What Every Woman Should Know - Part 2

In Part Two of Heather Winkeljohn’s conversation with Sean Murphy, the discussion continues with practical, real-world insight into women’s personal safety, self-defense awareness, and the importance of recognizing danger before it escalates.

Sean brings more than 18 years of law-enforcement experience, including investigations into serious crimes and defensive tactics training. Together, Heather and Sean talk about how women can better understand risk, protect their boundaries, and build confidence through awareness, preparation, and action.

This episode is not about fear. It’s about knowledge. It’s about trusting yourself. And it’s about helping women recognize that their safety, voice, and instincts matter.

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Hosted by Heather Winkeljohn, She Fights shines a light on women who have faced life’s toughest battles and emerged stronger. Through compassionate conversations that inspire hope and resilience, Heather reminds us that while every woman fights a different battle, none of us has to fight alone. 

Jackson Wink Gym (website)

If you're interested in learning self-defense:

Smart Girl Self Defense (website)

Disclaimer:
This episode is shared for educational and storytelling purposes only and is not intended to replace professional therapy, counseling, or medical care. Heather Winkeljohn is not a licensed therapist or mental health professional. The views and experiences shared by guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Heather Winkeljohn or She Fights or UnstoppableVoicesMedia.com. If you are struggling, we encourage you to seek support from a qualified professional.

If you are in crisis or thinking about self-harm, contact your local emergency services or, in the U.S., call/text the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline — available 24/7, free and confidential.

New Life Ministries (website), a Christian counseling and support ministry providing faith-based care and resources to those in need.

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:35

Conversations or heavy emotional life experiences. Take care of us in what feels right for you. Battles with illness, defeat injustice, the triumphs of resilience, courage, and hope. These are the voices that refuse to be silenced. Real women, real stories, unbreakable spirit. This is Sheep Fight.

SPEAKER_02 0:59

You've been learning about normalcy bias, which is that form of denial in the brain that minimizes the circumstances of the crisis. In Smart Girl Self-Defense, we often talk about the freeze response and how the brain likes a predictable pattern, and normalcy bias overlaps with that quite a bit. Join me now for the second half of my interview with guest Sean Murphy in episode 11.

SPEAKER_01 1:21

We have a tendency as humans, we don't like to cognitively think that we are in some sort of crisis. So we will develop what they've kind of coined the term for it as a normalcy bias. You're sort of putting your blinders on, you're ignoring, like, okay, everything's going horribly wrong around me. Nope, everything's fine. I'm staring right here, I'm not seeing any of that. Yeah. And I think we have a tendency to do that. I think that dovetails into that be nice, everything's going to be okay, and you're ignoring all the danger signals.

SPEAKER_02 1:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:58

Um, this gets talked about sometimes in like active shooter things when you're you're training civilians for for response to that and things like that. That normalcy bias, you'll hear like an interview, and somebody's like, Oh, I thought there were fireworks going off. There was a shooting in your office building. When is the last time somebody set off fireworks in your office building? That is your mind. That is your mind refusing to accept the situation that's in front of you, and it's delaying you time to react that would put you in a more safe situation. Does that make sense? Makes sense. So that normalcy bias is a real thing, unfortunately.

SPEAKER_03 2:39

And you even hear people, you know, there's that social, I for I I can't remember the term, but where people don't act if there's a public act of violence happening and someone's getting hurt, and where everyone just kind of doesn't help, or you know, they don't help, and because they're well nowadays, they just pull out their phones, but that's another story. But they don't help because they're looking at other people's reactions, you know, and trying to decide well, if if they're not helping, maybe I don't need to help. You know, it's like they gauge their their reaction on what everybody else is doing.

SPEAKER_01 3:14

Absolutely. You know, I'm thinking about that video that circulated a while back, I think it was in Charlotte, and it was complete random act of violence on a train, and this lady's sitting there, and the guy just stabbed her in the neck.

SPEAKER_03 3:30

I remember that.

SPEAKER_01 3:31

And everyone just sat there. Right. And part of that is maybe there's an element of fight, flate or freeze. Again, not being there, no one ever knows how they're gonna truly react. I get that, but there might be an element of fight, flight, or freeze at play there. There might be an element of just not knowing how to handle a situation and seeing that danger and knowing you're gonna go into that danger. A, it takes a different mindset, a mindset that generally you got to train for. Yeah, and having the the knowledge, skills, and abilities to make any kind of difference, whether it's rendering aid if the guy flees, you render aid to the victim afterwards. Yeah, going hands-on with this individual and using whatever you can, soliciting help from others, those kind of things, you know. But those knowledge, skills, and abilities, a lot of times we got to be trained, and it is very easy for people to do nothing.

SPEAKER_03 4:32

Yeah, I agree.

SPEAKER_01 4:34

It's scary because you would like to think that humans would revere the society and do the right thing, right?

