The Gift of Fear
I just bought two copies of The Gift of Fear. It was on the Oprah Show and she suggested buying one for our daughters. I thought this was a great suggestion and I bought one for myself, too. The book's author, Gavin De Becker, says that we all have this gift, a somewhat second sense that gives us little signals about things, people and situations if we pay attention. I think what he meant, though I don't recall him using the word, is that we have intuition.
He called it the red flag. You know, you meet someone. At first they seem very nice but then they do something that is inappropriate (the red flag), but because we want to be "nice" we ignore it or our mind starts to rationalize it (no they didn't mean that, he/she is a nice person) and before we know it we are ignoring that nudge that is telling us that this person is just not someone who has our best interests at heart.
Oprah gave some examples of women that had been violently attacked by men. One said that she worked in a store that closed at 9 o'clock and that a man entered the store at 9. She said that immediately when he entered she knew that she was in trouble, but did not say or do anything and was raped.
I had this "red flag" experience when I was diagnosed with breast cancer and a bone stem cell transplant was recommended by the oncologist. Immediately, I had a stabbing gut reaction that this wasn't right for me. I had a sense that it would kill me. I went for a second opinion and the same treatment was recommended. I went to my doctor and told her I felt uncomfortable with this recommendation and she said, "Go with your gut, go with your gut, go with your gut." She recommended yet another oncologist who said, "I am in on the research and in the beginning it looked very promising for breast cancer treatment, but as time and studies went on, we saw that it wasn't as effective as we first thought so, I don't recommend it for you. Your gut feeling was right."
A friend of mine says her red flag feeling is the prickle of the hair standing up on her arms.
But we have Pay Attention in everyday situations and especially as women who are encultured to "be nice" (sometimes at our own own expense). We need to be conscious every day about changing this pattern.
As an example, last evening I was more aware and I put this into practice because I was more conscious of it. It was a dry 77 degrees, a rare evening weather-wise in southern Maine this summer. My nephew William and I decided to go to a favorite restaurant of mine on Commercial Street in Portland and sit outside for dinner. We were seated at a table that was two tables pushed together side by side. We sat down and ordered. A few minutes later the waitress came over with a man and said she was sorry, but wondered if we minded if she pulled the tables apart so that he could sit there. I said I didn't mind (thinking I had no choice), but after he sat down grumbling I was starting to notice how his energy was very negative. I wanted to pull my table over and away from him, but did not want to be discourteous. After a few minutes his friend came and the grumbling continued. I tried not to listen to their conversation, concentrating on what my nephew was saying, but was conscious that I was listening for words that would tell me this was a nice person that I could sit in the same space with.
Finally I decided to just pick up my table and drag it over about 5 inches saying politely, "I'll give you a little space" to which he replied sarcastically, "I like being cozy", or something to that effect, to which I didn't reply. From that point I was able to enjoy being outside in the warm balmy weather and the sparkle of dining outdoors in the summer and I didn't take on more negative energy than I might have.
Do you have a story where you paid attention to a "red flag" and you were glad you did?
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