Temper Trigger
Charles
is a critical skill to have when facing an assailant. To turn your
fear into power, VITAL recommends having a Temper Trigger. Something
you can think of to get your rage boiling. A vision that sets you off
and prepares you to unleash your righteous rage.
If you are comfortable sharing your temper trigger, please do.
Mine is a quite disturbing vision of someone hurt my baby daughter.
Just typing that makes me want to rip through this computer screen and
destroy something. Ok, I'm better now.
It's a LOT easier for me to trigger myself now that I have a baby.
I'm sure other parents out there can relate.
Anyone else want to jump in with their thoughts?
p.s. I try my best to keep this group discussion going, but with
everything else (podcast, blog, website, training / seminars, full-
time job, baby, household stuff, etc.) I depend you you devoted
participants to keep things rolling for me. :-)
greenLED@CPF
to one of kids and they can be in a whole world'o hurtin' - real fast.
There's a picture of a bad guy holding a pistol at a kid's head in one
of the FoF scenarios I've been exposed to. Doesn't matter how many
times I see that photograph, it sends a chill down my spine, every
time.
Let me ask the opposite question - how do you "switch off" your
"fight" reaction? I've seen LEO's do it, but haven't had the presence
of mind to ask about it.
Christie Hepburn
I think it's almost like great actors who can cry on cue and turn off the waterworks as soon as the director yells CUT!. Once you learn how to turn it on, you can just as equally learn how to turn it off. We went to training this weekend where people were shouting the most vile things at each other (for training purposes)but one second later would be laughing and hugging each other.
I guess for me it would be realizing that I had to think terrible things to get myself revved up for fighting but in the end everything is OK and the situation was controlled.
Anybody else have thoughts on this?
VITAL Self-Defense
1. Deep calming breaths. Slow belly breathing will help get a handle on your physiological autonomic parasympathetic nervous system (that's a mouth full) and reduce your heart rate. The usefulness of breathing slow and deeply to calm down can NOT be over stated. Mom was right after all... sit down, calm down, take deep breaths.
2. If crying helps, do it. If getting mad helps, do it. If cleaning the house frantically helps, do it. What ever gets it out of your system is perfectly fine... so long as it is being expelled out of your system is the key. Don't bottle it up.
3. Always seek professional help afterwards. Even if you feel perfectly ok and tell your friends and family that you are ok... sometimes violation and traumatic experiences have weird after effects that pop up later down the road unexpectedly. This is perfectly normal and you need not feel shame from it. Get with a empathetic friend or family member who is NOT judgmental and let it flow out whatever way it comes out.
4. There's nothing like seeing your family and friends safe afterwards to bring you out of the survival mode. Be-careful however because friends and family are NOT usually experienced / wise about how to react to the news that someone they loved got attacked. They may act out in rash ways themselves. It's not uncommon for them to blame the victim in a twisted view of love and lack of any other way to know how to respond.
Things to chew on.
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Professor Charles Hepburn II
VITAL Self-Defense, LLC
www.VitalSelfDefense.com
VitalSel...@mac.com
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