Cliche of Awareness

In the personal defense world the term awareness has almost become a cliche. I have worked with women that have told me they've been taught that in order to stay safe, they need to walk around in a constantly heightened state of awareness. Well, that's not even practical. And most of the time, honestly, what I find is that it confuses the women because they feel as if they're not doing everything that they can in order to stay safe or in order to ensure their safety. So what I'd like to do is break down the word awareness just a little bit, and let's see if we can make some sense out of that word and put it into a situation that is more practical.

Let's start with what I call home awareness. Now home awareness is the most comfortable that anybody will be at any point in their day. It's when they're in their home. Now I assure you that if I'm in my home cooking dinner I am not really that concerned about turning the corner and finding some unexpected threat. Now, could it happen?

Well, of course it could happen and somebody could knock the door in but that's an entirely different topic. And the likelihood of it happening is very minimal. So the only important point here is that home base awareness is simply relaxed. Now, when it changes, when you leave your house the second level of awareness is what I refer to as familiar state. Now familiar state of awareness means that you're going somewhere or you're at a building or a place, a location that you're very familiar with.

It could be your children's school. It could be your local coffee shop. It could be somewhere that you are not only familiar with the building, but you're also familiar with the individuals that are there. At my local coffee shop I know just about everybody and at the school that my children go to, I guarantee you that I expect to see the same faces almost every time I'm there. Now, the awareness level begins to change if I identify somebody that I feel doesn't belong.

If you're at your child's school or if you're at your place of business, or if you're at the local coffee shop in your town and somebody walks in that you're not familiar with, well that should be an indicator that you need to be a little bit more aware of what's going on and you don't have to engage the person but you should pay a little bit more attention than you would otherwise, or to anybody else that you are familiar with. Still very basic awareness, but it can change according to the individuals that come or go in the location. Now, the third state of awareness is the one that's really very, very important. This is what we call unfamiliar state. Now don't be confused.

Unfamiliar doesn't mean that you're necessarily going somewhere that you're not familiar with the building or the location. That might be true but it doesn't have to be. The unfamiliar part of it are the individuals that are coming and going as well. For example, if you're at the grocery store you're familiar with the building, you know, the aisles you know where the groceries are but you're not going to know single person that comes in and out of that door. You're probably not going to know very many of them at all.

In a case like that, you should go into the store with a heightened sense of awareness, pay more attention to your belongings, bring your family a little bit closer make sure that everything in your 360 degree radius is being paid attention to now. Is it possible that constantly going through the grocery store you can pay attention to the entire area around you? Of course it's not, but when it can be very handy is, well for example, if you're leaving the grocery store and you're unloading the groceries into your car. I can't tell you how many times I have gone through a parking lot and I'll see a female typically with her back toward the parking lot completely unaware of anything that's going on behind her. That's a prime example, a very linear awareness or really not paying much attention at all.

And it's a great opportunity for somebody to come up and catch her at a vulnerable moment. So when you're in an unfamiliar situation and again meaning people that you're not familiar with, just give it an extra minute. Look around, if you're unloading groceries turn your body laterally toward the vehicle so you can keep an eye on the vehicle, the groceries, and the parking lot. And that's just one example. But in any situation where you're not familiar with people that are there the people that are surrounding you it's going to be to your benefit, to walk around paying a little bit more attention than you would in the familiar state.

And certainly more attention than you would pay if you were at your home and you were comfortable.