Survival in a deadly crisis is challenging because of the shock and
unexpectedness of the threat. During the chaotic turmoil of a deadly
emergency some people feel overwhelmed and freeze up. Others panic and
may act in senseless ways that reduce their survival chances. Many
become highly emotional and believe they are going to die. In contrast, a
few people quickly comprehend the reality of the new situation, accept
that they could die but don’t panic, and take action to increase their
chances of surviving.
In real life deadly situations it is wrong
to think that a person will fight to survive at the expense of others.
It is not “either me or you”, it is “both me and you.” Stories of
survivors usually reveal that in the survival turmoil they extend their
coping skills and their commitment to live to those around them. They
reflexively act in ways to keep both themselves and others alive.
Being a survivor in life and death emergencies is an outcome from interacting with everyday life in ways that increase the probability of survival when survival is necessary. The more quickly a person grasps the total picture of what is happening, the better his or her chance for survival. The reading of the reality includes a quick empathy assessment of others in the situation. This includes scanning the emotional states of others in the survival situation to judge how helpful or unhelpful they may be and reading the emotional state of any attackers that may have caused the danger.
Alertness, pattern recognition, empathy, and awareness can be viewed as a sort of “open-brainedness.”
This open-brainedness is a mental orientation that does not impose pre-existing patterns on new
information, but rather allows new information to reshape the person’s mental maps. The person who has the best chance of handling a situation well is usually the one with the best mental maps, the best mental pictures or images, of what is occurring around them.
In contrast, those people who are not able to survive well tend to have incorrect or distorted
constructions of what is happening in the world outside their bodies....<<<Read More>>>...
