Life Under Fire

by Jason Fox

  ‘So look at the difference,’ said the therapist. ‘You go back in your white shoes, your black jeans and your grey top of today, rather than what you were wearing back then. You’re Client X in the here and now, and you have a new perspective: you’re seeing it using all the wisdom you’ve accrued since then to view the situation differently. The narrow focus you were using for the trauma has opened out into a wide focus. You can see the difference in the way you’re thinking about it when you go back wearing today’s clothes as the older, more experienced you …’

  Techniques of this kind might sound unorthodox to people who haven’t experienced therapy before, but they act as an effective desensitizing exercise for tackling a traumatic incident, such as the mugging described by Client X. This is only a snapshot of a wider counselling programme, though; one step in a series of efforts to help a person tackle their emotional problems head-on. And don’t be fooled by the easiness of the conversation detailed here: going into a period of recovery of this kind takes guts and resilience. It’s a hard challenge, in pretty much the same way that rehabilitating from a serious injury takes courage, time and effort, too. People going into this process should be respected for their bravery.

  It’s worth noting that techniques of this kind can help us to understand less traumatic events in our lives as well. Perhaps we’re still scarred by an argument that led to a major falling-out with a close friend or a loved one. Maybe we’ve suffered as a result of a financial decision that was made in the past and we’re unable to emotionally reconcile with our mistakes. Or it could be that we’re still angry about a decision that impacted on our lives in an unpleasant way. Projecting our current self – with all the knowledge, wisdom and resilience accrued in the meantime – is a good way to shake off some emotional baggage. It also helps us to psychologically prepare for our reactions should a similar event take place in the future.

  At this point in the book you might be thinking, I’ve just read a chapter on emotional breakdown and failure. That hardly suggests the author has a resilient mindset. Or, This bloke nearly killed himself through PTSD. Is he really the best person to talk to me about emotional fortitude? Fair points. Except, my experience makes me exactly the kind of person you should be listening to. I’ve witnessed the horrors of hardcore military service, crash-landed at a mental low and doubted the value of my life – yet still, somehow, I’ve been able to turn myself around. If the very definition of resilience is the ‘ability to return quickly from illness, change, or misfortune’, then I have an intense understanding of that experience.

  The bottom line is this: we all have the potential to rebound from failure as a better, stronger, more resilient individual but a system reset takes time, care and bravery, as I’ve discovered. Handily, recovering from an emotional wound can be approached in the same way that we’ve treated every other challenge within Life Under Fire. Use the Commando Spirit. Recall your purpose. Push through the Fear Zone and into periods of learning and growth. Bring your brotherhood around you. Be brutally honest with yourself and become increasingly self-aware.

  Most of all though, it’s important to remember that even the best operators get wounded in gunfights. If you’re badly injured, the smartest move is to call in a CASEVAC for medical treatment because the fight isn’t over yet. And once repaired and ready to return, an elite soldier can expect to jump back into battle, to serve as a viable asset once more. The same applies to you: regardless of the conflict or challenge, when bleeding out, ask for help. With this assistance, you can live to fight another day.

  OPERATIONAL DEBRIEF

  ❱❱ We all break at one point or another – it’s part of being human. By asking for help or calling in reinforcements, you’ll live to fight another day.

  ❱❱ Learn your emotional combat indicators. How do you behave when life is spiralling out of control? Make a note of any behavioural responses to alert yourself to an approaching break point.

  ❱❱ Recognize the symptoms of rock bottom: hyper-vigilance, disproportionate anger and a numb, detached attitude. Know these signs not only in yourself but in the people around you.

  ❱❱ No matter your problem or psychological injury, there is someone who can – and will – help. However, therapists are like accountants and dentists – there are thousands and thousands of them and each one is individual. Having summoned up the courage to seek help, don’t be afraid to shop around. Counselling is an incredibly personal experience and you should look for someone you feel comfortable with.

