I live in a remote area of Colorado called the Great Sage Plains. Today I looked out over those plains and watched a storm rolling over the mountain range in the distance.
One part of the mountains was in dazzling sunlight. The other was being eaten up by the billowing storm that seemed to come out of nowhere.
I stood there, far away from what was growing in the distance and watched the contrasting beauty as I basked in the warming sun. I considered how vastly different it would be if I were in the midst of the storm.
When we watch from afar, when we're not in the eye of the storm, it's easy to wonder what we would do. When we're in the storm, it can be challenging to keep our bearings to survive what's at hand.
In today's world, we are experiencing environmental storms, financial storms, educational storms, employment storms, health storms. You name it; we're in it.
In Ben Sherwood's "The Survivor's Club", a book about who beats the odds in life and who surrenders, he shares that there are two numbers the U.S. Air Force believes can help save your life: 98.6 degrees, your core body temperature and the number 3.
"The Rule of 3 states that you cannot survive: 3 seconds without spirit and hope, 3 minutes without air, 3 hours without shelter in extreme conditions; 3 days without water; 3 weeks without food; 3 months without companionship or love."
"Three seconds without spirit and hope."
I looked back at the brewing storm now bearing down on us at a frightening pace. It seemed I was about to get my wish wondering if I would behave differently in the midst of the storm than while watching it. I began to prepare for it to hit. If we believe we will make it through a crises, it affords us the opportunity to shine in the moment of crises. If we believe we will make it through. This is key. How often do we behave differently is we forget to commit to making it through? How easily do we succumb to fear?
I was drilled in battening down the hatches and proceeded to do just that. Did I include this newly acquired number one basic in survival must-haves? Did I check in with my spirit to see how high it was? Or my level of hope to consider whether everything would be OK?
Not consciously.
Thoughts about spirit and hope seemed to be niggling just below the surface of my busy actions. I had not yet put my full attention on them as I had, for example, our food reserves. But if I went back to Sherwood's list, it said I could survive much longer without food than I could without spirit or hope. My storm survival kit needed an upgrade.
I looked back at the mountain, which was now completely engulfed by the storm. I felt my heart sink. This storm was quite unexpectedly significant. It looked different from anything I had experienced thus far. Which meant that my preparations may not be enough for what was coming. I wondered, could my spirit really make a difference in how I could weather this? Everything indicated I may benefit from a new addition to my preparations.
Could I, would I, take that chance to add in something new now?
I recalled a time when I was in a windstorm that hit us at 70 miles an hour. I thought our roof was going to rip right off. Living in nature as I do constantly reminds me how vulnerable we are.
Being vulnerable can allow us a different sense of aliveness.
It can be a doorway to great discovery and change if it is understood as a survival mechanism. It is precisely in times of crises that that we have the opportunity to do things differently. We can see more opportunities if we acknowledge our vulnerability. It can seem like a paradox. On the one hand, being vulnerable exposes us to potentially being harmed. On the other hand if we deny our vulnerability, we shortchange ourselves in gathering whatever resources, especially new ones, we need to in those moments of vulnerability.
Vulnerability is a key survival mechanism. It is a critical tool necessary in times of unrelenting storms like those we are experiencing on all fronts in our world now.
In the melee of ever changing environments are, it behooves us to develop our survival skills, to allow for "the new" so we are able to adapt and change with the environments that can unexpectedly bear down upon us turning a sunny day into a raging storm.
Changing how we view vulnerability, seeing it as a survival mechanism rather than as a weakness, is a step in how we can to navigate precarious environments.
Allowing ourselves even some vulnerability can allow us to connect to our own spirit and hope, or greater levels of it when we find ourselves suddenly in the eye of the storm.
As the storm I had been watching grew closer, I checked our food reserves. I could not predict how long it would last. But I knew I had enough basics to get us through the initial shock. Then I checked on my emotional reserves. I decided to bring in extra spirit and hope. Not only was it free, there was plenty of it. I noticed as I increased my hope, my fear diminished and my spirit grew stronger. As my fear decreased, my thinking got clearer, so I was better equipped to face and navigate the dangers of the impending storm.
Cynics might dismiss the simplicity of perceiving spirit and hope as key survival tools. However, the original cynics based their entire philosophy on living life simply.
In the onslaught of all the recent storms -- environmental, social, financial, educational, health -- we have simple, powerful tools available to us that can help us survive the storms that rage around us: spirit and hope.
Sometimes we need help. Sometimes we find ourselves in unexpectedly vulnerable circumstances. Sometimes we need to be vulnerable and place our trust in someone else to help us out of those circumstances. And sometimes that someone else is ourself. Our circumstances may be outside our control. Our vulnerability and how we manage it, is not. We could get swept away in the eye of the storm. Or we could use our spirit and hope as navigational tools to get us through.
Which will you choose next time you're in the eye of the storm?