EP. 218 — How to Defend Yourself with Evy Poumpouras

Jameela [00:00:11] Hello, everyone. Okay? All right. What is up my ass? Oh, it’s my phone. Sorry. Hi, everyone. Hi. Hello, hello, hello. It’s so nice to see you. Thank you so much for coming out to this uplifting and extremely depressing event. How wild that this even needs to exist in this day and age, with all the information we have with all the TikToks. We told them that we’d rather be in the forest with a bear than any of them, and they still somehow don’t get it and keep proving our points to us. The reaction that we have had to this conversation has been so extraordinary and very moving in good and bad ways in the fact that it’s come from people of every age, every background, also every gender, so many people feel unsafe. But right now my focus is men’s violence against women. I’m sick of it being called violence against women, as if it’s a fucking ferret or a giraffe or a ghost. It’s men’s violence against women. Women’s violence against women exists, but that’s not the epidemic we’re here to talk about. And I’m just sick of not having this conversation all the fucking time until it is once and for all resolved, because it is not normal to live the way that we live. It is not normal to feel this afraid for your life all of the time. I’m going to read you some statistics that will really fuck up your day about how we all feel. But it also might make you feel less alone because I think that’s part of the the madness, right, is feeling like you’re the only one who feels this way, because we’re not talking about it all the time. And men constantly don’t understand, they literally don’t understand. I don’t think they’re trying not to understand. They cannot relate. I once said to my boyfriend that you walking through jail is the only way you would be able to relate to how I feel walking literally anywhere at night. And that was the first time I feel like he really got it. So 1 in 2 women felt unsafe walking alone after dark in a quiet street near their home, compared to 1 in 7 men. 1 in 2 women felt unsafe walking alone after dark in a busy public place, compared to 1 in 5 men. Four out of five women felt unsafe walking alone after dark in a park or other open spaces, compared to two out of five men. Two out of three women aged 16 to 34 years experience one form of harassment in the previous 12 months, with 44% of women aged 16 to 34 years having experienced catcalls, whistles, unwanted sexual comments or jokes and 29% having felt like they were being followed, and disabled people, of course, feeling less safe walking literally everywhere than people who don’t have disabilities. This is each and every one of us from as early as we can understand. I think I was 12 the first time I was groped on the street in my school uniform by a grown man. So this is just unacceptable. And the and of course, it’s not our job to fix it. Of course it’s not our job. We shouldn’t have to be here together talking about this. We shouldn’t have an expert come on to teach us how to defend our lives. But, and I had some people actually push back about it, right? Just being like, I think that this is victim blaming for you to say that it’s time for us to take it into our own hands, but what are we going to do, wait in our fucking aprons for the rest of our lives in our houses? Just getting the vitamin D deficiency, waiting for this to change. It has to change with us. We have to talk about it constantly until they’re so fucking sick of us talking about it that they stop each other from doing it because it isn’t all men, but it’s far too many men. It’s far too many men who allow other men to perpetuate this culture. And so this is not me saying this should be your responsibility, but this is me saying, let’s learn how to protect ourselves and learn how to protect each other. Let’s start to walk and work together. Let’s learn how to kick the fucking shit of anyone who tries to fuck up our day. Yes? Okay, great. So I swear this isn’t going to be all depressing, but it will be slightly depressing at times because I’m very upset as are you otherwise you wouldn’t be here. But I have an incredibly empowering human being who is about to join us on this stage. She’s been on my podcast before. She’s had the most extraordinary life. She’s been a member of the Secret Service. She’s protected presidents. She won an award of valor for her work during 9/11. She is a writer, a speaker, a bestselling author whose specialty is learning how to spot bullshit. She is a human lie detector. I mean, aren’t we all on some level? But she actually is one. She’s been an undercover agent. She’s just lived the most exciting life. And, and she’s also a master in self-defense and a master in self-protection. So I felt like she was the best possible person to come here. She is a dose of reality. She’s a reality check. She’s a fucking tough cookie and comes in the most unexpected package. So please welcome the excellent and unbelievably tiny but scary Evy Poumpouras.

Evy [00:05:22] Hello.

Jameela [00:05:22] Hello. Hi. How are you?

Evy [00:05:25] I’m good. How are you?

Jameela [00:05:26] I’m good.

Evy [00:05:27] Good to see everyone.

Jameela [00:05:28] Thank you so much for being here. Evy, for people who aren’t familiar. I’ve explained the career that you’ve had, but I wanted to ask you why that’s the life path you chose?

Evy [00:05:39] It was by mistake completely, truly. I grew up thinking

Jameela [00:05:41] Classic. I always end up protecting presidents by mistake.

Evy [00:05:46] I didn’t know. It was completely by mistake. I actually started off in the NYPD as a police officer, and even that was by mistake. But I think at the core of it was I wanted to help people. I think when we all live our lives, we want to find meaning in what we’re doing. And I thought, I want to be of service to humanity. And I thought, no, what better way to do that? I also got tired of feeling like I’m a victim, or feeling that I can’t do something right because you’re a woman or because you’re petite, because I am petite, you can’t do this. So I really didn’t want to fall into the narrative that maybe society thought I should fall into. I think when you grew up being told, be afraid. Watch out. Be careful. You either become more afraid or you rebel against it.

Jameela [00:06:40] What’s the context? Just quickly. You grew up in a really, really rough area.

Evy [00:06:44] I did. My parents are immigrants. They came from Greece. Actually I was born in Harlem. And the immigrants, when they would come to the United States, live in Washington Heights, which is right next to Harlem, which is another very high crime area.

Jameela [00:07:00] Especially then.

Evy [00:07:02] Yes.

Jameela [00:07:02] Yeah.

Evy [00:07:02] That’s where poor people went to can afford to live. That’s where you would go. And then even when we, we moved out of that area, we lived in Queens, but public housing, drugs everywhere, there were drugs. I couldn’t we’d never played outside, ever. I grew up with a TV. I actually learned English by watching TV.

Jameela [00:07:21] Mhm. Same.

Evy [00:07:21] I never played outside.

Jameela [00:07:23] I was born in England, but I still learned it from the television. Haha!

Evy [00:07:27] Yeah. There was, so when I would watch TV shows and see kids playing in their backyards, I would get sad. I would ask my mom I’m like, “How come I can’t do that?”

