One of my favorite words is “izzat.” It is a noun and means the regard in which you hold yourself.
Izzat is important.
People have the capacity to do really shitty things to others and ourselves when we do not tend to our izzat. In our violent culture, it’s your izzat that keeps you from going down and taking others with you. When you know you are worth loving and fighting for, then you can love and fight for the world. Protecting your izzat is the most basic form of self-defense.
People think self-defense is learning how to knee someone in the balls. Under the right circumstances, that could be one miniscule aspect of self-defense. Knowing how to physically protect yourself is not, in and of itself, self-defense.
Real self-defense has more to do with izzat.
In self-defense, you are a sacred being on the planet and you have every right to take your place in the world. Self defense is knowing your place and communing with your environment, while having compassion for and respecting other folk’s place. Self-defense is making firm boundaries with those who wish to take you from where you know you belong. Sometimes self-defense is pleasant—a warm smile and a firm shake of the head. Sometimes it requires one to break through the boundaries of what is considered acceptable behavior. For women and girly men, this is not always an easy thing to do. We are often taught that being attractive involves being pleasant and polite. Firmly asserting your place can easily involve being disagreeable or rude.
In every self-defense class I’ve ever taken, it is always terrifying and shocking to see so many women do not know how to loudly and assertively say, “NO!” Many of my classmates, especially ladies born in the 1950s, had a very difficult time raising their voices at all.
I have saved myself from bad situations many times by raising my voice and being disagreeable or rude.
At a party in high school, everyone left the room I was in at the same moment. I was looking at records and didn’t realize I was left alone with a man, until I felt a bad feeling. I looked up from the records to see why I had a bad feeling, and then I saw the man. He came closer to me, with a smile on his face. I did not like this man and did not want to interact with him and had no idea why. I was hunched down at the records. If he got close enough, he would be standing above me, and I would have been trapped at dick level. I stood up before he got close enough and immediately left the room.
Very rude, but self-defense nonetheless. I listened to the feeling in my body, sought out the source for it, assessed my physical situation, and took immediate action.
I would rather be rude, paranoid, mean, bitchy, and disagreeable than raped.
Months later, I heard he liked to drop roofies in girls’ drinks and take them home for a night of happiness for himself.
Where is that man now? How many women did he drug and rape? Will he ever see the inside of a prison cell?
When I was around twenty-one, a friend, Jojo, and I went on a road trip from Olympia, Washington, to California. One night we were on Route 101 right by Salinas. I was dozing in the passenger seat when Jojo, in a panic, woke me up. “That car is following us,” she said. “They won’t leave me alone.” I looked to my right, and a car with two men in it was right alongside us. I could not see them well. They were white. They could have been in their twenties or forties. They dropped behind when my head popped up, and I thought they figured Jojo was alone and would leave us alone when they saw she wasn’t. But they passed us and slowed down, then dropped behind us again, staying right on us.
I saw a sign for the Highway Patrol and told Jojo to take the next exit. We followed the signs, but horror-movie unfortunately, they led us to a dark and lonely two-lane road. The car was still behind us. We decided to pull up to a house whose lights were on, hoping the men would think we were going home and someone would be there to help us. The car passed the house, and we waited in the driveway for a little bit. Thinking we’d outsmarted them, we pulled back onto the lonely road and started driving back toward town. I kept looking behind us and saw no car. After a few minutes, though, lights flooded our car. The men were suddenly right behind us again. They’d been following us with their headlights off the whole time. I was shocked that I hadn’t seen them at all. We freaked out, but were near the town and pulled into a busy gas station. Jojo stayed in the car, to see if their car pulled in, and I ran into the store, filled with customers. I breathlessly told the clerk to call the police and recounted what had been happening.
As I spoke, a man walked into the store and grabbed a Hawaiian Punch out of the refrigerator. He listened to me talk. My body clenched up as I watched him, and even though I didn’t get a good look at either of the men while they were bothering us, I knew with all of my heart that this was one of them.
I don’t know how I knew, but I knew.
So I looked directly at him and said, “Why are you and your friend bothering us? What do you want? What’s your plan?”
Everyone in the store stared at him, and the clerk pulled out a large baseball bat. The man dropped his Hawaiian Punch on the counter and ran out of the store. The clerk followed him with the bat and took down the license plate number of the car as it raced off. They’d pulled up behind the store, and Jojo hadn’t seen them. The clerk called the police. When they showed up, we told them everything that had happened. They told us to wait at the gas station while they tracked down the car. After fifteen minutes or so, the police came and said they found the car and would hold the men to give us time to get back on the road. They said they couldn’t arrest the men as they didn’t break any laws.
