From Costa Rica to New York

I feel like the energy that I have received teaching both Level 1 and 2 in Costa Rica, in partnership with The University for Peace and IMPACT Personal Safety is going to help fuel the plane I am about to get on!

What an amazing and magical experience.

Women with such different backgrounds, ages, and experiences coming together in solidarity, love, humility and fierceness!!!

Oh my, what awesome fierceness of spirit.

And as different we are, so many of the questions from the trainees were the same ones I have heard in countless groups and meetings over the past decade:

How do I manage how others react to my setting boundaries?

How do I deal with knowing something bad is happening to someone else?

How and when should I step in?

What about weapons? What about multiple attackers?

And then there's the question I asked myself...How do I get the trainees to connect with their fighting spirits?

Different women. Different cultures. Different countries. And yet, the same questions.

The eighteen women training in the town of Cidudad Colon represented eight countries, mostly from Latin America. They are the champions we need for this global transformation.

For a safer future.

I have learned, on this trip, that by respecting our differences, we open up to how similar we really are, and that together, we can learn, grow, and bring the truly powerful teachings of empowerment, love and respect of self, and the right to defend, to all communities.

And now, it's time to board my plane to New York and get ready the next Level 1 Training.

Only together, on the ground, changing lives, can we truly create a future of safe communities.

* Donate to the ESD Global Scholarship Fund and make it possible for more women to bring Empowerment Self-Defense training to their communities. *