Jameela [00:07:35] Yeah. And that is our reality that we can’t, we’re just not supposed to do anything. We’re not supposed to take that that road. We can’t take the cheapest way home. We have to take the Uber and hope that the Uber driver doesn’t molest us or kidnap us. Something like 3000 rapes in a year in Ubers. Sorry to terrify everyone, but that is real and also, I reckon I probably won’t be getting a deal with Uber anytime. But they do need to clean up their act. So, you know, all of the things that we can’t do, we’re not supposed, we have to be so careful about what we wear. The fact that when I’m choosing my heels at night, I’m like, “Will I be able to run away from a man in these?” What a fucked up thought. What a fucked up thought about and there’s so many of you like burying your head in your hands as I say this, because we just normalize these thoughts of like, “Is this, am I going to get attacked in this outfit?” I wear clothes like this most of the time because I just feel like I’m I’m harder to rape in this. Like that’s a sad reason. I like I can’t believe the amount of things. I can’t believe the money we spend getting home alive. I can’t believe the time we spend doing the constant death maths of will this kill me? Will that kill me? Will he kill me? Well, you know, what are the probabilities that these things are going to happen? It’s exhausting. And it takes such a toll on your mental health. And it’s this sort of given. I said this morning, when I was on TV, that they talk all the time about the hormonal imbalances of women, and I was like, do you think it could have fucking anything to do with the fact that we have high cortisol where we are in fight or flight most of the day even as we get into bed at night my last thought is, did I triple lock the door? Did I lock all of the windows? Is anyone going to break in tonight? You know, it’s just the fact that I can’t rent a ground floor apartment or a basement apartment because I know that then I’m rolling the dice on my life, so then you have to spend more for the first floor apartment or second floor. All of these things. Who am my neighbors? Am I safe in an elevator? Just maths all day. I’m not even good at maths. I feel like some sort of maths genius all of the time constantly calculating how likely it is that I’m going to get home in one piece not traumatized if I’m lucky or not dead. And so this is something that I think, you know, when I asked you on the phone, you told me that you genuinely walk through the world now feeling safe because of your life experience, but was there ever a time that you felt this disempowered and therefore pissed off?

Evy [00:09:59] Well, yeah, because I to this day I won’t rent an apartment that’s on the ground floor. It’s 100% the truth. It’s so interesting because when you’re talking about the things you wear, one of the things I learned in the US Secret Service is the shoes that we would wear, they’d have to have laces, or we had to make sure that they wouldn’t come off our feet because we’d have to be able to run in them. And so when, it made me sad just now that you had to think like that. I thought when I’d go shoe shopping for my clothes for work, I would be looking for shoes with laces or that really were kind of booties that they would stay on and that I could run in them, and that was for my job. And it’s sad to think like as a woman, you have to think of that or even to think of like, what am I wearing? And if somebody is going to try to rape me, I want to make it harder for them to do so, so I’m going to wear a onesie so it takes them longer. That’s kind of disgusting.

Jameela [00:10:53] But it it can’t possibly be good for our mental health and everything I do at I Weigh is around mental health, and that’s why this has to be a subject that we talk about. We can’t talk about cortisol, we can’t talk about estrogen and hormones and mental health and happiness and depression if we don’t talk about one of the most fundamental elements of all of our lives, from as soon as we can understand that is fucking with our brains. This cannot be accepted anymore as something that is reduced just down to the bear or a man in the woods conversation. We cannot let it stop there. I can’t believe that that erupted, as well as women being punched randomly in the street, and that was going viral on TikTok. These can’t be these viral moments. This is the time where we have to seize this moment to make this obsessive until it stops. But you have felt this vulnerable, and so can you tell me the ways in which you no longer felt so vulnerable?

Evy [00:11:51] Look, when I became an agent, that obviously made me feel safer. I did get a gun, Jameel, so that helped a lot, and that’s not a solution for a lot of people. I’m not going to, I would take my weapon, truth, I would go to the movies with my girlfriends, I would take my gun. I would go to church, I would take my gun. My friends thought I was nuts. And I said, but I think because I knew the realities of the world, I said, no, if something happens. And every time I went somewhere, I would do a mental calculation in my head. If something happens, what am I going to do? You brought up before 9/11 like I’m a survivor and first responder of 9/11. Every time I board a plane, I do mental math. Where am I seated? What am I going to do? Look, stress is okay, but stress is okay once in a while. So when you go through training, they put stress on you so you learn how to react to stress. When stress is not okay is when it becomes chronic stress. When you live chronically with stress, that is no good. So you have high anxiety, high stress levels. Your F3, we call it F3, fight flight freeze, is on fire. That’s no good because you need to calm down. So everything you’re saying is actually true and legitimate. Your cortisol levels and our general levels are so high up, and not only is it mentally exhausting, the mental health consequences, physically you will get sick. It affects thyroid function. And in fact, they’ve done studies on people in certain jobs like that I had we have like lower thyroid function, so high stress on a consistent basis it’s not good for you. You want to manage that, but it’s like how do you create an environment that doesn’t do that to you? Now, I grew up in New York. I always grew up, I don’t drink, I you know, I’ve never shared this story publicly ever. I’ll share it here. Not too far from here, when I was younger, maybe in my 20s, I went to a club bar. After I finished work in the gym, I worked at the front desk and I went out with friends, and I never drank because I usually drove. I ordered a pina colada, pina colada, no alcohol, and somebody put something in my drink. I didn’t know, and I drank it and I started feeling good. I’m like, I don’t want to leave. This is great. And so there were people from the gym that I worked at there, and there were guys, and there was this one guy that kept talking to me that I knew from the gym, someone I knew. And what was interesting, I was very like, there was another male there. His name was Sava. I can say his name. And Sava saw me and he’s like, “Hey, you okay?” And I’m like, “I’m great. Sava.” He’s like, “What did you have?” I said, “Nothing, I had pina colada,” and I guess he caught wind that somebody must have done something to me. And the guy who actually put it in my drink and him had a bit of a standoff. And I remember that they were arguing and Sava grabbed me. I’m very lucky. He grabbed the keys to my car and he said, “You’re going home.” And without me realizing that night I was being groomed by this guy who actually drugged my drink to do who knows god knows what. And if it wasn’t for Sava, another man who saw this, I don’t know where I would have been. He grabbed me, threw me in my car. Him and his five friends, all guys, followed us and they took me home. By the time I got home, I was so sick, he actually had to ring the doorbell because I couldn’t figure out where my keys were because I was so out of it. My mother opened the door. This is like maybe 11:00 at night, and he literally handed me over to my mom, and at that point I started vomiting horribly. I had a horrible reaction to whatever he gave me. I was up all night sick. My mother didn’t know what to do. I almost went to the hospital. To this day, I don’t drink anything when I go to a bar, and that’s because of that.