SPEAKER_03 4:42

Right. Yeah, it's it's so hard to believe, but it's like we talk about in the class, you know, with the women, they're not our minds are just not prepared for violence in the world we live in, with all the comforts and all the amenities that we enjoy, and we're a socialized, nice, you know, polite society with all these norms and rules and laws. And so when there's something that's out of that norm, their minds are not prepared for violence. It's it's just yeah, it's just an inability to recognize it, I guess. I don't know. That's super interesting. So, based on your experience in high-risk situations, what do you think true mental resilience looks like before, during, and after a threat? I know that's a lot to answer, but what what does true mental resilience look like?

SPEAKER_01 5:34

Heather, that's a big question. Um, so you know, there there are people who have bounced back from atrocious things happening to them, and they have found a way to reconcile it in their minds. Um, and I think that's on an individual basis how that happens. But I've seen several people that I've crossed paths with use that to help other people. They learned the hard way and they are trying to pay it forward to prevent other people from ever having to experience it. I think it takes a very special person to do that beforehand. So going back to the whole ambush analogy, and this person's under stress because they know it's coming, but you don't, having good physical fitness can help your body when your body all of a sudden it has all the adrenaline spikes and all the different hormones are going crazy, and all you're trying to process all this information at once, having a good physical fitness because your heart rate's gonna go zero to way high, and it's gonna do it without any warm-up, without any preparation, without there's no yeah, yeah. You gotta go zero to a hundred, you have to go now, and your body is going to react like that. So, having a good level of physical fitness, I think, is huge because your body will adapt to that better. I would say, in the middle of an incident, having a little bit of an attitude. There's a uh phrase I I think was coined. I I stole from him. He's a brilliant mind about all this kind of stuff when it talks about ambushes and predators and things like that. Tony Blauer, he puts out a lot of really good stuff. The phrase that he he has coined to my knowledge, anyway, uh, has been having a righteous indignation.

SPEAKER_03 7:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:40

So having a little bit of that, you know what? How dare you? How dare you pick me? Who do you think I am that I'm gonna lay down for you, that I'm gonna let you do this to me to do this to my kids? Having a little bit of that attitude, I think can get you very, very far. I also think that having neural pathways is helpful. And hopefully we can uh assess things and evade them before we ever have to go with a hands-on solution. But having some tools in that toolbox are super crucial, and they can be very basic, very rudimentary, because that's the only anything that's a finite thing is gonna fail you when your body's going through all of these physiological changes in an instant, right? Right. Um, gross motor skills, all that stuff is is so a basic thing, and having a basic plan, yeah. Uh I I think I've shared this with you before a lot of times. Kiss K-I-S-S-Keep it simple, stupid. It's what I tell myself many, many times, right? Like you start planning out, okay, if yeah, and it it doesn't have to be dealing with an assault, it can be dealing with any form of danger. Right. You're in the shopping mall and you start hearing fireworks. Turns out they're gunshots. What is your plan? Where are you going to exit? Yeah, where's your exit? Or do you have kids with you? How are you going to expeditiously move to that exit with your children? Right. Right. A fire breaks out. There's a problem on a plane. Every time I fly, I I actually try to like pay attention to the the flight attendants because I feel rude if I just like start playing a movie and they're up there doing their thing and I I feel bad, right? Because everybody does it. And at the same time, I get on a plane, I've already clocked where the exit is. I've already probably looked at the card to see, well, how does that door open? Because some of them are different, right? But all of these things build some kind of neurological pathway, so it's not just like having fighting skills, right? Self-defense skills, it's developing a plan, a basic plan. Yeah, a basic plan. Keep it simple, stupid. Like this, I don't tell yourself you're stupid, but it works for me. But keep it simple so you can kind of move to your left and right if you need to bounce back and forth, adjust that plan as needed because that you never know what the situation is going to be, but know those exits, know how to get out, know where your vehicle is. How many people go into a store and they're walking out and they don't remember where they park? They gotta hit the little clicker thingy to wait for the lights to flash, right? Yeah, a lot of people do that. I've done it myself.

SPEAKER_03 10:23

I've been there. I've been there, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:26

Yeah, you know, so all these little things where it's just being locked in. And so another thing I would say is the phrase situational awareness, it gets thrown around in the law enforcement community, it gets thrown around all the time, it gets thrown around the self-defense world a lot. Like what does that actually mean? And more importantly, how can you sort of improve your situational awareness? A lot of people think it's just paying attention to what's going on, okay, sitting with your back against the wall. Okay, great. But I would say that there's a cognitive process that you can do once you kind of go through that that cognitive process, your brain will start computing things much more rapidly. So it takes a little bit of effort, just mental effort, mental acuity. But when you go through your daily routine, you're going to get gas, you're going to the grocery store, you're dropping kids off at school, you're picking kids up from practice, you're doing whatever it is you do. You're going to work. People say, Well, pay attention, look around. All yes, but more importantly, and on top of that, while you're looking around, study what's going on. Because just like you're going through your normal pattern of life, generally speaking, other people are too. And so you will tend to see normal patterns of behavior and movements and all of these things. And if you study those and you cognitively process this is what's normal, this is what it looks like at the gas pump. I'm not just pulling up pumping gas, whatever. I'm paying attention to what the other cars are doing in the parking lot. What's normal? What do people normally do here? And if I most of us probably get gas at the same handful of gas stations all the time, right? Or go to the same grocery store all the time, or go to the same parking lot at school all the time. Study what's normal.

