Women's Safety Information

Although everyone needs personal boundaries, women are the caretakers of the world and ironically, we allow ourselves to be vulnerable to a point of being drained until we can no longer take care of anyone, including us. We must care for ourselves first in order to be there for others, right?

Great News!

There is a happy medium between being selfish and being selfless and I’m going to show you what it is!

At one time or another, we have all felt less than empowered by something someone else said or did. Wouldn’t you agree? What do you do when someone is disrespectful to you? What do you do when being around someone gives you the creeps? Have you repeatedly put yourself in a situation where you emerged feeling worse that you did beforehand? Did you know it would happen but “didn’t want to offend anyone,” by making waves or backing out?

We’ve all been there and if you are ready to create a more empowered future with more respect from yourself and others, greater self-esteem and much more peace of mind and laughter, you will definitely need to establish and enforce personal boundaries! They are the keys to much of our happiness yet so often overlooked.

How to Establish Personal Boundaries

First of all, let’s determine what is okay with you and what isn’t. That would be acceptable people, places and situations and unacceptable people, places and situations. You probably know several of them already. Decide what empowers you and what weakens you by picturing a person, place or certain situation and noticing the feeling in your gut. This is the quickest way to know if something or someone is beneficial or detrimental to you as a woman.

We will get into gut feelings in depth in the #5 Personal Safety Secret for Women but for right now, the first thing you feel is what you want to go with, good or bad. If you have an indifferent feeling, put it in the “good” category. If you have a good gut feeling about the person, place or situation it is put on the acceptable list. If you have a bad gut feeling, that person, place or situation is put on the unacceptable list.

Where to Put Personal Boundaries

You now have an acceptable list and an unacceptable list. Next, picture yourself in the middle of a circle. The line of the circle extends approximately 18-24 inches from your body. Picture the acceptable people, places and situations inside the circle with you and all of the unacceptable people, places and situations outside the circle.

You might have heard or said something like, “He got in my space,” or “She stepped over the line,” right? The space is the space inside your circle. It is your personal space and I am giving you permission to protect it. The line is your personal boundary line between what is acceptable and unacceptable to you. So, now you will have a visual the next time someone talks about “the line” or “my space” though if is more of a saying than actually understood my the person speaking it.

About Enforcing Personal Boundaries

First of all, enforcement of personal boundaries is easiest when you first meet someone because they don’t have to change their behavior. When someone you have known for a long time suddenly learns that you will not be putting up with the disrespectful way they speak to you anymore they are not happy. However, you may have had people like this in your life at one time or another and it is impossible to reach your true potential with them knocking you down all the time. Some of them will leave your life, others will respect you and stay.

Sore Losers vs. Those Who Truly Care

Why would someone you’ve known forever leave your life just because you choose not to be mistreated by them anymore? Because they are in the attacker mindset (Personal Safety Secrets #1) and you just stopped playing their game. People who care about you will be happy to adjust their behavior so that you feel better and many will appreciate the heads up; not realizing they had been inconsiderate in the past.

As you can see, establishing personal boundaries is a breeze compared to enforcing them. It takes guts to stand up for yourself and others will either respect it or resent your ability to do so.

How to Enforce Personal Boundaries

If someone speaks to you disrespectfully and you have just deemed it as unacceptable, you need to determine what you will say or do the next time it happens. Here are some options (none of which include guarantees):

“When you speak to me in that tone of voice I feel like you don’t respect me. Is that how you wanted me to feel?”

In this response, you are putting the ball in the other person’s court. They have two options: confirm they wanted you to feel bad or apologize and change their behavior.

Note: Remember that you are not saying, “You make me feel…” because no one can make you feel a certain way without your permission. That means they can inspire or threaten you into feeling a certain way but you are in control of your own feelings. (This is uncomfortable for some people to swallow because it means taking responsibility for their thoughts, behavior and current situation in life.)

If your teen is speaking to you disrespectfully, you may choose to be more forceful in saying something like, “Speak to me with respect. Anything else is unacceptable.”

The key is determining what you will do or say ahead of time. This is how we protect ourselves. Establishing personal boundaries includes figuring out how we handle the boundary breakers. The best part is that since you know what is acceptable and unacceptable, you can see when someone is getting close to “getting in your space” or “crossing the line” so that you can prevent it!

If you determine that an annual holiday party gets wild each year by 11:00 pm, your personal boundary may be to attend until 10:30 pm.

Maybe a person at work tells you an uncomfortable amount of personal information so you tell him or her that you appreciate that they consider you a friend to share their life with but that you will feel more comfortable keeping your relationship on more of a business level. Realize that the person who shares too much personal info seeks attention and will probably be mad at you and may even talk behind your back after you enforce your personal boundary. Why would he or she do this? Because it will get them attention. Consider the source and the reason people are pushing your buttons in the first place. There is always more to it than meets the eye. Trust your gut feelings above all else.

Where is the Empowering Part of Personal Boundaries?

I’m glad you asked! When you are treated with the respect you deserve and treat others in kind, you will be amazed at how long you allowed yourself to live without this natural high! How you see yourself improves. How others see you improves. You feel stronger knowing you have the right to protect yourself from verbal, mental, emotional and physical attacks. Your life gets much simpler because there are rules and those who choose not to abide by them are not a problem for you anymore. Remember, you have to have your own back before you can expect anyone else to. You must nourish and care gently for yourself before you can care deeply for others. You deserve to be happy. Do you lose some “friends,” acquaintances and others in your life? Yes. But were they friends if they mistreated you? No. Do family relationships get an overhaul? Many times, yes but refer to the answer to the previous question.

