About Me
My name is Emily Cox. How did I become a human empowerment coach and public speaker?
That’s a great question!
I am a survivor of sexual assault. I grew up with loving parents in a safe community. But that didn’t prepare me for what the outside world would hold. As a young, naive 17-year-old, I showed up for college not knowing the potential risks and dangers; and certainly not knowing that I could protect myself from these dangers. Three months after entering my freshman year of college, I was raped. After my assault, I struggled with self-esteem issues, self-harm, and ultimately suicidal ideation and attempts on my own precious life.
I lived. But I lived in fear.
Fast-forward 10 years, my husband and two young children and I were living in Portland, Oregon. I decided to take a self-defense course through the Portland Police Bureau.
So, with no training, I was put in charge of finding, beginning, and implementing the program that we teach today: Rape Aggression Defense, or R.A.D. for short.
Today at the Weber County Sheriff’s Office, my 10 instructors and I have empowered hundreds of women ages 11-85 to protect themselves through situational awareness, intuition, personal physical power and what consent looks like in everyday situations.
My mission today is to empower ALL to value themselves enough to protect themselves. Survivors of assault, there is hope. I am evidence of that. And I’m here to help you find that hope and strength within yourself again. I am proof that an empowered woman, empowers ALL.
If you’d like me to come speak to your audience about self-defense and safety in your youth group, women’s program, or place of business, please contact me at the button below.
You are awesome!
This changed me.
I learned situational awareness, strengthened my intuition and learned that I had permission to address others’ unhealthy behaviors towards me. I was learning how to claim my space in this world.
Fast forward again to 2012. My family and I were living in Utah, and I learned of several sexual assaults that had occurred in my neighborhood. I realized that if these young women had had the skills that I now have, maybe these assaults could have been prevented.
I couldn’t shake a nagging feeling of, “Emily, you need to start a self-defense course.”
I was terrified. I didn’t feel qualified. I thought, “Me? Really? Just a girl from Utah? How? Why me?”
But one day at work, I couldn’t get that nagging feeling to leave. I mustered up the courage to call my local sheriff and tell him about my background with assault, the local assaults that were happening, and that I needed to start a self-defense class. He didn’t hesitate to ask me, “Where have you been?” He then told me that three mothers called him that week asking why he didn’t have a program to keep their daughters safe, and that the department was looking for someone to lead a self-defense program.
