Stay Vigilant
Plan. Prepare. Prevent. Prevail.
Fear keeps us alive and keeps us safe. Facing our Fears allows for personal growth!
What’s On This Page:
Domestic Violence
I Got Flowers Today - A Powerful Poem About Domestic Violence
This poem is dedicated to all the victims and survivors of Domestic Violence.
You ask, why didn't she leave?
I ask, why did he hit?
The poem, I Got Flowers Today, questions the way domestic violence is often looked at in our society. This page is about surviving. It's about self-confidence and understanding. Empathy and Courage. Prepare To Act believes in the concept of Active Self Protection and that each of us must find the fight within us to accomplish what we find purposeful in life.
Let’s Get Started!
“Everything You’ve Ever Wanted Is On The Other Side Of Fear. ”
Dominating Fear
The truth is that making any sort of lasting change usually requires facing something in yourself that’s holding you back from achieving what you want—whether it’s fear, a lack of self-confidence, or negative thinking patterns. By conquering our fears, self-confidence gets stronger, self-awareness becomes keener making personal growth is inevitable.
Understand that fear is good for us, fear keeps us alive and safe. Fear can be used in a positive way that helps guide you into making the decisions that are right for you.
When you feel the anxiety of fear sneaking in, consciously slow down your brain, focus on your breathing, and allow your brain to process that which you fear.
Allow yourself to think of the worst-case scenario, if you fear public speaking, what’s the worst that can happen? Imagining yourself in the scenario or situation which you are fearful of, and working your way all the way through it, will allow you to make the ending be successful.
10 Ways To Face Your Fears - Check our blog post to learn more ways to get stronger mentally!
“I have learned over the years that when one’s mind is made up, this diminishes fear; knowing what must be done does away with fear.”
DESTROYING Your Stalker
Stop Stalking Me! Even reading that I feel immediate anxiety and concern, stalkers are the worst. They creep in the shadows, deliberately and secretly watching your every move. They research you, creep on your social media, scroll through your Instagram photos for hours. They know what you drive when you leave for work and when you return. These creeps can prove to the be scariest and biggest threats to your personal safety and often when they realize they can’t have you, that passion becomes very violent and they can strike at any time.
Read Our Blog Post. How To Stop A Stalker In Their Tracks
Strengthening & Trusting Gut Instinct
“Never ignore a gut feeling, but never believe that it’s enough.”
We are a fear-based society obsessed with trying to manage everything. Being afraid of the unknown drives us to over-plan and over-exercise in order to prevent the inevitable catastrophe from occurring. That lifestyle can lead to a constant state of stress, anxiety, and exhaustion, and it should be avoided. Your intuition is a powerful source of protection, and it doesn't require fear.
Intuition is powerful, trustworthy, and perfectly aligned with our true path. If you choose to use it, that is entirely up to you. You can increase the confidence you have in your inner voice by following these tips.
Meditate.
Spending time in silence can help you hear and interpret the messages from your intuition.
To begin, use your five conventional senses, touch, sight, hearing, smell, and taste, to take in as much information as possible.
Your sixth sense may become more acute as a result of this practice.
Pay Attention To Your Dreams.
The intuitive right brain and the subconscious mind, which are the sources of intuition, can be overridden when the cognitive mind is overworked. Although your conscious mind is able to rest while you sleep, your subconscious mind is able to communicate with you in your dreams.
Push Past Your Comfort Zone.
Intuition gets stronger when we develop and work on our personal growth, self-confidence and learn to dominate our fears. Getting outside our routines and our comfort zones helps make us stronger and more intuitive.
Test Your Hunches.
Do you have a gut feeling about who will win the race? The weather forecast says it won't rain, but you have a strong feeling that it will. Do you have a gut feeling that the new guy dating your best friend is a bad idea? If you have any suspicions about the future, it's a good idea to jot them down and later verify them. Take a look at how often you got things right.
Take Time For Yourself.
Getaway and slow down, extend your weekend, go on a retreat, or just spend a day in new surroundings with nothing planned. When you're too busy, it's hard to hear the quiet voices of intuition. Try clearing your schedule and see if your intuition pipes up.
Learn From Your Past.
Bring to mind a bad memory from your past, preferably one that happened not too long ago. Think back to the time before this happened and see if you felt any urges to avoid it. You may have had a sneaking suspicion that something was wrong. Perhaps you had a premonition in your sleep or a vision. Was it something you paid attention to, or did you rationalize your way out of it? Make a mental note of how you felt. Recall as much as you can. More and more you'll be able to rely on the part of yourself that tried to warn you if you can only connect with it.
