Title:  Understanding the Mental Process of Thoughts and Emotions

Author:  Tim Birmingham

Chapter 6
Awareness and Avoidance

As we begin to get control of our own mind we must understand and distinguish fact from fiction.  This distinction must be made, especially and it relates to preparing the mind for combat and other high stress environments. 

Awareness and Avoidance is an art within itself.  Training and conditioning in this area does not require physical exertion and one will not get bruised, bloodied or come away with broken bones.  It is mental rather than physical and is the highest form of preparedness.  Some estimates indicate that awareness and avoidance skills decrease the chance of physical confrontation by as must as 90%.  Regardless of the percentages, the fact is that most threats and danger could have been avoided all together.  Through proper awareness of one’s surroundings, common sense decision making, and avoiding high risk areas one is way ahead of the game and can decrease one’s chances of survival. 

Listening and obeying your internal alarm cannot be over stressed.  Intuition is defined as quick and ready insight and the power or faculty of attaining to direct knowledge or cognition without evident rational thought and inference.  Some choose to call intuition, instinct, gut feelings or feel hair rising on the back of the neck.  Regardless of what you call it develop a relationship with it.  Intuition as it relates to reality preparedness is an early warning system, alerting the individual that something is not right.  That something maybe wrong.  One of the main goals of preparedness training and conditioning is to become aware of your personal alarm and to pay attention to its message.  Make a commitment to listen to your internal alarm system and to act upon it.  The more you use your intuition the stronger and more accurate it becomes. Ignoring it has very often leads one into problems and danger.  There are times when the internal alarm is wrong but in the normal adult more times than not it is correct.  There is nothing magical about intuition it is simply a different understanding of the automatic self.  Information that is received by the senses (sight, sound, smell, hearing, taste and feeling) is processed at a level not understood by the conscious mind.  Once processed the information is reference, concluding that something is not right, that danger maybe present.  Many stories of survival begin with the victim telling there story and beginning with the phrase, “I knew something was wrong immediately.”  Make a conscious effort to getting to know your internal alarm and to check its validity and grow from there.

For the average individual the best option one has to survive a fight or an attack is to "avoid" it.  Attacks are the fault of the attacker himself but the victim is usually singled out because of ritualistic patterns and carefree behaviors.  The very behaviors that favor an attack.  Using good judgment and common sense is the best option one has. In recent history we can look at the Natalie Hollaway case whereas she came up missing in Aruba.  How did her behavior contribute to the fact that she came up missing?  How could she have avoided the incident all together?

Common Sense Questions

1.  Is it wise to go out with someone who is always getting into fights or trouble?
2.  If you are walking at night and see a group of undesirable individuals.  Do you continue to walk toward them or take another route?
3.  It is advisable to get into a car with 3 male subjects you have never met to go for a ride and have some fun?
4.  When going to the mall, should one park their vehicle in isolate areas or as close as possible to the entrance around other vehicles?

Common sense is the greatest skill that one can cultivate in one's preparedness arsenal.

Awareness makes up 90% of self-defense, the remaining 10% being physical techniques. With awareness, you can identify and avoid potentially dangerous situations. Without it, you become an easy target for a criminal.

With the terror threat of today everyone is familiar with awareness color code system.  Initially the color code system was used by military and some police organizations to assign different levels to potential threat or high risk environments.  The system is designed to help one evaluate, prepare for or even avoid potential dangers.  Below is the same risk assessment levels that is utilized by the Department of Homeland Security to assign levels of threat to potential terrorist attacks.  This will be applied to everyday life for the purpose of individual assessment.

 

Threat Level Green

  • Feeling of security.  Whether one is safe or not.
  • Not aware of surroundings
  • Relaxed carefree state
  • Attackers feel most secure to attack when one is in this state
  • The assumption that everything is good and no threat can get to you

Threat Level Blue

  • A calm state of awareness. 
  • Scanning environment for things that look out of the ordinary and going about normal business and routines
  • Using common sense to be aware and avoid potential areas of high risk 

Threat Level Yellow

  • Proactive approach to awareness and avoidance
  • Internal or external alarm is scanning for threat and danger
  • Changing normal habits
  • Mentally rehearsing plans for aggression, cover and retreat
  • Working awareness and avoidance drills with co-workers, family and friends
  • Knowing that danger exist but it has not presented itself.
  • Considering all weapons of opportunity that exist.
  • Preparing for a threat that exist in society.

