Post date: Jan 19, 2012 4:55:28 PM
He acabat de llegir The gift of fear: Survival signals that protect us from violence de Gavin de Becker (http://www.gavindebecker.com).
I tant que és un regal evolutiu, la por. I la intuïció, segons l'autor, és la manera més ràpida i eficaç que la ment té per fer-nos-la sentir. Confia en la teva intuïció quan et diu que et trobes en situació probable de perill, i actua en conseqüència. Desconfia de la part conscient que, atenent a necessitats molt menys primàries que la de la supervivència, et fa ignorar els senyals evidents de perill i t'hi aboca.
Whether it is learned the easy way or the hard way, the truth remains that your safety is yours. It is not the responsibility of the police, the government, industry, the apartment building manager, or the security company.
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Just as we look to government and experts, we also look to technology for solutions to our problems, but you will see that your personal solution to violence will not come from technology. It will come from an even grander resource that was there all the while, within you. That resource is intuition.
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It may be hard to accept its importance, because intuition is usually looked upon by us thoughtful Western beings with contempt.
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Americans worship logic, even when it’s wrong, and deny intuition, even when it’s right.
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Intuition connects us to the natural world and to our nature. Freed from the bonds of judgment, married only to perception, it carries us to predictions we will later marvel at.
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We can tell ourselves that violence just happens without warning, and usually to others, but in service of these comfortable myths, victims suffer and criminals prosper.
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With judgment comes the ability to disregard your own intuition unless you can explain it logically, the eagerness to judge and convict your own feelings, rather than honor them.
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We, in contrast to every other creature in nature, choose not to explore—and even to ignore—survival signals.
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The mental energy we use searching for the innocent explanation to everything could more constructively be applied to evaluating the environment for important information.
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Now, which is sillier: waiting a moment for the next elevator, or getting into a soundproofed steel chamber with a stranger she is afraid of? The inner voice is wise, and part of my purpose in writing this book is to give people permission to listen to it.
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The point is that we intuitively evaluate people all the time, quite attentively, but they only get our conscious attention when there is a reason. We see it all, but we edit out most of it. Thus, when something does call out to us, we ought to pay attention. For many people, that is a muscle they don’t exercise.
El criminal és humà: com els no-criminals. Fes servir aquest coneixement per conéixer-lo, per previndre'l, per escapar-ne:
Studying and interviewing those who use violence to reach their goals, I long ago learned that I must find in them some part of myself, and, more disturbingly at times, find in myself some part of them.
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When you can find no other common ground to aid in your predictions, remember that the vast majority of violent people started as you did, felt what you felt, wanted what you want. The difference is in the lessons they learned.
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When you undertake a high-stakes prediction, keep looking until you find some common ground, something you share with the person whose behavior you seek to predict—this will help you see the situation as he perceives it.
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For example, the anonymous caller may seem to enjoy the fear he is causing in his victim. Getting pleasure from the fear of others is something most of us cannot relate to, until we recall the glee of every teenager who startles a friend or sibling by jumping out of the dark.
De Becker cita els senyals diversos que les víctimes potencials dels seus agressors haurien de ser capaces de detectar; entre altres, l'encant i l'amabilitat:
“I did not ask for your help and I do not want it.” Like many of the best defenses, this one has the cost of appearing rude.
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Safety is the preeminent concern of all creatures and it clearly justifies a seemingly abrupt and rejecting response from time to time.
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Charm is almost always a directed instrument, which, like rapport-building, has motive.
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If you consciously tell yourself, “This person is trying to charm me” as opposed to, “This person is charming,” you’ll be able to see around it.
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One way to charm is with the smile, which Eckman calls the most important signal of intent. He adds that it is also “the typical disguise used to mask the emotions.”
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“He was so nice” is a comment I often hear from people describing the man who, moments or months after his niceness, attacked them. We must learn and then teach our children that niceness does not equal goodness.
Altre senyal és donar massa detalls:
People who want to deceive you, I explain to Kelly, will often use a simple technique which has a simple name: too many details.
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When people are telling the truth, they don’t feel doubted, so they don’t feel the need for additional support in the form of details. When people lie, however, even if what they say sounds credible to you, it doesn’t sound credible to them, so they keep talking.
La importància de dir NO i la importància de detectar que l'altre no accepta un NO per resposta:
“No” is a word that must never be negotiated, because the person who chooses not to hear it is trying to control you.
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In situations in which unsolicited offers of assistance are appropriate, such as approaches by a salesman or flight attendant, it is simply annoying if you have to decline three times. With a stranger, however, refusal to hear no can be an important survival signal,
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Declining to hear “no” is a signal that someone is either seeking control or refusing to relinquish it.
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With strangers, even those with the best intentions, never, ever relent on the issue of “no,” because it sets the stage for more efforts to control. If you let someone talk you out of the word “no,” you might as well wear a sign that reads, “You are in charge.”
