Latest / Everyday Ancestral with James Barry / Emergency Isn’t Imminent—It's Inevitable: How Mira Dessy Prepares You to Thrive, Not Just Survive

Transcript

Emergency Isn’t Imminent—It's Inevitable: How Mira Dessy Prepares You to Thrive, Not Just Survive · Everyday Ancestral with James Barry

• 0:00
  You know, the world has been experiencing a lot of emergencies as of late from floods
• 0:05
  to hurricanes to tornadoes to fires.
• 0:09
  We thought since this is emergency preparedness month that this would be an ideal time to
• 0:13
  bring back Miradeci to talk about emergency preparedness.
• 0:17
  She is very passionate about this.
• 0:19
  She has lived through many emergencies and she's come up with a fantastic program that can
• 0:25
  ease anyone into resilience around upcoming potential emergencies.
• 0:31
  So up next on the everyday and social podcasts, Miradeci, we're diving into emergency preparedness.
• 0:40
  Why is this a topic we should be discussing?
• 0:43
  For so many people, emergency preparedness has a weird label, you know, you think of
• 0:47
  preppers and people doing all kinds of unusual things.
• 0:53
  And the truth of the matter is, for those of us who choose to eat in a particular way
• 1:00
  or who have concerns about the safety of their family, the ability to leave in an emergency
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  if you have to, thinking about this is simply being responsible, especially over the last
• 1:14
  three months, we have seen such a devastating number of natural disasters happen.
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  So being prepared for that.
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  And then there's also some financial concerns.
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  Like if you are someone who's paying attention to what and how you eat and how to prepare
• 1:32
  and how to make sure that you have supplies handy in a financial situation, you might have
• 1:37
  a little bit more of a cushion because you've done that.
• 1:40
  A lot of times though, like, okay, if we even use the devastating flood that just happened,
• 1:45
  that just so deeply affected us emotionally since we had kids that camp ourselves, nowhere
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  in that danger, but still, like, I just can't even imagine what those parents were going
• 1:55
  through.
• 1:57
  But kind of devil's advocate would say, well, okay, the people that were directly affected
• 2:02
  by that flood, even if they had been prepared when the shit really hits the fan, is anything
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  going to really help?
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  I think having a bug out bag, having supplies ready to go if you need to, and also perhaps
• 2:18
  having other informational sources can be very useful, you know, for example, our family
• 2:25
  went through Hurricane Harvey, we were flooded, our house, our daughter's house, it was pretty
• 2:31
  devastating, but we knew where we were going and we knew what we were bringing with us.
• 2:36
  We weren't able to leave exactly when we wanted to because of the nature of what was happening,
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  but as soon as we were able to, we left.
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  And our house did flood, our daughter's house, our daughter actually lost everything because
• 2:47
  her house flooded worse than ours did.
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  So sometimes emergency preparedness is also knowing how to leave.
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  And then I will also share another aspect of preparedness.
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  I have a class that I teach called first aid preparedness.
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  If you know how to deal with first aid situations in an emergency, you are not as reliant
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  on first responders because they're going to go where it's worst.
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  And I hope that's not you, but if you know what to do and how to take care of yourself
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  and those you care about and those around you, it's going to help you be able to get
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  through the situation a little bit better.
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  It almost sounds like you're saying like not only is it just an important individual service
• 3:33
  to be prepared for the worst, but also it's important as a community service, potentially.
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  Yes.
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  I firmly believe that if communities come together and support each other, for example,
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  there was a huge storm.
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  I've lived in Texas.
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  There was a huge storm in 2021 and a lot of trees came down and there was a winter apocalypse.
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  We called it the snow apocalypse.
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  The power grid went out for the entire state and neighborhoods were shut off.
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  So people being able to come together, if you had supplies, if you had power because
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  you had a generator, if you had other things, you were able to help the people around you.
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  So it wasn't like those apocalyptic movies where everyone's like hoarding and they're
• 4:21
  like, don't come to my house or I'll shoot you.
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  No.
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  No.
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  And as a matter of fact, I have so one of my mentors in this is a gentleman, Dr. Mark Vorderberg
• 4:30
  and he goes by Maryweather.
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  He talks about how during hurricane season, like he finds out who in his neighborhood has
• 4:36
  a chainsaw and who's able to go out and help with the cleanup.
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  He's always teaching people, this is where you go.
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  This is what you do and I take a lesson from that and part of the reason why I encourage
• 4:48
  people to learn these things and to begin to do this is because I feel like self-reliance
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  and the ability to take care of yourself is something that we've really lost and we
• 5:03
  need to reclaim that because things happen all the time.
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  The best time to plan for an emergency is before there is one.
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  I talk about resilience all the time just around modern day society of like that it's
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  not always just about being granular and being worried about what's going to touch your
• 5:20
  lips, your body, but more about, okay, can you be resilient if these things come into
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  your orbit?
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  How do you, how does your body, how does your immune system work through them?
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  So I think that is a really great point that we're not just talking about inner resilience
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  but we're also talking about that emergency preparedness so that you outside of your body
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  that you are prepared can support your community, support your family, hopefully support yourself.
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  So can you talk a little bit about what got you here?
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  Was it because of the flood?