SPEAKER_03 12:23

That was like patterns, patterns, the way I believe it.

SPEAKER_01 12:26

Yeah, you're cognitively studying those patterns, and then when something is outside of those patterns, your brain will instantly go, hey, something's wrong here. And so as you start doing that, you have to pay less attention to the normal things because you've sort of already internalized those.

SPEAKER_03 12:45

Right.

SPEAKER_01 12:45

And your brain frees up to pick up on the abnormalities, right? And so you're not having to process normal when there's an abnormality, you know what normal is. So then the abnormality hits, and your brain immediately locks in on it. And you can devote all your attention to that abnormality, and it might just be, hey, that car backfired, or oh yeah, that the car broke down, they're pushing it into the gas station, or yeah, oh, that kid screams because he's happy to see his mom at the end of the day, or hey, but the scream was an anomaly. The guy's pushing a vehicle was an anomaly. The car backfiring was an anomaly, it's not in your normal pattern. But once you sort of study those patterns, you don't have to devote as much time and brain power to them. And your brain is freed up to pick up on the abnormalities that you can assess quickly and figure out if you need to make an adjustment to your behavior or if it's just an anomaly that is easily explained away.

SPEAKER_03 13:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:46

So I hope that makes sense.

SPEAKER_03 13:48

No, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah. And and I always add, like, you know, we get into it's called inattentional blindness, where sometimes, and this has happened to me, I was at the park one day, and there was this guy, you know, lying under a tree in our park that we go to. And I was playing, my daughter was young at the time, and there were people in the park, it was no big deal. And I thought it was some teenager sprawled out on the grass, you know, sleeping. Well, it was a mentally disturbed man. And I'm down in the sandbox playing with my daughter, and suddenly I you know I turn around, the park's empty. No one bothered to tell me, you know. So this guy is just, you know, a few feet away, and he's got this face covered, and he's grunting and he's pacing, and he's like zeroed in on me. And it was all those pre-attack indicators we just talked about. But at the time you're in the normal pattern, you're in your normal routine in a comfortable environment, and you know, that was something I should have picked up on. You know, who is this guy lying under a tree? You know, what is he really doing there? You know, so yeah, we get inattentional blindness. Like I always make fun of my husband when he goes to the refrigerator, he's like, Where's the ketchup? And I'm like, it's right there. It's in the door, you know, but he doesn't see it because you know, everything else, I don't know, it's it's really interesting how we kind of turn stuff out, but that's helpful. Yeah. Well, thank you. Is there anything else you want to add in there?

SPEAKER_01 15:15

Or we could talk for a very long, long time about all these things and provide all kinds of examples. Some are very extreme examples, some are very micro examples, if you will. No, I I just love what you're doing, I love what you're pushing out. I just want people to be safer. And I'm very humbled and and very grateful for the opportunity to come on and talk to you about it, Heather. I think these would be probably the main points. Yeah. Um studying your environment, studying those anomalies, understanding that that person is about to attack with the stress, they're under stress already. Understand that you may not be able to rationalize it cognitively because you may know the person, right? Going back to what we talked about at the beginning, and just having a little bit of that chip on your shoulder, say, How dare you? I think these are all things that are important for people to understand. And then that access and isolation.

SPEAKER_00 16:13

I agree.

SPEAKER_01 16:13

No matter what the bad guy's after, he might be after your purse, he might be after your life, it doesn't really matter. Yeah, he needs those two things. He's got to control those two variables. If you take back control of one of those two, you're probably gonna be okay. So yeah, I I would just encourage people to assess situations, whether it's with their children, with the online presence and the out in in nature and out in our our our day-to-day lives, that access and isolation, that social isolation again, I think is huge because I see it over and over again with victim selection of bad guys. That's great advice.

SPEAKER_03 16:53

Yeah, great advice. Well, thank you so much again. Mike and I are both so grateful for all the time that you give of yourself to the classes and sharing that knowledge with women. And I'm glad we can get it out there on this podcast. So hopefully more women can hear it.

SPEAKER_01 17:09

I'm proud to know you guys, and I love what you're doing.

SPEAKER_03 17:11

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 17:17

Thanks for joining us on Sheep Fight, where women's voices rise and strength takes center stage. If today's story moved you, share it. Someone out there might need to hear it. Don't forget to subscribe, leave a root, and follow us on social media at smartphones.