By emphasizing the need for women to learn how to fight, we’re saying the problem is that we’re physically weaker and lack the combat skills of our would-be attacker. If women just knew how to fight, we wouldn’t have a problem. This is not the problem at all. This is a difference between men and women. We’re focusing on one, ubiquitous differentiating factor between the male and the female of our species as if that inequity is the problem. That is not the problem.

The problem is that there are mentally unstable, emasculated, broken boys and men everywhere. Their self-perceived powerlessness is an infinite void within that traps them in a constant state of emotional anguish. They are on the hunt for something to make them feel better. A salve that brings them comfort, that fills the void, albeit temporary. Their salve is taking power away from someone else. Some people medicate with alcohol or drugs. These sociopaths medicate by stealing your power and imposing their will upon you.

The way to be safe in a world full of such people is to avoid such people. Even if you know how to fight, the idea is to never use those skills. It’s usually when all other survival signals have been ignored or rationalized away that physical self-defense becomes necessary. It’s not the smartest choice.

A smart safety strategy is includes a few principles.

First, be aware that these emotionally terrified boys and men are walking through your world. When is an animal dangerous and unpredictable? When they are scared. Don’t assume that everyone you interact with is emotionally balanced and/or capable of civilized behavior. It’s lovely that you are, but not everyone is like you.

Second, listen to your intuition. I promise you, it’s working 24-7 to keep you safe. You just need to be open to listening to it. If you get a gut feeling about someone or something, go with your gut. Your intuition is excellent at sniffing out dangerous people and situations that might impact your well-being.

And finally, plan ahead. Most horror stories I’ve heard begin with, “My car broke down and my cell phone died…” or “I looked everywhere for my friends, but they had left the club without me and I didn’t have any money so…” etc. Everywhere you go, plan on having an escape hatch. Keep your cell charged and on you at all times. Always carry a little cash just in case. And when relying on friends for rides home from strange neighborhoods and parties etc, have a meeting plan. If they don’t show up, you can call a cab with your cell phone and pay in cash.

Unless you have a solid decade of fight training (notice I didn’t say martial arts) the likelihood of using fighting techniques learned in an afternoon or weekend is low. I can’t think of a single bad thing to say about self-defense classes or martial arts. The point of Unbreakable Woman is that your attitude is more important than any physical skill you could learn. Just like the Master’s of martial arts say: At the point you have become a master of the physical skills, you will no longer need to use them.

The idea is to use the gifts that nature gave you. Gave to all women. Our incredible ability to sense danger before it happens. We know damn well when something isn’t quite right. We’re just domesticated to the point that we talk ourselves out our own self preservation with intuition-crushing social terrors such as “I don’t want to seem like a bitch”, “I don’t want to seem like a racist”, “I don’t want him to feel bad” etc.

Our need to be liked can be deadly.

If you’re smart, and you are, you’ll fight like a girl. Listen to the survival signals your brilliant body and mind are sending you and take a detour before danger even finds you.

A girl fight is one that doesn’t ever come to fruition because it was cleverly avoided.

When you experience a loss of control, it is often accompanied by a deep sense of victimization. Loss of control equals a loss of power that can transform you into a victim. Inhabiting the role of “victim” softens the blow of the trespass and can help you deal with it.

The equation is simple. It’s timeless.

The million dollar question is: Can you see what you sacrifice in order to become a victim?

The lure of victim-hood is strong. It’s a thick salve that provides instant relief. Like a newly opened blossom it’s fragrance heady and compels us to inhale it’s essence deeper and deeper until we are drunk. Yes! I was wronged. I was completely innocent. I was just standing there doing nothing, when it happened. Like a sapling swept away in the raging torrent of flood waters, I was completely powerless to stop it. The person that wronged me is evil! How could they do that to me? It’s all their fault!

When something bad happens, it’s comforting to point the finger. Our instincts tell us it’s easier to heal from a trauma when we feel it wasn’t our fault. So when another round of pain rears it’s ugly head, we put our heads in the sand, slather on a thick layer of victim-salve and hope the pain goes away.

Let me be clear: It’s crucial to not blame yourself. The idea that any person “asked for it” is insane. That’s not up for discussion.

What is on the table is weighing the short-term benefit of blaming someone else completely versus the long-term effect of that strategy. The problem is, when you give someone else 100% of the blame, you give them 100% of your personal power. Being a victim means not having the power to change what happened. A very risky prospect and a seriously dangerous habit that can turn into an addiction as destructive as crack.

