Category: Survival Mindset

Survival Sixth Sense, by Jody D.

Birds take flight before a devastating tsunami.  A little dog runs out of a building before a massive earthquake.  (Begin to play spooky music now.)  A banker pulls his funds from the market just prior to a ruinous crash.. Luck, foreknowledge, divine guidance, coincidence?  No.  In each case, they were simply more in-tune with the environmental ebb and flow that surrounds them.  That minor change in the normal pattern which betrayed impending disaster and great loss.  With animals, it is a natural physical sensory extension.  With the banker, an uncomfortable sweaty hunch alerted to by a mind rooted in market …


Letter Re: A Veteran Policeman’s Observations on The Golden Horde

James,   A lot has been written warning us of what will happen when the City Dwellers find their homes are untenable and vacate [en masse as The Golden Horde] for “the country”, but I haven’t seen anything on what the make-up of these hordes will be. The generic term “city dwellers” encompasses a lot of territory. Who will they be,what kind of shape will they be in, how will they be armed…all of these need to be examined. One category needs to be examined, I feel, more closely than others. Since I have seen posts on your site lately …


The Attitude of Survival, by B.T.

We’re living in a country that’s the equivalent of the Titanic and everywhere around me I see people dancing like nothing’s happening… In the worst of times and in the best of times, it’s the attitude of your undertaking that matters most. No matter what we may imagine will come to be, most of us will be drastically unprepared when the SHTF. We can have all the basics covered, and we can have a solution to everything we might imagine, but like war and science, there’s always the unexpected we can never account for. Personally I think most of us …


Letter Re: Dealing with Common Addictions–True Readiness for Disasters

Sir: One item not often considered for emergency supplies: Caffeine pills. Many non-Mormons are heavy coffee drinkers. What happens when you’re on bug out, and drinking filtered stream water, instead of your morning Cup O’ Joe? Well, the splitting killer caffeine withdrawal headache, that’s what. Open the package, and gulp down a Vivarin, or No-Doz, and you are back to your cheerful self. With My Regards, – C.Y. JWR Replies: It is a far better thing to break away from coffee, soda pop, cigarette, alcohol, candy, junk food, and drug addictions now, in normal times. Get rid of them one …


The Four Levels of Disaster Preparedness Competence, by Todd D.

Using the theory of competence awareness that you can apply to any skill, or knowledge based discipline i.e. cooking, auto repair, etc. I am taking a writers license to make a revision to Dr. Abraham Maslow’s conscious competence theory, and apply the theory to Disaster Preparedness. Unconsciously Incompetent: The UI represents approximately 90% of the population of the nation. Using Hurricane Katrina as an example, hundreds of thousands of people felt it was the role of the government to make sure that individual citizens would have food, water, clothing and shelter. These same people believe under no circumstance, the individual …


My Path to Preparedness, by C. in The Ozarks

I am almost 60 years old.  I have a neurological disease which has forced my early retirement.  I am single, never been married, and have no children.  My parents are both deceased and my sister is deceased.  My brother is retired and lives in Florida.  [Some deleted, for brevity.] I also do not have any friends.  My best friend decided that since she couldn’t see the effects of my neurological disease then I must be faking it and being lazy to retire early.  She doesn’t see me writhing in pain most evenings even though I take a lot of pain …


Letter Re: The Value and Practice of Journaling

Dear Editor: That was an excellent article of journaling, but I would like to emphasize the importance of using a notebook made with quality paper. After my father passed away last year at the age of 95, we found his journal that he kept during World War II. He wrote down his thoughts as the plans for the invasion of Japan drew near, as they entered Tokyo Harbor for the surrender, his visits to his Japanese counterparts and their families, the worry about whether they would be attacked as they went ashore, and countless other glimpses into that time. Much …


The Value and Practice of Journaling, by M.E.R.