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  When I met you this is not what you talked about.
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  I will share that Hurricane Harvey was sort of a tipping point for me where as I began
• 6:00
  to share people were like you need to teach other people how to do this because I was,
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  I started talking about some of what we were going through but it actually began a long
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  time ago when my husband and I were newlyweds and we went to Florida for his work and all
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  the sudden one day a neighbor came over and knocked on my door and said hi there's a hurricane
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  coming we have to go to the grocery store and we went to the grocery store I've probably
• 6:28
  bought a bunch of crappy things that I wouldn't buy now but we also she talked to me about
• 6:32
  water and batteries and things like that and we went through Hurricane Elena and it brought
• 6:40
  a tree down luckily not on the house we were living in but when we opened the back door
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  the tree came in so it was really close and then over the years different places that we
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  lived we kept having different situations come up so Hurricane certainly we had blizzards
• 6:58
  where we were locked in we had ice storms where it was really bad we had times when we couldn't
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  get out to get to the grocery store and at this point I had kids in the house so I was learning how
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  to do this as I went along and then I also learned some of the safety things that we don't really
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  think about again because nobody teaches us for example during storm winter storm Yuri which is
• 7:25
  the snow apocalypse of 2021 a lot of people died because they didn't know that you can't bring a
• 7:30
  propane grill into your house to cook on it what time you're home this is Texas people are not
• 7:36
  used to thinking about that I'm laughing at the you know sort of never pay basically because it's
• 7:43
  funny but because it's uncomfortable there are people who didn't know that sure you can wear coats
• 7:49
  and hats and gloves and things when you gotta cover your head to you lose so much heat through your
• 7:53
  head and then people not knowing how to deal with the grocery store being out of food I share this
• 8:02
  regularly on social media I'm like hey you know my gas tank said half tank got to fill up because
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  you should never go below half a tank because if the powers out guess what the gas station can have
• 8:13
  all the gas they want they can't deliver it to you you have to be able to get out of town if you
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  need to and at least a half a tank is going to get you further than coasting in on fumes all right so
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  already there's three we want to see preparedness things we have to be aware of one do not bring a
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  propane based barbecue pit into your house and think that you can cook inside there to make sure
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  your gas tank is over goes below half a tank the third was not having a preparedness pantry like I
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  believe you should have two kinds of pantries in your home the first one is your everyday pantry that's
• 8:50
  the one you cook out of that's the one that you know you're making a meal or you're looking for a snack
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  or whatever the one that you shop for most often however is your preparedness pantry that's the one where
• 9:03
  you have supplies ready so that you don't run out now obviously we can't do that very much with
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  fresh food so we do shop for fresh food a lot but how often are you buying perishable or non-perishables
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  rather that if you had it at the house it would be fine for example maybe your family uses a lot of
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  condiments and making sure you always have condiments on hand maybe your family eats certain
• 9:31
  products pasta or whatever to have that certainly having the staples things like olive oil and salt
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  and baking supplies and sugar and whatever those things you can store those in your home and you know
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  you've been a guest in my house you've seen my preparedness pantry it's not huge but it's there my
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  goal is I encourage people to have enough on hand in prepared food that you could feed your family
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  for two to four weeks okay that was going to make my next question so two to four weeks is what you're
• 10:06
  planning out yeah because if it's more than that you've probably got bigger problems and maybe
• 10:11
  you need to leave and here's the thing no shade to anybody who's like I have a whole years worth of
• 10:17
  supplies or two years or whatever great if you have the room for that and you can do that that's
• 10:22
  fabulous where I live I would have to give up so much of my house to be able to do that it's not
• 10:28
  worth it okay so you're already convincing me more because of that exact point when people talk
• 10:36
  about having like a year's worth of supplies that's where they lose me I'm just like we're never
• 10:41
  going to use that I don't know where to store it and then of course there's the turnover because
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  of course they'll be like well but you also have to replace it every five years so not only you
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  putting all the finances into that then you have to track it all and that's where they lose me it's
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  like I have enough responsibility I don't need to then track with the expiration dates for a year's
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  worth of food or whatever you know I'm saying so I love that you're talking you're condensing it
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  you're saying two to four weeks and then what you're what I'm also hearing is that you're talking
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  about foods that you do regularly use so let's use the posses as an example so you go through let's
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  say one box a week so you're buying four to six boxes four boxes and then when you use one you
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  replace it I am a big fan of when you're shopping it's because you're replacing what you need
