In this episode Maria Dolores of Scandinavia introduces us to the whole concept of The Human Contract. The Human contract is a movement that Maria has spent 20,000 hours researching and distilling into what she calls The Seven principles of Human Dignity. The seven principles are based on the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Human Contract is an opportunity for all of us, to become and to remain accountable to self and therefore to society. The Human Contract is about deepening governance and improving civil courage at a personal, an interpersonal and a global or universal level. We all have rights, but along with our rights we have responsibilities. The Human Contract draws our attention to these rights and responsibilities in a clear, accessible and succinct way. Our personal rights and responsibilities pertain to body, thoughts and emotions. We have interpersonal rights and responsibilities around freedom of expression, movement and life. We can for example live with whomever we wish, wherever we wish, but not at a cost to another. The clarity and balance in Maria’s choice of language is a pen picture, like no other. The seventh principle speaks of our collective rights and responsibilities. We need a united and raised collective consciousness to address major environmental, societal and global issues. Maria has learned her greatest lessons in the school of life and shares with us the wisdom she has gained from the three most significant emotional growth spurts in her life so far, namely the passing of her mum, the birth of her daughter and the trauma of living in an abusive marriage. As expert by experience, Maria has valuable advice for others that find themselves bullied, belittled, alienated, stonewalled and criticised. Gas lighting can break your spirit and strip you of your dignity. It can be difficult to evidence the extent of the controlling behaviour, given its insidious nature. Thresholds of the severity and effect of the alleged abuse can be difficult to establish also, with the result that, without that one person that believes in you and is willing to advocate for you, it can seem easier to suffer on in silence. Just when Maria felt that she couldn’t endure it anymore, a civilly conscious individual, was willing to get into Maria’s model of reality, to hear and decipher fact from narrative. Having validated Maria, contextual argument was harvested and was considered sufficiently reasonable to begin building Maria’s case and resultantly, Maria’s strength. At that point Maria could begin to take her power back, rediscover herself, her values, her desires and plan to realise her dreams in healthy ways, within healthy relationships going forward. Coercive control remains a complex offense to police. The Human Contract deepens governance and civil courage and aims to emancipate victims of all kinds of abuse even where laws have not yet changed to protect sufferers of same. The time is NOW!