You do not have to blame yourself in order to see your role in the situation. What I’m suggesting is quite possibly one of the hardest things you’ll ever do. When something traumatic happens to you as an adult, the first order of business needs to be empowering yourself immediately. Look for ways you could have changed the outcome or prevented the scenario in the first place. Even if you realize there was something in your subconscious that contributed. This is not blame. This is accountability and it is the heart of empowerment!  And empowerment is the heart of healing.

The more you develop this “empowerment muscle”, the more natural it will feel to look for your signature on everything that has “happened to you”. It will eventually come as a relief to ferret out your role in the play of your life because it means you can change it.

Never give away your power. Don’t blame someone else and for the love of Pete, don’t blame yourself! Discover your part in the equation and commit to it. Own it. It’s 100% yours. Believe it or not, the one thing you want to give away is the one thing that will allow you to never suffer though the same scenario ever again.

Give yourself the power to have participated in some way in your trauma so you will have the power to make a different choice next time. It’s difficult, but it will put you in the express lane to healing.

As a culture of people hungry to grow and evolve, we must insist that anyone calling themself a leader either spiritual or otherwise answer one big question:

H-O-W.

Every other book I read, I want to get on the phone with the author and say, “Your ideas of turning frustration into inspirational and everlasting wellsprings of joy are wonderful, but HOW?”

All of these well-intentioned notions are ultimately about change. You changing. You changing your mind and behavior patterns so you can change your life. That’s how it works. And unless you are the rare individual who experiences Satori (single moment of mind-altering enlightenment) you will need to change slowly over time. And if platitudes keep you focused on the larger picture, great!

I’ve been watching the Olympics. These athletes have spent years, in countless hours of repetition to condition their bodies and minds to a task. When people seek change, they are no different except they have spent years training their minds and bodies in free-style dread, cross-country rage and downhill avoidance.

It’s going to take time to retrain the mind into states that will support new directions. Here are some basic first steps to think about:

1) Your Will. Are you seriously ready to change? Change is scary and it takes courage. Remember the definition of courage: The decision that something is more important than your fear.
2) Accountability. Just own it. Everything you do AND think. The moment you can admit that every success, every failure and every choice in between was to your exacting specifications, you are empowered to take on the world as an expression of your personal design.
3) Observation. The ability to see yourself as a neutral observer. Notice when you are acting in a way that you want to change. Imagine there is a compassionate, eternally patient and non-judgmental guru in you. This guru can observe any behavior with a detached curiosity. Imagine the guru asking you why you felt the need to act the way you do and what you would say knowing there is no right or wrong answer when it comes to change.
4) Conscious re-training. You’re willing to cope with the fear of change, you own your choices (even the ones that stink) and you’re noticing when you act in a way that doesn’t genuinely represent who you want to be. Now the soil is fertile to plant the seeds of conscious change. Since your observation will eventually lead you see the stimuli that produces the well-worn neuro pathways to your old behaviors, you can begin to take a moment before acting in the same way. For example, a car cuts you off. Normally, you would fly into a rage and unleash a tapestry of profanity that would embarrass Christian Bale.

Perhaps after a few conversations with your inner guru, you might have realized that this reaction was based on a cascade of misperceptions such as YOU personally were cut off, that driver was inconsiderate to YOU on purpose. If you dug deeper, perhaps you might have discovered that particular situation makes you feel powerless so you rail against it. Once you can forgive an inconsiderate person in the moment, the rage will lessen. Eventually, you may even be able to let go of your need to control other people, tap your breaks and give the inconsiderate driver all the space they can handle.

So cheers to you for your courageous endeavor to grow, evolve and change the world. Remember that every leader you give the gift of your followship needs to give you the gift of How. You deserve to have a map to your destiny. You’ll have plenty of learning and unique discoveries at your stops along the way.

And in case you missed it, the saddest cherry on top of this olestra Sunday was an interview with Miss Montag in which she claims that in light of her ten surgeries, her message for young girls is, “that beauty is on the inside.” She must be referring to the expert series dissolving stitches and subcutaneous staples that her surgeons left for none to see.

Look, I will be the first to admit I am capital V-A-I-N. I joke about needing to call Maayco to fix the hail damage on my thighs. I color my hair red. I get threaded to remove a terrifying array of black whiskers that belong on the face of a burly Hungarian cab driver. I have a ritualistic facial regime, but it’s over the counter and doesn’t require me to wear kooky oversized floppy hats, Blu-blockers and white gloves outside. And I do freak out at the tenacious adult-onset acne that besieges my milky complexion despite my insanely clean diet and good habits.

But when I see lines on my face from tension and anxiety, I don’t get botox. I refrain from having poison injected into the muscle that is trying to tell me something. My body is showing me signs of emotional imbalance. Instead of silencing my body, I listen. I work on relaxation. Damned if those lines didn’t disappear (see my blog Yoga Botox). Someone I know who hadn’t seen me for a few months with actually asked me if I had Botox done.

