Kidnapping survivor Elizabeth Smart shares advice on how young women can trust their instincts as she hosts podcast
Elizabeth Smart, who survived a terrifying kidnapping, recently launched a new true crime podcast discussing how survivors like her rebuilt their lives after trauma.
Called The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart, the 38-year-old mother-of-three interviews other survivors about their ordeals and how they address the healing process, reports PEOPLE.
Smart was abducted from her Salt Lake City bedroom at knifepoint at just 14. She was held captive for a total of nine months and was sexually assaulted by her captor before she was rescued.
“I actually find these stories incredibly inspiring and help me to continue to just try to reach for the life that I want to live,” she said.
“These people, they are trusting me with their stories.
“They are sharing the worst moments of their life. They’re making themselves vulnerable.
“And that can be a really scary thing. But right off the bat, you know they survived what happened to them.
“You know they got away, which I think is just a testament to their strength, to their resiliency.”
She hosts guests including Kara Robinson Chamberlain, who escaped a serial killer, and Chris Cander, who was kidnapped at knifepoint while studying in Madrid
She said, “I get to keep listening to these incredible survivors talk about not allowing these monsters to ruin their lives or steal any of their time away from them.”
Smart explained how as a survivor herself, she is aware of the importance of not letting a traumatic experience like abduction impact the whole of her life.
“I recognize there are some pretty terrible people in this world. Unfortunately, I’ve had experience with two of them.
“But it’s also just made me realize I have one shot at life,” she tells PEOPLE. “And I know that I want to live my best possible life.
“I want to live, and do all of the things that I want to do.”
Smart described how important it was for her to use her experience to inform her own daughters – and young women across the world – how to pick up on cues when faced with a potentially dangerous situation and to trust in their instincts and emotional intelligence.
“Prioritize your safety over other people’s emotions,” Smart said.
“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 says that’s an instinct young women must battle against.
“I think definitely for me, I was raised to be polite and respectful and courteous, and I think that’s great, but 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.”
She adds, “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.”
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Topics: True Crime, Crime