Chelsea's Run

She went for a run and never came home....
I few years ago I gave up listening to the news. It happened by accident. I used to listen to talk radio all day long, but I had gotten an Ipod for Christmas and I spent the next several months loving walking around with my own personal sound track for my life. One day my Ipod’s battery died and I dug out my old radio. It only took a few minutes before some disturbing news about the body of a missing boy being found came over the air waves. After spending months away from such things I was able to notice how the news felt in my body, and I didn’t like it. I turned the radio off and put it away. I’ve never turned it on again.

It was another year later when I divorced and in a money saving move, I eliminated my cable TV service. Now I had no access to television news. I was insulated from the constant onslaught of negative media and I thrived. I still knew what was going on, you don’t miss out on the big stories that really affect you. It is just that you hear it all second hand, and if you’re interested you can read all you want about it on the internet. You are affectively buffered from all the stories that drain your energy and your joy. That is until they hit close to home.

On February 25 Chelsea King disappeared. She simply went for a run around Lake Hodges and never came home. Chelsea lived in Poway which is directly north of my San Diego neighborhood of Scripps Ranch. She attended Poway High which is the school my son’s girlfriend, Samantha, also attends. Chelsea is a year older than Sam, but Sam did run Cross Country and played in the school band with Chelsea. So I tuned into the television news, following the story with a sense of dread. I watched as the story rolled on over the next week. The agony of the parents broke my heart and then there were the pictures of Chelsea. The photos of a young and happy girl; silly, beautiful, sweet, and innocent, rolled across the screen while the reporters discussed the crowds of volunteers searching the hills and the divers searching the murky lake. Days came and went, an arrest was made, but still she had not been found. It was heart wrenching to watch. What hit me the hardest was one picture of Chelsea, just a snapshot really, but it caught her in a moment of pure joy. In it, her eyes sparkled. It reminded me so much of Sam….sweet Sam. It could have been her; it could have been any girl. Unfortunately, in our society we cannot protect our innocent from our monsters. (I hope that we will be able to change this, but that is a different blog for a different time.) Then they found her, buried in a shallow grave just off of the trail. It was over, there was no more hope, Chelsea was gone. I sat taking in this nightmare, feeling helpless, wanting to do something, anything.

I had spoken with Sam several times, offering to give her and her friends some lessons in Self Defense. Now I realized that I really needed to do this for any young woman that wanted to learn. As the holder of a third degree black belt, I have spent a lot of time, blood, and sweat learning to defend myself. I am passionate about it, but it had never occurred to me to teach it to others, not until now.

I recruited my old training buddy and fellow black belt, Marsha, to help me and last Friday we gave our first workshop. It was informal, just a group of women, young and not-as-young, gathered in a local park. I wasn’t sure how it would go, but I was passionate about giving these young women and their mothers as much knowledge as I could to keep them safe from the monsters like the one who took Chelsea’s life, and I think that we did a pretty great job and I am looking into setting up more workshops. You always know you are in alignment with what you are intended to be doing by how it feels in your heart. This night I knew, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that night Marsha and I were doing exactly what we were intended to be doing.

I am, once again, avoiding the news media and feeling more myself. I’m sure that I will continue to follow Chelsea’s story as her murderer is brought to justice and her loved ones move on in their desire to bring something positive from their loss, but I can do this and still buffer myself from the negative onslaught of mass media. The difference for me is that now I have another “calling” to answer, and I have a burning desire to teach as many young women as I can how to protect themselves. So here are a few thing s that I want you to know….

The number one thing that you can do to protect yourself is to BE AWARE. Pay attention to your surroundings. Don’t walk through a parking lot texting on your phone or lost in your thoughts. Walk out of the store with your keys ready in your hand, walk with purpose, get in your car, lock the door and go. If you’re jogging watch what is around you. Has that same car passed you three times? Does the trail lead into a dark area with a lot of places for someone to be concealed? If someone in a car stops to asks you for directions, don’t go near the car. If you can not hear them, just say sorry and jog away. Pay attention to your intuition. How many times has something happened and you said, “I knew it, I knew that would happen!” Start paying attention to your thoughts and feelings, if a situation or a person is giving you the creeps, stay away. Pay Attention and Be Aware!

Right up there with awareness is ATTITUDE. These guys are looking for an easy target. They want to dominate and terrorize. You do not want to look mopey, sad, meek or distracted. Stand up straight, look people in the eye, walk with purpose and assume a whole “you don’t want to mess with me” attitude. Put simply, don’t look like a victim.

Next is SISTERHOOD. We’ve got to watch out for each other. Everyone makes mistakes and let’s their guard down. That’s when we have to count on our friends to have our backs. Don’t let a friend leave a party with anyone that they just met no matter what. Watch each other’s drinks at a bar. Watch until a girlfriend gets into her home when you drop her off. Let each other know who you are going out with and when you will be home. Keep each other safe.

Finally is TELL. Whether you had a date that got a little too aggressive or you were a victim of a full-on sexual assault, Tell! Tell someone, anyone. In the case of an assault, call the police immediately. Do not change clothes or take a shower, the police will need the evidence. These guys will continue to prey on us as long as they can get away with it so we need to protect each other and get the word out about whom they are and what they do.

Above all, if you are assaulted DO NOT LET THEM TAKE YOU SOMEWHERE ELSE! If they are trying to get you into a vehicle, you are now fighting for your life. They are not taking you somewhere that will be safer for you. They will be taking you somewhere they feel safe, where they can take their time with you and you will not live to tell about it. If they have a weapon it is better to take your chances to run, screaming your head off because if you go with them you will die.

