The Survival Weekly Dispatch - Volume 10, Issue 29

I'm still on the green side of the grass....

Hey everyone, thanks for checking out the newsletter this week. I’m getting a little stronger and healthier every day. While I still missed the hike this past weekend, I’ve gone along on the dog walk the last couple of mornings. Sometime this week, we’re hoping to visit IKEA to help our daughter-in-law pick out a few things, so that’ll definitely be an endurance test, LOL.

On the work front, in the last week I turned in all of the edited articles for Prepper Survival Guide 20, which will be out in stores in October. I also sent out assignments to my writers for Backwoods Survival Guide 25, which you won’t see until December. On top of that, I’m back to posting on Patreon.

One of my goals is to make a concerted effort to spend more time each day reading, both educational and recreational. I’ve always been an avid reader, but in the last few years I’ve slowed down considerably. I’m trying to reverse that trend. To that end, I decided to revisit the Survivalist series by Dr. Arthur Bradley. This series is not to be confused with the classic paperback one by Jerry and Sharon Ahern. I started reading it several years ago, but never finished it. So, I’m starting at the beginning with #1 – Frontier Justice. After I finish the series, I might go back and reread the entire Ahern series as well.

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Late last week, I discovered someone had hacked my primary email account. The overall damage was minimal, as I was lucky to catch it right away. The first inkling something was amiss was a notification from one of my video streaming subscriptions that the password had been changed, and things went south from there.

This is your reminder to change your passwords regularly and don’t use easy to guess words or phrases. Make them work for it and use numbers, upper- and lower-case letters, and symbols. The more random it is, the better.

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We watched 65 on Netflix for our family movie night last Saturday. For those not familiar, the gist is that a spacecraft carrying cryogenically frozen passengers from a distant galaxy crashes on Earth 65 million years ago. There are two survivors, the pilot and one of the passengers, a young girl about nine years old. They need to get to a rescue pod that’s about 10 miles from their crash site. Along the way, they encounter a number of dinosaurs that are looking to turn them into lunch.

We thought it was a decent enough flick. The effects were passable, though they didn’t quite rise to Jurassic Park level. I have no idea how accurate the dinosaur population was, given the timeframe, nor do I much care. It just isn’t that kind of movie, y’know? It didn’t really break any new ground, but it was a fun 90 minutes or so. It is a great popcorn flick.

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This is something I wrote a few years back and I like to share it from time to time, as I think it is good for new folks to hear it, as well as a good reminder for those who have been at this whole prepping thing for a while.

If there is a single bit of advice I could pass along to my fellow survivalists and preppers, it is this -- be realistic. Understand that while working hard to increase your abilities is important, it is just as critical to understand your limitations. If you plan to bug out on foot, for example, and you get winded walking to the mailbox, odds are a journey of 250 miles isn't going to end well for you. Sure, once upon a time you could manage 20+ miles a day while humping a ruck. That was 30 years and 95 pounds ago.

I've lost count of the number of preppers I've met who have a good supply of heirloom seeds and plan to feed their family with what they grow but have never gardened before in their lives. They figure they'll just dig up a garden patch in the backyard, drop the seeds in the ground, and a few weeks later reap the bounty. It really doesn't work like that!

Or the ones who have stockpiled a ton of gold and silver rounds, booze, and candy, figuring they will just barter for whatever they need after a collapse. While planning for trade isn't a bad idea, sort of like hedging your bet, the whole point of prepping is to have what you need ahead of time rather than relying upon anyone else to have enough extra to share.

Or those who have invested in enough armaments to equip a small nation and plan to just...liberate...supplies as necessary from neighbors and such. This isn't Hollywood and you aren't Jason Statham or Dwayne Johnson.

Survival skills, like any other skill set, are perishable. They require regular practice to remain in good working order. Learn from your mistakes while you have the luxury of making them with little to no risk. Know your limitations while working to overcome them. Adjust your plans as you go along, taking into account your slowly increasing abilities. Think about it like this - a year from now, you'll wish you'd started today.

Above all else, though, examine your plans with an objective eye and give some thought as to how realistic they are. Adjust and adapt as necessary.

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As I mentioned, I missed out on the hike once again. But here’s a photo from one I took a while ago.

Survival Tip – Psychology

[Note: This is an edited version of an article that first appeared in Backwoods Survival Guide magazine.]

The single most important survival tool you possess resides between your ears. Your mind is far more powerful than any gadget or bit of gear you could carry in a pack. In fact, you could possess the entire contents of a high-end sporting goods store and still perish if you convince yourself that you aren’t going to make it.

However, it isn’t always as simple as just deciding you’re going to make it, though that is definitely involved. There are several facets to the survival mindset.

Positive Thinking

Mindset is crucial because the body will follow the mind. Repeat something to yourself enough times and your brain will make it happen. Let’s say you’re hiking around a lake. You’ve been conditioning your body for the last several months and you’re in decent shape, but that last mile or two, you’re really feeling it. You start thinking, “I can’t do this, not today. I’m too tired, my legs are rubber, it just isn’t going to happen.”