These two men enacted an elaborate predator/prey scenario because they knew they were free to act with impunity. Most predators are mindful that they can keep things in a “she said/he said” context. How many women and young girls will they terrorize before either of them sees the inside of a jail cell?
Seriously, the power equation here is badly fucked up.
I thought a lot about that night I recognized a bad man I had never really seen before. If I hadn’t recognized him when he walked in the store, I don’t know what would have ended up happening that night. They seemed very determined to continue stalking their prey. I knew he was one of the men because I was tuned in to my surroundings and to the feelings in my body. I seized up when he walked in the store. My adrenaline surged through my body at the sight of him. I watched him get the Hawaiian Punch, smiling and happy, and there was no question in my mind. He’d followed me into the store to hear what I was saying, to revel in my terror. But he froze on the spot when I outed him in front of everyone, before running out of the store.
Cowardly shitstain had the nerve to terrorize two unarmed young women, but couldn’t face being held to account for his actions.
From this experience, I really, really learned the value of listening to my body. His presence set off a physical reaction inside of me, and that’s fucken’ powerful. The only reason my body would react like that was if it sensed danger that the social conditioning of my mind might have otherwise rationalized away. It was scary to run into the store and tell everyone what those men were doing. What if no one believed me? It was scary outing him in front of everyone. What if I was wrong? But we were in danger, and my body, present in the world, shut my mind down. None of my actions that night were rational. I was driven purely by animal instincts, and my instincts served me well.
I learned to watch out for police station signs soon after I got my driver’s license. One of my favorite things to do was drive to the ocean late at night and sit there in my car, writing. One setback to this activity was it attracted predators, many of whom followed me in their cars. The first time it happened, I was terrified. But it didn’t take long to realize my action was attracting a hidden population of people, generally men. I quickly learned to memorize license plates through the rearview mirror and drive around until I found a cop, hospital, or police or fire station. One dumbass followed me right into a fire station parking lot. I laid on my horn, and he was trying to turn around when the firemen came running out.
He got away, but still, that was a good time.
If I wanted to be a teenage girl writing by the ocean at night, I had to adapt to my environment. And my environment has bred sexual predators since slavery times. The safest thing to do would have been to stop writing at the beach at night, but it was just too beautiful to give up. Instead, I developed a survival strategy for doing an unsafe thing.
Another time in a nightclub, someone in a crowded passage grabbed my pussy. And I don’t mean just above it or off to one side, I mean full on, my goods in their hand. It was far too crowded to see which person it was, and my body took over. With both my hands, it grabbed the offending wrist and would not let go. It used all of my body weight to drag the person, causing the crowd to part, horrified. And it stomped the man on the floor until doormen pulled me off. The idea at first was to kick me out, but my boyfriend or someone intervened. I was allowed to stay and the pussy-grabber was ejected.
How unique.
I remember this vividly, and it still feels like an out-of-body experience. Not to diminish the violence of my response or anything. What I did was violent and brutal, I totally own that. If I could do it over again, I wouldn’t have stomped him more than once. My response was an action equivalent in animal energy to his energy, which compelled him to grab my personal goods. Had he not cast that energy toward me, I certainly would not have sent it back at him.
In all of these situations, the me that generally muddles through the world on a daily basis was replaced by an animal hell-bent on survival. I don’t have any serious fight training. I’ve studied self-defense and pay attention to martial art moves and stuff like that, but I am not a disciplined fighter. I’m not a badass, but badassedness has always been interesting to me and therefore in my consciousness. Like I mentioned earlier, I read The Art of War pretty regularly. Other than that, I don’t know where all these moves and strategies come from. My body finds openings and moments in the world to defend itself. If I can give my social conditioning up to the lord and allow the world to guide and protect me, then I can have a hand in shaping my destiny.
There are many moments like this in life—not all of them have to do with dangers—that are very powerful, life-changing experiences. The more we pay attention to them, the more auspicious and tuned-in our lives become.
Know your bad feelings and trust them.
If your skin is crawling, pay attention. If something doesn’t feel right, pay attention. If the hairs on the back of your neck prickle, if your gut clenches up, if a wave of wrongness washes over you, if your heart starts beating faster, pay, pay, pay attention. Do not second-guess yourself or rationalize anything that impedes your safety. Our instincts are the animal inside of our humanness, warning us of danger. Most animals have better instincts than we do, so pay attention to animals too.