Jameela [00:15:35] Mm. Yeah. I mean, I don’t know, by show of hands if you even feel comfortable of this, but has anyone here experienced having their drink spiked? Fucking terrifying. That’s way too many of us. Fucking terrifying. The amount of my friends who’ve had their drink drugged, but because they were drinking alcohol didn’t know because they just thought, “Oh, I must have not eaten enough.” Because the world makes me feel bad about eating food, so I starved myself so I would look thin in my dress, and then I went and drank. It must be my fault. So many of us think it must be my fault. All of this, my fault. Shouldn’t have been drinking at all. Shouldn’t have worn that dress. Shouldn’t have gone down that road. Shouldn’t have gone home on my own. Should have texted someone. Should have phoned someone as I was going into my house. All of the onus on us. It’s just relentless. And as you were saying, these health problems, these are real. Could it ever have occurred to any of us, we’re given all these different reasons and we’re always like, you know, these old men doctors going, “For some reason, thyroid seems to affect women worse. For some reason, adrenals seem to affect women worse. For some reason, all of these things affect women worse.” I was like yeah, because we are living in a more stressful environment and a lot of men understandably say, “Well, men are more endangered than women technically, right?” More men die than women. If we were out taking the fucking risks that they were taking, our numbers would be higher.

Evy [00:16:58] So I teach criminal justice as an adjunct professor, so I’m going to throw numbers. And she is correct. So men will say more men are affected by violence, but that’s because men commit more violence. So if I’m an offender, I’m a man, I’m going to commit violence, I’m also more likely to be a victim of violence because the circles and the things I do make me more susceptible. So yes, that number’s correct, but because of that reason.

Jameela [00:17:25] They also drink more and they go out later and they do mad shit. Look at the internet. Look at the things that they’re doing on the internet that risk their lives, and they wonder why they die first.

Evy [00:17:41] Well you know, it’s interesting. We were talking, I was doing something for The Today Show, and we were talking about summer safety. The other thing, too, not that this is a great thing, but even in the summer, the summertime we want to relax a bit more, like the weather’s getting nicer and actually crime goes up because more people are out, more sorry, men are out. And so that actually makes us more vulnerable. When it’s too cold, it’s too cold to go out to hurt somebody, so people stay inside. And when the weather actually goes, gets nicer, crime goes up.

Jameela [00:18:12] Yeah. Oh it’s I, listen, I don’t know what we’re going to do about the way that too many men treat us. I always say that because I don’t want it to feel like it’s all. I know it’s not all, but I and I hate that I feel so protective of myself that I need to feel feel a need to always go or when it’s such an epidemic. But in the meantime, we are going to talk about certain ways that we can keep ourselves safe.

Evy [00:18:38] Or look honestly like it’s not a, it’s the data, like I’m very, we were talking before, I’m very neutral. It’s the data, just the numbers show what they show. And women as a demographic, first it’s children are victimized most then women. Just when we look at the data and that’s just what

Jameela [00:18:55] And then the elderly.

Evy [00:18:56] And then the elderly. Elderly actually fall victim mostly to scams. A lot of fraud, a lot of scams they get, that’s what the elderly really, really get hit hard with. With having that awareness what that numbers, those numbers are, and you said something really important about how we raised boys in our home. So again, I’m coming at it from an academic perspective and even from experience. First of all, we see crime peak age 18 to 25, FYI, so it does start when they’re young. So you’ll see the characteristics of somebody having this type of behavior manifest early teens. So how we groom young men to be really, really matters when they’ve hit like 19, 20, 21, that’s way too late. You want to start when they’re young, when they’re boys, when they’re boys teaching them values, that those things matter because they’re going to shape who they end up being because once you go into adulthood, then it’s very hard to shift somebody. You want to interrupt that behavior while somebody is still young.

Jameela [00:20:00] I’ve also told my friends I was like, you need to if you are raising your son in a house with a man, you need to make an agreement with that man before that child comes into this world, that you are both going to do the work to impress upon him the importance of not being a terrifying threat to women because, by the way, they’re not happy. Like men aren’t happy in this world. Look at the suicide statistics. Like, look at how lonely we all are. Look at how far we’re being pushed apart from each other. We have to have this conversation. We don’t have to have it in this way that is full of rage. They are being misinformed. They are being poisoned on the internet by the Andrew Tates of this world. There is so much that that is toxic that is out there. All this misinformation and this, this hatred coming from women, this hatred coming from men towards women. It’s so important that we don’t take this on as a war. This shouldn’t be a war. This is about peace. This is about creating a safer society for all of us. They are also statistically in trouble. They’re killing each other. They’re killing themselves. 60% of the gun deaths that we read about statistically in the United States of America are men turning the gun on themselves. So there has to be a giant social reset, but we aren’t going to be able to get to that today because frankly, I am underqualified. I will figure it out in time. But I would love some actual before we get into physical demonstrations, tell me some of the things that we could all be doing that we maybe don’t do because we feel like it’s a bit much like, I don’t want to seem like I’m being too paranoid. Tell me some things that we should all have on us that would make us safer. It’s not going to be guns for most of us. I’m going to tell you that now. These are New York liberals.

Evy [00:21:44] Do you know I don’t I don’t think I don’t think it’s, weapons aren’t the always the answer. Like, I like I understand self-protection. I carried one, but I was also trained highly, highly, highly trained and skilled to use it so

Jameela [00:22:00] I’d accidentally shoot myself in the ass.

Evy [00:22:04] Do you know how many people, they’re called ADs actually, accidental discharges. People have them. Agents have them. Police have them. People don’t.

Jameela [00:22:14] I thought it just stood for ass death. Yeah. Haha! I was like, “My People!”

Evy [00:22:24] So to protect our asses, one of the best things you can carry, honestly, is pepper spray. Mace is a company that, you know, I worked with in the past, but pepper spray is really good to carry.

Jameela [00:22:37] Is it legal?

Evy [00:22:38] It’s legal. You have to check your state. So it depends on the state, and it also depends if your state will sell it. So in some states you can have it but you can’t buy it in that state you have to go to another state to get it. So there are all these weird rules around it.

Jameela [00:22:53] We’ll get Olivia Rodrigo to give it our on her next tour.

Jameela [00:22:55] You can get it, you can get it. The reason why I like pepper spray is because it lets you protect yourself from someone from a distance. And I will tell you, even as in in law enforcement, that’s like the first line of defense that they teach you. Like there’s like a, a level of the they call it police force that you use. And mentally it’s like doing math. You have to figure out, okay, this person is doing this, what can I do to protect myself? So one of the lowest things that you can use was mace. Mace is great. Well, pepper spray. Mace is a company that makes it because from far away I can spray you. And I’m not closing the the distance between that person.