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  I think that's really key is that this isn't like some kind of food that you don't normally eat
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  that you're just holding on to but you're you're the focused on the foods that you would normally
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  be eating that are maybe diet or specific to your health needs and you're just maintaining
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  those that is great are you just going like first in goes to the back and are you just rotating it
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  like that like what's your process of rotation let's say we'll we'll use mayonnaise and your family
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  uses about one jar of mayonnaise a month so you're always going to want to have an extra jar of mayonnaise
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  so that when you run out of mayonnaise you know there's another one in the pantry when you go to
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  use that jar of mayonnaise your very next trip to the grocery store is to add mayonnaise but you
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  don't need it for another month because you only use one jar a month I mean I don't want you to
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  run it to the edge but you've got it let's say it's something that you use a little bit more
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  often like let's say canned beans maybe you eat beans twice a week and so you're using canned
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  beans because I admit there's a convenience factor there you have 10 cans of beans if you buy more
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  beans the new cans go behind the old cans so we don't shove them in the front we always arrange it
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  so that the new stuff goes in the back and moves its way forward how do you organize your pantry so that
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  everything is visible so you can keep track of these numbers I'm not able to see everything at once
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  just because shelves are so deep I do try to keep things lined up and then I also have a worksheet
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  so I teach a class that is called the Preparedness Pantry Master Class and there's worksheets in
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  there and I encourage you twice a year to go through and organize your pantry and look at what's in
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  there and so when you're organizing it though are you organizing it by what's the category so it's
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  like what is it how many do I have and what are the dates are there some that that dates getting
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  a little tight I need to use it because maybe it got lost in the back and I'll confess even in my
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  house that happens because I'm the one who's more finicky about that than maybe other people but
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  if you go through it twice a year you're never going to have anything that's seriously out of date
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  like I will share I have someone that I was just talking to recently and she shared that she had
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  been through a lot of stuff a lot of things that happened in her life and she was all the sudden
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  cleaning everything out and realized that she had a whole bunch of expired food because it had sat
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  at the bottom of her pantry where she wasn't paying attention to it and she didn't regularly go
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  through it I'm not going to lie it's a pain in the butt to rip that thing apart it takes me a half
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  a day but I also know that a I'm planning meals around what I know I need to use up quickly
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  and be I know that there's nothing in there that's seriously expired or not good to eat
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  who likes the taste of organs not my kids that's why pluck is great it's a super food seasoning made
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  from grass fed grass finished organ meats and organic spices and herbs but it doesn't taste like
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  organs just sprinkle it on like salt and suddenly your meals are packed with real bioavailable nutrients
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  no drama just nourishment easy peasy without the queasy if you consult it you can pluck it go to
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  eatpluck.com and use code EA20 for 20% off your first order what about for the things
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  that are not as easily quantifiable so like water for example like how do you do water and what about
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  the categories of the food like so for example there are perishables like let's say if I eat meat
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  and I have a freezer well the electricity goes out that meat's going to go bad so should I be thinking
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  about proteins differently for my emergency kit versus my every day both really good points so
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  let's start with water and then we'll go to the proteins water one thing that most people don't
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  realize is you need a gallon of water per person per day and a pet counts as a person by the way
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  in terms of having good drinkable water and then you also obviously we don't drink a gallon a
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  day but then that gives you some for cooking and that sort of thing it's really hard to store that
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  much water I encourage people to try to store three to five days worth if you can and I will share
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  that the two and a half gallon containers that they sell at the grocery store don't work because
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  over time they split those seams give way and the way I know this is at one point I had stocked up
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  a whole bunch of water and then one day I went into the closet and I noticed that the carpet was wet
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  so those seams don't hold up so you need to have something that is a good sturdy water safe container