Ladies. Women. Girls. For the love of Pete. If you want color your hair, pluck your brows, wax, paint, tattoo, pierce, please enjoy these superficial expressions of your personal style. If your physical accessories require a scalpel, I submit that a perspective check is needed. Nose jobs, breast enhancements and Botox injections do not have to be a normal right of passage to be acceptable and attractive.

The temptation to change ourselves physically instead of doing the emotional work is strong. Like a black Hole if you live in LA and work in the biz. Where’s the line? You’ve got to decide for yourself. As I tell my young students at middle-school Unbreakable Woman seminars, if you’re not sure, say no. After you’ve thought about it, you can always go back and decide to proceed. But you can’t undo something once it’s done.

Give your natural, god-given beauty a chance. You deserve happiness, success and abundance without changing a single thing about your looks. If something is standing between you and your dreams, may I boldly suggest that it has nothing to do with your nose, boobs, lips or eyes. If you want to under go a transformation to change your life, start with some work on your emotional landscape.

Once those scars heal, you will be radiant, magnetic and free. Everyone who responds to the “new you” will be genuinely attracted to your authenticity and your soul, which are much more compelling than a nose, boobs, lips or eyes.

But you knew this. This is not news.

Would you believe that not only do you have access to the same magic as these “special” people, but that you may be looking this secret right in the face every day?

As usual, the secret itself is so simple but the application of this secret is what defies the majority of people.

Here it is: (drum roll please…)

Your will.

Don’t believe it?

A wise man once told me, “Information is not power. Applied information is power.”

A dazzling example of this principal is Cassandra from Greek Mythology. The god Apollo fell in love with Cassandra and gave her the gift of prophecy. But when she rejected his affections, he cursed her so that no one would believe any of her predictions. She had all the information in the world and not a single soul would listen to her. Even though she could see the future, she was completely powerless to do anything about it.

But you are a different story.

What you need is simple but I won’t lie, it is scary for most people. It’s the process of application, which requires the one thing you think you don’t have: Will power. The secret is you do have it. You have more than you ever imagined. Here’s the cliff notes on how to use it.

One: Acknowledge that change is uncomfortable. You are about to move out of your comfort zone into your discomfort zone. The moment you start to feel unsettled and fearful, that’s very good! Stay calm and recognize that sensation for what it is. It’s healthy, courageous growth and you are doing it. Keep putting one unsure foot in front of the other. A new path is supposed feel strange and unfamiliar. Until you get comfortable being uncomfortable, expect to feel this way.

Two: Identify the change you want to make. I’ll use ‘start exercising’ as the change for the purposes of demonstration.

Three: Identify all of the barriers you’ve put in your path: No time, too expensive etc.

Four: Identify the moments where the change could happen. How much time are you spending doing ‘wheel-spinning’ activities like internet, TV watching etc. ?

Five: Next time you are about to sit down and channel or web surf, notice that you are choosing to do it. After a few days of noticing your choice, before you sit down take a deep breath and tell yourself why you’re about the choice you’re making. Then increase it to three deep breaths.

Six: After a few days of the deep breath practice, each time you take a breath add some kind of movement that feels good to you. Maybe you’ll circle your arms over head and stretch or bend over toward your toes then roll up slowly on the exhale or take some knee bends. Whatever it is, let it be natural and enjoyable.

Seven: Celebrate. You’ve just overcome all of your barriers and started exercising! It may start with simple movement for three complete breaths, but it can then become a five minute stroll around your house or my personal favorite, dancing to great music and maybe evolve into a walk around the block. Who knows? Keep doing little things you enjoy and keep them short and sweet for a while.

We often miss the tender, delicate roots of the seedling for change, insist the plant isn’t growing fast enough and tear it out of the ground to check our progress. If you picture ‘start exercising’ as a day on The Biggest Loser, of course you’ll never start! It’s too much, too soon. Be where you are and start there.

One more question: Is there something you are doing or not doing that you know is keeping you from moving forward or preventing you from achieving your goals? If you know about it, then the only thing missing is your will to do something about it. And until you do, you are Cassandra, sitting on a wealth of information living as a pauper.

When it comes to change,  simply having knowledge will only get you so far.   But when you can combine it with the magical catalyst of your personal will, you get alchemy.

A theme I’m running into a lot with these books is this sticky-sweet, sanctimonious perspective that makes me want to give some of these authors a good two-shoulder shake. If I have to read one more paragraph bursting with observations of robust passion for joyous nurturing which glows with excitement and the honor of being a vessel of service to others, I will cover myself in chocolate pudding and go screaming through the streets of LA.

