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Resistance See other Resistance Articles Title: Fear Control 'When the common soldiers are too strong and their officers too weak, the result is insubordination.' Sun Tzu 'Courage is grace under pressure.' Ernest Hemingway 'This is where it's at, this moment before engagement when the adrenalin, the fear, reached its pinnacle and felt like hell, gathering in the cavity of your chest like a burning fire ball of negative emotion that makes you feel like breaking down in a crying quivering heap of jellied shit. It rises from your chest to your nasal passage like toxic gas, gnawing away at you like caustic, tempting you to crack, daring you to fight, questioning your ability to "handle it" telling you to flee, to run, to hide, to GO! GO! GO!' Watch My Back This, from my book Watch My Back, talks about the fear of a real confrontation and the negative effects of the same. If I, as a veteran of hundreds of fights, struggle with adrenalin, it goes without saying that people with less experience and knowledge of conflict will also struggle. As formerly stated, you cope with fear through the knowledge that it can be a help rather than a hindrance. Mental strength is also a pivotal element of fear control. Many people practise technique after technique in their bid for physical competence. They become bag punchers and mirror watchers, convinced in their own minds that they can handle themselves. Whilst developing power on the bag and building a sinewy, beach physique in the gym, they ignore the most important factor: the mental physique. This is, of course, not to detract from the physical training formerly mentioned. It is very important, though not nearly as important though as the old grey matter. A strong mind can and will take you, if properly trained, safely through the adrenalin build-up, stress and pain of a physical encounter and the ever-present aftermath that can crush you flatter than a shadow. Understanding the mechanics of adrenalin greatly lessens its impetus. The shock factor of adrenalin can be scarifying if you do not understand or expect it, rendering many frozen in the face of an ensuing attack. This unpleasant, strong emotion often causes terror immobilisation, or the freeze syndrome, in the recipient. The key with adrenalin is don't panic. Easy to say, I hear you cry, and you are right; it's not easy, it's very hard. That's why so many people, trained and untrained, baulk at the obstacle of a real fight. The adrenal syndrome needs to be understood and addressed so that it can be harnessed. Adrenalin is a little like fuel injection in a sports car: action, fight/flight, the metaphoric accelerator. The car: by engaging the clutch and pressing the accelerator you will utilise the turbo, and the car will move at speed. However, if you sit at the traffic lights pressing your foot on the accelerator without engaging the clutch, there will be no movement and fuel will be wasted. The human: by engaging action (fight/flight) you will utilise the turbo drive of adrenalin and trigger spontaneous response. However, if action is not engaged and panic sets in, energy will be utilised negatively. Body Accelerators POSITIVE BODY ACCELERATOR Your positive body accelerator is action. When you act, adrenalin is utilised positively, adding power, speed and anaesthesia to your response. NEGATIVE BODY ACCELERATOR Your negative body accelerator is panic, caused when the reasoning process mistakes adrenalin for fear. Adrenalin is utilised negatively, leaving the recipient drained of energy and often frozen in the face of ensuing danger. If you find yourself in a confrontational situation and do not or cannot act, the adrenalin may be gobbled up by increasing panic, this dissipating your turbo blast needlessly and fruitlessly. Like the car, you will be pressing the accelerator without engaging the clutch. Nothing is gained and all is lost. In the gap between confrontation and action, adrenalin can be controlled with deep breathing and knowledge, and the look of fear hidden from your assailant with the duck syndrome (detailed later). In primeval days when man (and woman) had to fight to live and eat, the feeling of fear was an everyday occurrence that would have felt as natural and as common as eating or drinking. In today's society, which is very tame by comparison, adrenalin is no longer needed in our everyday lives. In fact some people go through a whole lifetime without ever experiencing it fully. So when a situation arises that causes the adrenalin to flow, we are so unfamiliar with it that we naturally neither welcome, use nor like it. We panic. Psychologists call it the fight or flight syndrome. In moments of danger the body injects chemicals (adrenalin being the best known of these) into the blood stream, preparing the body for violent action, making it stronger, faster and sometimes