The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence

“[Kelly] knew [her attacker] planned to kill her, and though it may be hard to imagine, it was the first time since the incident began that she felt profound fear. […]

It was that subtle signal that warned her, but it was fear that gave her the courage to get up without hesitation and follow close behind the man who intended to kill her.”

Gavin de Becker wrote The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence to provide a broader audience with his security firm’s insights and techniques. By opening the book with client Kelly’s story, he illustrates how intuition and fear become automatic in dangerous situations. During her attack, Kelly’s true fear saved her life, and in hindsight, she realized her intuition was trying to communicate with her.

“It will come from an even grander resource that was there all the while, within you. That resource is intuition. It may be hard to accept its importance, because intuition is usually looked upon by us Western beings with contempt.”

Western culture frames intuition as a frivolous, unreliable response. However, de Becker champions it as a defense mechanism innate in all beings, honed by evolution and thus more reliable than logic. Like he did with Kelly, de Becker aims to teach the reader how to delve into intuitive signals and interpret them.

“[It] is judgement, and that’s what gets in the way of the way of your perception and intuition. With judgement comes the ability to disregard your own intuition unless you can explain it logically, the eagerness to judge and convict your feelings, rather than honor them. […] The mental energy we use searching for the innocent explanation to everything could more constructively be applied to evaluating the environment for important information.”

Expanding on Quote 2, Western culture’s reverence for logic is often internalized. Too often, people question their intuition and search for alternative explanations for suspicious behavior. Thus, de Becker urges the reader to extend the same grace to themselves as they would others’ stories of danger.