We Survive and Thrive Because We Believe We Can

Lessons from survival at sea stories.

Twenty years ago, my husband and I quit our corporate jobs to sail around the world. We were climbing the corporate ladder because it made us happy … until it didn’t. We needed something really big to help us disengage from the corporate ladder. We felt the pressure to conform to the cultural norm of how to live our lives, how to be successful, from our families, our friends, our workplaces. But we wanted to follow our own hearts, our own intuition, our own desires to thrive in less traditional ways.

We wanted to live our own values.

We looked at our Life List, our 25-Things-We-Want-to-Do-Before-We-Die List, and chose sailing around the world. This choice immediately made us feel in sync, energized, excited, eager, in love with our life.

It took us three years to save enough money, find the right boat, and figure out how to do this thing.

One of the first series of books I read were the survival stories. Yes, I read these survival stories where the boat sinks and the family, or the couple, survive in a life raft, a dinghy, or on a deserted island for months before rescue.

Rather than feeling scared after reading them, I was inspired! Wow! Their stories were amazing. They explained how they survived for weeks and months catching and eating fish, turtles, birds. How they collected rainwater or turned sea water into fresh water. What tools they used. How they kept sane.

The tenacity, the resilience, the will to survive, the will to live was amazing to read, understand, feel.

The key take away message from each of these stories was that the mental aspect of survival is just as important, if not more, as the physical aspect. I quickly saw and understood that the ones that survived were the ones that wanted to survive. Some had companions with them that gave up and died. Companions that died quickly because they gave up.

The ones that survived believed they would survive. Yes, other things, “lucky” things, had to be working in their favor, but they believed they could survive, they would survive.

My favorite books were Adrift: 76 Days Lost at Sea by Steven Calahan, Survive the Savage Sea by Dougal Robertson, Staying Alive: 117 Days Adrift by Maurice & Marilyn Bailey, Albatross: The True Story of a Woman’s Survival at Sea by Deborah Kiley, The Spirit of Rose Noelle: 119 Days Adrift by John Glennie & Jane Phare, In the Heart of the Sea by Nathaniel Philbrick, and several short stories that were included in other books and magazines.

As we researched the correct blue water sailing boat for us, I kept these stories in mind. We ended up buying a Tayana 37, a 37-foot cutter rigged sailboat. A very heavy, safe, simple, small, conservative boat. As we prepared the boat for going offshore, I kept these stories in mind. We, of course, loaded lots of non-perishable foods, medical supplies, spare parts, and survival equipment.

We prepared, and loaded, our abandon ship bag.

An abandon ship bag is a survival kit.

This is a small bag that sits in the cockpit so that if the boat begins to sink fast, and they often do, you grab this bag that is filled with the things that are going to help you survive. You take this bag into the life raft or dinghy with you. Or, if your boat is still floating, you stay with the boat and have this bag nearby as a key survival kit.

After reading the survive at sea books, I filled my bag with fishhooks, fishing line, fishing net, a freshwater maker, food, survival blankets, swiss army knives, flares, reflector mirrors, notebook and pen, extra line, tools.

Now, our boat could have hit something and sunk so quickly there would have been no time to grab my bag and escape, but I could sleep at night because I had prepared this bag.

And, as I had learned in the survival stories, the most important thing in the bag was my belief that I could survive, that I would survive, that I had the knowledge and skills to do so.

Maybe… maybe not. But I had the belief.

And, so it is with life. We can survive and thrive because we believe we have the capacity, the resilience, the tenacity, the adaptability, the heart, the guts, the will to.

During our sailing journey, I never had to use my abandon ship bag. However, I used and practiced the skills learned in these books over and over.

Our journey was not perfect. Yes, there were amazing sunsets, Milky-Way-star-gazing, encounters with whales and dolphins, exotic places, and dancing girls. But, we also encountered storms, foul weather, torn sails, broken gear, sea sickness, and other challenges.

So, we used, and practiced, our belief that we could survive and thrive, figure things out.

I learned that it is just a practice. The belief and mindset are something we continued to practice again and again.

I am still practicing.

And, so it is with the coronavirus. We can survive and thrive. Some of our companions won’t make it. We might not make it.

But, we can practice believing we can, believing we will, believing we have the ability to figure things out.

We can prepare, plan, look forward, move forward. We can believe in ourselves, in our ability to cope, in our resilience, in our adaptability.

In our ability to survive and thrive.

That’s the mindset that inspires me. The mindset that I am practicing. And, it is a practice. I just practice.

I am a life coach. I help others get really clear on the life and work they would love to have, know that they can have it, and help them manifest it. Visit me at https://www.lauraraduenz.com