Lostproofing 101 -- Understanding Your "Map Sense"

Description

Your "map sense" or "inner gps" is always operating -- only most of us don't know it even exists. However, when it suddenly doesn't have a "position" on you, it throws your physiology (and mental state, if you can't keep your calm) into Red Alert. This video will teach you what the map sense is, give an exercise for feeling when it is on alert, and give a wilderness technique for calming the map sense back down so that you can find your way home (or wait to be rescued) safely if you become lost.

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Tags: Kenton Whitman,ReWild University,Human Rewilding,personal rewilding,mindfulness,how to,bushcraft,survival,wilderness survival skills,how to survive in the woods,lostproofing

Video Transcription

greetings my friends the other day out with one of our forest monks I didn't exercise and this is one that I have done before with many other forest monks and I think I can get us in touch with something that's very very important and often very overlooked in survival bushcraft even just hiker or backpacker crowd that is being aware of our map sense this map sense is something that a lot of us have never even heard of let alone us being aware of how it functions inside of us and what happens when that map sense gets confused this is very vital to know because as soon as we leave the controlled experiment of practicing our skills in our backyard or in a small park once we go out into the wilderness even the most conscientious of us there are times when we get lost and that's when this map sense really comes into play today I'm going to share some information that hopefully will make you aware of your map sense operating inside of you and also share with you how to transform things if that map sense decides that it doesn't know where you are and that results in a state of inner panic which is where we really get into trouble if we ever get lost the exercise that I do with monks is that I have a very good blindfold that actually closes off all of your vision and I take people a short distance away from a tree in this case it was a cabin so quite a big object and it's right there you can see it it's in a straight line from you we put on the blindfold and you're asked to go and find your way to the cabin seems simple enough and straightforward enough inside of us is this map sense this map sense is always keeping track of our location whether you know it or not it's operating right now and it's telling you where you are in space when we look at that cabin not far from us our map sense says this will be simple it has this marked right standing here it has the cabin right there there's a straight line it feels very confident and in fact it feels overconfident then the blindfold comes on and we start walking towards that cabin now some of you have probably heard that if you are right-handed or left-handed that predictably you will always curve one way or the other perhaps this is true in the control situation or experiment of walking on a football field or something but I've seen time and time again that as soon as we're dealing with terrain and trees that we have to go around that the truth is people wander to the left and then they wander to the right they take a left circle a right circle there's a very little rhyme or reason to it so predictably what happens is the person starts walking on this very short journey it should take less than three or four minutes but pretty soon they've wandered for 10 or 15 or 20 minutes and they know that they don't know where they are now if someone has been really Zen and have been practicing their meditation in their call they'll be fine but for a lot of people what happens at this point is that that map sense inside of us says Red Alert red alert red alert I do not know where you are and if I do not know where you are says the map sense we're in big trouble then the heart rate starts to escalate breathing starts to escalate the body releases cortisol now we're going into fight-or-flight we're not thinking clearly off we go in this direction a little bit faster and then we turn this direction a little bit faster this is what happens when we get lost we're hiking through the woods we become misplaced and suddenly our map sense puts us into red alert when this happens people begin to make very bad decisions they look around and they'll think oh my gosh okay I remember that pine tree over there and they'll go as fast as they can to that pine tree when they arrive at that pine tree they realize that this area does not look familiar at all they look around and say oh I think over there because that map sense it needs to trigger on to something it's saying grab something grab something we need to know where we are doesn't matter if it makes rational sense Jos needs to know where we are and so it starts jumping to conclusions now we're grinding off to that Ridge we stumble we hurt ourselves the pain adds to the confusion adds to the fight-or-flight and when the search and rescue people finally try to come out and find us we've been going off to the left off to the right running crossing the streams doing everything we can essentially to confound them and make their job more difficult this is how people die when they get lost going back to that blindfolded experiment we are wandering through the woods now and for the first time in our lives many people are feeling what that map sense is because its operating on autopilot inside of us all the time carefully and very helpfully keeping track of where we are we don't notice it we're not aware of it until

it's not working until we're on red alert

so this is when people get to start to experience either some frustration or they find that the calmness training and the relaxed trip relaxation training that they've been doing out here are going to make all the difference in the world being blind is such a good exercise for this if you have somebody with you and they can follow quietly behind you and you can be blindfolded and try to reach a destination it doesn't have to be far just 20 meters through the woods over terrain you'll probably get to experience this for yourself and just like I try to experience hypothermia once a year experiencing the confusion of our map sense begins to get us comfortable with not having that map map sense be able to pinpoint where we are so this map sense is very much tied into lost proofing because when we become misplaced predictably this is what's going to happen that map sense is going to go into red alert and you me we're either going to have the chance to see that we can stay calm or this map sense is going to own us it is going to put us into fight or flight and it's going to send us in a wild chase here is how we can deal with that map sense not knowing where we are and I've seen this work again and again if you ever become lost this is what I advise advise and it can make the difference between life and death what you do is you give the map sense something to hold on to and to do that you stop you don't go anywhere else and you say this place is going to be my home Intel I am rescue and you sit down and if you have the means you start a fire because starting a fire centers you down and makes it feel like this is your camp you can sing some songs to yourself you can visit yourself building a little backrest or something you make this into your home what you're really doing here is you're relaxing you're settling your body down getting it out of reaction mode and then you have the ability to stop and listen because when I listen and I tune into my environment I'm often gonna see oh there's a clue here that I was missing before it might be that distant sound of vehicles on a roadway over there might be that logging that's getting done over that way maybe it's not something I hear but it's it's a visual clue oh look at that I didn't notice before but there's a radio tower maybe oh there's that peak of that mountain and I know that I am east of that peak and now I can start to line up and understand where I am orient myself back towards home understanding this map sense is such an important wilderness skill feeling it inside of ourselves such an important wilderness skill because if we're not familiar with it when it hits us it just feels like a freight train some people call it would shock this panic that comes over even people that are highly trained in wilderness skills they may be hunters they may be military whatever it is if they've not experienced what it feels like to have the map sense disabled or in panic mode then it just is overwhelming so two things to take away from this video first of all try that blindfold experiment when you do this you're probably gonna get a chance first hand to feel what it feels like to have that map sense not it know where it is and as soon as it doesn't know where it is you're gonna be aware of that feeling inside of you and then when you do get lost at some point you're gonna recognize oh okay this is that feeling my map sense does not know where I am it's about to go on red alert when it goes on red alert it's gonna throw me into fight-or-flight so right then right then I'm going to stop I'm gonna sit down now I'm gonna make my camp I'm not necessarily even making camp because I'm going to stay there but a making camp to give my map sense a pinpoint this is home and then it can relax my physiology can relax and I can take in my surroundings and then either a I'm going to actually recognize something that's going to give me a direction back or B I'm going to not recognize something and I'm actually going to stay in that place I'm going to set up a camp because that is the best way to get yourself found by the search and rescue folks if you're actually lost thank you for watching please share any experiences you have with that map sense experiencing it has it ever gone into red alert have you been lost have you experienced wood shock how did you overcome that or transform that if you did thank you for watching my friends if you liked this video or found it valuable please like share subscribe and if you want to stand beside me to help me make more of these videos consider becoming a patron on patreon there's a link at the end of this video thank you