Situational Awareness, Mindfulness & Curiosity

Sometimes when I talk to people about self-protection, they come away with the idea that those of us who think about our personal safety are in constant state of highly strung paranoia, jumping at shadows, and ready to decimate anyone who has the misfortune to approach us, outside of our field of vision. Sometimes, instructors promote this idea of “good” situational awareness, by telling stories about how their wife, friend, acquaintance, tapped them on the shoulder when they were distracted or deep in thought, and they turned ready to deal a death blow, only to recognize at the last moment that this person isn’t an enemy hell bent on their destruction. These stories are almost apocryphal in nature, and are terrible examples of what good situational awareness is, and only go to reinforce the view that to be aware of what is going on around us, we need to be in a constant state of high vigilance – when we recognize danger or harmful intent, this should be the state we enter, but it is not the state that allows us to recognize the danger in the first place; in fact it is likely to prevent us from identifying threats – we can consciously only process one thing at a time, so actively looking for signs of danger (before we’ve narrowed the threat down), is going to be an extremely inefficient and ineffective way of identifying harmful intent in our environment. I have found that it is this perception, of having to constantly think about danger, which is one of the biggest barriers for untrained people when considering risk, danger, and threats to their personal safety; they believe that their quality of life will drop, if they have to be constantly on the lookout for trouble. In this article, I want to look at the positive effects of good situational awareness, that go beyond keeping us safe.

One of the problems with modern living is that we are too comfortable, and too accustomed to our environments. We have lost the desire – and sometimes the ability – to be in the moment. Our familiarity with our surroundings and those in them, have caused us to completely switch-off, or actively look for something to distract us; such as reading something on our mobile phones. Our environments bore us, and we have stopped being interested in them. This isn’t just a problem from a personal safety perspective, it’s a problem with who we’ve become. We have lost the ability to enjoy the quality of the moment, and to be curious about the things around us. We shouldn’t be actively looking for danger, we should just be looking. A few weeks before I moved to the U.S. I was walking along the South Bank of the Thames in London – I often used to walk this route, as there was a company on Tower Hill, that I used to do some consultancy work for. This time, for whatever reason, I stopped, and looked across the river, at the London skyline. It was the first time I’d done so. In that moment, I began to realize some of the reasons why tourists came to the City; the skyline is an extremely impressive one. As I looked along it, I saw countless tourists taking photographs of it. They had a curiosity I lacked. The familiarity and the routine of the route, had taken me out of the moment. As “aware” as I thought I was, I wasn’t really aware of my surroundings. By being mindful in that moment, I increased my awareness. Good situational awareness doesn’t just alert us to threats and dangers, it increases our quality and appreciation of life.

When man first came down from the trees, and ventured out onto the savannah plains, he’d have been curious about everything. His survival depended on that curiosity. What did the new sounds he heard mean and signal e.g. the presence of prey that could be the next meal, or the proximity of predators that signaled danger, etc. Nothing could be or was taken for granted. This was a new environment and needed to be understood. This is the start of developing good situational awareness; understanding the environments that we exist in. If you were blindfolded, could you easily and quickly find the fire escapes at your place of work? This is an environment you probably spend an excess of 40 hours a week in, so this should be an easy one for you to do. Do you know where the nearest hospitals and police stations are on your way to work.? When you walk through the town or city where you live do you ever look up, or do you only look straight ahead? How well do you really know the physical environments, of the places you travel through, work in, visit etc.? We should be curious about our environments, so we can educate ourselves concerning them. This also allows us to live in the moment, and appreciate our surroundings, which is something we should be doing as living creatures.

Whenever I drive at night and park my car, I sit for a few moments with the lights off (central locking on), to let my eyes become accustomed to the darkness. This is something I started year ago, as a safety precaution, however I have seen wildlife that I would never have seen otherwise, and this has improved my quality of life. If I hadn’t taken these moments I would never have seen a young coyote play in the snow, which was extremely entertaining and life-affirming. Being situationally aware, involves being aware of everything, not just the things that can harm us, and this part often gets forgotten. Situational awareness means that you are living in that moment, and when we start to do that, not only do we become safer, but our quality of life goes up. Being aware does not involve being fearful, or constantly imagining the dark thoughts that others may be having towards us. This would be both exhausting and depressing. It involves living in the moment, something which will make our lives both safer and more enjoyable.