Think Less, Feel More.
The mind chattering away, arguing with itself like a crazy person, is a constant source of distraction. In contrast, intuition is a sense. If you're unsure if you're listening to your fearful mind or your trustworthy intuition, try to distinguish between thinking and feeling.
Rinse And Repeat.
Repetitive movement is a great way to keep your body moving.
Run. Dance. Carrots need to be chopped. Perform on the piano. Paint. Intuition can be awakened by engaging in these simple physical activities.
Stay True To Your Values.
Even though your mind may lead you away from your morals, your intuition will always guide you back. You'll learn what intuition doesn't feel like if you're comfortable with how you feel when you're betraying your values. When you learn how it feels to act in accordance with your values, you will be able to more clearly perceive your intuition.
Reading people is more than a skill, it is an art form, take the time to learn how to predict others’ behavior, before they behave badly. Be curious about what you can learn about a person by observing them and feeling their energetic signature before you engage in conversation. More and more, you'll see that you already know things that your cognitive mind is incapable of comprehending.
You’re Not Crazy.
Having an intuitive hunch is not a sign of madness.
Intuition is often argued with by the rational mind rather than trusted.
You could rationalize yourself out of intuition knowing that could improve your life.
Growing Your Self-Awareness
Self-awareness is the practice of observing one's own thoughts, emotions, and behavioral patterns.
Thought patterns. Describes how you think about and explain the events that take place in your life. What do you hope to get out of certain situations or people? What are the guiding principles that guide the way you think?
Emotional patterns. Just how well do you know your own emotional state? Do you pay attention to your feelings and try to understand them, or do you react irrationally? Emotions can be seen as enemies or messengers, depending on how you see them.
Behavioral patterns. How well do you know why you do what you do in certain circumstances? If so, have you figured out what kinds of events are most likely to set you off? What drives your behavior or causes you to self-sabotage do you realize?
10 Ways To Increase Your Self-Awareness
What bothers you about other people? Pay attention to it!
Sometimes the things that annoy us are a reflection of something we dislike about ourselves.
For example, you may be apprehensive about conflict and find it difficult to set limits. In the absence of a strategy for altering these circumstances (or the conviction that it is even possible), it is easy to ignore or deny their significance. Ignorance may appear to be bliss, but that isn't always the case. In the long run, no.
You should always ask yourself this question when someone does something that irritates or annoys you. Is this a reflection of something I dislike about myself? Is that something I do?
Keeping a Mindfulness Journal helps keep our focus on personal growth and self-confidence
2. Pay attention to your thoughts
Mindfulness meditation is probably something you've heard of. It's as simple as paying attention to your breath or another physics sensation and keeping your attention there. Then, if you notice your thoughts straying, gently bring them back to the object of your concentration.
In addition to being beneficial for everything from weight loss to depression relief, mindfulness meditation can help you become more aware of your own thoughts and feelings. Observing thoughts without attaching to them or thinking about them is a powerful way to learn about yourself.
The things you think about are not the things you are.
We often lack self-awareness because we're overthinking. Amid our thoughts, we can easily fall into the trap of thinking they're true or worthwhile simply because our minds have decided to throw them at us.
Understanding how your mind works and how much there is to you beyond your thoughts requires regular mindfulness practice.
3. Spend time diving deep into high-quality books.
Great writers, it is said, are keen observers of their surroundings. Because of their keen eye for the smallest of details, they can capture life's most poignant moments in their art.
The best writers, on the other hand, are keen observers of human nature in general. Most of us are too busy going about our daily lives to pay attention to the tiniest nuances of what motivates our thoughts, feelings, desires, and actions, but it is their job to do so.
We can all benefit from learning to pay attention like an author, even if we aren't called to be authors and keen observers of human nature professionally.
A good novel teaches us how to think about people in a compassionate way by describing them in detail. Our ability to observe others improves as we become better observers of ourselves.
To discover new fiction, set aside 30 minutes and make a list of books you've been meaning to read, or ask a friend for book recommendations.
4. Identify Your Emotional Kryptonite
People don't enjoy experiencing negative emotions such as fear, embarrassment, or shame. Because they're in pain, this is understandable. When it comes to painful emotions, each one of us has a particular one that we try to avoid the most.
We often see people resorting to any means possible to avoid experiencing feelings of sadness. It doesn't matter if it increases other painful emotions like anxiety, shame, and guilt, they'll go to extraordinary lengths to avoid or numb out that specific emotion or feeling.