Jameela [00:23:32] How far away?

Evy [00:23:33] It can be a couple of feet and the device that you actually have, I’ll tell you it’s it’s power. It’ll say use from this distance.

Jameela [00:23:40] So is it like roughly where I am from you would you be able to pepper spray me?

Evy [00:23:43] I could spray you for sure from here. The one thing is you always want to, and they don’t tell you this, but you have to protect your own eyes as well. So you spray and then you move. Everything, guys, is you do and you move. You don’t stay there, you don’t hang out, you don’t watch The Matrix and think, “Ooh, I’m going to take a class and I’m going to learn how to do that.” And even in Secret Service training, we were trained do what you need to do and move. We would call it move off the X. Move. So a lot of the stuff that you see in television is great. It’s here for your entertainment. It is not reality. I don’t want to sit and get into hand-to-hand combat with anybody. Why? The minute you put hands on another human being, everything goes downhill. Even I was not taught that as an agent. Quick, take somebody and if you can get people to comply, that was always the best thing. But I like pepper spray because it lets you shield yourself from someone from a distance. You always want to think, I see something, it feels wrong. I want to keep space between me and the potential threat, whatever that threat is to you. That, I like the most.

Jameela [00:24:50] Hands up. Who’s got pepper spray? Oh, sure. Okay. That’s like 50% of the room. That’s great. I need to get some fucking pepper spray.

Evy [00:24:58] You know where else you should keep it? In your car? In your car and not in your glove box. Have it in your car. Have it in the side door. In your home. I know it’s sad, but you asked. Have it at home like at the in the drawer by like where your door is, right? So that way you have it in your hands, so

Jameela [00:25:15] How long does it buy you?

Evy [00:25:17] It stings right in the eyes. It burns. You ever been sprayed?

Jameela [00:25:22] Are you not about, is that a threat?

Evy [00:25:25] Haha, it burns.

Jameela [00:25:27] I’m trying to get an eyeliner campaign.

Evy [00:25:30] Haha! No, it’s pretty bad. Like your whole face will get congested. I mean, it’s like it’s it’s actual pepper spray and it’s

Jameela [00:25:36] And then do you, like, kick them in the balls?

Evy [00:25:39] No. Are you paying attention?

Jameela [00:25:41] I am no, I meant quickly. I didn’t mean hang around. I meant like

Evy [00:25:46] We’re not, move off the X. Strike and move, Jameela. Strike and move.

Jameela [00:25:50] Okay.

Evy [00:25:50] Although I will show you a move for that in case the pepper spray does fail.

Jameela [00:25:54] She’s going to kick me in the pussy so.

Evy [00:25:56] Hahaha!

Jameela [00:25:58] Okay, so just spray and then run.

Evy [00:26:01] Yes. Spray. Move. I don’t don’t engage. That’s what I guess, what I’d say.

Jameela [00:26:05] Because they could grab your foot if you kick.

Evy [00:26:07] I don’t I don’t want you to close the gap between anybody because all they need to do is put a hand on you. Look, I’m going to say this, and I know there’s controversy out there. Men and women, biologically, we are not built the same. Physically we are not. Men are just stronger. They are. I will tell you this for a fact. I went through training. I trained with men. They could run faster than me. They can do more pull ups than me. They can do more push ups than me organically. I had to work out during training, during the day with them, then again by myself at night. What I put my body through so I could try to be at their standard. So yes, I am pro women, I am pro this, but I also live in reality. Reality is their size, their mass, their strength, it’s just more than ours. So I say this to you with all in love with my heart, you don’t want to engage people unless you truly know what you’re doing. And I know what I’m doing, and I don’t want to engage people.

Jameela [00:27:01] Okay. Good to know. Sorry. I would’ve kicked them in the balls, and then I’d be dead, so that’s good to know. Okay. So, mace.

Evy [00:27:16] Mace.

Jameela [00:27:16] Other things.

Evy [00:27:16] You’re saying what else? Keys are always a good option to have in your hand. The other thing you can do, there’s tasers, but I

Jameela [00:27:26] Love to hear about that.

Evy [00:27:29] But you have to close the distance. I have to zz you.

Jameela [00:27:33] Is there not, like, a far away sort of or is that more Star Trek or something?

Evy [00:27:34] You’re thinking tasers like what the cops use. You’re thinking about the, so there’s tase guns where you can do it and you can put it close to someone. But here’s the thing, how likely are you to be carrying this stuff on you? Like, it sounds great.

Jameela [00:27:48] Have you seen our handbags?

Evy [00:27:49] Hahaha!

Jameela [00:27:51] Are you joking?

Evy [00:27:52] Yes. So you just got to make sure you have your handbag secure on you, like, wear a strap. So when you have your handbag like this, they’re going to grab it from you. I would wear it like a messenger bag to make sure that they can’t pull it off of you. Those are just little things I think of so

Jameela [00:28:08] These are important things to think about. It’s fucking annoying that we have to think about it, but I’d rather have this conversation than not have this conversation. I’d rather know this shit than not know this shit. And I always, there’s a part of me that feels guilty for subjecting a room full of wonderful young minds to this conversation. But also, this is not the stuff that my mother ever told me. This is not the stuff that my teachers ever told me. This is not the stuff that social media teaches me, or it teaches me wrong because it told me to kick them in the balls.

Evy [00:28:36] You know what else is good, actually?

Jameela [00:28:38] Go on.

Evy [00:28:39] This is something super simple. I look, I’m not a big fan of the Taser because also I always think about self-harm, like AD, accidental discharges, right? I don’t want you to accidentally discharge on yourself. Especially if you’re panicking, right? Because you’re going to be, I like alarms. There’s a lot of alarms, keychain alarms that you can have. You push that, that thing is so loud, all you need is a moment of that person, the attacker, to just do this, and you, you’re you’re gone. So I love those alarms. They’re just super loud. And they’ll deafen them and loud.

Jameela [00:29:11] You’re not going to like this, but I’m going to ask.

Evy [00:29:13] Okay.

