This Week

“Call on God, but row away from the rocks.” Hunter S. Thomspon


I felt the ground rumbling, the shower door shaking, the building rattling, and my heart pounding. It was an earthquake, the first significant earthquake in my hometown of Los Angeles in more than a decade.

I stood up and took two steps toward the exit, another two steps toward ducking under my desk, another two steps toward ducking under my kitchen table. I didn’t know what to do. I was caught in no man’s land. If the earthquake was stronger in magnitude, I’d have failed to take shelter and would have been endangered by falling debris. I realized my reaction was less than adequate. How one reacts to crisis says much about their character.

In October 2005, I led 30 people to the Yucatan Peninsula for a yoga retreat. We were mildly aware of a small tropical disturbance off the coast but nothing to worry about. Overnight, that disturbance turned into a hurricane which jumped 4 categories in 12 hours to become the strongest hurricane ever recorded in the Atlantic Ocean. With sustained winds of 175 mph, Hurricane Wilma was barreling right toward us. The rustic yoga retreat center had no evacuation plan and suddenly, I was in charge of coordinating an escape for 30 people. With conditions deteriorating by the minute, I realized an important lesson: people react differently in crisis. Some of those who I thought to be mentally calm and seemingly together, when facing mounting crisis, totally freaked out. While others who seemed to have a screw loose, when facing mounting crisis, remained calm and were the most helpful.

A recent article in Time Magazine refers to one’s approach to an earthquake, hurricane, sinking ship, or other predicament as their “disaster personality” or “a state of being that takes over in crisis.”

Some people remain totally calm, take a few deep breaths, and do what must be done to handle the situation. Other people break down emotionally, mentally, and physically. Still others freeze in their tracks. On September 28, 1994 the ferry S.V. Estonia sunk in the Baltic Sea. One of those lucky survivors, Kent Harstedt, recalled the odd and varied ways in which people reacted to the extreme predicament. Harstedt remembers the imperiled ship suddenly lurching 30 degrees before sinking. He fought his way to the ship deck expecting total chaos and panic. Much to his surprise, he saw passengers frozen, smoking cigarettes, as if nothing was happening. A few moments later the ship sunk upside down into the sea. Only 187 of the 989 people aboard the ship survived.

Part of the reason human beings fail to react to crisis is because we are unaware of how our bodies will feel and how our minds will change in such situations. When we are scared, our body releases performance-enhancing hormones which improve our physical abilities. When you feel a rush of adrenaline, you become faster and stronger. But if you are totally unfamiliar with the fight or flight feeling, it might be a destructive shock to your system. In a more ancient and primitive habitat, humans were commonly endangered by wild animals and faced fight or flight scenarios all the time. But in the modern day, when working in an office or driving in a car, we rarely face critical moments requiring important decisions with life or death consequences.

Here are three ways that you can practice crisis management so that if you’re in a earthquake or a tornado or a bad accident, you will give yourself the greatest chance to make the best decision:

1. Take a Yoga Class

“Nothing on earth can overcome a completely non-resistant person.” Chinese proverb

I know this might sound weird especially if you are annoyed by yoga and that one friend always chirping at you to come with her to class. But a strong yoga pose induces extreme sensation and intense emotion teaching you what crisis feels like and how to respond. For instance, the yoga teacher will tell you to breathe and relax rather than force, hustle and burn your way through a challenging yoga pose. When I was coordinating an evacuation plan during Hurricane Wilma, my heart was pounding and I was on the verge of losing my mind. I could barely think straight and I just wanted to break down and freak out. I’m not trying to pretend to be some kind of hero. I was just as scared as everyone facing a Category 5 hurricane. I just kept thinking of yoga class and what I would do to make it through a really hard pose. Even if you hate yoga, it’s worth understanding the benefits. They really do help when managing the emotions and thought patters triggered by crisis.

2. Choose the Correct Response

“Dante once said that the hottest places in heck are reserved for those who in a period of moral crisis, reserve their neutrality.” JFK

Not long ago, I was walking along and stepped on a lizard. Being that the lizard was totally still, I felt horrible thinking I’d killed it. I went over and kneeled down to look at the unfortunate victim. I just about had a heart attack when the lizard jumped up and ran off. Clearly, the lizard thought I was a predator and like so many animals, the lizard is wired to play dead when endangered. “Our brains search, under extreme stress, for an appropriate survival response and sometimes choose the wrong one, like deer that freeze in the headlights of a car.” While in some cases playing dead (i.e. being attacked by a bear) is the correct response, in others (i.e. dealing with an earthquake) it is not an effective response. It’s important to always be aware of the potential for crisis whether buckling up on an airplane or residing near a fault zone or surfing in the ocean. And ask yourself, should a worst case scenario take place, what is my best response?

3. Be prepared

Whether you live in tornado alley or a fault zone or areas susceptible to flash flooding, it’s important to be prepared. After seeing the horrible things that happened in China after the catastrophic earthquake in May, I forced myself to put together an earthquake preparedness kit should I be trapped in my house without power or water. There is much valuable safety and preparedness information that can be learned in a matter of minutes by looking online: “what to do in a tornado,” “what to do in a hurricane,” “what to do in an earthquake.” Often times, laziness to spend a few minutes educating yourself is all that stands between you and the knowledge you need to survive in crisis.

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