About Deep Survival
 
    When Aaron Ralston's hand was trapped by a boulder in a canyon in Utah, he was forced to cut it off to save his life. This galvanized the attention of the world because we all secretly wondered: Would I be able to do that?

    What does it take to survive? Do we all have it in us? Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why, provides some startling answers to these questions for people facing any sort of major crisis, from being lost in the wilderness to the death of a loved one.

    Although Deep Survival analyzes many remarkable cases of survival in the wilderness, people suffering from serious illness or recovering from addiction have already adopted it as a metaphorical framework for understanding what they're going through and what the keys to a successful outcome are. By analyzing cases in which people have survived against seemingly impossible odds, often with no equipment or training, we see that there is an intangible quality of attitude, a set of psychological and emotional skills built over a lifetime, that ultimately determine how well we survive life's big challenges.

    Most people are surprised to learn that survival isn't a battle and that the winners aren't always the toughest people. Rather it is a spiritual journey, and it's remarkably similar for all of us, whether it plays out in the wilderness, in a cancer ward, in a prison camp, in the executive boardroom, or in a recovery group.

    The clear message in Deep Survival about who lives and who dies is this: “It's not what's in your pack that separates the quick from the dead. It's not even what's in your mind. Corny as it sounds, it's what's in your heart.”

Here are some excerpts from Deep Survival that may make a difference in your life.

     – On responsibility and the survivor: “He doesn't blame others. He takes responsibility for himself.” Whiners, people who always blame others and expect to be rescued, do not make good survivors.

     – “Survivors discover a deep spiritual relationship to the world.” People who are deeply connected to family, friends, and the activities in their lives, people who are passionate about life, make better survivors. In speaking of how he managed to keep two people from committing suicide in Auschwitz, Viktor Frankl says it “was a question of getting them to realize that life was still expecting something from them; something in the future was expected of them. We found, in fact, that for the one it was his child whom he adored and who was waiting for him in a foreign country. For the other it was a thing, not a person. This man was a scientist and had written a series of books that still needed to be finished. His work could not be done by anyone else, any more than another person could ever take the place of the father in his child's affections.”

     – Survivors look back on their journey, even with all its suffering, and they cherish it. Lance Armstrong said, “Cancer was the best thing that ever happened to me.”

     – “Gratitude, humility, wonder, imagination, and cold, logical determination: those are the survivor's tools of mind.” Viktor Frankl wrote, “We were grateful for the smallest mercies... how content we were; happy in spite of everything.”

     – Survivors do not let themselves be overwhelmed by the seeming impossibility of the task they face. Steve Callahan drifted 1800 miles for 76 days on the open ocean in a five-foot raft: “He knew that to think of the impossibility of drifting there would excite dangerous emotions. Instead, he planned only as far as the following morning. By not thinking of the almost certain death that would result... he was keeping himself from despair and panic. So he set up a small, attainable goal. To act is human, to succeed, crucial.”

     – Under extreme stress, the mind begins to split. Reason and emotion seem to separate. “Nearly all survivors report hearing what they call ‘the voice.’ It tells them what to do. It is the speaking, rational side of the brain, the one that processes language, the wellspring of reason.” Lance Armstrong describes his own experience of this: “I began to talk to it, engaging in an inner conversation with cancer... In the sound of my own inner voice I heard an unfamiliar note: Uncertainty.”

     – Survivors of all sorts report having what can almost be called a vision during the spiritual transformation that saves their lives. Bill W., the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, wrote, “Suddenly the room lit up with a great white light. It seemed to me, in the mind's eye, that I was on a mountain and that a wind not of air but of spirit was blowing. And then it burst upon me that I was a free man... Slowly the ecstasy subsided. I lay on the bed, but now for a time I was in another world, a new world of consciousness.”

     – Compare this from Deep Survival, concerning a mountaineer stuck in a crevasse: “Still hanging on his rope, Simpson began to experience a sense of wonder and even joy at his environment, that same spiritual and mystical transformation reported by many other survivors. It is always followed by a certainty of survival and a renewed commitment. With dawn came light, and with light came revelation: ‘A pillar of gold light beamed diagonally from a small hole in the roof, spraying bright reflections off the far wall of the crevasse. I was mesmerized by this beam of sunlight burning through the vaulted ceiling from the real world outside... I was going to reach that sunbeam. I knew it then with absolute certainty.’”

