Do You Want to Survive? Condition Yellow Will Calmly Help You

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The parking lot was full and it was still light outside on that warm Ohio evening. Lucinda stepped out of her favorite discount store and started reading on her smartphone as she walked to her car. She glanced at her car, about 75 feet away, and clicked her key fob to open up the door. She walked toward her car, all the while checking cancer stats on her phone. You see, it had been five years since her cancer battle started and she was looking up remission statistics.

As 50 year-old Lucinda got to her car she started opening the door while still looking at her phone. Out of her peripheral vision she saw something that made her heart miss a beat. A man was getting into her back seat! He was actually in it by the time she fully looked at him!

As you might imagine this was a real OMG (oh my God moment)! Shocked and amazed, Lucinda immediately hollered, “Get out! What the hell do you think you’re doing?” The man hollered back, “Hey lady, I need a ride. Get in and give me a ride.” Lucinda stepped back a bit and hollered again, “GET OUT, you son of a bitch—I’m calling the police.” The man slithered out of the seat while saying, “I just needed a ride—I can’t believe you’re being like this.” Lucinda shot back, “GET AWAY you creepy bastard!”

The stranger quickly disappeared into the lot. Lucinda jumped into her car and noticed that her hands were uncontrollably shaking. As she pulled away, heading to her home which was no more than two-minutes away, she thought—what just happened? I could have been robbed. I could have been raped. Oh, my God, I could have been killed.

Lucinda was lucky that warm calm Ohio evening. She was lucky the man was perhaps only a head-case who actually just wanted a ride. Or perhaps the man in her back seat was an incompetent robber, rapist or killer. Or maybe luck or God had a hand in her well-being that day.

Lucinda was fine that evening. But many more weren’t quite as lucky.  According to RAIN and the United States Department of Justice and their 2014 National Crime Victimization Survey, an American is sexually assaulted every 98 seconds. In addition, numerous robberies and murders occur daily in America.

So, what should you or I do against these possible rapes, robberies, murders and crazies getting in our back seats? I shudder when experts say that we should all be aware. It so cliché! Everyone knows that they should be aware! But most people aren’t, at least enough of the time. Why? Life gets in the way. Like Lucinda. She had cancer and was checking important stats at her five year crucial time line. How about kids being on our minds—their behavior, health and schooling? Our jobs, lovers, pets are also on our minds. Our problems and issues all get in the way of being aware. And guaranteed, because of that, many get raped, robbed and killed. So does that mean awareness isn’t all that everyone says it is? No it doesn’t mean that but it does mean that we have to use the correct type of awareness to be realistically aware. Yes, there’s a type of awareness that’s realistic to use. It’s a mid-level type of awareness and in police and security lingo it’s called being in Condition Yellow.

Condition Yellow is being attentive to things around you, but being calm and relaxed about it. In Condition Yellow you’re not caught up in your thoughts—you’re mainly in the present moment. There’s no specific threat but you’re alert to any possibility. In Condition Yellow you’re constantly and calmly aware of your surroundings—who’s near you and what’s going on around you.

But how do we keep ‘life’ out of this Condition Yellow awareness. You really don’t. But you never let your thoughts completely consume your mind. You’re watching your surroundings and the individuals in it, yet still thinking about other areas of life as well. It’s not some rigid, hard-nosed or hyper-vigilant awareness that most of us think about as being awareness. You can still think about cancer, the dog, your husband or your wife but you simply do not completely get caught up in your thoughts. You are attentive to things around you. Simple. The only two rules you need to get Condition Yellow going in your life is affirming that you’ll never be totally consumed by your thoughts while you’re out and about. And secondly, you affirm that you’ll be calmly attentive to everything happening around you. It’s actually cool to be calmly cognizant of everything around us. And it will keep us much safer.

The words that I shudder to hear—Be Aware—ARE the keys to helping us survive that possible danger that can happen to any one of us at any time.

Steve Kovacs
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Steve Kovacs

About Steve Kovacs

Steve's the bestselling author of 'Protect Your Kids! The Simple Keys to Children's Safety and Survival'. He's written many articles on a wide variety of topics and has three published books. Steve's a three-time survivor of violence in his youth, a former police supervisor and a graduate of The Police Executive Leadership College (PELC) and was also an award winning part-time college Criminal Justice instructor. For several years, Steve did written and radio political and current event commentary and was the former host of the long running 'The Kovacs Perspective' Internet radio and TV talk show. Steve presently owns a small businesses in Ohio--The Mayfield Academy of Self-Defense.

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