That’s great… if you’re the Dalai Lama. That’s fantastic… if you are a millionaire who can sit around in a puddle of joy as you glow with excitement about the next passionate thing you’re going to do. It’s wonderful… if you can even conceive of those realities emotionally, spiritually and physically.

What about the people who struggle to find a reason to get out of bed every morning? What about the grumpy, the non-religious and the distracted? Will these people really be able to go from their state of existence to glowing excitement for serving others? I guess not all methods are for all people so thankfully there are many approaches and new books flooding the shelves everyday.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for kindness, compassion and patience. My purpose on this planet is to help create the critical mass needed to shift the paradigm from disempowered, hapless victims to self-aware choice makers. That requires a lot of compassion, which is not being nurtured in us as a culture or a species for that matter. Occasionally, a ‘real life’ example will stand out and a book and movie get made about it (The Blind Side, for example). Other than that, we’ve been reduced to “use your words” as our big success strategy in peace making.

I hope that the literary contribution I’m about to make will help those who don’t even know where to start. And I’m sure at some point my approach will wind up in a blog somewhere. Now that would be apropos.

This book makes a very compelling argument based on many legitimate studies that our realities are nothing more than a projection of our deeply held beliefs and we are the projection of our thoughts. This is fantastic news! This means: Change your beliefs, change your life and the world.

Sound familiar? Millionaire Mind, Think And Grow Rich etc? This book goes so far as to show us how our DNA, the very material from which we are constructed, is directly affected by our powerful minds. We can literally over-ride our DNA with our will.

This is not news to anyone who has read the transformative Yoga Sutras by Patanjali or committed themselves to the practice of Yoga and/or TM (Transcendental Meditation). I found that studying the Sutras in combination with a dedicated Yoga practice as tools to unwind my relentless ego has bore more fruit of manifestation to my life than anything else.

So, if you deeply desire to change your life, you’ve got to change your mind. The most powerful step you can take is learning to quiet, control and focus your mind. Yoga and meditation are very accessible ways to dive into this wonderful process. And imagination will become your faithful companion on this journey.

Will Dr. Lipton’s book contribute to a massive paradigm shift to empower a population who lives their soul purpose unmoved by fear mongering capitalists? I believe it will.

Do they overwhelm you?

Does the thought of going from where you are to where you want to be immobilize you?

I hold multiple Olympic gold medals in procrastination. I am a master putter-off-er. It usually requires enough pressure to turn coal into a diamond for me to finally get IMPORTANT things done.

Are bills important? Well, yes. Of course they are. So is maintaining bonds with family, doing a good job at your job, speaking the truth, etc. That’s the day to day important and not what I’m getting at.

When you’re flat on your back, looking up at the ceiling of an ambulance, going head first lights and sirens toward the hospital, will you be patting yourself on the back for having perfect credit, being a good citizen and a dutiful member of your family? Maybe. Will you have fulfilled everything your soul needed? Did you take advantage of your body and mind on this planet in this century? Did you let fear stop you from chasing your dreams, leaping toward them with outstretched arms, fingers spread wide, tackling them down to ground and rolling ass over tea kettle in a cloud of dust?

Fear of a million things may stop us in our tracks along our path to following our bliss. If the reason is because you can’t imagine how you’re going to get there, well guess what? You probably won’t.

But there’s amazing good news! You don’t have to imagine how to get there. In fact, it’s better if you don’t. Let the powers that be take care of that. Your job is to wake up every morning with the intention of what you want, (what would fulfill your dreams), then do ONE THING towards that goal. When you’re following your bliss, don’t be surprised if all of these ‘one things’ are fun and completely enjoyable even if it’s “work”.

Pay attention to how it makes you feel when your contributing to your dream, take a deep breath and say thank you to whomever you feel may be helping you.

It only takes a single grain of sand to start a beach.

Deep breath in. Slow breath out. Smile (even just a little?)

Do it.

Our facial muscles contract (shorten) when we express ourselves. This pulls skin on top, bunching it up and that creates deep lines. If you can reduce or stop the muscle movement, which is what Botox does, the skin no longer bunches and the lines disappear, like magic.

Expression is good, keep that. Over expression can be a sign of over reaction, which is not good. Loose that and you’ll loose your wrinkles. Every time you feel the wave of emotional reaction rearing up like Hawaii 5-0… stop. Take a deep, full belly breath, relax your entire face, shoulders and jaw, then exhale longer than your inhale.

Practice this regularly and not only will you look younger, you may find that you’re less stressed in general. And maybe, you’ll be more likely to cope with adversity gracefully, calmly and dare I say it, beautifully.