Train to choose your actions

This is a follow up to my last post (State of awareness). It was brought to my attention (thanks Marc for all your help, and thanks Josh for speaking up) that I was missing a great teaching point. I had used that particular example because paying attention to what and who is around you is very very important.

The point I was missing is that the behavior of the lady in question was not about not paying attention. She was very aware of what she was doing. She was covert aggressive, a wolf in sheep’s clothing, a bully pretending to be clueless.

First of all let’s look at it from her standpoint. Acting like this is a behavior that will attract anger and yes, violence against you. So if you are looking for personal safety, you may want to choose a behavior that is not going to make people want to stuff you in the meat locker. Violence happens in places and also in situations.

The other point of view is the receiving end. You have to realize that this behavior is the same of a bully. What is a bully? It is a person who forces his or her way aggressively or by intimidation, someone who forces you to do what they want. This is exactly what she did. She was forcing people to get out of her way and give her priority. If one does this accidently once or twice, it is not necessarily being a bully. It could be inattention. But this lady did this consistently throughout her entire shopping trip.

Most women are born with the “be polite gene”. We have been known to apologize for things we should never apologize for, for excusing behaviors that should be condemned. If you don’t believe this read “Betrayed by the Angel” by Debra Anne Davis

http://www.utne.com/2005-01-01/betrayed-by-the-angel.aspx?page=2

You need to recognize this behavior as that of a bully. If you learn to give in to a bully at this level, you will have trained your mind to give in to bullying period. When a big guy comes around and tries to intimidate you into getting into his car, or trying to get into your home, you will give in because that is what you trained yourself to do.

“We do not rise to the level of our expectations. We fall to the level of our training.”

-Archilochus, Greek Soldier, Poet, c. 650 BC

So how do you stand up to this? First you need to see this behavior, not as powerful but as an act of selfishness and weakness. Instead of stirring anger this should stir pity and maybe even disgust. You need to see that be best power you have over this situation is choosing to have self control. But you “chose” this action it was not forced upon you. And yes, self control IS an action. Throwing canned goods and eggs, yelling and screaming at her are also actions, much less appropriate though. The most important part is that you are recognizing the fact that someone is trying to bully you and you are choosing self control. You are not forced into passivity. Self control is a very active response. It carries through body language, facial language. It has that stage presence we talked about a while back. You are basically sending the vibes of “I am aware of what you are doing and if you don’t stop I am prepare to carry it to a whole other dimension”. If you get used to choosing your responses, when someone is trying to attack you, kidnap you, come into your home uninvited, you will be trained to chose the proper response and not wait for someone to choose it for you. First of all an attacker will know you are not a weak prey; it’s their job to know this. They will probably move to another more appropriate prey. If they still choose to attack you will be a better position to defend yourself, you will be prepared not one step behind.

This is still working on awareness, awareness of behavior and proper choices.

” If you don't become aware of small decisions that direct your actions you won't be able to see when you're drifting into dangerous territory. And this means not only with self-defense, but jobs, our relationships, marriage and with your kids. Looking at the rude bitch and saying to yourself "I know what you are doing and choose not to react. Not because I'm scared, but because you aren't worth it"”

-Marc MacYoung