Before I left for college, I was given a book to read to prepare me for my new home. This book, “The Gift of Fear,” is about noticing the feeling of intuition that humans acquire in bad situations. I did not know what intuition was before I started reading it. I can honestly say that this book changed my perspective on people and the situations I put myself in.
“The Gift of Fear” is written by Gavin de Becker who is an expert in these bad situations. He previously worked for the government to predict what was about to happen in a situation. He was right almost all of the time. Throughout the book, he explains why he was such a good predictor and tries to help others notice what he does.
To explain this deeper, I will give an example from the book. There was a 17-year-old girl on a plane and an older man who sat next to her. He talked to her the entire flight and extracted information from her without her even knowing. de Becker was witnessing this scene happening. When the man got up to go to the bathroom, de Becker told the girl that this man was going to offer her a ride after the flight. He told her he is not a good man and to ignore him. Once the plane landed, exactly this happened, and the girl was able to get away.
Humans are the only animals that ignore the feeling of danger in themselves. All other animals will run away once they feel their intuition kick in. This is one of the reasons why the girl did not notice what situation she was about to put herself in. She ignored her gut feeling. The book will go through situations some women experienced and show PINs. PINS are pre-incident indicators. Every single one was shown for every single situation described. A few of these PINs are refusing to accept the word ‘no’, giving help when it was not asked so the victim feels they must do something in return and giving excessive details.
Although the situations used are quite extreme, I still am able to relate the book to my everyday life. If I have the queasy and uncomfortable gut feeling, I know to not trust the person I am with or to even get out of the situation completely. I see this as an important strategy to bring to college because it is a new place with people I have not known my whole life. It is tough to find people to trust so quickly, so I keep my guard up beforehand to feel for the intuition.
I think the idea of intuition should be instilled in everyone. It is important to not ignore the feeling. If we notice what our gut is telling us, then we can prevent bad situations from happening. Not everyone in the world is a bad person, but bad people do exist. Now that I am on my own, I am more prepared and mindful of who we associate ourselves with. If a situation feels wrong, get out. It is better to be safe than sorry.
“The Gift of Fear” really changed how I see the world and how I listen to myself. I do recommend it, yet I also recommend to feel for the intuition. It is a real feeling and ignoring it will only make the situation worse. Please be safe with what you choose to do and who you choose to surround yourself with.