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The worst response when someone fails to accept “no” is to give ever-weakening refusals and then give in.
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I encourage people to remember that “no” is a complete sentence.
No deixem que el criminal ens triï:
even the simplest street crime is preceded by a victim selection process that follows some protocol.
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Believing she is being followed, a woman might take just a tentative look, hoping to see if someone is visible in her peripheral vision. It is better to turn completely, take in everything, and look squarely at someone who concerns you. This not only gives you information, but it communicates to him that you are not a tentative, frightened victim-in-waiting.
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you can control your response to the tests the interviewer applies. Will you engage in conversation with a stranger when you’d rather not? Can you be manipulated by guilt or by the feeling that you owe something to a person just because he offered assistance? Will you yield to someone’s will simply because he wants you to, or will your resolve be strengthened when someone seeks to control your conduct? Most importantly, will you honor your intuition?
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Intuition might send any of several messengers to get your attention, and because they differ according to urgency, it is good to know the ranking. The intuitive signal of the highest order, the one with the greatest urgency, is fear; accordingly, it should always be listened to (more on that in chapter 15). The next level is apprehension, then suspicion, then hesitation, doubt, gut feelings, hunches and curiosity.
La regla dels oposats:
Since we are more familiar with favorable behaviors, if you list them and then simply note their opposites, you will be predicting dangerousness. We call this the “rule of opposites,” and it is a powerful predictive tool.
Sobre les amenaces:
Both promises and threats are made to convince us of an intention, but threats actually convince us of an emotion: frustration. Threats betray the speaker by proving that he has failed to influence events in any other way. Most often they represent desperation, not intention. Neither threats nor promises are guarantees, contracts, or even commitments; they are just words.
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Whatever power they have is derived from the fear instilled in the victim, for fear is the currency of the threatener.
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How one responds to a threat determines whether it will be a valuable instrument or mere words.
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we advise clients never to show the threatener a high appraisal of his words, never to show fear.
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The worst possible reaction to a threat is a counter-threat.
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Counter-threats engage the threatener and put you on his playing field. You want exactly the opposite, which is to disengage and to play by your rules.
La actitud fatalista sobre la pròpia seguritat:
Like John Kennedy, people who apply a fatalistic attitude to their own safety (e.g., “Burglary cannot be prevented; someone can always find a way in”) often do so as an excuse not to take reasonable precautions. Yes, a committed criminal might well be difficult to stop, but the absence of precautions makes you vulnerable to the uncommitted criminal.
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I strongly recommend caution and precaution, but many people believe—and we are even taught—that we must be extra alert to be safe. In fact, this usually decreases the likelihood of perceiving hazard and thus reduces safety. Alertly looking around while thinking, “Someone could jump out from behind that hedge; maybe there’s someone hiding in that car” replaces perception of what actually is happening with imaginings of what could happen.
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Precautions are constructive, whereas remaining in a state of fear is destructive. It can also lead to panic, and panic itself is usually more dangerous than the outcome we dread.
Worry and anxiety vs fear:
any time your dreaded outcome cannot be reasonably linked to pain or death and it isn’t a signal in the presence of danger, then it really shouldn’t be confused with fear.
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to worry oneself is a form of self-harassment. To give it less of a role in our lives, we must understand what it really it is.
Worry is the fear we manufacture—it is not authentic. If you choose to worry about something, have at it, but do so knowing it’s a choice. Most often, we worry because it provides some secondary reward. There are many variations, but a few of the most popular follow.
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Worry is a way to avoid change; when we worry, we don’t do anything about the matter.
Worry is a way to avoid admitting powerlessness over something, since worry feels like we’re doing something. (Prayer also makes us feel like we’re doing something, and even the most committed agnostic will admit that prayer is more productive than worry.)
Worry is a cloying way to have connection with others, the idea being that to worry about someone shows love. The other side of this is the belief that not worrying about someone means you don’t care about them. As many worried-about people will tell you, worry is a poor substitute for love or for taking loving action.
Worry is a protection against future disappointment.
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In Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman concludes that worrying is a sort of “magical amulet” which some people feel wards off danger. They believe that worrying about something will stop it from happening. He also correctly notes that most of what people worry about has a low probability of occurring, because we tend to take action about those things we feel are likely to occur. This means that very often the mere fact that you are worrying about something is a predictor that it isn’t likely to happen!
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1) When you feel fear, listen.
2) When you don’t feel fear, don’t manufacture it.
3) If you find yourself creating worry, explore and discover why.
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“Only that which is absent can be imagined.” In other words, what you imagine—just like what you fear—is not happening.
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If you can bring yourself to apply your imagination to finding the possible favorable outcomes of undesired developments, even if only as an exercise,
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the important question is not how we might die, but rather “How shall we live?” and that is up to us.
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Near the end of his life, Mark Twain wisely said, “I have had a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.”
A book to be read.
Posted on January 12, 2012