Overcoming Civilized Conditioning

What would you do if confronted by a bad guy? How would you respond? Freeze up? Run? Fight?

You have been taught all of your life not to hurt another human being and that’s a good thing. From birth we are told to be kind to one another and have manners. This is called ‘civilized conditioning.’ Civilized conditioning is why we don’t walk around smacking each other. This cultural conditioning allows us to get along in a civilized society.

However, you know bad things still happens every day. We are all to well aware there are some people out there who are considered un-civilized. These are people who don’t share the same boundaries you and I do.

Civilized conditioning is a double edged sword. On one hand it prevents us from being physical with another person unnecessarily, but on the other hand it prevents us from being physical with another person necessarily to protecting ourselves. Civilized conditioning is also responsible for making a person freeze up, stop breathing and panicking when someone attacks them.

Are you a parent? Ask yourself this, if someone bad was to walk up to your child and put their hands on them, what would you do? Answer? Without hesitation you would respond like a bear protecting her cubs. Why? The parental instinct to protect a child is born within you as an adult and never goes away.  So understand, you do have it in you, you just have to know how to tap into it when it comes to protecting yourself.

Tools to overcome civilized conditioning when necessary:

1. Recognize that nobody has a right to violate you in any way.
2. Understand that resistance is often the best way to get out of a dangerous situation.
3. Ask “What if” questions and prepare your mind and body to respond to danger.
4. Visualize potential scenarios and act out how you would respond.
5. Take a self defense class. Learning self defense is a life enhancing experience.
6. Make sure you have an acute awareness of your environment when you are getting out of your car and walking to your destination. If anything feels wrong seek safety immediately.
7. When possible always run to safety when attacked. The worse thing you can do is nothing.

Robert Siciliano personal security expert to Home Security Source discussing trusting your intuition.