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     – And Lance Armstrong wrote of his experience on a training ride up a mountain while coming back from cancer: “As I continued upward, I saw my life as a whole. I saw the pattern and the privilege of it, and the purpose of it, too. It was simply this: I was meant for a long, hard climb... I passed the rest of the trip in a state of near-reverence for those beautiful, peaceful, soulful mountains.”

     – Even–or perhaps especially–in Auschwitz, people found cause to laugh. Why is humor so important to survival? “Laughter stimulates the left prefrontal cortex, an area in the brain that helps us to feel good and to be motivated. That stimulation alleviates anxiety and frustration. There is evidence that laughter can send chemical signals to actively inhibit the firing of nerves in the amygdala, thereby dampening fear. Laughter, then, can help to temper negative emotions.”

     – Just as you can become lost in the woods, you can become lost in business or in a relationship: “If he'd been able to reason more clearly, he could have understood that he was not on the correct route. But logic was rapidly being pushed into the background by emotion and stress. So, by the simple act of putting one foot in front of the other, he was about to cross over from mild geographical confusion to a state of being genuinely lost. The stages of getting lost resemble the five stages of dying described by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, the psychologist who wrote On Death and Dying: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.”

     – Why is humility so important? “The practice of Zen teaches that it is impossible to add anything more to a cup that is already full. If you pour in more tea, it simply spills over and is wasted. The same is true of the mind. A closed attitude, an attitude that says, ‘I already know,’ may cause you to miss important information. Zen teaches openness. Survival instructors refer to that quality of openness as ‘humility.’” This attitude of knowing that we don't know can help us keep from getting lost–whether in life or in the woods.

     – Progress not perfection: Even those who survive the impossible are still only human. “That final stage in the process of being lost can prove to be either a beginning or an end. Some give up and die. Others stop denying and begin surviving. You don't have to be an elite performer. You don't have to be perfect. You just have to get on with it and do the next right thing.”

     – Good survivors avoid self-pity. Concerning a 17-year-old girl lost in the Peruvian jungle: “She deduced that, even the helicopters and airplanes she could hear wouldn't be able to see her through the jungle canopy. She'd have to get herself out. It was another important moment: She didn't spend time bemoaning her fate. She looked to herself, took responsibility, made a plan.”

     – Survivors always report that they were doing it for someone else, not just themselves. Bill W. on the value of helping others: “...our common means of deliverance are effective for ourselves only when constantly carried to others...” From Deep Survival: ”Helping someone else is the best way to ensure your own survival. It takes you out of yourself. It helps you to rise above your fears. Now you're a rescuer, not a victim.”

     – Survivors are good at acceptance. They accept the world they're in, the challenge they face. Concerning what I learned in survival school: “I could not change the world; I could only change myself. To see and know that world, then, was the key to surviving it. I had to accept the world in which I found myself. I had to calm down and begin living. As with the Zen disciplines, the archery and martial arts, the practice of such skills could move perceptions and physical experiences into a place where I could calmly take correct action.” Viktor Frankl wrote, “When we are no longer able to change a situation... we are challenged to change ourselves.”

    In summary: “The outcome of a survival situation depends largely on your mental, emotional, and physical condition and activities. Everyone who meets catastrophe or challenge and survives it through his or her own actions goes through an initial transformation from victim to survivor, and also follows a well-defined pattern of mental emotional checks, controls, actions, and transformations. Those activities, such as the split of the rational from the emotional self and the sudden, almost blinding insight that one is going to live, are far more important in predicting survival than any particular skill, training, or equipment. Those mental processes and transformations reflect actual brain activity that scientists are just beginning to understand. Everyone has finite resources going into a catastrophe. It is in managing those resources and taking advantage of every bit of luck that comes along that survivors have been able to bring out their stories.”

Laurence Gonzales is Contributing Editor for National Geographic Adventure magazine. The author of numerous other books, he has written for Harper's, Outside and Men's Journal, to mention a few.