Jameela [00:29:14] Okay. So when I was doing Marvel, I was put through like, jujitsu training every day. Every fucking day, for six months. And I was, it was great because I felt like I finally had the rough idea of how to kick the shit out of someone, but kind of only if they know the exact choreography and the opposite choreography. So they have to really, it’s more of a dance. It is more of a dance, but I was able to learn how to use my legs properly to actually really kick someone. And one of the things I was told, and you can just like, come down really hard on me if I’m just misinformationing everyone, if I’m just trumping everyone. But I was told that if in close quarters with someone because you’re not always lucky enough to be at a distance, sometimes someone does get into close quarters with you which we will talk about in a minute. I was told to with my hand like this, so that if to hit them in the jugular, because it kind of triggers a panic sense of just for a few seconds in someone’s brain, which gives you a chance to hit them again and then run. And so I was told that and you have to do it with your hands like this rather than like a punch, because they could just lower their chin and block you. So doing this means you have more of a chance of going under really, really hard and really, really fast. See that that Marvel training right there, the speed of it. And that, that is the sort, that is a way in which just knowing that just just knowing that alone made me just sit there like in the back of an Uber. It’s been like, just fucking fuckin try with me. I’ve got my hand just sitting there in every Uber like this, just like ready to go. Is that total ballocks? Okay.

Evy [00:31:01] No, it’s actually it’s a throat punching. Throat punching is good. So when you strike somebody here, it really it’ll buy you time. And you could do damage actually to somebody.

Jameela [00:31:11] Lovely.

Evy [00:31:11] You could do it. You could do it the way you’re saying. The other way you could also do it depending on the angle, you could literally just use the side of your hand and just throat punch somebody.

Jameela [00:31:24] A Nadal, just tennis.

Evy [00:31:27] You want to, I will say this and we’ll talk about it, when you do something like that just put everything into it. If you’re going to do it, do it. You don’t want to do it a little bit or lightly because then you just piss them off. Right. And then now they’re like, “Oh, she has no strength.” Put everything into it. So the minute you, once you decide I’m going to do this, just commit. Just commit to it and put everything you have, every motion, everything you’re feeling, even your fear. Fear is good. Fear is good. Fear is a gift. So when you feel that panic, that anxiety, that’s your body saying I got you. Embrace it and use it and that’s your fuel. So I know we talk about sometimes anxiety and stuff not being good, but in those moments of stress, that’s your body saying, “Hey, I got your fucking back. We’re awake. Let’s go.” Use that.

Jameela [00:32:21] Yeah. You said to me over the phone that like, you just have to kind of become a fucking animal. And there’s a part of me that when you said that became uncomfortable cause there’s a part of me that would feel almost tense or embarrassed or too English to become, and like, I don’t know how I would fully let go in that way in that moment, but I’m sure I know for a fact that there’s something in me that would. You hear of these stories of a mother being able to find the strength to lift a car off their child. And so I know that we all have this reserve, this strength within us that we are constantly subduing cause we’re made to feel as like small and harmless as possible. So if someone is does have the tendency to freeze, which I have done in the past, I’ve got a freeze or flight setting, but unfortunately sometimes I freeze, is there anything that can be done for that? Is there any way to kind of work your way through that? Are there classes people can take?

Evy [00:33:17] I think it’s just actually just take any type of martial art class. If you’re a person who’s more prone to freezing and just it’s because you don’t know how to use what’s happening in your body. That’s all it is. Don’t be afraid of it. Take a class because then when you take a class self-defense, martial art, I don’t care what it is. Take anything. What you’re doing is you’re going to start feeling that emotion in a controlled, safe environment, right? You’re going to have that response because the threat is the threat is the threat. Even when it’s fake, your your mind still perceives it as a threat. Good. Because now you’re going to feel that. You’re going to feel that emotion go through you, and you’re going to learn to work through it. That way, when it really does happen to you, you’re like, “I’ve been here, I know what this is,” and you’re going to respond.

Jameela [00:34:01] Yeah, there’s an actual muscle memory that builds up, right?

Evy [00:34:04] Yes.

Jameela [00:34:05] Yeah. And I think that’s really important. And I think that, you know, we talk about all these different ways to get fit. And we’re always told fucking pilates. I don’t want to do fucking pilates. It’s so fucking slow, but this kind of appeals to me as a form of exercise. I had an eating disorder for a very long time. I haven’t shut the fuck up about it for the last eight years, I know. But, you know, it meant that exercise was something that I found absolutely terrifying because I associated it with punishing myself for eating. But this is a kind of exercise that I could get on board with. With Marvel it was about getting, I was in Marvel, with Marvel. I was, haha, sorry. But with Marvel, it was about getting bigger, it was  getting stronger. It was about having better balance. It was about kicking harder. It was about like really being able to believably fight 20 men in a fake choreographed dance on a wire, but what about this as a form of exercise? Does, hands up, does anyone do this as a form of exercise? Because there’s like five people in a room full of several hundred. Why not this? Why not this be something that we do to move our bodies? You get the mental health benefits and also it does change your brain. I still feel relatively vulnerable out in the street, but so much less so than I did before I learned those things that were able to somewhat make me feel like I would know what to do. Like I have some sort of muscle memory in that scenario. And so I imagine, and this is what I’m going to do in the next year, I’m going to start taking self-defense classes. I am tired of waiting for civilized behavior. I’m going to learn how to become deliberately uncivilized myself. And a large of part, thank you. And a large part of martial arts is learning how to avoid the fight, which I think is great, and learning how to distance yourself. But I want that power. We need to, knowledge is power. Empowering ourselves and starting to scare people back, I think, is the only way that we are going to start to see any kind of shift. Do you agree? Do you feel as though your mental health has changed from being that small, vulnerable girl in a dangerous place who was told, you can’t become a police officer, you can’t join the Secret Service, like you can’t keep up with any of the men. You’re in danger because you’re beautiful. Like you’ve got to be careful everywhere you go. Has your mental health changed for the fact that you don’t walk through the world the whole time feeling like prey?

Evy [00:36:31] Look, I live in reality. I know what is, but I’m also not going to be anybody’s prey. And I’ll tell you this, if somebody is going to come at me, maybe they’ll win, but you know what, motherfucker, you’re going to have to work for it.

Jameela [00:36:45] Hahaha!

Evy [00:36:45] So have that in your head. Have that in your head. Be like, you know what? I’m going to make you earn this. You maybe you walked over, but you’re going to be limping back. How about that? That’s the part of you you need to embrace. Become vicious. Become an animal. At the end, like, like I think sometimes that, be a good girl. Be a good girl. You know, I have a daughter now. She’s, like, 20 months old, and I’m very cautious not to be like, “Oh, good girl.” Not because I don’t, I want her to be good, but I don’t want her to, I don’t want to put that in her head. “I have to be good” because I want her to be strong. And sometimes we think we get so used to the habit of we need to be good. We need to be well-behaved, that we don’t know how to lose it. And you know what? Embrace your crazy bitch. I’ve embraced her many a times.