anaesthetised to pain. The more dangerous the situation the bigger the build-up and adrenalin release. The bigger the release the better you perform (run, fight), but by the same count, the bigger the build-up and release, the harder it is to control. However, fear has many disguises that also need to be understood. I have formulated what I call the Adrenal Map to help people better understand the disguises of fear. It is my belief that we as human beings are far better designed for flight than we are for fight, this is why we feel the innate urge to run away from confrontations rather than meet them. Against many of our early enemies who only attacked prey that moved, the freeze syndrome would also have been a good thing. Unfortunately with today's enemy it is not such a good thing because if we do not move we get attacked more readily. The instinct however is still there and has to be overridden if survival is our aim. In self-defence terms the innate urge to run is a good instinct. I always recommend flight above fight but the grey areas in this syndrome seem to be in abundance and confusion is compounded by a multifaceted society where confrontation, more often than not, demands neither fight nor flight. A run in with the boss, an exam or arguments with the neighbours all bring on the adrenal response but none demand a fight or a flight so, understandably, instinct has become a redundant commodity. We also have a moral dilemma in a paradoxical society where both fight and flight can be simultaneously unacceptable. You fight too often and you are seen by your peers as a thug; you run away from confrontation and you are seen as a coward: a man (or woman) who does not face up to his problems is looked upon as weak. In a way the adrenal syndrome has become antiquated and as a consequence instinct cupboarded; the natural bodily reactions associated with fight or flight, are so misunderstood that they are now seen as signs of cowardice. The brain, it would seem, cannot distinguish between differing forms of confrontation and so releases adrenalin, carte blanche, for most forms of confrontation, even where life is not threatened. Actors freeze (stage fright) on stage because of adrenalin and over anticipation, kids go blank on exam day because blood is drawn away from non-vital areas of the body (those seen as non vital in fight or flight), one of these being the brain. What we have to do is learn to recognise when instinct is right and when it is wrong. It is right to run away from a violent encounter - that's survival - it might not be right to run away from intangible confrontation because problems have to be met and overcome. In a long-winded way, what I am trying to say is, don't feel like a coward because your instinct tells you to run away from a violent encounter. That is good instinct, but, if it is impossible to run and you are forced to fight then use the adrenalin to aid you in fight. It takes a strong will to overcome the natural instinct to run away; that can be developed by correct training in self-protection. If you misread the signs and allow confusion to enter the equation you may well find yourself frozen with fear. Knowledge dispels fear - read on. Some of the following may seem a little peripheral for self-protection, but there is of course a natural overflow into things in our everyday life so either way the knowledge should help. The Adrenal Map FEAR (SLOW RELEASE) The fear of fear itself Often you may not know why you feel fear, so you look for the reason or the logic behind your anticipation. Basically if you know why you are scared it can help you to deal with the problem. For instance, if your fear was of consequence (prepost-fight fear) you could, in theory, look at the worst case scenario of confronting your fear (whatever it might be) and accept that you will handle it. 'If I stand up to the bully and he beats me up, I will handle it.' 'If I fight Joe Bloggs and he brings his three bruiser brothers down to get me, I'll handle it,' etc. If however you cannot pinpoint why you are feeling scared then there probably isn't a reason other than natural anticipation. We all feel it in confrontation, so don't bother trying to look for logic in something where there is no logic, because all it will do is add confusion to discomfort. Confusion causes indecision and indecision in the face of ensuing attack can cause capitulation and/or defeat. /snip/ . Poster Comment: More at link
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#1. To: All, *SHTF - Survival* (#0)
Click for Privacy and Preparedness files Nehemiah 4:14 And I looked and arose and said to the nobles and to the officials and to the rest of the people, “Do not be afraid of them. Remember the Lord, who is great and awesome, and fight for your brothers, your sons, your daughters, your wives, and your homes.”
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