Live the Life You Deserve

In order to be who you need and want to be; in order to accomplish your life purpose, you need to feel whole, important and qualified to live your best life. This means protecting yourself from attack. Unclear about your life’s purpose? You will see how much more clearly you see after you respect yourself enough to establish and enforce personal boundaries. It is the #4 personal safety secret for women!

By: Kelly Rudolph

About the Author:

As Women, We Like

As women, we like to help others. We like to be liked. We like to be successful. We like to feel empowered and that we make a difference in the world. We are perfectly capable of raising a family, having a career and making our own decisions.

However, few of us realize how much our decisions are influenced by our self-esteem at the time a decision is made. If you are having an off day, chances are good that you will make a different choice that you would on a day when you feel awesome about yourself.

For example: I thought about relationship mistakes I have made in the past. After tracing them back to their origin, they all resulted from my low self-esteem at the time. The good relationship (and I am referring to friends, co-workers and family as well as dates) decisions I have made tend to stem from feeling confident.

Let Me Go One Step Further

One of my relationship decisions resulted in a date rape. If you have read my article series on “Women’s Personal Safety Secrets,” you already know I state the fact that no one deserves to be attacked and that the blame always lies with the attacker. But when I asked myself why I went out with this person even though I had a bad gut feeling, I realized it was because I wasn’t feeling too terribly great about myself. I was just thankful that someone had asked me out. The bad gut feelings multiplied and intensified during the evening. But I stayed because “I wanted someone to like me.” Since I wasn’t so thrilled with myself, that would mean I was worthwhile.

That situation was one of several which led me to the work I currently enjoy as a personal safety trainer, speaker, author and self-defense instructor. In the long run, the lesson that was learned (and there is one in every situation) was that even something bad can send you in a whole new direction to make a difference in the world. However, it took healthy self-esteem to make the choice to create something good from it instead of continuing to live as a victim.

Tracing my good relationship decisions back showed me that I have chosen the right friends, let go of the wrong friends and picked my battles wisely. These “confident day” decisions have had a dramatically different affect on my life than those made on an “off day.”

YOU are Most Important

Although you probably have a bazillion things on your “To Do” list, I ask you to pay close attention to yourself prior to making decisions. It only takes a second. If you are not feeling fantastic about yourself, think about the decision you would make if you were and then decide. It is similar to establishing and enforcing personal boundaries with a clear head (“Women’s Personal Safety Secret #4″).

Self-Esteem

You know that self-esteem is an inside job and as much as we’d love to think as much of ourselves as our loved ones think of us, we rarely do. When we feel vulnerable, the slightest off-hand comment can dim our light. When we feel strong, it takes a lot to rock us. Sometimes, a single day can feel like a ride on the self-esteem roller coaster. It may not seem fair but realize you are not alone.

Women have greater intuitive sensitivity, which is great in most situations and detrimental in others. We tend to take things more personally than men do and we attempt to read between the lines when there is often nothing there. This is why our self-esteem can be delicate and why we must take extra good care of ourselves in order to be there for our loved ones. This is how self-esteem plays such a huge role in personal safety for women.

By: Kelly Rudolph

About the Author:

Women, children and the elderly are the most common victim prospects for attackers but everyone of every age is vulnerable. That is the bad news but there is plenty of good news too!

Something as simple as using your voice correctly and knowing the correct things to yell make your voice your #1 weapon.

It’s as simple as that.

If you are like me, you learned what to scream if you were in danger, right? This was good in theory but far too ineffective for reality.

Here’s the deal:

Screaming is weak and defensive Yelling is strong and offensive Most of the things we were taught to scream don’t work I’ll tell you what does work
Screaming vs. Yelling

When screaming is heard, it is thought to be either playing or too dangerous a situation to get involved in. Most people want to avoid “helping” for fear of getting hurt. (They are smart!)

When yelling is heard, it sounds like something is about to happen but hasn’t yet. It is strong and gets a completely different kind of attention than screaming does. Most people are interested in helping to prevent something.

What To Yell

Stop! Back Off! 911!

These are the most effective things to yell. We won’t go over the others we have heard all our lives because there is no reason to fill our minds further with things that don’t work.

How To Yell

Inhale to fill your lungs and tummy Deepen your voice by putting your tongue low in your mouth Yell until you are out of air, inhale, yell again Yell so that people blocks away can hear you
Benefits Of Yelling

Startles the attacker – catching the attacker off-guard puts you in control temporarily Calls attention to your situation – the last thing an attacker wants is everyone looking his or her way Makes you stronger – gets your adrenaline flowing in order to help you think clearly, strike harder and run faster
When To Yell

When you have a bad gut feeling about someone who is approaching (usually after they have disregarded your stern “Stop”) When someone grabs a hold of you without your permission When someone is taking you with them against your will As you are running to safety

You are now capable of scaring off most attackers before they approach, during an approach and in the third phase of attack – physical contact. Women, please share this information with kids, teens and men as everyone needs to know how to use their voice as their #1 weapon. As women, we are more likely to seek safety information than men so it is great when we can share it with loved ones and coworkers of both genders and all ages.

By: Kelly Rudolph

About the Author:

We’ve all had toxic friends and chances are we still have one or two hanging around so tips to survive the attack of the toxic friend are vital to your self-esteem. And your self-esteem is vital to your personal safety, which includes your mental, emotional and physical well-being.

Definition of a Toxic Friend:

The friend part is someone to do things with. The toxic part comes into play when your “friend” dumps her emotional garbage on you or belittles you.