  SITUATIONAL AWARENESS

  SHELVE YOUR EGO FOR THE GREATER GOOD

  Asking for help might require you to lose face, but go ahead and do it anyway. Remember that each of us takes a fall from time to time and it’s part of the human experience. Functioning with a stiff upper lip while keeping calm and carrying on might work in some circumstances, but when it comes to matters of mental health, raising a hand for help is the best way forward. But it’s hard.

  One method for leaping over that psychological hurdle is to shelve your ego. For too long I placed myself and my self-image on a pedestal. I’m Jason Fox, former elite operator; I captured some seriously dangerous people in scary places. I survived war zones and I came through Selection. I can’t be broken. This attitude is transferable to other occupations, such as business. I’m a company director. I set this firm up from nothing and turned it into a multimillion-pound company. For years I worked sixteen-hour days, seven days a week, without holidays. I can’t be broken. With inflexible attitudes like these, the crashes are bloody painful when they happen.

  One way of resolving this problem is for an individual to separate their reputation, career achievements and abilities from their actual person – the Real Them. For example, when the successful businesswoman arrives home after a day in charge, where everyone works to her demands, she might get a shock: the kids won’t behave, her partner needs to talk through a personal disagreement and the bills have all arrived at once. Suddenly she’s not the boss of the boardroom any more.

  If she allows her ego to get in the way, it might be difficult for her to behave in an appropriate and effective manner. Talking to her kids like a disruptive colleague won’t give them the love and education they need. Shouting at her partner as if they’re another frustrating supplier will only cause a terrible rift. Expecting family life to move to the same rhythm as her successful career is unrealistic and a fast route to conflict. Instead, she needs to remember the Real Her, because her achievements and career goals won’t help her to maintain emotional stability, no matter what the ego says.

  This technique was vital to me when asking for help after hitting rock bottom. I had to separate my achievements, reputation and abilities in the military from Jason Fox, son, brother, father – the Real Me – before I could summon the courage to get help. The healing started once I’d stopped telling myself, I’m Jason Fox, former elite operator … I can’t be broken. That’s not to say I forgot those achievements. I didn’t; they’re still very important to me and I’m proud of them. Rather, I shelved my ego when I needed to do something for my greater good, like asking for help in a time of emotional trauma.

  There isn’t a single human being on the planet that doesn’t break down. Not one. But how we respond to our personal conflicts is what defines us. Remembering that there’s a difference between our real selves and how our ego needs us to be seen is a very effective way of overcoming any emotional resistance when calling in reinforcements.

  PHASE TWELVE

  The Reload: Finding Your Yukon

  So how do we regroup after an emotional blowout?

  Following my medical discharge from the military, I’d understandably lost my edge, but finding that strength and sharpness again was a process I eventually became excited by.

  My healing process began with therapy, which took place during a series of walks through the woods near my counsellor’s office, because she’d recognized the calming effect the outdoors had on me. I later took
that idea of working in nature to extremes as I rebuilt my life. Rowing across the Atlantic with Team Essence was the first step. I then embraced more and more challenges, continually stepping out of my comfort zone with each one, and embarking on missions that truly drew together the five building blocks of resilience.

  A recent example of this was my 2019 kayak expedition along the Yukon River in a two-man, unsupported mission with Sean Johnson, an experienced adventurer who had previously travelled down the Mississippi, Missouri and Rhine Rivers. Sean had also taken a winter hike along the entire length of the Appalachian Trail and cycled across Canada from east to west. In expedition terms, he was a serious player. But by leaning in to purpose, experience, brotherhood, self-awareness and honesty, we were able to overcome the hurdles placed in our path, as I’ll explain over the following pages.

  Everybody has an adventure to execute. Start with courage and commitment, and the rest will follow.

  For the remainder of Phase Twelve, the five building blocks of resilience are detailed in the order in which they were implemented during the expedition. As I’ve mentioned previously, purpose, experience, brotherhood, self-awareness and honesty are equally important and work concurrently. It’s not necessary to apply them in a particular order.

