Call it intuition, a hunch, sixth sense, gut, notion, an angel, feeling or inner voice, but learn to listen and learn to react to your “other sense" in women's self defense. If something doesn’t feel right then go with your feelings. It is a question of whether you want to be safe or sorry. There are situations that the brain records around/happening around us that have nothing to do with what we are consciously attending to at any given moment. The following true story about Maria provides a typical example of just such a moment. This is the women's self defense psyche 101 short course version.
What should have been a normal shopping day at the local supermarket for Maria and her children ended in her brutal assault and stolen property. Maria parked her large family van in the back part of the parking lot, and took her two teenage children into the store to help with the grocery shopping. While shopping and talking with the children Maria felt uneasy, however, she dismissed the feeling. Her uneasiness, as it turned out, was the internal warning that, later, Maria wished she had acted upon.
Maria was assaulted in the parking lot of the local grocery store in the early afternoon.
Later, after the assault, Maria recalled that she felt as if someone was watching her in the store; the attacker was in the background in her field of view several times while she was in the store. This was the probable cause of Maria's uneasy feeling. Leaving the check out counter at the supermarket the kids were trailing far behind Maria.
As Maria was walking back to her van she now noticed that there was another van parked closely next to her vehicle, in an otherwise empty section of the parking lot. As Maria approached her van she felt somewhat uneasy when a very average looking man