Threat Level Orange

  • Internal and or external alarm sees, hears and or feels the presence of threat
  • Taking action to avoid threat while maintaining the highest level of awareness
  • Making any and all time allowable adjustments to prepare for danger
  • Securing family and self
  • Mental activation of plan of action

Threat Level Red

  • You are in conflict with threat and or danger
  • Decision has been made to take action.
  • You are fighting, fleeing and or covering to sustain life
  • No indecisive moments mind is clear on what course of action to take
  • Taking any and all appropriate actions to sustain life and health of self or loved ones

Exercise in Sensory Awareness

The ancient ninja warriors were known for the keen sense of perception. This knowing by not knowing was largely due to the time they took to work with their personal senses.  The senses constantly scan the environment for stimulus.  Once stimulus is received the information is transported through the brain for a response.  Some stimulus is acknowledge by the conscious mind while others are not.  As previously discussed the stimulus not acknowledged by the conscious mind manifest themselves as internal feeling or intuition.  To increase awareness begin working with the senses.  As in all training and conditioning the more you work them the stronger they become.

To become instinctively prepared, which I feel is essential in preparedness, I would start by working of the 4 of the 5 human senses, hearing, seeing, feeling, and smelling.  To get a basic understanding of the power and performance of each sense I suggest in the beginning to work with each individually. 

Take a day when you focus solely or largely on your hearing.  Do not depend on the other senses.  Listen to the sounds that surround you.  What story do they tell.  Listen to peoples words, what is the hidden meaning behind them.  Listen to the sounds of the environment, how can these serve you?  Make some notes on your personal discoveries. 

Take a day and work with sight.  Dim your verbal intake and look at people, observe people from afar.  See the routines as you learn the art of observance.  Answer questions like, what is their mood?  What are they thinking?  Make notes on your personal discoveries. 

Take a day and work with feeling.  Close your eyes and make you way out of a room.  Feel the temperature change as someone walks up behind you.  Use your sense of touching and feeling of the skin to get acquainted with the sensory function of feeling.  Make notes on your personal discoveries. 

Take a day and work with the sense of smell.  Explore the different smells of people and the environment that surrounds you.  Make notes on your personal discoveries. 

Continue to work out these sensory functions and learn the power or perception through sensory awareness.

As the sensory function begins to increase one learns quickly that some how the nose can smell emotions long before we can conceive, just as the eye can see it,  (the other senses are equally perceptive).    Sensory function can pick up on things that our everyday minds cannot conceive.  Thus explains, bad and good feeling about someone, the danger that lies ahead, etc.  Once senses are heightened then one begins to understand the range of energy and the affect of time and space.  So for those people who are not and cannot work physically, I would definitely not feel helpless, you have within you the greatest of all defense mechanisms, the gift of perceiving energy.  There is much more to all of this than the few words I have shared, but the route to awareness is as simple as the route to becoming a good shooter, fighter, defender, etc.  One just needs to know how to work out the mind.  

FACT:  The senses play a key role in both the process of thought and intuition. 

Often assault stories begin with lines such as, "The moment he walked in the door, I knew something was wrong.  Make a conscious effort to listen to your intuition and check it validity.  Obey the internal alarm system that is built in every individual.

The only way to ensure survival is to be aware of ones surroundings and avoid danger all together.  Awareness enhancement is important in reading the message from the intuition.  Being defensively prepared and to increase the odds of survival to the greatest levels requires yet a deeper aspect of training and experience.  Awareness is a term that describes my understanding and application of a deeper and subconscious level of energy.  To arrive at a level of instinctive awareness is no different than any other training concept or workout.  But it does require one to workout the mental functions of the mind.  The mind, like the rest of the body, if correctly worked can increase its function, and all experts will agree that the mind is the most valuable defensive weapon of all.

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