  STEP #1

  PURPOSE AND THE NEXT ADVENTURE

  Am I still suffering from PTSD?

  It’s a question a lot of people have asked me since I pieced my life back together, especially after my admission on SAS: Who Dares Wins and in response to Battle Scars. The honest answer is that I’m doing great and those emotional stresses don’t weigh me down any more. I’m not saying I won’t suffer from those symptoms again because an unexpected life-event might shove me back into that hole, but these days I’m much more resistant to emotional turbulence. I have the tools to overcome whatever shit life chucks at me, and if ever I do find myself feeling down, I make sure to give that moment, that emotion, the respect it deserves.

  I’ll ask myself, Why do I feel like this? Then, having acknowledged the feelings that have put me in a bit of a dip, I’ll do whatever I can to mentally course-correct. I work out, or check in with mates. Maybe I’ll plan another expedition or project. These are the processes that help to maintain my emotional even-keel. Their impacts can be either immediate or slow-moving, but they’re always positive.

  Over a few years, it eventually became apparent that my purpose had changed. My new focus was self-improvement – both for myself and others. We’re all different, though. It’s important that, through the phases we’ve discussed in the book so far, you identify your own positive physical and emotional responses to setbacks and problems. Your own ‘why’. Mine was to throw myself into a gritty challenge set against the backdrop of a testing environment.

  Kayaking down the Yukon River in Canada and America, from source to sea, had long been an ambition of mine, as it had for Sean. There was adventure – purpose. As an extra incentive, I used the expedition as a fundraising event for Rock2Recovery, the Special Boat Service Association and the Royal Marines Charity. I was also looking forward to reconnecting with nature. A lot of the work I’d loved the most had involved being out in the wild, whether that was while operating with the British military or when thrashing recruits in the jungle during SAS: Who Dares Wins. I felt switched on in the great outdoors. The challenge was set to be exhilarating. There was purpose in adventure. There was purpose in charity. There was purpose in working with Sean. With such a powerful set of motives, every pull of the paddle came loaded with incentive.

  STEP #2

  EXPERIENCE AND THE BIG WIDE OPEN

  The work was mega-honking from the off. To prepare for the trip, we’d readied our kit in the UK and tested the kayaks on local rivers and in the sea; it was important to become familiar with the rhythms of the water and how the boat might sit within it. But before we were even able to get in the kayaks, we had to walk forty-nine miles from our starting point at Skagway to Bennett – one of the Yukon’s suspected sources, where the river was nothing more than a trickle. (The widely accepted source of the Yukon is the Llewellyn Glacier, though some people claim it might be Lake Lindeman too.) But this was only the warm-up phase. A train was due to meet us with our kayaks before we paddled along the Yukon’s entire length, all 1,980 miles of it, until we reached the Bering Sea.

  The trekking route was intense; the terrain was uncomfortable and we covered at least ten miles per day while carrying around 100lb of kit in our rucksacks, which included our comms kit and all the basics we needed for the trip, such as a tent, sleeping bags and cooking equipment.

  My feet were in agony every night, but I leaned into the experience I’d gathered during past expeditions. When I’d rowed the Atlantic, I found it quite daunting to imagine the trip as a whole, especially when I was in physical pain. Rowing from Portugal to Venezuela on a route comprising 3,308 nautical miles and seven weeks at sea was an intimidating prospect, so I decided to mentally break it down into smaller stages, such as the legs between the Canary Islands and Africa, or Africa to the Azores. Once we’d completed each phase I ticked it off in my head and marked it as an achievement, all the while visualizing the success of completing the trip in world-record-setting time. I pictured the crew – Aldo Kane, Ross Johnson, Oliver Bailey, Mathew Bennett and I – celebrating with beers in our boat, the Elida, as we docked at Macuro. The image kept me going whenever the vessel was capsizing or as I huddled alongside Aldo for warmth, the elements having battered the boat and flooded the sleeping cabin. This was a vital learning moment that I later shared during a number of talks and podcasts. I even returned to Lympstone to chat with Commando wannabes as they worked through the Potential Royal Marines Course, and explained how the visualization processes I’d used during the Atlantic row could be applied to the experience of becoming a Royal Marine.

