When did you last listen to your gut?
I was reading this headline and it got me thinking about a talk Mr Singleton gave in class a few weeks ago about …’ the cues and deceptions’ people use before an attack’ https://www.portsmouth.co.uk/news/crime/police-charge-hampshire-man-51-after-attempted-abduction-toddler-pushchair-3127215
We talk in class about the ‘cues and deceptions’ that can happen prior to an attack.
These are the indicators that someone may have the intention to harm us or our family.
The cues become really difficult to observe and act on if the person attempting to harm us is adept with deception techniques such as dialogue.
Dialogue is a very common tool used as a way for attackers, bullies, and robbers etc. to get close to their intended victims.
Once they are close, it’s difficult to react quick enough to prevent them from winning.
Whatever winning means for them!
We teach all our students about ‘the fence’.
That’s using our hands or an object to fill the void between ourselves and the ‘other person’.
Most of us are good at using the fence when we’re in our homes and we close the doors on cold callers selling us stuff.
But you’ll have also experienced in the past… before the big C when some sellers we’re really good at getting ‘one foot in the door’.
But using the fence – in this instance, it would be talking through the letterbox 😉
Allows us time to react, to observe and to make ourselves a more difficult target.
What we call a ‘hard target’. That’s someone who is on guard with their body but relaxed in their manner.
If the attacker, robber, bully etc. is so intent on a course of action, it’s very common for a form of ‘dialogue’ to be used as a way to get past our fence.
Especially from our sides, which for some reason we feel more comfortable letting people get close to us than if they approached us directly front the front.
When dialogue is used as a type of deception, we receive so many mixed messages.
Our gut or intuition may tell us one thing, but our habits of being polite are wanting to do something contrary.
Possibly like the women in the story below?
So the principle I adopt is straight forward. Is the behaviour from the person or persons normal, usual or typical?
If it’s not, then act on it. Create more space if possible and if not, fill the space you have.
Is there a gut feeling that our radar is picking up? We talk about intuition a lot! That ‘gut feeling’ shouting at us to take an action.
But do we practise acting on it, other than when we fancy a coffee or cake 🙂
We all miss messages from our gut all the time, usually due to fear.
But practice recognising that our gut is trying to tell us something is a big step towards acting on it.
Plus, recognising what we feel is usual and unusual behaviour also helps us to make decisions.
It’s all progress and skills that we can all improve on to help keep ourselves and our families safe.