Surviving v Thriving

Thriving in Survival Situations

It is that time we get to reflect on the year that has passed and plan for the next. As many of you know, I am a Survival and Resilience Instructor and have been helping train our personnel in Survival for the past 3 years.

Having been through some tough patches, I came to the role, having served in combat roles in the Middle East and returning to that environment as a Contractor. Working in hostile and austere environments became a normal environment for me. Watching the footage of the conflict in Ukraine and Gaza brings back memories of the tough regimes that we would have to go through to survive.

But it was in these environments where the more seasoned of us began to thrive, it became second nature to check and clean your kit and equipment, to run drills and to search the areas you would lie up and rest. Those who didn't learn to adapt and thrive in these environments would soon return home either exhausted and demoralised or potentially in a body bag.

I look back at how far we had come at the peak of our careers, some very highly trained people, with great experience and a huge amount of self-motivation to get things done in the face of the adversity and absurdity of conflict.

I guess this is why I bring so much to teaching and delivering survival training, I have witnessed first-hand the wheels falling off and how the most unlikely team members come to the fore to save lives and get people rescued.

The Survival Priorities - Protection, Location, Water, Food

Put me in an austere, remote and or dangerous environment and I thrive. I can deal with injuries, whether that be myself or others. I can muster resources to build a shelter and make fire, I can source and treat water to make it potable and I can forage and hunt delicious food.

These skills are great to have in the extremely unlikely event that you end up isolated from civilisation or things have gone south and we find ourselves in some mad max post-apocalyptic nightmare.

So what is the point of Survival Training?

This is where I have, to be honest, some of the most difficult and austere environments I have faced are right here at home and what you would think would be a benign and safe environment.

My decision to return to the Middle East as a Contractor was a result of not being able to make ends meet after service here in the UK. Working 90-hour weeks juggling two jobs and barely seeing my family to just about make rent was a survival situation in itself.

Since recovering from my injuries in 2013 I have made a few mistakes that have affected my life. These metaphorical bear traps lurk everywhere in modern society and can range from, marital breakdown, losing a job, being ripped off, a bereavement, you name it they are out there and there is sometimes very little training or forewarning of the chaos they can cause.

I found it easy to thrive in a survival situation and have barely survived where people thrive!

I remember a talk by Peter Moore, an IT consultant who was held hostage in Iraq. He explained that the best training he had for his isolation was his time as a student. He spoke about barely being able to make ends meet and living on pot noodles for the rest of the month in a cold bedsit.

Although I experienced hunger while on operations in the military, I never really knew real hunger and desperation until I had lost it all and found myself living in a bedsit with empty cupboards and waiting for my next paycheque.

It can be these times when we find ourselves reaching for the crutch to get us through the tough times. I spent quite a lot of my military career drunk, mostly because I hated the monotony and utter bullshit of life between operational tours.

In tough times the use of recreational products increases, including alcohol, tobacco, soft and hard drugs, gambling, porn etc. All giving a short-term reprieve and escape from the situation that is being faced.

But the long-term repercussions can be catastrophic, addiction, and poor mental and physical health. All of which can be magnified when we are already in an unstable situation.

Surviving to Thrive in 2024

The last three years in the UK have been one of real change, the cost of living has spiralled and the country is dipping into recession. Many factors have affected this including BREXIT, Conflict in Ukraine and The Middle East, the Management of the COVID-19 pandemic and above all Corruption and mismanagement by the Elites within our Government.

The people who are affected the most are the working middle, those who earn and pay the biggest taxes and are in the "sweet spot". The last time the UK experienced something like this was as far back as the early 1980s some 40 years ago and something I vaguely remember.

Adapting to a new environment

In survival, we talk about adapting to our environment. If we do not do this then we will waste unnecessary energy and resources and fail to attend to one or more of our survival priorities. So let us look at our survival priorities in a domestic context-

PROTECTION

The things that are going to keep us safe -

• A roof over our heads, with 4 walls and a door that we can lock to keep the predators out.
• Clean Clothing and Bedding.
• An Income (something not needed in the wild) could be a salary, benefit, bursary, or donation.
• Staying Healthy, - Wash, Exercise and Rest.

LOCATION

• Is where you live safe, how permanent or sustainable is the accommodation? (The UK housing crisis has created opportunities for unscrupulous landlords who provide accommodation unfit for human habitation|).
• Can you find work where you live (a lot of workers have to commute to other towns for higher salaries to be able to afford to live in less affluent areas)?
• Are there Family, Friends and Colleagues near you (a support network)?
• Near to Hospital, Community Centres?
• Near to public transport if you do not drive or can no longer afford a car

WATER

• The UK is currently one of very few countries that do not cut off your water supply if you do not pay the rates, the water companies can however take you to court for non-payment.

FOOD

• The cost of food has risen exponentially over the last 3 years
• Eating out and Takeaway food has risen 27% in the last 2 years
• Can you shop somewhere cheaper
• The cheapest items are non-processed foods, fruit and vegetables
• Food Banks can assist people and are accessible on a case-by-case basis

Debt

Try your best not to get into debt, living within our means is a skill we seem to have paid lip service to over the last couple of decades. A rise in social media influence and the desire to achieve the lifestyles of those better off have placed us in difficult situations.