One little-known technique which can be used to survive tough times, even TEOTWAWKI, is not necessarily an all-important or crucial one; but the optional activity might nevertheless prove to be invaluable to both ourselves and others.   It is also a great distraction from our problems of the day, helps combat boredom, and can serve as a stress management tool.   The technique?  Journaling!   Journaling is simply the act of writing personal thoughts in a diary.  Although seemingly simplistic, keeping a personal journal is often encouraged by spiritual mentors, health care professionals, and even some employers (truck drivers keep logs of …


Being Prepared – How Hurricane Andrew Saved My Life, by Richard in Miami, Florida

I am by nature a positive person. On the other hand, I fully recognize that we live in a very dangerous world. Ignoring the reality will not make you safe – that would only be an illusion of safety. I sincerely believe that far too many of us live in a fantasy world shaped by what we see on television, and reinforced by our very limited exposure to the world outside our immediate communities. Also, many of us are so caught up in the daily rat race that we don’t stop to think about much else. To me, being prepared …


Lessons for the Christian Prepper, by Dallas in Iraq

Seven hundred years before the birth of the Christ, a man named Hezekiah ascended to the throne in Jerusalem. Looking around, Hezekiah saw a nation divided and in spiritual decay. Bold action was needed to set the nation back on track. Though we may not be kings with the power to lead our country off of a path of destruction, I believe that there are several valuable lessons that can be taken from the experiences of Hezekiah and applied to the life of a Christian prepper. When we look around, we see a nation on the brink of disaster, just …


Prepping: It is Dental and it is Mental, by Wade H., DDS

Let’s presume that our worst imaginations of the future economic/political/societal collapse come true.  We are in our “undisclosed bunker location” surviving day by day without all of the creature comforts that we are used to.  A random thought or fear pops into our head…Our local dentist might as well be on the other side of the moon. What is going to happen to our teeth? What are we going to do if we have a tooth ache? What if we get an abscess? What if Suzie did not get her wisdom teeth removed like the dentist wanted? The subject of …


Survival and Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, by J.S.I.

Back in the 1940s, Abraham Maslow, a psychologist, asked himself the question “Just what is it that people really need…….?”  After considerable research he came up with an analysis called Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.  It is usually graphically represented as a triangle consisting of five layers, each corresponding to a category of needs, the lowest layer being the most basic and the topmost – the apex – being the most rarified. The layers, in order from bottom to top are as follows: Physiological (breathing, food, water, sleep, sex, homeostasis, excretion) Safety (security of body, of employment, of resources, of morality, …


Letter Re: A Lifetime of Prepping Without Knowing It

Mr Rawles, I recently read “Patriots” and wanted to let you know how this book got me to thinking about how to be prepared for a potential social collapse. I thought through all of the steps that needed to be taken and realized that I’ve been prepping since I was born. I was born and raised in the suburbs of Kansas City, but my family history was one of extreme self sufficiency. My mom who lived through the last great depression taught me how to can, garden, make things stretch as far as possible and be able to survive without …


A Rude Awakening, by Ruth E. in Hawaii

Power outages are quite common here in Hawaii. It seems like a couple of times a month, the lights flicker, get dim, and then go out. Sometimes they stay out for an hour or longer. We recently had a blackout on one whole side of our island, which truly woke me up to the possibilities of an endless blackout (worse-case scenario). Usually I come out of an anxiety session unscathed, but since I currently belong to an emergency preparedness group, I have been reading tons about the many scenarios that could happen to our island home including tsunamis, earthquakes, flooding, …


Decision Science for TEOTWAWKI, by Dr. P.F.

This article describes how to figure the Who, What, Where, When, Why, How Long, and How Deep of preparedness. Preparing for TEOTWAWKI is a lot like buying insurance. You hope you never have to use it, but the consequences of being uninsured or under insured are severe enough to warrant the investment. Determining how much, and what type, of insurance to get can be a daunting task. The purpose of this article is to provide starting points for discussions on how best to allocate your resources in preparing for catastrophic events. It considers only those calamities, natural or man-made, at …