As An Example:
I recently worked with a client who realized that her social anxiety was partly caused by her constant fear of being judged. Her main concern was that they could tell she drank too much and that they were judging her because of it, specifically.
Despite the shame and anxiety she felt as a result of her drinking, she clung to it because it was the only way she could deal with the sadness in her life. So, despite the fact that anxiety was the most obvious emotion she was dealing with, she eventually became self-aware enough to realize that sadness was the root of her struggle.
As humans, we all have our own personal "emotional kryptonite." As a result, we often go out of our way to avoid feeling that emotion. There is a problem, however, when we're so afraid of an emotion that we're willing to go to great lengths to avoid it (substance abuse, for instance).
However, avoiding the emotion also prevents us from hearing what it has to say to us. Emotions that cause us to feel pain are often caused by our minds trying to get our attention—often in the best of ways.
For many of us, the most difficult part of the journey is learning to accept our emotional kryptonite, which is the feeling that we're most afraid to experience.
5. Make a life timeline.
The steps are straightforward:
Get A pencil and blank paper are all you'll need to get started.
Make a timeline of your life, starting with the date of your birth.
Regardless of how big or small, positive or negative, an event may appear, it is important to remember it.
Invariably, someone will say the same thing again and again:
A seemingly pointless exercise will turn out to be an eye-opening experience.
As an example, many people are able to make sense of or gain a new perspective on a particularly distressing or difficult time by looking at it in the context of other times.
Self-awareness requires the ability to think in terms of development and context.
6. Identify Your Blind Spots
Inquire about others' perceptions of you in order to identify any blind spots.
Let me ask you this:
How often do you go out of your way to get honest feedback on your own performance?
Not if you're like me, or most people, I think. It's a shame, because good feedback is one of the fastest and most effective ways to learn and grow.
While there are many aspects of ourselves that could use improvement, the real problem lies in the areas we are unable to see—our blind spots.
Other people are in a unique position to notice and assist us in seeing these things as well. If you ask me, I'll tell you...
So, how do we go about getting someone's opinion about who we are?
To help you get started, here are a few ideas:
Take baby steps. Begin with a question that's not life-or-death. You are trying to build up their faith in your ability to handle criticism. People are more likely to open up to you if you've shown them that you're able to handle criticism about household tasks.
Take criticism in stride. Never, ever put yourself on the defensive. When someone points out a flaw, don't be surprised if you don't feel great about it. That's fine, too. If you're feeling this way, it's normal. Simply thank them for providing feedback and acknowledge it when you can.
7. Take a few micro-trips.
We become more self-aware when we leave our comfort zones and experience new things.
The first time I lived in Italy, I was appalled by the amount of time people "wasted" on long, lavish meals—dinner for three hours, are you kidding!
The more time I spent immersed in Italian culture, the more I appreciated the slower pace of Italian meals, which were more than just a way to fill up on calories.
Because of my travels and time spent in new places, I have gained a new perspective on food and its role in the human diet.
Even though most of us don't have the luxury of jet-setting to exotic destinations on a regular basis, we can still reap the benefits of self-awareness from travel without having to travel far.
The idea behind micro-travel is that we can still travel, but only on a small scale.
In a large city or urban area, you're likely familiar with your own neighborhood, the downtown area, and perhaps a few other areas. It's possible that you haven't spent much time in certain parts of your neighborhood at all. Micro-traveling is an option here.
In the same way that a two-week trip to Thailand might be out of the question for you at the moment, two days at a nearby state park might be a viable alternative.
Many of the advantages of travel, such as a boost to our self-awareness, can be had at a fraction of the time and expense by broadening your definition of what it means to travel.
8. Develop A New Talent
Learning something new increases our self-awareness in the same way that traveling does, by putting us in new situations and requiring us to think and act in new ways.
Throughout our adult lives, we tend to stick to the same routines, which contributes to our tendency to become more rigid in our thinking and behavior.
And while this is convenient, it also encourages a narrowness of thought...
One can easily be lulled into thinking that they understand how things work when all they are doing is practicing what they are already good at.
Beginner's Mind is the cure for this ailment. If you want to learn something, you need a mind that is able to adapt and see things in a new light, like a child.
As a result, it's important to be a beginner if you want to cultivate flexibility and freshness in yourself and the way you see the world (i.e. self-awareness). Learning a new skill is one of the best ways to accomplish this.
Learning a new skill, whether it's Mandarin or juggling, is an excellent way to improve your mental flexibility and self-awareness.