I have seen the grunion run, when the ocean turns silver with fish for as far as the eye can see. If you stand in the water, a perfect, oh, maybe six-inch circle of sand appears around your feet. The grunion feel your energy and avoid coming into contact with it. You can literally see the actual space you take up in the sand, outlined by glistening silver for miles and miles. If you get a friend to lie down in the shallow water, you can see the entire space a body occupies. It is a very beautiful and life-changing sight.
The grunion showed me that. Thanks, grunion.
The selfish, cranky goats in my backyard teach me joy, the art of war, and wiliness. They aren’t my goats, but belong to the school behind my house. The school also has chickens, which hang out in my backyard and the neighbor’s too, along with the goats. The goats are mean, and they have rectangular pupils—another rare occasion where nature produces rectangles. I was pretty much not very interested in them one way or the other until they both escaped into the front yard. I chased, and they dodged and ducked, feinted left and dashed right. Finally, I caught one of them by the collar. I started pulling him toward the gate, and do you know what that goat did? He did something that made me fall madly in love with all goats, forever. He ran in the direction I was pulling him, causing me to stumble and let go of his collar. What fucken’ genius! Who are these brilliant animals? How is it I have not really noticed goats before? I love the goats! It took me a half hour and the bother of two innocent bystanders to get them in the backyard again. After that I warmed up to them, and they warmed up to me. It fills my heart with happiness when I holler “Goats!” out the window, and they come ascamperin’ and ableatin’ up the hill and into my yard. They bring me laughter, and I am always in awe of their total insubordination and intelligence.
And they let the chickens ride on their backs, so they’re willing to give the underdog a leg up.
This crazy world has the most interesting folks in it.
Noticing all this kinda stuff is how you learn to be present.
Izzat soars when you are present in the world. It is very good feeling to know that the world needs you. And when you are part of the world, defending it is another form of self-defense.
In Hawaiian, there is a word, “kuleana.” It means both privilege and responsibility. Hawaiians know it is a huge privilege to live in such a beautiful place, and with that privilege comes the responsibility to fight developers, protect beaches and fragile coral reefs, educate kids about how awesome the world is, or pick up the plastic that global currents send to Hawaii’s shores.
I learned that word in a documentary called Hawaii: Message in the Waves. It featured people who understand kuleana and design their lives around the responsibility of their privilege in many different ways. One is a teacher who gets kids rowing out in the open ocean, teaching them the importance of teamwork and relying on each other. He also teaches them the power of, and respect for, nature. Another is a surfer girl who picks up trash on Hawaii’s northwest islands, which have served as a resting place for millions of tons of plastic since the 1950s. Some help tourists understand that the coral reefs are so delicate that merely touching them can set things horribly off balance. All of these people have a vitality about them, a sparkle in their eyes; they are sun kissed and fit. They are angry and very sad, but mostly they let their kuleana guide them into positive actions.
That’s what I’ve noticed about all people who are present in the world—whether they’re farmers, nurses, businesspeople, bakers, musicians, taxi drivers, or artists. It doesn’t matter if they know the word or not, kuleana guides their positive actions, and they glow from within.
I once made up a game to help me remember to be connected to the earth and the world, even when I am far removed from nature. It is a very boring, slow, and monotonous urban game that can only be played while walking. I love it! You can play it by yourself or with others for points. It’s called “Somebody Put That There,” and it goes like this:
You look at everything you can possibly look at and as soon as possible, say either “Somebody put that there” or “Somebody did NOT put that there.” “Somebody” being a human being. Look at parking meters, doors, trash in the gutter, pigeons and crows, cars, trees, parks, fences, gardens, restaurants—everything in your vision. It is really a skill to find something where you get to say “Somebody did NOT put that there.” Here are some things that somebody did NOT put there: a fallen leaf on a car windshield, a tree root erupting through the pavement, a look of wonder on a toddler’s face as she stares down a big red dog, most birds and other critters—but it can be argued that most city- and town-dwelling fauna would not live there without the presence of humans putting things like fast-food wrappers, muffin crumbs, and trash cans all around.
By playing this game, I developed the skill of connecting with my world, no matter where I am. It’s part of my izzat maintenance and keeps me aware of the things going on that do not have to do with social constructs and the corporate environment.
When you open yourself up to the world, the world will give you the opportunity to protect yourself. Learn to fight with you mind, with your consciousness, with your body and invite the world in.