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  I happen to be a fan of something called an aqua tainer they look like gasoline containers but they're
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  blue and you put water in that so you can store water in that is it aluminum or what is it no it's
• 17:01
  plastic it's food grade plastic but here's the thing you know you got to make a choice here you know
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  you're like me and typically we prefer glass and metal and all of that kind of stuff but glass
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  and water is really hard because if it slips it's going to shatter and break and metal is going
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  to taint the water the plastic won't however beyond that three to five days that's where we look at
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  what are our secondary options for example you can get a life straw and I do have one for everybody
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  in the house what is this a life straw is a device that allows you you could basically drink swamp
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  water through that thing and it cleans out 99.999 percent of the bacteria and those kinds of things
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  so that's an option if you have a water source nearby that you could potentially go get water from
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  and bring it to your house if you don't have that are there other sources one of the biggest ones
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  I get all the time is people who are like oh I have a swimming pool well that's great but there's
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  all kinds of chemicals in there that you should not be drinking so then you have to have some kind
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  of a filter whether it's a burky or you know one of those other brands that will filter out the things
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  that are not going to be supportive for you but looking at what is your secondary plan
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  having the three to five days and then having the life straw one of the things I like about a
• 18:18
  life straw as well is those are great if you have to leave because you can tuck them in your bug
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  out bag and take them with you because you don't know what the water situation is going to be where
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  you're going so that's the water situation I will also share that there are water saving habits
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  that you want to get into and and I do encourage families to like let's play black out
• 18:39
  oh gee waters out powers out what are we going to do we're going to have dinner by candlelight
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  we're going to maybe cook differently and then we're going to think about the water that we're
• 18:49
  using for example a bowl in the sink to wash your hands or you know how how do we reduce our water
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  usage so that we're not using as much because we can't turn on the faucet today this is just all
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  stressing me out my goal is not to stress you out with this because the other thing is James
• 19:06
  every single change that you make is one thing more that you're doing to protect your family
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  so even if all you do is change how you store food in your pantry and make sure that your
• 19:15
  storing at least some water that's great you don't have to do more than that as you get comfortable
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  with that then you look at maybe doing more right but the key is to not sit and wait just to start
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  with that one thing can we talk about protein yeah let's do it because that's another one of my
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  very favorite topics I am a big fan of having a freezer if the power goes out the freezer needs
• 19:39
  to stay shut as long as possible if the power starts staying out for an extended number of days
• 19:43
  obviously things are going to start to thaw in there so that's when you have to cook them because
• 19:48
  that'll give you a little bit more time you know if it goes bad while it's it's raw then obviously
• 19:54
  there's not much you can do but if you cook it you get a few more days out of it you also look at
• 19:59
  alternative ways to store protein can you for example look at canned fish that's a great protein
• 20:06
  source can you look at dried protein sources if you have them beans certainly are great jerky is
• 20:13
  another option and then another thing that I encourage people to look at is the concept of
• 20:19
  freeze-dried foods and they're very easy to get if you don't open the can they're good for 25
• 20:26
  years I do encourage you to open the can and learn how to use it though because it is a little
• 20:31
  bit different you do have to hydrate it before you can use it but that's another way to make sure
• 20:35
  that you have protein available okay that's great and I think I was sharing one with you last I saw
• 20:41
  you a great opportunity to plug the corn of ore bar because I don't know if they're up to 25
• 20:48
  years in terms of preservation but they're pretty high up there it's either 15 12 something like
• 20:53
  that and it's basically a pemican bar which is an ancestral way of preserving me it's basically dried
• 21:01
  meat protein with fat or talo in this case and it's about typically about a 50 50 mix they sometimes
• 21:09
  add salt sometimes honey as well and it's amazing like it's completely preserved if you're eating
• 21:16
  pemican it is a very satisfying like it fills you up so yes it really does it's true meal replacement
• 21:24
  and a little goes very far you keep matching this bug bag what is that look out bag bug out sometimes
• 21:32
  referred to as a go bag is a bag that you can grab and go in a hurry and it's where you have you
• 21:40
  a few supplies that are good to help you get out of town I encourage people to have things
• 21:47
  like you know a little bit of food so a carnivore bar or something like that would be a great choice
• 21:51
  in something a life straw maybe a little bottle of water but you're not going to carry three days
• 21:56
  worth of water on your back you know so that's a challenge change of clothes maybe some first day
• 22:01
  equipment you know there are things that you want to keep in there just in case you have to leave
• 22:06
  you want to make sure that you have supplies that will help you get as far away as possible
• 22:11
  to get to something safe how do you account for the emotional change it's one thing to plan things
• 22:19
  in our current state because there's no emergency so it's like oh I'll tuck this here I'll put
• 22:23
  that there I keep my bag there when we're actually in an emergency though a lot of times people
• 22:30
