Title The Gift of Fear

Author Gavin de Becker

Year Published 1999

Kind of Book Survival

How strongly I recommend it 8/10 

My Impressions The cover of this book says "This book might save your life. "I think that is accurate. It is possible the things I learned here have saved my life at least once since reading it. De Becker advocates listing to your intuition (or gut) when a situation feels off. He explains that many times our intuition picks up on things that our conscious mind doesn't. He gives several stories of people who have allowed their rational mind to convince them that a bad gut feeling about something or someone is not worth listening to and have paid terrible consequences for it (ie. Rape/murder). Trigger warning: Some of the stories he tells are chilling, gruesome, and hard to read, but they help make the important points he is trying to make throughout the book. Oprah said "Every woman in America should read this book."

Date Read circa 2018

Practical Takeaways

  • Refuse to be a victim-Margaret Atwood

  • Rely on your intuition. Your true being-Joseph Campbell

  • Keep away from mad dogs-The Buddha

  • Learn to see and avoid danger-The Buddha

  • Listen to warning signals from your gut

  • (for women) ask other women for help when you feel in danger or need help

  • When someone says "you'll be sorry" Ask exactly what the person is threatening to do

  • Don’t pay or act fearful to the extortionist

  • Always report threats delivered to second parties to an authority

  • (Stalking) Don't engage with or communicate with a stalker (it will make them continue to try to contact you)

  • (Stalking) Don't use restraining orders for every case.

  • (Stalking) get a second phone line, give the new number to the people you want to hear from, and leave the old number with an answering machine or voice mail so that the stalker is not even aware you have another number.”

  • (Stalker) “[get] the outgoing message be recorded by a female friend, because he may be calling just to hear his object’s voice (our automated voice recording)”

  • (Stalker) Give the stalker one explicit rejection. After that, go no contact

  • (When hiring babysitters) focus on disqualifying poor applicants rather than qualify good applicants.

  • (Interviewing babysitters) ask hard questions even if they came recommend by someone you trust. Ask "have you ever mistreated a child?"

  • Trust your instincts and When you suspect domestic abuse, report the woman and man to a battered women’s shelter

  • Relax when going about your business (instead of being paranoid and on high alert) and only pay attention to fear if it arises

  • Don’t watch the local news. It is not useful Information and just causes useless worry.

  • 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

 

Big Ideas

  • Every person is responsible for his or her own safety

  • Intuition is knowing without knowing why

  • Women are afraid of being killed by men

  • Men are afraid of social rejection by women

  • Each time you talk to or acknowledge a stalker, you buy yourself another 6 weeks of them engaging with you

  • Time will take care of most people who refuse to let go.

  • Men who aren't able to let go of women tend to choose women who can't say no

 

Surprising Facts

  • 100 percent of serial killers had been abused as children, either with violence, neglect, or humiliation

  • Not one successful public-figure attacker in the history of the Media age directly threatened his victim first.

  • The majority of husbands who kill their wives stalk them first, and far from the ‘crime of passion’ that it’s so often called, killing a wife is usually a decision, not a loss of control.

  • 75% of spousal murders happen after the woman leaves, it is estrangement, not argument, that begets the worst violence.

  • The D4DR gene may influence the thrill-seeking behavior displayed by many violent criminals. Along with the influences of environment and upbringing, an elongated D4DR gene will likely be present in someone who grows up to be an assassin or a bank robber or a dare devil.

  • Dogs are probably reacting to our intuitions as to whether or not a person is (rather than judging the person directly)

 

Unknown Terms

Typecasting: when a man labels a woman in a somewhat critical way, hoping she'll feel compelled to prove that his opinion in not accurate. (eg. "you're probably too snobbish to talk to the likes of me" she talks to him to prove his stereotype wrong)

Loansharking: When the victimizer offers to help his victim: placing them in his debt and making it harder/ruder for them to ask him to leave you alone. 

The Unsolicited Promise: When a person is lying and they can see that the other person is not convinced, so they make a promise even though one was not asked for to try to convince them. 2)This can be a warning sign of a predator

Forced teaming: a tactic used as a way to establish premature trust. The person used pronouns "we" "us" etc. to make the other person feel closer to them and like they have known each other for a long time and like they have a shared purpose or experience ie. Its us against the world.  “Both of us” “we’re some team” “how are we going to handle this?” “Now we’ve done it.”