Social pressures within community groups also place pressure on us to stretch our finances to meet the perceived expectations of others. This event is happening here and the Smiths are providing X and we should all provide Y, be brave enough to say NO sorry I can't.

One thing I have noticed in tough times is those who make a quick buck out of it, the opportunists and the ones who are thick-skinned enough to cash in on others' misfortune, look at the rise in pawn brokers and payday loan companies.

Short-term debt is the quickest way to the bottom and for those living in the margins, any sort of buffer is better than none at all.

Plan to Survive

PROTECTION - LOCATION - ACQUISITION - NAVIGATION

As SAS Survival Expert Lofty Wiseman espouses, we must plan to survive. Living in a state of crisis leads to poor decision-making. But having goals and breaking the cycle will help us push to a safer and more prosperous place.

Create Goals

Have daily, weekly or monthly goals, it could be as simple as can I spare 10 minutes to plan how to make tomorrow more productive, can I make this ￡40 last the week, can I get to the end of the month and pay all of my direct debits without at least one of them bouncing back, or what can I cancel this month.

But what if I don't achieve them?

Don't beat yourself up, there may have been something that side-swiped you. Your car failed its MOT or you had that parking ticket because you couldn't afford 3hrs and only 2. Maybe next time I will park out of town and walk in.

Above all

DON'T BREAK THE LAW

When I went on the run on Hunted, one of the biggest hurdles to me escaping and surviving was to do it without breaking the law. I guess that is why surviving in the wild is much easier than living in a normal society. If I build a shelter and have a big fire I would be charged with trespass. If I foraged and hunted without a licence or permission I would be charged with theft, and the list goes on.

Some Veterans find themselves in difficult times, homeless and getting caught up in criminal activity. These few have weighed up their options and decided that the dark side is the best use of their skills, I know guys who have, robbed, dealt drugs, enforced gangs, acted as armourers, smuggled drugs from South America you name it. I guess for these guys living and working in lawless places can seem to justify crossing the line and for most, it results in the long term Jail.

Project Nova has been created to help veterans at risk of entering the criminal justice system and in many cases, it is because they have found themselves involved with unscrupulous groups and individuals.

NAVIGATE

The final heading is that of Navigation, in survival we talk about where you are physically in your survival journey and where you are psychologically. You may be in a period of crisis, the wheels have just fallen off and your car is wrapped around a tree and its 2 am on a dark wet country road.

Or it could be your struggling marriage is suddenly hitting a wall as an intimate message pops up on your husband's phone from his long-term lover. Where we are and where we need to be will all depend on the following -

The 4 Dimensions

• What can I do about it (what is in my control)?
• What can't I do about it (what is out of my control)?
• Time
• How I perceive the changing situation

Breaking the situation we now face down into 4 dimensions will help us determine what we can do to minimise damage, physically and psychologically and help us figure out the best course of action going forward.

In the short term what you can do about a situation can be very limited, what we can do and what we are in control of can become greater over time. Law suits for example are long but can give someone with perceived little control a great deal of control in the long run.

Again as the above, sometimes there is nothing we can do about certain aspects of what has happened, other people's actions, and our perceived unfairness of the situation.

Time

Time marches on as they say, and it certainly does. Time will seem to halt when we are in the midst of a crisis, we might not be able to see beyond the next 24 hours but inevitably night turns into day and day turns into night.

Being present and in the moment is a skill which we have paid lip service to over the hubbub of the past couple of decades. In our rush to fulfil our desires and adventure more, many of us missed the trick of being in the moment and absorbing the situation we are facing.

How I perceive the situation

As human beings, we can spend a lot of our time obsessing about what others think about us. We are social creatures and the higher we climb up our respective hierarchies the further we have to fall.

I sometimes wonder how thick-skinned some of our political leaders are, they either have great psychologists or are complete Narcissists. I look around at colleagues, friends and associates who have public profiles that are squeaky clean, they emulate some sort of perfect sainthood and set standards that are unattainable by most.

But let us be clear about this, in our modern Western Culture, these pseudo-celebrities live their lives off of the backs of hard workers with dirt under their nails. From the factory workers on the production lines in the Tesla plants to the Nike sweatshops of Bangladesh that produce their latest sneakers.

Forget our white-toothed teenage, influencers and give me the coffee-stained smile of the rain-soaked construction workers at the trucker's cafe any day. I know where I will get the better jokes by far.

I guess the biggest takeaway from all of it is how I perceive the situation and how I choose to navigate it. I would finally like to quote one of the Royal Marines's core values "Cheerfulness in the face of adversity".

There is a lot to be said about humour in the darkest of times and in a world of cancel culture, let's buck the trend and tell the darkest jokes to our closest friends.

All the best in 2024

Warmest regards

Kirk Bowett

SinglehandedSurvivor