advices are very valuable, I see you have lot's of experiences and a wonderful ability to share them - this is exactly what I was hoping for

I have some questions if you don't mind.
Imagine the situation turns into something totally unpredicted, your Bobs are gone, your safe place is gone too, but you and your family and friends are relatively safe. Because your escape destination is gone, some of your pears start to freak out... (this is just one of many situations when everything goes not according to plan)
How do you deal with such situation?
How do you "manage" mental crisis of one of your own?

Regarding comfort zone, I have packed a ziplock with trial size shampoos, extra chapsticks, little soaps, little perfumes, things that a guy might barter for his mate to bring back to his camp for her comfort. He might be bartering for something bigger and we may need to sweeten the pot per se. Just thinking it would help our overall situation. I also have a knot tying diagram in with the local maps and bird and edibles books for our region.

Originally posted by jazzgul
reply to post by tovenar

 

Imagine the situation turns into something totally unpredicted, your Bobs are gone, your safe place is gone too, but you and your family and friends are relatively safe. Because your escape destination is gone, some of your pears start to freak out... (this is just one of many situations when everything goes not according to plan)
How do you deal with such situation?
How do you "manage" mental crisis of one of your own?

edit on 22-3-2013 by jazzgul because: grammar

The first thing you should understand is that the organizational structure of Western societies has almost completely flattened out. Industrialization has left us with a legal system and culture that only even recognizes the nuclear family of mom+dad and 2.4 kids. And 40% of nuclear families are headed by a single adult and consist of 1.2 children. The whole concept of extended family doesn't even exist, legally in the USA. It's why the FBI has so much trouble dealing with the genuine mafia.

In the current social order, there is no remedy when someone "goes off the rails," either by homicidal rage, or by having a nervous breakdown. Except for police and politicians, there is no authority above that of a single parent, and the parent has no authority or responsibility for adult children, or more distant relatives. Traditional societies have a much more flexible way of handling the issues.

One major change is that children in the west are socially barred from performing useful work. Industrialized societies have outlawed child labor, other than trivial chores such as taking out the garbage. Very, very few youth even know how to do the dishes by hand. This would all change overnight. Once all food is cooked over a fire, and every dish is washed by hand, then no person will be immune from the task of helping the larger social unit survive.

Without the social, economic, and power structures of Western society, your local community will quickly evolve into something else. With no schools to leave for in the morning, with no "job" for adults to disappear to, the current social roles would disintegrate. Society right now is based on segregating people; specializing by age (school), occupation, etc. Without industrialization, you will work at the same job as your mate--keeping the family alive. And this will change the role of families working together (and falling apart, too).

the whole concept of one's "peers" is a social construct that imagines a group of people with whom you are roughly equal. This is a legal fiction produced by western democracies as they experienced Industrialization and the "Enlightenment" of the 18th century.

Nomadic societies usually have no peers, other than warriors who function as clan headsmen. Except for the alpha male at the top of every family pyramid, (the Latin Pater Familias), everyone else in most human societies is dominant over some persons, and subservient to others. This matters because clan heads bear final responsibility for the misbehavior of their clan members. For example, in many traditional cultures, if your sister gets raped, then you don't call police. You go to your clan head, and he (plus a dozen or so uncles) confronts the head of the perpetrator's clan. The solution is usually a private affair. Prison is not an option.

The thing about nomadic societies is that there is actually very little [internal] violent conflict. If you don't like the way you are being treated, or if you don't like the head of your clan, you just leave. You slip away in the night. If some new member is a problem, then you "ride off without him."

Unlike our own culture, membership in pre-(or post-) -industrial culture is usually voluntary. You merely "change tribes" when you have people you cannot deal with.

I'll add a little mantra that we used to teach to survival students: "Nature provides for all our needs". Think about and you know it's true. Everything you need to live is right there all around you regardless of where you are (the middle of ocean and the arctic not included of course). The people who lived in the area you are once knew how to utilize their environment for food, shelter, medicine, tools and more. It's all still there for us and the more adept survivalists are in constant communion with their environment, taking in messages from the plants, animals, rocks and sky. They all have something to tell us, lessons to teach.

Our comfort zones are defined by our prior experiences. We must willingly put ourselves out in situations to expand our knowledge of what are our needs vs what are our wants. This is a critical lesson to learn in that so much of what we do as modern humans is no longer needs-based but wholly determined by our desires. Simplicity is not always an easy concept to grasp, sometimes our intellect is our worst enemy in defining exactly what is reality.

We are the greatest impediment to accessing those messages. Meditation is key to allowing nature to tell us how to live and what we should be doing in each moment. That may sound a bit strange to some but it is the end point of survival training and the end goal we should be reaching to attain. It is the same connection to the Earth that every aboriginal person had as their birthright. It's our birthright as well but can only be had by living as our ancestors once did. There is no short cut, no easy way to get there which is why few will get to the point of fully internalizing this amazing gift that allows us to survive in the wilderness.

Originally posted by jazzgul
reply to post by Asktheanimals

 

Yes,! Thank you!

But what can happen to one who's meditation moment of day became a part of the comfort zone? What if that person has no time for full meditation?
Breathing exercise perhaps?

with practice one can do "walking meditation" allowing the ability to meditate at anytime regardless of what one is doing or where one is ....

Originally posted by jazzgul
One of the most dangerous enemy to your sanity in SHTF scenario is lack of the comfort zone - the routine of daily life, understandable mechanics of day to day interaction with the surrounding, ability to fulfill basic needs like hunger, thirst, sleep..
I'd like to point out that lack of food, clean water, or possibility of rest might change your perspective on reality and make you to behave in unexpected way..
I bet many of the readers had experienced lack of basic necessities, but how many of you are able to control your emotions under such duress? How many of you is aware where your anger is coming from and what makes you fear certain, things, thought or actions?

There are a lot strong members here, especially on this forum, I ask you to share your opinion.
Thank You!

Your comfort zone is what most have daily, and if you were ever in any of the armed services, you would see that they bring you out of your "comfort" zone all the time in training. It is so you can adapt and overcome.
You should be willing to go out of your comfort zone, get use to things changing, adapt to whatever is thrown at you ...living out of your comfort zone might be a constant thing in the not to distant future...it is not about how much you can take or how hard you can be, its about being able to get back up and continue moving forward...through whatever is in your way...some of us will fail, some of us will be lucky...

Originally posted by Expat888

Originally posted by jazzgul
reply to post by Asktheanimals

 

Yes,! Thank you!

But what can happen to one who's meditation moment of day became a part of the comfort zone? What if that person has no time for full meditation?
Breathing exercise perhaps?

with practice one can do "walking meditation" allowing the ability to meditate at anytime regardless of what one is doing or where one is ....

Tracking is exactly that - a walking meditation. By tracking animals and people we can expand our awareness by using all our senses. Let's say you see some deer tracks in mud, touch the inside to see if the temperature is different from the dirt outside. If so, it's probably cooler than the surrounding ground meaning the track is fresh (due to water being pushed up by the action of the hoof compressing the ground). Use your ears, you may hear the door walking or other animals being disturbed by their passage. Use your sense of smell, some people can smell deer when they've recently passed. This is just a few of the ways you incorporate all your senses while tracking and you do it all without overly analyzing, just taking in the raw information and letting it speak to you.

Tracking is awareness ultimately and is a vital skill for any survivalist. Without knowing what's in your environment you are playing blind mans bluff with your life.