9. Recognize Distorted Thinking Patterns.
Cognitive distortions are incorrect thoughts and beliefs that distort our perceptions of the world and ourselves, which can lead to overly painful feelings and moods. As with bad physical habits (like nail-biting or late-night snacking), bad mental habits can creep up on anyone at any point.
When I'm driving and something upsetting occurs—getting cut off, someone taking a parking spot I wanted—my default script is, What a jerk! When I'm angry behind the wheel, for some reason, I've developed the mental habit of calling other drivers names.
Despite the fact that other drivers make mistakes, I am no exception. Nevertheless, if my default reaction is to blame others, I miss the opportunity to examine my own behavior and make necessary corrections to my own actions.
By focusing on how rude the person who cut me off was, I might not notice that I'm constantly driving too slowly in the passing lane because I'm distracted by my wife's voice and not paying attention to the road.
Self-awareness is often hindered by incorrect mental habits and self-talk. You'll gain more self-awareness and, most likely, a more positive outlook on life if you can learn to recognize your own tendencies toward incorrect thinking.
10. Make Time To Think About What You Believe In.
Here's a challenging one for you:
Think about your values and ideals. How often do you take the time to do that?
If you're like the vast majority of us, the pace of daily life tends to engulf you in a never-ending whirlpool of activity, leaving little time for self-reflection.
To what extent is it surprising that achieving your goals and feeling contented with your life is difficult when you don't even bother to think about it?
To add insult to injury, it is probably not surprising that we end up pursuing fabricated goals that society and culture tell us are important (such as having a nice car and a big house), but that we don't necessarily find genuinely meaningful and important.
Being aware of and crystal clear on the things that really matter to us is a special type of self-awareness.
What's the point of being here?
To what purpose am I entrusted?
How can I lead a life that I can be proud of and satisfied with?
The answers to these questions are significant. It's possible that we're afraid of them because we don't spend enough quality time thinking about them.
The simplest way to get started is to follow these steps.
Find a 30-minute time slot once a month on your calendar and commit to it (I like 4:30 pm on the last Friday of every month).
Called "Values Clarification," set up a monthly calendar appointment for this time each month.
Take a few minutes each month around this time to jot down some thoughts and ideas about your personal values and what you really want.
There's no one way to do it. The most important thing is to give yourself time to reflect on it.
Increasing your self-awareness has a lot of advantages, the following are just a few of the more common ones:
Relationships that are more harmonious. When you don't know what you want and need in a relationship, it's difficult to ask for it or set healthy boundaries. How well are you aware of your own personal values? Self-awareness is often the best way to improve any relationship.
Relieved emotions the way you think determines how you feel emotionally on a regular basis. It's very likely that you'll be anxious all the time if you have a tendency toward chronic worry. Self-awareness helps you understand the link between your thoughts and your feelings. As a result, it's much easier to maintain emotional control and a stable mood.
Improved ability to think clearly and make sound decisions. Unchecked emotional reactions and muddled thinking can lead to poor decision-making. We can more easily distinguish between short-term impulses or desires and long-term values and goals when we become more aware of our habits of thinking and feeling.
Increased output. Procrastination and poor productivity aren't usually caused by a lack of effort or dedication... It's our own interference that's to blame. Our own thoughts, emotions, or habits often get in the way when we're having trouble getting to work. It is possible to eliminate many of these obstacles to productivity by becoming more self-aware.
“Confidence is deciding you’re unstoppable — not that you’ll never fail. ”
More information to be added soon - This page is brand new! Published 2/25/2022
Building Self-Confidence
“As is our confidence, so is our capacity.”
More information to be added soon - This page is brand new! Published 2/25/2022
The Ability To Read Anyone
“Perception precedes reality.”
More information to be added soon - This page is brand new! Published 2/25/2022
De-Escalation Tactics
“Never react to what people say. React to what they mean. Just remember: People hardly ever say what they mean.”
George J. Thompson is the author of Verbal Judo. The Gentle Art of Persuasion
Fight Back - Preventing Assaults & Kidnappings
“Everyone has a plan until they’ve been hit. ”
More information to be added soon - This page is brand new! Published 2/25/2022
“Self-Defense Is Not Only Our Right; It Is Our Duty.”
More information to be added soon - This page is brand new! Published 2/25/2022
What You Should Have In Your Self Defense Kit.
Stock Up Your Gun Range Kit.
How About Some Less Lethal Gear - Like A Byrna Pepper Ball Gun?