Jameela [00:37:30] Is that what you say to your child?

Evy [00:37:33] Yes, I will.

Jameela [00:37:34] That’s right, you crazy little bitch.

Evy [00:37:36] Yeah.

Jameela [00:37:36] That’s right.

Evy [00:37:37] That’s right. Do you know why? I’ve interviewed, I’ve interviewed criminals. I’ve interviewed people who’ve committed rapes, abuse against children I’ve committed, I’m, I’ve interviewed true predators. And do you know what I found out? They’re not big. They’re not scary. And do you know what kind of prey they pick? Prey that’s its, prey that’s going to go down easy. They don’t want a fair fight. They want someone who’s going to go down easy. The minute they see, holy shit, she looks like a crazy bitch. I want none of that. They’re not going to pick on you. You need to, I’ll share this story and I don’t mind. I was, I was actually. I was actually a

Jameela [00:38:17] I’m excited.

Evy [00:38:18] US Secret Service agent. I can share this now because I’m not there. I was a US Secret Service agent. I moved to Washington DC and I had the maps because when we, I had to do routes, we call them transportation routes. And I was going to drive one of our protectees around. I think it was the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. She’s going to go to the Capitol, and I had to learn my routes. This whole Google GPS bullshit, you can’t use that. It has to be up here. So I’ve got the map. I’m doing my routes, I’m multitasking, have to write them all down, and I go to make a left turn. And I guess I wasn’t because I was multitasking, I wasn’t paying attention. I get to the light, it turns red. Some dude pulls up next to me and he rolls his window down. He’s like, “You’re not paying attention. Didn’t you see that person? You almost hit them.” And I’m like, I’m in an undercover car so it doesn’t even look like a police car. And I’m like, “Oh, no, you know, I’m sorry I didn’t see anybody.” And I’m like, maybe he’s telling the truth and he’s going on and on. He’s like, “You stupid bitch, you this you that, you crazy bitch.” And after a few hearing that for a little bit, I’m like, you know, initially I was like, “Look, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” I’m also on duty. I turn around and he’s going. I was like, you know what? I am a crazy bitch. I am super crazy, and this crazy bitch forgot to take her medication today. Pull the fuck over when the light turns green, I’ll show you crazy bitch.

Jameela [00:39:32] That’s great.

Evy [00:39:34] He drove off. Light turned green, he kept going. I was like, he doesn’t want crazy bitch.

Jameela [00:39:40] No, because there’s a laziness. There’s a laziness to it. And you have to meet the lazy with crazy. And I think that that’s, I think that I genuinely think that you touched on something in in what you were talking about in the fact that, like from from the second we can understand good girl, nice girl, quiet girl. Boys will be boys, but you’re going to be a good girl. Be well-behaved. Don’t speak too loud. Don’t be shrill. Just make every single part of yourself smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller until you just disappear. So you just disappear. Even in our body shapes, like we’re just supposed to be as small as possible, take up as little space as possible because there is a power to us. We push. We can push sometimes humans out of our tiny little vaginas. The pain tolerance is insane, but somehow our strength is just denied to us and denied to us. And yes, it is absolutely true or valid that we do not contain the same strength as men, but there is an inner power to us that I think people are aware of, that I think men are aware of. And I think that the bad men within our society, it is in their best interests for us not to recognize that inner strength and that inner crazy, and to see that crazy always as a bad thing. I’m not trying to start a fight club, but I am a little bit using Evy to come here and try to encourage you to start a little bit of a fight club. Only in that just learning how to empower yourself, learning, going to the martial arts classes, using that as a form of fitness that gets you fucking ripped and strong, but also it makes you stronger up here.

Evy [00:41:29] You know, it’s interesting. I never worked out to look good. I worked out for performance. I always looked at working out as for my physical well-being, like can I perform? Can my body do? I never went to the gym, and maybe because I went into law enforcement very young and I never was like, I’m going to go to the gym because I want to look a certain way. I want it to be a certain way.

Jameela [00:41:54] There’s a reason that we’re not supposed to have muscular arms. There’s a reason that the beauty standard is that we’re not supposed to have any discernible muscles. We’re not supposed to have big, muscular thighs. That has been turned into something that we ridicule as a society. Even women don’t really accept that aesthetic in other women. There’s a reason for all of this. Don’t be too strong and I think we need to resist that. Do you feel ready to show me some physical things?

Evy [00:42:21] Yes. Watch your ass. Hahaha! All right.

Jameela [00:42:25] This is a terrible idea.

Evy [00:42:28] How come! It was your idea. I offered to do it with somebody else.

Jameela [00:42:29] I know, but I have terrible ideas.

Evy [00:42:31] Okay.

Jameela [00:42:32] Have you seen my social media?

Evy [00:42:33] Actually, this is good because Jameela is a lot taller than I am. So typically, like, if we’re getting attacked, it’ll be from somebody taller or bigger than us, so

Jameela [00:42:42] Yeah.

Evy [00:42:42] I wish I had your height, I love it. Okay, so

Jameela [00:42:45] She’s not actually, I hope, going to actually hit me.

Evy [00:42:48] No, we’re gonna stimulate.

Jameela [00:42:50] Put your phones down you bastards. Alright? It’s being recorded. Just pay attention to my humiliation in IRL. Okay?

Evy [00:43:00] Okay, so look, the first thing is, psychologically, if something is happening, I. I hope you never have to use any of this in any point in your life. But let’s say something somewhere happens at some point in your life, or even when you feel that that tingly feeling, remember this moment. Come back to here. Now, I want you to become quiet. And I want you to remember, okay? I know what to do. Also, trust yourself. You have to believe in yourself, trust in yourself and who you are, okay? I can teach you all the moves, but if you don’t trust in yourself, if you don’t believe in yourself, what’s the point? You have to have that. Have that conviction.

Jameela [00:43:40] In the same way that you would probably find it much easier to have for a friend, or for your mother, or for a loved one, right? There’s so many more people I could imagine fighting to death for more than for myself. And that comes from society kind of breaking down the idea that I’m worth fighting for. And so investigate that feeling inside of yourselves. Investigate where you feel like the world has glamorized your weakness or your smallness, or how subdued you are. Fight for yourself the way you would fight for your child or for your loved one.

Evy [00:44:11] Own your existence. Alright. So we’re going to start going down. Don’t be afraid.

Jameela [00:44:17] No, I’m not afraid. I’m a big raper.