  panic and I like wait wait where is this where is that how do you prepare for that I really encourage
• 22:36
  people to regularly go through their things you know for example if you have a bug out bag where do
• 22:44
  you keep it if you have you know a bin maybe that's got supplies I have a class called building a
• 22:51
  bug out bag and in the class one of the people that I interviewed was a pet wellness expert and she
• 22:57
  talked about what do you do for your pets well chances are I mean dogs maybe you can put a little
• 23:02
  backpack on them but most pets you know if it's fish birds cats whatever they're not going to have
• 23:06
  a backpack so you're going to have a bin and hopefully be able to get it in your car and carry it
• 23:11
  presumably you're leaving by car at that point but it's about going through your supplies and again
• 23:17
  I recommend every six months pick a time that works for you generally not December or January
• 23:26
  because those are taken up with other things so maybe you look at whatever your birthday month is
• 23:32
  unless it happens to be December or January and then six months after that and those are the times
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  when you're like okay this month I'm going to go through my stuff and the more you touch it and the
• 23:41
  more you pay attention to what's in it do you have to replace things for example I recently went
• 23:46
  through our bug out bags and realized that some of the supplies that were in there I really don't
• 23:53
  need to have in there anymore because how we live our lives and some of the choices that we're
• 23:58
  making are different I just change out the supplies it's same thing with kids you know if you have
• 24:04
  kids and you've got let's say you're going to put a couple sets of clothes in there because you don't
• 24:08
  know well they grow so you got to replace those and I mean imagine something like this would have
• 24:15
  been very handy for example with the LA fires right that just happened a lot of those people lost
• 24:21
  so now what do you do about things like the things that you're using every day that you can't
• 24:28
  have replicas of like passports wallets how do you you know what do you do because a lot of times
• 24:34
  in an emergency that's the thing that people might forget and it may be very needed I don't believe
• 24:41
  it's possible to anticipate every single emergency nor do I want to give that much emotional space
• 24:48
  to it I know where I live hurricanes are a thing so that's what we're planning for you know and we
• 24:56
  also we have a family plan we know if the if things are down if the cell services down or we
• 25:02
  can't communicate with each other everybody knows where we're going what's the meeting point what
• 25:06
  are we going to do and hurricanes are our biggest thing someone else it might be in earthquake someone
• 25:13
  else it might be wildfires like you plan for what's in your area you don't plan for everything
• 25:19
  and yes there may be an offshoot something might happen that's out of the ordinary for your area
• 25:25
  but you do the best you can so if you have a bug out bag one of the things that can be very useful
• 25:31
  is to have photocopies at least of all of your important documents I do know for some people
• 25:38
  depending on how much you have or what needs to happen you can also get like little fireproof boxes
• 25:43
  and maybe that's one of the things you grab you grab your bag you grab your box and you go
• 25:47
  you mentioned you didn't want to give certain things too much emotional weight can you talk about
• 25:53
  why is that and what do you mean by emotional weight so by emotional weight I mean getting so
• 26:03
  consumed by worrying about what might happen that you forget to enjoy life and forget to
• 26:12
  do fun things or whatever it's okay to to plan or to prepare for things but not to the point
• 26:19
  where it becomes obsessive and every single situation is a you know danger what could happen kind
• 26:25
  of thing when I say the emotional weight of it I know that for example we live in a hurricane
• 26:34
  zone so it means during the summer hurricanes are a possibility I don't sit there and obsessively
• 26:42
  check the weather I mean I check it a couple times a day and I know what we're going to do if a
• 26:49
  hurricane strikes but I'm not planning on really being so overwhelmed by it that it takes up too
• 26:56
  much working space in my brain I think there are times sometimes where it's possible to get so deep
• 27:03
  into that that you start going into things that either might never happen or are so remote
• 27:10
  for your area for example yes in Texas a couple of times we've had bad winter weather and yes it
• 27:16
  has been devastating and the grocery store can't resupply and roads are closed because they don't
• 27:21
  have you know clearing equipment but I don't spend every winter sitting there going okay so now
• 27:26
  I have to have bags of ice and I have to have you know all these equipment and all this stuff like
• 27:30
  that's challenging too because I also recognize you know I'm a real person like everybody else
• 27:35
  there's only so much money that you have to spend so you you spend what you can as you can
• 27:42
  and you prepare for the things that you know are a possibility if there's a reason why something
• 27:48
  needs to change then you make adjustments but I think it's very easy to get to a point where
• 27:55
  you're just constantly living on edge and that's so bad for your nervous system that it would be
• 28:01
  really really challenging what is the financial investment range that you see as a healthy
• 28:10
  barometer of like this is for obsessive range this is mid-range this is low range like what's the
• 28:17
  best range that is so hard to answer I think each person needs to figure out what it is for
• 28:23
  themselves and needs to figure out how much I know for example some of the people who have taken
• 28:28
  my class you know they they can go out and they can spend a couple hundred dollars a month slowly
• 28:34
  buying supplies there are other people who are like hey I got five dollars a week I'm gonna focus
• 28:39
  on food and I'm gonna add an extra five dollars a week great like you just start where you are
• 28:45
  to me I see it as a progressive journey rather than an end destination I don't know at what point
• 28:52
  you go okay I've got everything I need but I do know for example maybe you start with
• 28:58
  having two to four weeks worth of food and to make sure that you have a water plan and then from
• 29:04
  there you start thinking about okay now how often have we had to leave if we had to leave what would
• 29:11
  we bring with us so here's a perfect example where we live we did not originally have a generator
• 29:18
  and then the power started going out a lot and so we saved our money and we got a generator so now
• 29:24
  we have a generator if the power goes out but it wasn't something that was part of our plan before
• 29:29
  it was just that we made an adjustment as we needed to and we got through it when it happened
• 29:34
  and then decided we didn't want to live that way you know moving forward because sometimes it goes
• 29:40
