Beyond the Gun: Trusting Intuition & Common Rationalization
Personal Defense Network EditorsPreparing for self-defense goes beyond the gun. Call it what you want -- intuition, instinct, spidey sense, gut reaction, sixth sense -- we all have it, and it’s important to pay attention to it. This video from Personal Defense Network discusses intuition as it relates to women.
In fact it’s often called women’s intuition. Our self-defense expert notes many women have told her of being in a situation where something or someone felt “off,” where they had an uncomfortable feeling.
Don’t Be a Good Girl
Unfortunately parental and societal conditioning has taught women to do as they’re told, to say yes, to not cause a fuss. One result of this is that women often do something potentially dangerous -- for example, helping a stranger who is giving off major creep vibes -- instead of getting as far away as possible, out of fear of being seen as impolite or inconsiderate.
PDN has numerous videos on self-defense for women that present tactics and techniques for dealing with the next step: when a person crosses the line into an attack.
Trusting intuition is essential, but doing something about it is even more important to self-defense. Don’t be afraid to be that woman who asks a person not to get so close to her if he is making her uncomfortable, or who leaves the area quickly without responding to a question.
Emotional “Flinch”
In PDN’s self-defense training, we talk about the physical “flinch” reaction to danger. Think of intuition as an emotional flinch. It’s telling you something may be wrong. Don’t ignore this and don’t hesitate to act on it. If you’re rude to a stranger who turns out to be an innocent -- so what? Don’t take the chance that he’s an attacker waiting to pounce on the woman who’s too polite to get far away from him.
Preparing for personal defense goes beyond the gun. One of the things that we have working for us as women is our intuition. Sometimes we'll get a feeling that says, that seems a little bit off, that seems a little bit wrong. And it's really, really important that we trust that feeling. I'll oftentimes hear stories of women who say they're walking down the street, and something felt a little bit off.
Somebody looked at them the wrong way, asked for something that they weren't comfortable giving. But they didn't want to come across as bitchy. or rude, or politically incorrect. So they went ahead and did that thing that made them uncomfortable. Now, in most situations, that's all it is, is a little bit of discomfort.
But think about how that could go if we didn't trust our intuition, and the person opposite us really had some bad intentions. Trusting your intuition is essential. But doing something about it when you feel like somebody has crossed into your boundary is even more important. For example, if I'm walking down the street, and somebody asked me for the time. Seems harmless enough, but if I get an uncomfortable feeling from that person, I need to be comfortable with asking that person to step away, make my space so I can continue on with my day.
Imagine if somebody just started throwing rocks at you. You're probably gonna take action pretty quickly in that situation. One of the first things that might happen is you might raise your hands up in between your face and the person who's throwing those rocks at you. And you're probably also going to get the heck out of there. So you don't have to continue to deal with that assault.
That physical flinch mechanism is also something that kind of works emotionally. So you can think about that intuition we have as somewhat of an emotional flinch. For example, if somebody looks at me or walks towards me, or says something to me, that seems uncomfortable, it gives me that gut check that feeling that just isn't right. It's an indicator, my body is telling me that I need to do something about it. I need to take action.
Whether that action is to tell that person verbally to stop what they're doing to back away from me, or whether it's to physically just get out of there because I'm uncomfortable. It's really, really important that you trust that intuition. Because at the end of the day, your safety is so much more important than how you come across.
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