  ‘Picture yourself wearing that beret at the end,’ I said. ‘Think about it, visualize it. You can see yourself getting it, can’t you? Right, push that to the back of your head – don’t forget it, just keep it there. Now, break the course into small pieces, deal with every day as it presents itself …’

  It helped to put my own ideas into practice every now and then. As we walked, I imagined Sean and myself pushing away from land for the first time in our kayaks. Visualizing the gentle swell of water around me as we paddled into the unknown also helped. I even fantasized about the cigar and the whiskies I was going to enjoy at the end of our trip. This mental process motivated me as we trekked along what is known as the Chilkoot Trail, and after four days of walking – with the last stretch a hellish few miles of sand dunes – the town of Bennett came into view. Both of us had been thrashed. Most people took over a week to complete that same trail, hiking at a leisurely pace.

  ‘That was the hardest thing I’ve done for a long time,’ said Sean later.

  Shortly afterwards we were in our kayaks, the three lakes of Bennett, Tagish and Marsh ahead of us, the heavy currents of the Yukon beyond. The clouds were sweeping in overhead. The waves around us were building. I looked around and smiled.

  Bloody hell, this is all right, I thought.

  The good vibes wouldn’t last for long.

  STEP #3

  HONESTY AND NEAR-DEATH

  We pushed through shitshow after shitshow on the water, each time acknowledging we were in trouble while working hard to un-fuck our situation with positive action. The hiccups were never-ending. By the second day, Sean’s rudder had snapped away and water was leaking into his kayak. We tried to block the hole ourselves but with very little luck, and Sean was soon wasting vital energy pulling over to the bank so he could empty the boat. The water was bloody freezing.

  We limped our way to a small town called Carcross at the end of Lake Bennett, where we patched up the damage with some superglue and a few rolls of duct tape before pushing through our first storm. By nightfall we were piss-wet through and exhausted. We’d been on the water for sixteen hours.

 
For the first week or so of paddling, we were strong enough to put away a hundred kilometres per day, but the work was physically bruising, and as time went on we became increasingly fatigued and our progress was much slower. Having finally closed in on Emmonak, the last town on our route before reaching the Bering Sea, we were then scuppered by an incoming storm. I’d felt it building behind us and the waves were growing; whitecaps churned in the distance and there was no way we’d outrun the heavy rain. The light was fading, too. It was time to make a brutally honest assessment. We accepted this minor defeat and recognized its value as an opportunity to rest.

  ‘We’re not going to make it to Emmonak tonight,’ said Sean. ‘We’ll do it tomorrow. We need to get off the water.’

  It was annoying, but at least we weren’t going to get sucked into the Yukon as a result of our exhaustion.

  Sean and I had long decided to camp on islands or sandbars because the chances of stumbling into the local grizzly bears were much slimmer away from the mainland. The only suitable spot in sight was a small bank of land in the middle of the river. After a brief discussion, we pressed towards it; once we’d made it, we waited until the rain and winds subsided.

  Not that our troubles ended on terra firma. There were no trees on the island; everything was exposed to the elements and the wind howled around us. Putting up the tent was almost impossible, and once we’d crawled inside everything was soaked through, even the sleeping bags. We rustled up a quick hot drink, chowed down on some beef jerky and tried to sleep as the storm battered the sodden frame of our shelter. Every half an hour, one of us unzipped the tent door to check on the water levels and the whereabouts of the kayaks, which we’d positioned in a V-shape in front of the tent to form a makeshift windbreak. At 5.30 a.m., with the sun yet to come up, Sean took his turn as lookout.