There are many other aspects to self-defense that do not involve an external predator. Some of the things that can make us unsafe live inside our own hearts, as has been exhaustively discussed throughout this book. Here’s a few ways to defend our hearts:
Spend time:
That dumb movie Buffalo 66 changed my life in an oddly fundamental kinda way. Vincent Gallo plays Billy Brown and Christina Ricci is Layla. Billy just got out of prison, and he kidnaps Layla—who doesn’t have a last name, which exemplifies the total lack of imagination that went into her character. The movie is about Billy Brown, and like so many movies and lived realities, Billy is the only one who matters.
Still and all, he’s a compelling character, who’s always talking about “spending time.” You know, just spending time together, having moments of closeness and good talks. I disliked a lot of things about this movie, but the “spending time” thing gave me a good term for something I strongly believe in.
Just spending time with friends, family, or strangers.
Let’s spend time.
Wheee.
Sometimes people are far away, but you can still spend time through phone calls, cards, or presents.
Spending time is investing in humanity. Take the time to let people cross the street or move safely in front of you into your lane. Hold the elevator doors, tell the bus driver to stop when you see someone booking it right as the bus begins to pull away. Let the person who only has a couple of items go ahead of you in the grocery line. If someone is a bit short at the grocery store, cough up the $2.25 instead of allowing them to experience the humiliation of giving some of their food items up. Pay the toll for the person behind you before crossing the bridge. All of these things take a few extra moments of your life, and they enrich your own sense of self and humanity. Spending time is a daily practice that defends your heart against the mean-spiritedness of our culture/environment.
Practice Anger Meditations:
I once worked at this restaurant, and on my first day, the cook, Tom, took me aside and showed me a window that opened to an empty space between buildings. It wasn’t an alley, for there was no entrance or exit, just a brick and concrete space that architects and time had forgotten. The window was a couple floors up from the ground, and on that ground was a carpet of glass and plate shards. Tom handed me a plate and said, “See, you can get really stressed working here, and almost every day someone will piss you off. If you get really mad, come on in here to the kitchen, grab a plate, and throw it down as hard as you can.”
I did not know at the time that Tom was giving me a gift I would hold dear for the rest of my life, but it sounded like a damn fine plan at that moment. I immediately smashed the plate he’d handed to me, and we both smiled with warm satisfaction. If I ever get the chance to thank him for that one, it might involve feet washing.
I keep saying anger because anger is related to grief, depression, loneliness, frustration, resentment, helplessness, and most other shitty feelings, so I’m saying anger, but I’m talking about all the normal shitty feelings that come along with this being-alive racket.
We don’t learn to release anger in a healthy way, and when we hold anger in, we attract bad vibrations and energy.
As kids, when we have fits—if we have fits—the general goal is to calm us down as soon as possible. My parents did not have this system. They thought that kids have feelings and kicking the wall for twenty minutes while screaming at the top of your lungs is certainly an expression of feelings. I was allowed to have fits because anger is normal. Maybe they noticed I was a nicer kid for a while after I had a good fit, I dunno. Neither of my brothers had fits, but my sister did.
In any case, this plate thing along with the memory of having fits when the world was just bringing me the fuck down helped me to deal with my anger as an adult. I was really deeply horrified when I realized that it is wrong to express anger when you are a grown-up. See, but anger isn’t a problem. Anger is actually a great force and can lead to serious creative and emotional breakthroughs. The trick is to not communicate with others when you are angry, to recognize when you’re angry (never a problem for me, but a lot of people are so uncomfortable with their anger, it is quite difficult to diagnose), and to act out your anger in a conscious manner.
The bathtub is a good place. You can go under the water and scream yourself blue and no one can hear you. Cars with the stereo blaring are also good for this, but only while stopped in traffic or at a light.
Don’t scream and drive.
If you can find a place where it’s safe to break glasses and plates, oh, but you are a blessed soul. When I lived in San Francisco, I found a place by a subway vent that was kinda like that empty space at the restaurant, and I’d go to Goodwill and buy ten plates for a dollar and get all kindsa hurlin’ mad with them.
This was a weekly practice for a period of time when I wrote my first book.
Slamming doors is also very satisfying, but again, not while engaging with others. I mean just standing there and slamming a door for twenty minutes.
Another one I like to do requires a large, open space. I take off my shoes and throw them as far as I can, screaming as I release the shoe. Then I run up to wherever they landed and do it again and again until I am tired and need a cup of tea.
Great, great, exhilarating fun.