Evy [00:44:18] Find your happy place, Jameela. Haha. So, oh my God. Alright, so I want you to think I’m going to show you moves on, things on the body. Remember the goal.

Jameela [00:44:28] We didn’t practice this, evidently, but go on.

Evy [00:44:30] All you got to do is actually stand there. Remember, all you’re doing is strike and move. I don’t want you to get into hand-to-hand combat. If that happens, I’ll show you a couple of things. But we want to strike, move. Everything I’m teaching you for you to be able to get the hell out of there. That’s your goal. Now I’m going to start bottom. Bottom is this. People, when you look at the top of the foot and the shin, right. This is a great area or place to strike somebody. Anybody know why I just said that the best place to strike somebody is at the top of the foot or the shin. Why? They won’t see a coming? That’s a good point, but no. They can’t walk. No. But why? Balance? No. Why?

Audience Member [00:45:12] It’s skin like there’s no muscle and fat.

Evy [00:45:14] It’s skin, there’s no muscle and fat. This is the only place in your body where it’s skin and then bone. Bone fucking hurts.

Jameela [00:45:22] That’s why it fucking hurts. I hurt mine earlier on the bed frame.

Evy [00:45:26] Haha!

Jameela [00:45:26] No. Kills me at this height.

Evy [00:45:28] Yes, so this is where you want to strike. So if you have someone let’s say it’s lower body, let’s say Jameela comes, Jameela come from behind. Jameela comes, she bear hugs me.

Jameela [00:45:37] Am I going around this way?

Evy [00:45:38] Yes.

Jameela [00:45:38] Argh! Pirate. Haha! I’m so sorry everyone.

Evy [00:45:45] I have, we’re trying to be serious here.

Jameela [00:45:47] I’m serious. I’m fucking going to get you.

Evy [00:45:50] Haha! Because that’s what every predator says.

Jameela [00:45:51] Yeah, yeah.

Evy [00:45:52] I’m going to fucking get you. Haha. Okay grrr. So even let’s say she comes in fast.

Jameela [00:45:57] Alright, I’m coming in faster, I’m going to do it.

Evy [00:45:58] I like you, Jameela. You’re okay.

Jameela [00:45:59] I like you very much. I’m sorry.

Evy [00:46:01] So let’s say I’m here. Ladies, if you’re wearing heels, even better. So I’m going to take the back of my foot, and I’m going to ram it right on top of here, because this is where bone and skin meet. There’s no there’s no muscle to soften it.

Jameela [00:46:14] Is that on my toes or you just want my shin?

Evy [00:46:15] Anywhere. It’s all beautiful. You think they’re going to have time to sit and calculate is that the toe? Is that the top of the foot? Anywhere because it’s all skin and bone.

Jameela [00:46:23] Okay.

Evy [00:46:23] Or you’re going to do this. I’m not going to hit you, Jameela. You’re going to take your heel and you’re going to go like that right on her shin. It hurts there. If you can hit them there, it’s great. I like heel, so if you’re from behind, this is just great. It’s beautiful. The best move you can ever do. If we’re going to move upper body here, where is a great place to strike?

Jameela [00:46:42] Nipples.

Evy [00:46:45] I don’t know.

Jameela [00:46:46] Okay.

Evy [00:46:46] I’ve never been taught that.

Jameela [00:46:47] That was an intrusive thought. That was an intrusive thought.

Evy [00:46:50] In the boob.

Jameela [00:46:51] Yeah.

Evy [00:46:52] So punching somebody in the gut, in the stomach, you need to have a lot of power to do that. Again, if you want to try to do that, I don’t recommend it. But if you do, the same rule applies, except your kneejust goes higher up and you hit in the gut. But great things that you can do are, let me see her arm. So I’m going to show you something else in a moment. So you’re going to, we’re going to do throat punching here, right? So we can either throat punch her like this. You can do this throat punch. If you punch, punch, it’s okay. Just do what you can because when you’re in that moment, I also want to give you real life things that you’re going to think of and remember. So I can punch here, I can do this here, or I can just do it this way. But this area right here, you give them one in the jugular, it’s going to hurt. Another one that’s going to hurt. It might be a little tricky, depends how tall the person is, here. Right here. I’m not going to mess up your beautiful makeup, but you take the palm of your hand, this thing. And I want you to envision, be savage ladies, I want you to envision the bone of that nose going up into that person’s skull. That’s what you do. That’s what you’re doing. I want you to have that image. I’m going to take this person’s bone.

Jameela [00:48:01] Imagine if she just hits me and just does it. Imagine if she just loses control right now and just fucks me up.

Evy [00:48:06] We’re supposed to do more of these. I need you alive.

Jameela [00:48:08] Yeah, yeah.

Evy [00:48:09] Go profile though. Face me so they can see.

Jameela [00:48:12] Okay.

Evy [00:48:12] Palm. Right. Boom. You don’t have to

Jameela [00:48:16] I was reacting, that’s what they came here for.

Evy [00:48:20] Did they teach you that in Marvel?

Jameela [00:48:21] Yeah. Okay. Sorry, sorry. Go on, go do it.

Evy [00:48:23] Okay, so palm of the hand up the nose. You literally, I want you to think nose going up into the skull. That’s great. So those two shots are really good. Now, I want you to have an awareness on how to protect yourself, because I talked about things for you to do to them. But I want you to think about you. If blows are coming at you, you never want to get hit in the face ever. You get hit in the face, it’s lights out. This is the one place in your body, if you get hit, you’re done. And when you’re lights out, that’s the last thing you want. That’s the first thing I was taught. So let’s say somebody is coming at you and they’re giving you blows, okay? So.

Jameela [00:49:01] Oh, fuck you okay.

Evy [00:49:06] Haha. So Jameela is giving me blows. If I’m going to take blows to the body, right, I want to take them where it’s going to hurt me the least. So I’m always going to protect my face. I’m going to take my blows here.

Jameela [00:49:19] Right.

Evy [00:49:20] Even if they have a knife, even if you have a knife, it’s okay. You’re going to take the blows here. This is the meaty part of your body. That’s where you want the blows to come. If you’re on the ground or something like that happens. The blows here, meaty part of your body. You can even do this.

Jameela [00:49:34] What about your bum?

Evy [00:49:37] You can, but then what you’re doing is you have your back.

Jameela [00:49:40] Might be your bum hole.

Evy [00:49:40] You don’t want your back. Hahaha. Your butthole, is that what you said?

Jameela [00:49:44] Yeah, I did?

Evy [00:49:47] We want to protect that, too.

Jameela [00:49:48] Yes. Okay, so not the bum. Not ideally.