  out for you know a few days I wonder though how do you answer to people that are like well but in my
• 29:47
  manifesting an emergency when I you know like if I put so much effort towards this in my
• 29:55
  innocence welcoming this and maybe I'm answering this myself but that maybe there is no way like
• 30:01
  if you're prepared you're prepared it's not like this is ever gonna hurt you going down this path
• 30:06
  is not gonna mean like oh you're gonna regret it later it's just it's better to have it and not
• 30:11
  need it than to not have it and need it and again I'm talking about what I believe are realistic
• 30:18
  preparedness goals I'm not talking about having you know a year's worth of food in your basement
• 30:24
  I'm talking about having what you eat on a regular basis and if you're someone who has a special
• 30:30
  diet by the way having what you need becomes even more important because the grocery store might not
• 30:35
  have it but enough that you learn how to utilize it in a good way learning how for example what
• 30:43
  supplies do you have in your car so that if your car broke down what would you do you know would you
• 30:48
  have a few things do you have a safety vest for example high-biz yellow safety vest like that could
• 30:53
  be important it's never that we're sitting there saying oh this is gonna happen and I have to have
• 30:59
  all this or I will share one of the frustrations I have sometimes I I wind up occasionally talking
• 31:05
  to people who are interested in the preparedness pantry masterclass and they go I don't really care
• 31:10
  about hurricanes where I live those don't happen okay great for you but other things happen every
• 31:16
  place we live there is something there is gonna be something and then I also know her example one
• 31:23
  one of my favorite success stories is a woman who is in the in the masterclass who went out of the
• 31:31
  country and then there was a natural disaster that happened and she had someone staying at the
• 31:36
  house to take care of her house and her dog and they were communicating with each other by text and
• 31:41
  this woman was like oh my gosh what am I gonna do about this and she's like oh don't worry about it
• 31:45
  it's taking care of this is where that is this is where this is and she said I felt so good knowing
• 31:49
  that this person who was staying in my house had everything they were possibly gonna need because I
• 31:53
  had already taken care of that that's a huge added plus is that a stressful situation for the person
• 31:59
  that's prepared is not so stressful right maybe where you live they don't have wildfires but there are
• 32:07
  other things but it's not always natural disaster for example there have been supply chain
• 32:13
  interruptions you know what happened with the Suez Canal what happened when that bridge got hit
• 32:18
  on 95 like those interrupt the supply chain I had someone who took the class because she wanted to
• 32:26
  make sure that she and her husband had jobs that were sometimes very unreliable in terms of their
• 32:34
  employment level they wanted to make sure that they had stuff so that if they lost their job or if
• 32:39
  they had to take a pay cut which did happen they were not as devastated by that because they had
• 32:46
  supplies that would help them get through what about money how does that fit into emergency
• 32:52
  preparedness like should you have cash what's your thought around that I do think it can be helpful
• 32:58
  to have cash I will say that probably small bills are better only because if you start stocking
• 33:04
  hundreds and you go to buy something like I have no change like that's not great by the same token
• 33:10
  it also can be good to have certain supplies maybe you have extras of certain things that are
• 33:16
  tradable what's an example of tradable supplies well good tradable supplies might be things like alcohol
• 33:24
  or first aid supplies or things like that that someone else might need or want food certainly is
• 33:30
  always tradable think about things that might be a value not that you want to stock extra of those
• 33:38
  just to trade them but if you have them to think that those are potentially tradable what about
• 33:44
  medication because a lot of times you can't get more than what your prescription is I do have a
• 33:51
  class called first aid preparedness and we do talk about that and as a matter of fact one of the
• 33:57
  people that I interviewed for that was a medical expert and you can get what's called the vacation
• 34:05
  override for your medications for a lot of people it can be useful to say hey I need a vacation
• 34:10
  override and then you've actually got two months worth instead of one but you use them wisely so
• 34:17
  that you're always using the oldest one and what your refilling is going into your supply I have a
• 34:24
  gift for you it's called the Freedom Meets Guide and it's all about reclaiming your health with
• 34:31
  the most nutrient dense traditional foods liver heart kidney raw milk bone broth and more
• 34:40
  these are the foods that built strong resilient people for generations and this guide helps you
• 34:47
  bring them back into your life whether you're just getting started or deep intense
• 34:53
  ancestral living this is the roadmap all 24 pages of it are available to download for free via
• 35:01
  the link in the show notes start feeding your body what it really needs you deserve it
• 35:10
  people listening this are inspired what are the first steps so the first step would be to go
• 35:17
  to the kitchen table I can give you the link and sign up so here's the thing I have the preparedness
• 35:23
  pantry master class that is everything it's one big all the different things all the workbooks all
• 35:30
  the handouts and then you also get to come to a live call with me once a month and we go over a bunch
• 35:36
  of things if that's a little too much for you and you're not ready to do that I have a class on how
• 35:42
  to build a bug out bag that's a standalone class I have a first aid preparedness seminar that's a
• 35:46
  standalone class or I have the real food in an emergency that's a standout class so you could
• 35:51
  just start with one of those like maybe you you're like oh that bug out back things sounds pretty
• 35:56
  cool maybe I need to do that just get that class go through that there's some great guest experts
• 36:01
  that I interviewed as well to talk about different things one of them's a wilderness expert you know
• 36:07
  one of them's a medical expert and like I said one of them is a pet wellness expert so learning how
• 36:12
  to do that and then from there if you want to do more do more like I said it's always about doing
• 36:18
  a little bit at a time you just mentioned the wilderness expert that maybe think of is is there
• 36:25
  anything you should be adding to your kits that are probably a little out of the ordinary like a
• 36:30
  fire starter thing should you be thinking like that like in case the entire facility you let your
• 36:36
  entire house is no longer available and now you are in a tent or in a woods should you be going
• 36:41
  that far I think that there is nothing wrong with doing that I will also say again it's a matter of
• 36:48
