The Home of Steven Barnes
Author, Teacher, Screenwriter


Friday, February 19, 2010

How To Thrive In The Face Of Adversity, Setbacks And Losses


The best self-defense instructor I've ever known, a brilliant and accomplished lady named Dawn Callan, has the ability to empower men and women in a single intense weekend. She has helped countless abuse and rape victims, and confided that the most difficult thing to do with rape victims is get them out of victim mode. To take responsibility for their lives. And responsibility means "response-ability" literally, the ability to respond. Not guilt, blame, or shame, the capacity to draw a line in the sand and swear by all that is holy that you will never be used or hurt like that again. Predators seek easy prey. Dawn has helped thousands of women by putting their fates into their own hands, but first she has to peel them out of their dream of helplessness. Waking up can be difficult. But accepting that you did the very best you could at every moment of your past...but have the capacity to be a different human being in the future...is a difficult one. So much learned or induced helplessness in our society. We are more than that. We must be, or our children are not safe.



www.diamondhour.com

www.realherosjourney.com
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Your blog keeps getting better and better! Your older articles are not as good as newer ones you have a lot more creativity and originality now. Keep it up!
And according to this article, I totally agree with your opinion, but only this time! :)

Steven Barnes said...

Thanks. And I love disagreement...it gives us opportunities for great conversations.

Lorenzo said...

One of the big problems is, grievances can make great "assets".