Protect Yourself Inside and Out
Part Two
By Melanie Lentz
As a Secret Service agent, my day job was physically protecting others. I was the protector, and they were the protectees. I was basically a government bodyguard, complete with the badge, gun, bulletproof vest, earpiece, and sunglasses. In the movies, being a bodyguard is portrayed as glamorous and sexy. Those lucky enough to land the job must be ninja-trained assassins with eyes in the back of their heads and laser-focused senses, right?
Even as a young woman, I thought the Secret Service was a team worth playing for, but I didn’t think I could ever earn a spot on the team because of my personal deficiencies. I wasn’t big enough, strong enough, experienced enough, and more. It wasn’t until I was given a chance to earn my spot on the team that I realized I did have the ability to do the job. It was a hard job to earn, but I was too stubborn to quit, and that attitude got me far. I had a lot of fight in me.
It’s easy to disqualify ourselves from tasks and jobs we are completely capable of accomplishing. We elevate the job, believing it to be too difficult, while simultaneously diminishing our abilities.
Protecting yourself is one of the tough but doable jobs.
We aren’t all black belts with high level military training and honed awareness. But we all have the ability to be better self-bodyguards right now.
Protection is a learned skill. It takes practice and consistent training to be good at it and to stay good at it. But it’s not about living in fear. It’s about awareness and preparation. Living in fear of a physical intrusion or violation does not make us more aware. It does the opposite because we can’t see beyond the fear.
In my experiences, I’ve learned there are some simple and practical steps to protect ourselves better.
1. Keep your head on a swivel.
In Secret Service training, this was a common phrase to hear. The concept behind this idea is simple: be aware of your surroundings, and don’t get tunnel vision. Tunnel vision is basically exclusively focusing on one thing rather than being aware of periphery.
Let’s look at your current observation habits.
When you’re walking to your car after leaving a business or appointment, are you looking at your phone? Are you distracted with finding your keys in your bag? What about your home? Do you know what cars your neighbors drive and what cars are usually parked on your street?
Awareness of what’s around you doesn’t take a lot of extra effort, but it does involve starting some new habits. Something as simple as looking around a parking lot as you walk to your car rather than looking at social media is practical awareness. If you’re consistently aware of what’s around you, then you’re more likely to spot something out of place. For example, if you know what cars are typically parked on your street, you’ll probably notice an unfamiliar one when it counts.
2. Monitor access control.
In Part One, I discussed how access control applies to inner protection. But this concept applies to physical protection as well. There are a lot of way to access your person physically. Access points include your home, your car, and your physical person. Just like inner protection, it’s important to be aware of who should have access granted, denied, limited, or revoked to your physical person.
Let’s look at a few aspects of your daily access.
Who has access to your home? Know who has keys (roommates, relatives, housekeepers, etc.). Make locking up, especially at night, a habit in your household. Are all of your locks in good working order? If not, make fixing them an immediate priority. If someone were to look in your windows, would they see expensive items in plain view that might entice someone to attempt to gain access due to easy accessibility to your valuables?
There are some “safer” geographical areas where it’s commonplace to leave cars and doors unlocked. In my opinion, if someone you trust needs access to your house when you’re not there, grant them access by giving them a key or the garage code. It’s not living in fear to lock doors. It’s simply a good habit to establish and maintain regardless of geography.
Access control does go beyond locking doors, though. There are other ways to protect your access points and yourself. These would include taking self-defense classes and being proactive about ways to better secure your home, such as adding a doorbell camera or motion sensor lights. Again, it’s about awareness and preparation, and you can start with simple habits today and continue to learn and proactively build upon what you’ve learned.
3. Trust your intuition.
During Secret Service agent training, an instructor said this to my class:
“If something doesn’t look right, smell right, or just simply doesn’t feel right, then it probably isn’t right.”
You’ve probably heard the phrase “trust your gut” or a variation of this concept at some point. One of the worst things you can do is ignore the gut feeling that something is off. Have you ever said “I knew something wasn’t right” after the fact?
It’s not living in fear to make an adjustment because something doesn’t feel right. Your intuition is magnified by awareness and access control. When your head is on a swivel, you’re more likely to spot something that’s out of place or abnormal. In addition, if you’ve established good access control in your life, you’re more likely to spot potential breaches or even prevent attempted breaches because your proactive preparation allowed your intuition to shine.
At the end of the day, self-protection is part of self-care the same way diet, exercise, and sleep are part of self-care. It’s not always fun, and it’s not always glamorous. It’s hard work.
If I’ve taken one thing away from my time as a Secret Service agent, it’s this: I am worth protecting. And so are you. Don’t ever forget that.
In case you missed it, read Part One of Melanie’s “How To Protect Yourself Inside and Out” here https://www.karynnesummars.com/e-magazine/melanielentz