  figuring out what your personal situation is and what will make you feel most comfortable to begin
• 36:56
  with for most people the two things that are the best place to start are either learning how to
• 37:06
  build a preparedness pantry and making sure that you have food available to feed yourself and your
• 37:11
  family especially if you have a special diet and a bug out bag and then as you get those under control
• 37:18
  then you look at doing other things I don't encourage anyone to try to do everything all at once
• 37:24
  first of all it's exhausting it's a lot because it's a lot of work and a lot of effort and a lot of
• 37:29
  money and the other thing is you always want to make sure that what you're doing is something that you
• 37:35
  feel comfortable with and that will help you feel prepared basically what about tools I know when I
• 37:43
  took my emergency course at Portland they have a neighborhood emergency response team and so I
• 37:51
  took that I went down that path and they had that tool that plier tool that has the switch blade
• 37:57
  style other tools on it what's it called it's called a leather man leather man so they had that they
• 38:04
  recommended that they also recommended the gas shutoff tool what are the top three tools you
• 38:10
  recommend everyone kind of have so I think having a leather man is certainly great because there's
• 38:14
  so many different things that it can do like it has a lot of different items on it I think having
• 38:20
  something that is going to help you start a fire it can always be a good thing and then I also think
• 38:29
  like you said having either a gas shutoff or a water shutoff or whatever you need for your house
• 38:34
  so that probably comes to four tools but those are useful if your water is going crazy because
• 38:39
  you're pipe burst you need to know how to shut off water and so again this is where we we practice
• 38:46
  we know where the water shutoff valve is and is it the one at the street that shuts off the entire
• 38:52
  line or is it just the one at the house or you know what is it where is your gas shutoff valve and
• 38:59
  how do you use the tool because these are not intuitive tools they don't look like a wrench they're
• 39:04
  slightly different so you have to know how to attach them it's just a little bit at a time my goal
• 39:11
  is for people to learn to feel comfortable thinking about the fact that it's always okay to
• 39:19
  be mindful of being more self-reliant because that in turn means that when an emergency happens
• 39:28
  you're going to be less stressed because you know you've done things and like I said if I
• 39:35
  done every single thing I can no I'm still always doing little things here and there because
• 39:41
  that's what we do yeah I think that's such a great point that I really like that as an emphasis
• 39:47
  for what emergency preparedness could look like I want to just touch base before we end about the
• 39:54
  plan you mentioned a few times like having a few different plans like not only where where do we
• 40:02
  go where do we meet but also how do we leave the house like what do we take so having that plan
• 40:09
  can you kind of delve into that a little bit more of like what are maybe a few different plans
• 40:14
  that we should be thinking about part of it is to look at who lives in your house and what are
• 40:19
  their needs because let's say for example you have someone who is a senior citizen living in your
• 40:25
  home who has limited mobility and possibly is on medication well you're going to want to make sure
• 40:30
  that if you have to leave that they're taking care of so how are you going to get them out how are
• 40:35
  you going to make sure that whatever assistive devices they need are going to fit whatever you're
• 40:40
  doing and again having that emergency override gives you at least a little bit of a question
• 40:44
  when it comes to medications if you're someone who has small children well obviously your
• 40:51
  situations could be a little bit different because you're going to need some sort of carry mechanism
• 40:55
  really it all comes down to thinking about your personal situation now one of the things that I do
• 41:01
  offer is a consultation where I sit down with people and go over their personal situation and what
• 41:09
  their preparedness needs might be and then I write them a very comprehensive report with links
• 41:14
  and everything but I can't tell you for example what your situation exactly should be without
• 41:22
  actually discussing it with you because your situation is different than mine you have pets in
• 41:26
  the home you have kids in the home you have certain things that need to be taken care of
• 41:31
  and the other question is do you have to leave like that's one of the first decisions I guess
• 41:37
  in an emergency situation do you have to leave or can you stay and if you stay do you have what you
• 41:42
  need yeah so in a sense you have to think through maybe a few different scenarios depending on
• 41:48
  your situation yeah I like that is that not a one size fits all that you need to think through it
• 41:54
  for your situation you know an academy too that you know when our kids are in schools they go
• 41:59
  through all these emergency preparedness situations whether it's for earthquakes or hurricanes or
• 42:04
  not fire drills and yet we never do that in our homes like ever I think it's a really good point
• 42:12
  I think it's a really really good point that you know we spend a lot of our time in our home
• 42:19
  and they can experience emergencies just like schools can just like places of business can so
• 42:24
  we need to think through what is our exit strategy here what is the scenario and how would we
• 42:30
  potentially work throughout I actually just thought of another piece of equipment that I think
• 42:34
  you should have you know how they have those little headlamp things and a lot of people get them
• 42:41
  for working on things where they want to work hands-free everybody in the family should have one
• 42:46
  right because if it's dark you need to be able to see and it'd be nice to be hands-free so
• 42:52
  everybody gets a headlamp and obviously you mentioned candles earlier or you or if you're
• 42:58
  concerned about having open flames like having some kind of battery candle that has refresh batteries
• 43:03
  you know you're constantly checking the batteries and has backups right LED camping lanterns instead
• 43:09
  because those are going to put out more light and they're going to last longer than a regular
• 43:15
  battery because they okay so the LED lanterns what about gas versus electric car because
• 43:23
  that is a huge issue I'm noticing we have a Tesla and it's so interesting when we were in
• 43:29
  organ it was a non-issue didn't come up ever about charging times how long the battery would last
• 43:36
  everything but now that we're on these coast it's serious like during the winter when it's cold
• 43:42
  the thing does not charge we're not using a supercharger because there's a story of that because of
• 43:48
  the house we ran we don't have it set up but because of that during the winter it's really hard
• 43:53
  to charge the car and then when it's hot like extremely hot it also doesn't charge properly so