This one, though, is best if you do it with a few friends because then it looks like some weird thing a bunch of people are doing in the park instead of just one crazy person who might get the cops called on them.
When you’re having your fit, keep focused on what you are upset about. Verbalize as much as you can, even if it’s just a haggard guttural groan. This gets all that badness out of your body and into the universe, which is big enough to deal with it.
I know all the peaceful people love to think that anger vibrations are harmful to the universe, but if the universe can handle the starving cries of human, polar bear, and frog baby populations, well, it can handle my being pissed off about so-and-so backstabbing me like a twelve-year-old jackass. The universe can handle the anger and destruction vibrations of forest fires, earthquakes, and tsunamis. It can handle people getting pissed off to live and love better lives.
Anger meditations are just as important as relaxing and having a nice time. In everyday life, anger, resentment, and frustration are bound to build up. Maybe not all the time, but over time. Even if you are a peace-loving yoga person, you still suffer from life’s disappointments. When left unchecked, negative emotions generally roil over into passive violence toward yourself and/or others, which makes the world a shittier place, and you, just another misery maker living in denial. Defend yourself by allowing your anger to come out in healthy, considered ways.
I like to do various anger meditations a few times a year just to clear my head and body of all my shitty emotions. This really helps me in my writing, and it helps me to be a better friend, lover, and family member.
Get pissed off in a good way and allow your anger to serve you.
You can’t change the world, but you can make it a better place. You can be healthy, loving, compassionate, and sensitive to the needs and feelings of others. You can have daily life practices that bring small happinesses. You can do your best to consciously live without perpetuating violence. You can bring comfort and love to the people around you. You can listen and hold yourself accountable. You can trace your unconsidered beliefs and value judgments and figure out if they really serve the person you are today. You can learn when and how to fight. And you can protect your izzat and other people’s too.
If you think of yourself as a plant, all of these things make you strong and help you to thrive. When you’re a plant, you can’t do anything about storms, freezes, and blights. All you can do is make yourself strong so that in the event that you are suddenly at the mercy of something bigger than you, well, hopefully the strength you have cultivated in yourself and your life is enough to see you through.
All this has a lot to do with love, and the dictionary kind.
There are many important loves in this life. There is the love between friends. Sexual love should never usurp friend love. But there are lots of other loves around us, some we may or may not see. Your neighbors benefit from your love. Nothing’s stopping you from cooking up a double recipe of lasagna and taking it over to one of your neighbors once in a while. The kids running around the neighborhood sure could use a bowl of that watermelon you just cut up, leaving plenty for you and your family. Perfect strangers enjoy your love when you help them load their groceries in the rain, when you let them ahead of you into your lane, when you stop for them so they can cross the street. Lordisa, the birds, squirrels, raccoons, deer, and bees love you when you hook them up with sustenance. People bitch about raccoons, but did you know they love cat and dog food? A big bag of cheap pet food will keep the raccoons out of your space and away from your pets better than any gun or trap. In love, though, that’s not the motivation for feeding them. In love, you feed the raccoons because you honestly want the best for them.
Call all of this karmic investment, if you wish. This still traces back to selfish motivations, but if you think of loving the people and the world around you as a way of protecting yourself against things that are bigger than you, it would suffice. I like to think of loving the world as putting into and out of myself exact reflections of the world I want to live in.
And it makes me happy to know that the hummingbirds and crows are fed and that the kids are laughing with watermelon juice running down their sticky faces and arms.
There are so many much bigger realities that bring pain and anger that I’ve learned to seek out small joys every day. It is one of the greatest forms of self-defense that I know.
My friend Bob enjoys collecting Japanese stickers, as do I. He is more frugal than I am and, unlike me, will not buy them when money’s tight. Whenever I have the disposable income to buy myself two sheets, I send him one in the mail, even though we live in the same city. I do not enclose a note or anything. Just the stickers. Bob does not thank me more than to let me know that he got them and that they made him very happy.
He also knows not to reciprocate. He knows it brings me joy to send him stickers once in a while. I like to imagine him coming home from work to an envelope. He will force himself not to open it until after he has washed up and eaten dinner. The anticipation will give him a thrilling surge of adrenaline. When he opens it, he will giggle like a kindergartener and will set the stickers somewhere so he can view them for a day or two before he places them in his sticker box. I like that this minidrama is taking place across town. It is a simple thing that brings joy.
If Bob reciprocated, it would detract from the pure joy of giving.
He finds other means of giving me gifts.
We have never discussed any of this because we both love the world very much.