These are the main points that Marsha and I teach in our workshop. Then we also show the ladies some basic of fighting. We want them to understand the “target” areas on a man and what parts of their bodies they can use to hit those targets. It doesn’t matter how you’re being held, there is some way to hurt them if you know what to do.

Thank you for bearing with me on this, I know that it may have been rough to read in parts, but it is the truth. If you would like to know more about how you can protect yourself please contact me.

Blessings,
Kelly

Purging

Learning to Purge…….and loving it!

I never really considered myself a pack rat, I just had a lot of stuff. But being a good Virgo it was all well organized, boxed or filed and tucked away in its own little place. I knew exactly where everything was (or so I thought) and it all was quite neat and tidy. Seven years ago I couldn’t imagine getting rid of any of my stuff, after all I was quite proud of my system.

The first sign of things to come happened on October 26, 2003. That Sunday morning I woke to find a huge cloud of smoke blowing just southwest of our home. Within a few hours a wild fire ripped through our quiet suburban neighborhood. We were forced to evacuate, but we were lucky enough to have time to fill the cars with stuff. Many of my neighbors were not as lucky, 343 of them lost their homes that day and many of those had just enough time to get themselves to safety as their homes went up in flames. As we made our way to safety through the traffic jam of evacuees, I couldn’t help but think about what it would be like if I never saw our home or our stuff again. What came to me caught me completely by surprise. Instead of sadness for the loss of all of our things, what I felt was a strange sense of release, a sense of freedom. It was a very odd feeling, especially for me, especially for the moment. But the thought and the feeling passed quickly. When we were let back into our neighborhood, our home was still standing. We were among the lucky ones. Still, there was a lot to deal with in the weeks to follow and this strange moment of revelation would have to be tucked away until I would have time to reflect on it.

It took another life shake up four years later to bring me my next lesson. My twenty two year marriage ended and our big beautiful home with all the wonderful storage space would have to be sold. We had lived in this home for ten years and it took me two weeks to empty the house of all the stuff that we had accumulated. The first thing I did was rent a large dumpster and had it placed in the driveway. Then I started the sorting process. The categories were “moving it”, “donating it”, “selling it” or “dumping it”. I had no idea how much fun and how freeing it could be to throw things in that dumpster! Nor did I have a clue on how much crap we had saved just because we had the room to do so. The garage was the worst. For example, we found lawn irrigation piping that we had left over from when we put the yard in the first year we lived there. We had tucked the spare parts away for any repairs that would surely need to be made over the years. The problem was that by the time the repairs did indeed need to be made, we had forgotten that we had the spare parts and we went out and bought them again. So much for my highly organized Virgo system!

Moving out of that home was a daunting task. I was completely over whelmed by the amount of stuff that we had packed into this place. For the first time in my adult life I was doing some serious down-sizing of my stuff. I filled up the dumpster, sold several truck loads and donated even more. When it was finished I felt like I was lighter, freer and ready to take on my new life. But the truth was that I still had a lot of stuff. The biggest issue was the holiday boxes. I had large tubs of decorations for each holiday. There was one each for Easter and Thanksgiving, three for Halloween and about fourteen for Christmas. Letting go of the holiday decorations was absolutely unthinkable. Even at the cost of renting a storage unit for all of it, and let me tell you, storage space here in San Diego isn’t cheap! Eventually I ended up purchasing industrial shelving units which my son helped me erect in one half of the garage of my small townhome. We then moved the stuff from the storage unit to its new home and I was quite happy again to have my stuff near me and well organized, at least for awhile.

I’m not sure when it started. It was slow at first, just the occasional thought as I would pass through the garage. But those thoughts came more and more frequently as time passed. As I would pull into the garage to park my truck I would look at the well organized mountain of stuff and think, “Do I really need all of this?” By last Christmas I was ready to pare down the Christmas decorations to at least half. What I lacked was the time to go through all of the boxes and decide what I would keep and what would have to go. Also, where would it go? There were memories attached to all of this stuff, I needed to find it all a good home. So, Christmas passed and all the boxes stayed neatly on their shelves and the thoughts of freeing myself from it all kept coming. When my partner, Lori moved in I found myself embarrassed about the mountain of stuff that I had saved and I found myself making excuses for all of it. She had some things that we also needed to store. We were able to get it all in but now it wasn’t quite so organized. In fact, it seemed that it was requiring constant attention to keep it all from over taking the whole garage. It was draining more and more of my energy and I needed to take care of it.

The day after Thanksgiving I rolled up my sleeves and headed to the garage. I went through every tub of decorations and saved only those pieces that were very special to us. I had arranged for my friend Amy to come the next day and take the rest away. Amy has three young children and three sisters who also have young children. They were very happy to take over my treasure trove of holiday booty. In the end I eliminated at least 70% of all of the decorations. But the best part was that I knew it was all going to homes where they will create their holiday magic for another generation of children. It feels wonderful to have it all gone. I had no idea how much stuff can weigh you down. I have learned a powerful lesson about just how draining stuff can be. Oh, I still have a lot of stuff, but now I have the willingness to keep going through it all and keep freeing myself of what I no longer need, and now I have a much clearer definition of exactly what “need” means.

Blessings, Kelly

“I've been getting rid of some clutter — anything that doesn't serve a positive purpose in my life — and making room for things that feel happy to me. Because I get to make my life whatever I want it to be. I get to make the room feel however I want it to feel. I get to make the closet as full or as spacious as I want it. And, if I have more clutter to get rid of after Christmas, I'm not going to wait a year, or two or three to do it.” - Jan Denise