Guess what? You’re probably right. Time and again, we’ve found that our minds can do some pretty interesting things, but not all of them are to our benefit. Even if our body is entirely capable of finishing those last couple of miles on that trail, if the brain tells the legs they’re done, you’re dead in the water.

However, the reverse is also true. We can pull off some pretty incredible feats, if we put our minds to it. When the chips are down, that’s when you need to concentrate on the power of positive thinking. Repeat to yourself that you’re going to succeed, that you’ve overcome worse situations or conditions, that you will make it home and see your loved ones again. Concentrate on that and you just may find that things are starting to look up.

While some folks seem to have an innate ability to always see the positive and land on their feet, regardless of the situation, many people don’t have that luxury. Instead, any time you face some sort of negative experience, get into the habit of telling yourself that it is going to be okay, that it will all work out. Don’t concentrate on the bad things that happen, think about how strong you were when you were able to overcome them.

Anger Helps

With some people, anger can be a great motivator, if you keep it under control. Use the emotion but don’t let it use you. This is where ego can come into play. How dare the fates decide to test you! You’re going to show them, and the world, just what happens when somebody messes with you.

However, the downside is, if you let anger run the show, you run the risk of making snap decisions that may not be in your favor. Further, a violent temper is rarely an asset, so keep your hands off your gear while you rant and rave, lest you end up breaking something or hurting yourself.

If you’re with a partner or group, be very conscious of where you direct your anger, too. Alienating those who should be your allies is not a great idea.

Preps Lend Confidence

An unseen and often unrealized bonus of having gear and supplies with you in a crisis is that it can give you a degree of peace of mind. For example, let’s say you severely twist your ankle while you’re on a solo hike in a remote area. The sun is going down fast and the temperature is also dropping. Your cell phone has no signal and nobody is expecting to hear from you for at least a couple of days. No way around it, you’re not going anywhere until morning, at best.

This could be a fairly serious situation and fear is a very natural response. But, knowing you have emergency equipment in your pack, along with the skills needed to use them effectively, can give you confidence that you’re going to see the sun come up again. This, in turn, plays into that positive thinking we mentioned earlier. Believe you’re going to survive, that you’re going to prevail, and you will.

Adaptability

One of the most important subsets of the survival mindset is being able to adapt to changes in your situation. Many times, we get focused on a single track or plan and, when it doesn’t pan out, we freeze up. We literally stop in our tracks because we don’t know what to do. Think of it like going on a road trip. You’ve planned out the route and you’re tooling along in your car when suddenly there’s a detour sign. The road ahead is closed. Now what? It can be easy to make that decision when you’re just out for a leisurely drive. Pick a direction and keep on trucking. Worst case scenario, you end up seeing part of the town or countryside you’ve never visited before.

But, let’s say this happens when you’re running late for a job interview. Add in that pressure and suddenly making decisions can be much more difficult. You could get locked into an endless loop of envisioning outcomes, with each of them seeming worse than the last.

Now, go a step further and instead of being late to an interview, you’re facing what feels like the very real threat of death. Once you make a plan, you might be terrified to deviate from it the least little bit, in case doing so might lead to a very negative outcome.

Instead, we need to be able to roll with the changes and adapt or adjust our plans to fit. In a true survival situation, any plan of action needs to be fluid rather than locked. There are almost inevitably going to be things that come up that were unexpected.

Go with the flow as best you can, provided it doesn’t place you in even more danger. Getting upset and distressed because the plan didn’t quite work is just a waste of energy. And in a survival situation, energy needs to be conserved whenever possible.

Strength of Will

Strength of will is a single-minded determination that you will overcome any obstacles, that you will do whatever it takes, to make it home safely. While it sort of ties in with positive thinking, this is a more base-level response. Think of positive thinking as being your own cheerleader, whereas strength of will is the athlete competing on the field.

You must be convinced, down to a molecular level, that nothing can stop you. This can be difficult, especially if the situation is prolonged. Depression, frustration, even guilt can all gnaw away at you, causing you to second-guess what you’ve done and any plans you make going forward. You need to save the self-recriminations for later. If you have to, make a bargain with yourself. Agree that you’ll go through all the, “getting in touch with your feelings” after you’ve survived and returned to normal life.

The survival mindset isn’t necessarily something that comes easy to everyone. The different aspects need to be learned, understood, and practiced as best as possible.

Prepper Survival Guide and Backwoods Survival Guide

For those new to my little corner of the Internet, I am the Editor in Chief for both Prepper Survival Guide and Backwoods Survival Guide magazines. Here are the covers for the current issues that are available in stores right now. 

You can find them just about anywhere magazines are sold, including:

• Walmart

• Sam's Club

• Costco

• Publix

• Walgreens

• Rite Aid

• CVS

• Tractor Supply

• Fleet Farm

• Barnes & Noble

At this time, there are no subscriptions available. Both magazines are newsstand only and print only, no electronic editions.  

Questions, Comments, Complaints, Concerns?

I am always just an email away - jim@survivalweekly.com.