When you find yourself thinking about someone or something in the same old negative way, just stop yourself. Think. Check. Change. Refresh. Job done.… - Bear Grylls

Calm under pressure isn't a personality trait. It is a discipline we build.

Any blisters on your shoulder blades would weep painfully, as the weight of the pack went back on. Then somehow your mind would shut out the pain, for a while. Until, by the end of the march, your shoulders would start to wilt and cramp up as if they were on fire.

Seven P.M. Half an hour to go until we started the laborious task of getting kitted up again.
It would take us at least an hour.
By the end no part of our bodies or faces would be visible. We would be transformed into cocooned figures, huddled, awaiting our fate.
I reached into the top pouch of my backpack and pulled out a few crumpled pages wrapped in plastic. I had brought them just for this moment.

Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall. But those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint.
Isaiah 40:29-31.

I felt that this was all I really had up here. There’s no one else with enough extra strength to keep you safe. It really is just you and your Maker. No pretense, no fluff — no plan B.
Over the next twenty-four hours, there would be a one in six chance of dying. That focuses the mind. And the bigger picture becomes important.
It was time to look death in the eye. Time to acknowledge that fear, hold the hand of the Almighty, and climb on.
And those simple Bible verses would ring round my head for the next night and day, as we pushed on ever higher.