Your Internal Radar

Do you ever ignore your home smoke detector when it goes off? True, sometimes it is a false alarm, however, the tendency is to never ignore it. With that said, every one of us has an internal RADAR alarm that should never be ignored, it is called intuition, even though sometimes it proves to be incorrect.

In a recent episode, an expert in personal safety emphasized the fact that Intuition Is Your Top Safety Skill to stay safe in this exceedingly dangerous world.

Therefore, in this blog I will be sharing what we discussed and how to use this inherent quality, intuition, to keep yourself and family safe from potential offenders.

​What is intuition? If you allow me to relate the nuances of intuition to when you first decided to purchase your first home. I would say you acted intuitively based on how you felt about the spaciousness to accommodate the family, visualizing yourself living there, the location, the approximation to schools, the distance to work and other considerations providing you the affirmation to buy your home, everything felt right. If I were to incapsulate intuition, it means being totally in the present without any extraneous distraction, thus, enabling you to make split instinctive decisions, if necessary, based on accumulated observation and experience. My guest often referred to it as (situational awareness) in relation to maintaining ourselves safe from predators.

I tell the story when I was at the age of 10 while being a side kick to my dad during the time, he was growing wine grapes of which there were always employees round about, and like in many places of employment, there was always one or two that intuitively appear unsavory.

Like many people that are predisposed to helping someone in need, I was no exception even as a boy, when someone asked for help, I gladly helped. One day, however, this one unsavory looking employee asked me to help look for something he misplaced somewhere in among the vineyards, and naturally I set off to help. Long as I can remember, I had the propensity of gawking at strangers, always analyzing people that did not fit in the mainstream, and this fellow fit the bill perfectly, so I kept my distance as he continually beckoned me to follow him. After a few minutes, my gut feeling or intuition was screaming at me, nagging at me to extricate myself from the situation entirely, the pieces of the puzzle did not fit, everything was telling me to leave him alone, so I did. At the time, I did not know, but in retrospect as an adult, I have no doubt he was a pedophile.

The reason for relating this story is to emphasize the importance of safety training our children to listen to their gut feelings in any given situation. Forget the niceties to (complete strangers), the safety of our children takes priority.

We all have the innate ability to make quick, intuitive decisions, and it is based on self-trust, however, unfortunately, in today's social environment, it demands that we be politically correct and be nice regardless of what we should do instinctively, disregarding suspicions, hunches or to trust our gut feeling, therefore, the lack thereof, it diminishes our personal safety.

We cannot afford to be Pollyannish with the assumption that everyone shares our core values and beliefs. Just because we do not want to hurt others, does not mean others do not want to hurt us. It would set us up to be too incredulous and gullible for a clean cut, innocent looking smooth talker, a Ted Bundy type, not judging on outward appearance, not second guessing ourselves by warnings from our intuition notwithstanding. We must learn to listen to our intuition and respect our feelings of doubts! Be street smart and live by the adage "When in doubt, leave it out!" Do not be naïvely trusting of dubious strangers but be skeptical, always with a pinch of reservation. I am sorry, but that is the world we live in, it is quite different from Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood and his sweater.

My guest says that criminals practice the principles of psychology to determine soft targets such as how lack of confidence is shown by how we carry ourselves as we amble along the sidewalk, the criminal is always weeding out their next victim. The same process is also seen in nature. Like lions, concealed predators lying in wait searching for those oblivious to their surroundings, those wandering off too far from the herd, and those too complacent to sense danger. So, do we have a spring of confidence in our step, or do we have a shuffle lacking strength and confidence as we amble along engrossed in our electronic device? Do we have the habit of going out after dark, alone ignoring the buddy system just because we want a donut for breakfast the next morning? "Give me a break!"

My expert guest also indicated that they are always looking to see whether a potential victim makes eye contact or not, suggesting apprehension and the lack of willingness to resist an attack. So, she said to always make eye contact, not in a threatening manner, but to let them know you have acknowledged them, you are fully aware of their presence, and this translates into making you a hard target, not a soft one.

Until recently, gut feelings were looked upon as an obstruction to making rational decisions, but now it is the contrary. Science in human behavior has shown that human emotion can and will work to resolve a challenge, and often subconsciously. These processes are always ongoing, in flying an aircraft, Sherpas, when guiding those up to Mt. Everest, with parents, in all of us humans whether we realize it or not.

As the human brain garners an aggregate of clues subconsciously, it triggers an alarm before we fully understand why. Granted, gut feelings or our intuition about threats or answers for challenges are not always correct, but intuition often has saved more lives than not. That said, do not just try, this is an implied excuse, but never ever disregard our wonderful intrinsic nervous system for personal safety, it is the highest form of intelligence.

Fear in my view is a gift that can serve us well in questionable situations. I do not know about you, but one of my personality traits, whether good or bad, is cynicism, I cannot readily trust just anyone, in fact, sometimes I cannot even trust myself in certain things much less a stranger. This proclivity of my cynical nature, I must admit, has served me well in business and in my private life.

Cynicism is a powerful assessment tool that we can utilize in any kind of scenario. Make it a habit to compel yourself to not only assume the best, but also assume the worst as well.

Here is an example: you discern a stranger walking slow and speeding up to match your stride, and then he makes a beeline for you. Then, he proceeds to ask you for the time. So, which is it? Is it because he does not have a watch or an iPhone? Or are his intentions to distract you and run off with your purse? Always assume the latter and raise your hand gesturing for him to stop from getting closer!

My guest said that her business is booming and will continue to do so exponentially. We can only conclude that the unrest of society is worsening, because of the cost of living that affects the entire gamut of necessities for life. This explains the (smash and grab) we see on TV, the violence by mass shooting, the fomenting of anxiety by the media, and the political and commercial corruption that permeates the entire infrastructure.

The purpose of this blog is not to fearmonger, but to inform and to encourage you to put up safeguards for your personal protection and the safety of your family in all areas of life.

Therefore, learn from every species in nature, and that is, there is protection in numbers, stick close to your family, stick close to your genuine friends, and stick close to your core beliefs.