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Kidnapping survivor Elizabeth Smart, 38, has a word of warning when it comes to this common habit.
Smart was 14 years old when she was abducted at knifepoint from her bedroom in Salt Lake City, Utah, and held captive and sexually assaulted by a street preacher and his wife.
In her 2013 book “My Story,” Smart recounted nine brutal months of captivity.
She described being so terrified of the people who kidnapped her that when police rescued her in a Salt Lake City suburb in March 2003, she only reluctantly identified herself.
In her recently launched podcast, The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart, Smart, a mother of three, speaks with fellow survivors about both the horror of their experiences and how they have healed in the aftermath.
Reflecting on her own experience, Smart says the common habit of courtesy puts women in danger.
“I was raised to be polite and respectful and courteous…I would say that the idea that it was more important to be nice than it was to listen to my gut feeling was wrong,” Smart told People.
She says she has made it a priority to teach her daughters and young women everywhere how to recognize and respond to danger by trusting their instincts.
“Prioritize your safety over other people’s emotions,” she underscored.
“There’s this saying: you will never see a gazelle getting into an elevator with a lion. But as women, we typically stifle our intuitions. And even if there is someone questionable or that makes you feel uncomfortable, we think, ‘Oh, I don’t wanna offend them.'”
She shared that trusting your gut should always trump anyone else’s comfort.
“In reality, I would hope that my daughters, if they felt something was wrong, would just say, nope, I’m waiting for the next elevator.”
In the years since her abduction, Smart has become a child safety activist, launched Smart Defense, a program that teaches women self-defense skills, and, more recently, shed light on the healing potential of weightlifting after she won first place at a bodybuilding competition in April.
Smart received an outpouring of support from her hundreds of thousands of followers, many of whom are fellow survivors, calling her a role model and admiring her “courage, determination, and work ethic.”