Evy [00:49:51] No, because I don’t want to have my back either.

Jameela [00:49:53] To someone.

Evy [00:49:54] Because now I can’t fight, I can’t see, and there’s my spine too, right? I get a blow in my spine. That’s not great.

Jameela [00:50:00] So you’re putting your hand up to be able to protect your face so that someone doesn’t knock your lights out?

Evy [00:50:05] Yes. Always remember, watch the face. You never, everything is, you’re always protecting the face. The face, you ever see boxers? What are they doing? They hit, hands up because they know if they get one in the face, you’re done. Now, I’m trying to think what else I can teach you. A couple of really small things you can do. These are simple, but we used to actually use these on people who would like, let’s say I was with the president and they would like see the president to be like, “Oh my God, Mr. President,” then then they would hug, but then they would never release. We would do little things like, you can take somebody’s extremities like a finger and you can do something as small as this. Take Jameela’s finger, pull it all the way back. That’s going to hurt. Just snap your finger back. You could break it. Run.

Jameela [00:50:46] What, would you, as in, were you saying you did that for people who hugged the President

Evy [00:50:48] I didn’t break their finger. I’m sorry.

Jameela [00:50:50] For too long.

Evy [00:50:52] So the president would work rope lines, right?

Jameela [00:50:54] Just like a little old lady and just be like.

Evy [00:50:56] Haha! No. No, we would do with a little pressure. What happens is people would sometimes, they would see a president, they lose their mind. They’re like, “Oh my God, it’s the president.” So he would work a rope line.

Jameela [00:51:05] Hello, hello, hello. How you doing?

Evy [00:51:08] And then people be like, oh, Mr. President. And they do this, and they would forget to let go. I shit you not. So what we would do is when they would hug him, we would come up from behind. Right. So here’s the figures. And we would very just be like, “Okay, let go now, let go.” And they’re like, “Oh, okay, okay, okay.”

Jameela [00:51:27] I feel the, yeah, I feel the urge to let go of Barack Obama.

Evy [00:51:31] Oh yeah.

Jameela [00:51:32] Yeah.

Evy [00:51:32] So that was something we would do is a simple move. Now. We wouldn’t break people’s fingers, but you can break a finger like that. They’re very simple things you can do. Like you can sit and pound on somebody’s chest all day. That’s not where they’re vulnerable. So remember, face is your friend you want to face. Oh, and something super simple. Go for the eyes. Like, I mean, this.

Evy [00:51:51] Is the animal, right? This was the one that freaks me out because I’m like.

Evy [00:51:55] And I want to touch it.

Evy [00:51:56] Yeah, make them earn it.

Evy [00:51:58] I don’t like touching oysters, you know, like.

Evy [00:52:00] Take your fingers, take your hands. And right in the eyes they can’t see. They can’t hurt you. Go straight for the eyes. Yeah. Like pull an eye out. Go get like just ladies. What are the fliers say.

Evy [00:52:15] What. Did you come here for a bedtime story. Thank you. Okay.

Evy [00:52:20] Okay. So you’re going to go for the eyes right. Just the eyes. That’s another great thing. And look, it’s going to be savage. I’m going to say it. You can bite people I would.

Evy [00:52:30] Yeah.

Evy [00:52:30] Use your teeth. Use those chompers. Use those pearly whites. You have them for a reason. Use them. Very simple things. This is all you need to know to kind of help you. These are simple moves. And you notice they’re super simple. But sometimes they’ll show you moves. It’s like, do this and turn the body. This way I can show you that. And you know what? You’re going to forget it as soon as you hit down the block. So I’m teaching you things so that you can survive and win. These are the simple things you need to learn. That’s all I want you to process.

Evy [00:52:57] We have a round of applause, please, for. With move your mind, this whole thing that I’m doing, if anyone who doesn’t know, I’m trying to create a whole cultural gen intergenerational movement in which and this is the new like, this is the new journey of way, is that we’ve made everyone too embarrassed to publicly endorse diet culture, mostly. And that’s great. And we’ve done that with the help of loads of amazing activists around the world. But exercise is so pivotal to your mental health that we need to get on this now. We need to for women to feel safe going to a gym or going for a walk or exercising outside. And so we also want people to feel motivated to do this. And so we’re trying to extract the punitive culture of exercise in which it’s something that women, especially, are encouraged to do to punish themselves for having dared to eat the night before. I’m so fucking sick of that being the way that we advertise moving our bodies. And so with Move Your Mind, we’re going to be doing events all over the world, and we’ll be coming back to New York and going everywhere to be able to show you ways that you can move your body purely for the fact that it will increase your endorphins, it will make you sleep better. It will make you less stressed. It will help you resolve issues. It is so pivotal to your hormonal, your physical, and your mental well-being and your longevity. And I refuse to have it taken away from you because of diet culture, because of magazines, because of motherfucking celebrities, and also because of the fact that you aren’t safe after a certain time or even during the day. And so this is just one facet of it. We will be encouraging self-defense. I am encouraging you here today to, you know, every was saying is that if you hear this once of a night, especially when someone was being really goofy on stage, there’s only so much of it you’re going to remember in the moment. So take this seriously. Take this power into your own hands, sign up together, make friends tonight, and sign up together for classes. This is one of the most important things that we will ever do in our lives, is learn how to empower ourselves in this way. If anything, just because. Because you may never find yourself in need of using these skills, but just knowing you can change the way you feel walking through the world. I’m sick of walking through the world feeling like prey. I’m sick of that feeling. It is bad for me. It is bad for my brain. It is bad for my nervous system. And I’m sick of the fact that I am so accustomed to feeling that way that when I was agoraphobic and living on like the third floor with 15 alarm systems is the only time in my life I’ve ever actually felt safe. And that was a fucking depressing, terrible way to live. I’m done. I’m tired of it. And if you are tired of it as well, then please join me. Join way. Join people like Eva as we try to invite you into a world of learning how to arm and guard and protect your life and your body. Thank you for coming tonight and thank you to Evy. Thank you so much for listening to this week’s episode. With Jameela Jamil is produced and research by myself, Jimmy Jamil, Erin.

Evy [00:56:22] Finnegan, Kimmy.

Evy [00:56:23] Gregory, and Amelia Shapiro. And the beautiful music that you are hearing now is made by my boyfriend, James Blake. And if you haven’t already, please rate, review and subscribe to the show. It’s such a great way to show your support and helps me out massively. And lastly, at Iowa, we would love to hear from you and share what you weigh at the end of this podcast. Please email us a voice recording sharing what you weigh at Iowa Podcast at gmail.com.