• 44:01
  during a scenario when the weather is extreme these cars don't function properly for that reason
• 44:07
  are you kind of like I'm not for electric cars or like what's your position on that I think electric
• 44:13
  cars can be great again it comes down to and the example I used is gas because I drive a car
• 44:19
  that is gasoline now I know there's a proper window on an electric car you don't want it
• 44:26
  undercharged and you don't want it overcharged but making sure that you're always checking it
• 44:31
  to make sure that it's at whatever is the most that you can have so that you can get as far as
• 44:37
  possible the goal is if there is an emergency situation to be able to get as far away as
• 44:42
  possible and usually within two to three hundred miles chances are not always but a lot of times
• 44:51
  the situation is different and if that's as far as you can get them like that's as far as you can
• 44:56
  get and then you go from there but again how often is that going to happen and this is the emotional
• 45:02
  side of what I was talking about we think about what we can do and how far we can get
• 45:08
  but we don't sit there and worry about it if you're taking the time to make sure that your car has
• 45:14
  maximum power or maximum allowable power optimal power and that you have some supplies in the car
• 45:20
  and that you have bug out bags if you had to leave short load up everybody and go and you get
• 45:24
  as far as you get but to spend a lot of time worrying about it takes away from your enjoyment of
• 45:31
  everyday life and turns you into this very fearful person and that's not how we want to live our lives
• 45:39
  yeah I think that's a really good point lastly what about communication stuff you know because
• 45:45
  obviously cell phones may not work if you're in a true emergency tickly if it's a flood and they
• 45:52
  get wet is there a communication device that you recommend to have on hand or is it more of like
• 45:59
  you know you just deal with the cards you dealt my personal plan is and what I encourage other
• 46:05
  people to do is to have a plan if communication is out everybody knows what the plan is everybody
• 46:12
  knows where we're going and where we're supposed to meet the goal is to hopefully get there somehow
• 46:16
  we managed before cell phones that's true but we had land lines and land lines worked even during
• 46:23
  power outage that is the big difference yes and I know there are some people who put in a landline
• 46:29
  for that for that matter you know they're like okay I'm putting a land line in because we want to
• 46:33
  make sure that we have it I know there are some people who make sure that everybody in their
• 46:38
  family has a walkie talkie that is good for up to so many miles and that's presuming that they're
• 46:42
  all in the same house and they're fairly close to each other but if they were separated if they
• 46:46
  were away from home they would have it I know there are other people who are very into the idea of
• 46:53
  using a ham radio to stay in touch and to stay connected to what's going on at least an
• 46:59
  AM radio to find out the news but again it's looking at your particular situation what you can do
• 47:05
  the most important part of that though is to have a plan to say if I can't stay in my house and I
• 47:12
  have to leave this is where I'm going and you all who are part of my little bubble whoever that is
• 47:19
  adult children or neighbors or friends or whatever you all know that that's my plan and you know
• 47:25
  if that's your plan then we will meet up there I think also James to not be afraid to talk about
• 47:31
  this stuff as there can be some people you talk about and they're going to be like whoa dude like
• 47:36
  that's kind of crazy why why are you talking about that I personally believe that it's about
• 47:42
  self-reliance and it's about doing the best that you can I don't claim to be the world's biggest
• 47:49
  you know I can handle anything person but I know there's a lot that I can do and I know that
• 47:55
  there's a lot I have done and my goal is to encourage other people to do that so that you're not
• 48:02
  stuck we got past the point of being stuck a number of years ago now it doesn't mean that something
• 48:09
  won't come up that we're like hmm got to figure this out but the other thing is learning how to
• 48:15
  have that preparedness mindset also helps you be more able I think to figure things out the beginning
• 48:23
  of the emergency you're like whoa but then you're kind of like whoa no wait a minute we can work
• 48:28
  our way through this like we've thought about things we can figure this out and I honestly think
• 48:32
  it's also great for kids too they don't have to worry that they don't know what to do or that the
• 48:37
  people who are in charge of them don't know what to do because it's like we got a plan yeah it's
• 48:42
  a really great point Mira I think if there's anything we're going to anyone leaves with
• 48:48
  is to just start having the conversation and start maybe even forming what that would look like
• 48:56
  and as you said start taking little steps and that it's not about having an end result because
• 49:04
  it's impossible to plan for everything but to start the conversation to start taking steps
• 49:12
  so that you are more confident more resilient and more prepared when something does happen I
• 49:19
  so appreciate you coming back to talk about this because we did not get to talk about the saying
• 49:24
  no you're very passionate about this and that it's really important I just love that you are a
• 49:31
  model for really staying true to yourself because I've watched you in the short time I've known you
• 49:38
  evolve your messaging and evolve what matters to you and really that is what you're talking about
• 49:45
  you're talking about as we learn something let's now do better let's not pretend it's not going
• 49:50
  to happen again but you know it's that idea of like do do good until you know better and then do
• 49:56
  better and I think you're really modeling that so thank you I just want to say is to be of service
• 50:03
  I want to help other people not be scared or overwhelmed sure maybe you might get stuck but
• 50:10
  maybe you won't the more you know the better you do and if I can help be an educational conduit
• 50:16
  for that and if I can be a support person for that like that just makes me very happy the more you
• 50:22
  know the better you'll do there you have it everybody Mira desi and we'll have all the notes for
• 50:27
  her programs and and for every point she made and this talk in the show notes so appreciate you
• 50:35
  sharing your wisdom and your care and your mission with us Mira thank you for tuning in to the
• 50:44
  everyday ancestral podcasts please stay curious and take care of each other thank you so much for
• 50:51
  joining me on everyday ancestral if you enjoyed this episode hit subscribe so you don't miss the
• 50:58
  next one you could find the show notes links and resources mentioned at eatpluck.com that's
• 51:04
  eatpluck.com and hey if you know someone who'd get something out of this share it with them too stay
• 51:15
  curious live well and keep it ancestral