I've been thinking about survival again, both physical and psychological. It's impossible to predict who will survive a blizzard on Everest, or being castaway at sea or lost in a forest - any one of so many possibilities for being stranded and possibly hurt. But there are certain traits that all survivors share: an ability to come right into the moment and see the reality of what's happened and what in front of them needs to be done first. Staying calm, even when there's fear and anger. An assumption of responsibility, not looking for someone else to save them or someone to blame. Breaking things down to small, doable tasks. Believing they will succeed at the same time they're ready to accept whatever will happen. Being grateful they're alive. Aware of nature and its beauty.
While these are things that will help you survive accidents and natural disasters, they are also the stuff of psychological survival and spiritual growth. Come into the present. Find a place of refuge inside so you can let go of fear and anger. Take responsibility. Do what you can do on any given day. Open yourself to the beauty of this world. Have faith. Practice acceptance.
It's not surprising that all kinds of survivors have so much in common. No matter what we're facing, it's our hearts and spirits that determine the outcome. The good news is that all of them can be cultivated. We can keep them in mind as we go through the day, and as we go though whatever life brings.
The other day something reminded me of what I used to call my terminal self-consciousness. It was as if there was a camera in the ceiling recording my every move and I worried constantly about how I was doing. Sometimes, I felt I was lurking behind my eyes, looking out at everyone and everything, assessing. What did this person think of me? Was this the person I should be talking to, instead of someone else across the room? That person is wearing the wrong shoes so I should get away as fast as I can.
The camera in the ceiling, the lurking behind my eyes - nothing happened without my constant worry that I would be seen in the wrong way, or reveal something shameful, or be found wanting by the cool people, whoever they were. It was all about judgment, judging myself and all the rest of you. It was exhausting but I couldn't rest - judging others and being afraid others were judging me kept me very busy.
I couldn't be in my body and I couldn't be in the world. In that self-consciousness, I didn't see anything apart from myself. Everyone was an object that revolved around me. I didn't understand it was narcissism; how could I be narcissistic if I was afraid all the time and condemned just about everything I did?
I couldn't survive in that place. In a way, it was a matter of life and death - self-consciousness and its friend ambivalence would have taken me down, stripped my life of pleasure, enjoyment, the freedom to create. Desperation made me willing to surrender, just surrender all the anxiety, judgment and second-guessing. You take it, I said to the universe, because this is killing me.
I can narrate some of the steps in my changing. Surrender created a sliver of space in which I began to understand that my terminal self-consciousness and reflexive judging weren't standing on anything solid; they were habits of thought, ephemeral patterns of behavior that were just passing across my vision. I saw that they weren't "reality," whatever that was, and there was at least the possibility that reality might be something different. Surrender, hope, willingness became my building blocks and their solidity gave the courage to untie the knots inside. A slow process began, one that's still going on, and I hope it will always go on because I will never come to the end of the possibilities of getting free.
I can narrate the steps of this process, but I don't know why it came to me. It's not because I'm special or more deserving that anyone else. I can see that at every step I made the right choice, the one that would lead me on toward change, and I can see that I was willing to stay in the process, not matter how painful or frightening it was. But I don't feel I can take much credit. I didn't make something happen. Something happened to me.
I was talking about grace this morning which William James defines as a sudden inrush of energy, energy that seems to come from outside us, beyond the confines of our consciousness. I have felt that energy many times and when it was most needed. The energy of grace has kept me moving on.
A few years ago, I was obsessed with reading survivor memoirs and stories - people lost at sea or in the desert or jungle or up a mountain at 22000 feet. After a while I began to see certain traits and actions survivors have in common and when I read Laurence Gonzales' wonderful book, Deep Survival, about the psychology of survival, it confirmed what I had thought.
Survivors stay calm. They have an ability to come quickly into the moment, to take stock of where they and what they have and to begin to act. They may think it would be great if someone came to save me, but that idea goes quickly into the background. They are responsible, look to no one but themselves. Their senses sharpen and even in the midst of crisis many survivors talk about looking out at the natural world, its beauty, with a sense of wonder.
A survivor doesn't say, "I have to crawl three miles down the mountain - how can I do it with a broken leg?" She says, "I only have to make it to that rock over there." Coming into the moment and not looking beyond it, breaking things down into small possible goals - along with some luck, of course - don't guarantee survival, but they do increase the odds.
Of course, I asked myself why I was so obsessed with these stories. I realized that what most amazed me was how survivors keep going, even when they're perfectly aware the odds are against them. Some of the survivors I read about talked about the body taking over; if for instance they had to crawl down that mountain, the repetitive motion of step after step put them in a kind of trance in which pain seemed beside the point. There was no thought except to take the next step.
I couldn't help but ask how I would do in that situation. Once I asked that question, I saw what I was after in these stories. I wanted to know about endurance, the ability to keep on taking step after step. Most people, I think, imagine themselves as the hero, as the one who will come out alive. But I wanted to know because I wasn't at all sure I could do it, not at all sure I had the right stuff. I remembered the many times I'd given up trying, sometimes small things that didn't have much consequence, but also some big things as well. I was looking for inspiration, for hope that it might turn out that in a crisis I might be able to survive.
Evidently, you can't predict beforehand who will survive. There are many surprises. But now I have those stories in my head and I know some of the things that help people endure. It isn't hard to see that those qualities aren't about only physical survival; they're as much a help to emotional and spiritual survival as well. They're a kind of blueprint deep inside me. Now I can at least imagine that I wouldn't give up trying to survive.
I'm fascinated by stories of people who find spiritual freedom in the most unfree of circumstances. For a while, I read everything I could find - books by concentration camp survivors, prison memoirs, stories of people who had survived the imprisonment of poverty and disease. I was looking for examples of survival; I needed to know that it's always possible to emerge out of despair into a sense of freedom My actual circumstances were nowhere near as dire as those of the men and women I was reading about. I had food and shelter and freedom of motion. But I felt myself imprisoned by fear and self-loathing and the particular kind of hopelessness that told me nothing good could ever come.
I needed to know that there is always the possibility of getting. I was desperate to feel that possibility, to believe there was something that would help me leave depression and fear behind. I wanted to believe that my human spirit, like the spirits of the people I read about, could transcend suffering and let go of fear.
I know now from direct experience what that letting go feels like. When suffering cuts deep enough, the body and the spirit must make a choice - either to go under and face annihilation, or to let loose the survival instinct that's in all of us. It's that instinct which finds a way out of suffering and moves us toward the solace we seek, even if we don't understand it and have no faith at all. Spirit wants expansion and freedom. It wants to be set on fire. Strike a match and watch the light grow. Survive.
