During today’s blog, I’ll discuss how driving anxiety affected me in the hope that you may find some similarities in our stories and understand in more detail how anxiety resides in you. I’ll discuss anxiety felt like before I learned to take control and what helped me to feel like me again: a confident driver who can drive anywhere without overthinking every part of the journey. I'll teach you the No. 1 thing you can start doing to overcome your fear of driving.
When I was struggling with driving anxiety I felt so out of control. I had never considered myself a worrier. When I started overthinking every drive, catastrophizing what might happen, it surprised me how much time I spent thinking about it. The depths with which my mind went to in terms of crashing the car or injuring other drivers honestly shocked me. The thing that I found so difficult was, that I wasn't able to stop it, even when I tried to think of other things my mind quickly found its way back to my fear of driving.
It’s almost as if one thought sprouted another and these thoughts worked much quicker than my rational brain could keep up. One innocent consideration for a drive the next day quickly spiralled into the absolute worst-case scenario! I’ve always been creative and It felt like my anxiety tapped into this and ran with it, as if putting my foot on the accelerator each time I thought about driving.
In hindsight, what was most bizarre was that I got good at it. At first, it was a slow thought to be prepared for the next day. What if the worst did happen? How would I react? What could I carry in the car to help? What would I need? Who would I call first? But, as I got better at thinking of the worst thing that could happen (in the hope that I’d feel prepared if it were to) I stopped thinking about the plan of what I’d do and only focused on the worst-case crash, or accident or disaster. I got better and better and my imagination got more and more creative. And as this happened I started to drive less and less. I was in constant fear which exasperated me when I did get in the car.
At one point, I diverted to using the train to work most days, avoiding driving. Despite having a company car, despite adding up to 3 hours onto my day, despite having once been a confident driver. I was able to drive small journeys; I’d still drive to the supermarket or to see friends. I knew I couldn’t give up completely. That really would be defeat. There was also a small element of not fully admitting to others what was happening behind closed doors even though I had told a select few.
In reality, I felt like I was limping through life, exhausted, getting by. I could drive if I had someone else in the car with me but the thought of driving solo was almost too much to bear. If you’ve read another of my blogs: How my Panic attack felt like an out-of-body experience, you’ll know it started with a panic attack whilst driving. However, the consequences of that time were aggressive intrusive thoughts. I had an absolute belief that; I was going to k**l myself and everyone else on the road. It was unwavering and ever-present in my mind.
Rationally I knew this wasn’t going to happen and yet I’d sometimes drive home, fully convinced that I was going to slide off the road.
Have you ever heard of such a ridiculous notion?
And yet many hours of thinking about this never seemed to reduce the thought or the idea that it could actually happen.
What I know now, is that logic and rationale are the function of the conscious mind and emotions such as fear are the function of the subconscious or unconscious mind. These two parts of the mind can either work together, aligned or they can be working in opposition. When they aren’t working together the emotion i.e. Fear will always win because energetically it out trumps logic and rationale. Energetically emotions vibrate higher than logic. No amount of overthinking was going to overcome the fear of killing myself or everyone else on the road. Because when it came to driving on the motorway even though I knew I could do it, I’d feel so scared that I’d either stop driving or I’d take the back roads where I felt more comfortable driving. (I say more comfortable; it was still a struggle but I could just about cope with them). The downside was that it gave me more time to think, not the best remedy for an over thinker.
What I was doing in my mind most of the day was actually stopping me from being able to get in the car and drive. Some parts of the brain when in fear start to ramp up and are set for a fight or flight response. Simultaneously the cerebral cortex which is responsible for reasoning and judgement becomes impaired. These two functions can’t exist at the same time.
I’m not sure if It’s clear but from all of the above you can see that the mind is pretty powerful. Although there was a very clear starting point for me – Panic attack. The fear I created each time I thought about driving was making matters worse. Whether the fear is imagined or reality, the mind doesn’t know the difference. The emotional and physical response to fear was happening whether I got in the car to drive or simply thought about getting in the car to drive.
And because I essentially spent my spare time practising fear and what could happen, it didn’t take long for my mind to feel panicked when I was driving. I was hyper-aware of everything. Every drive felt like a hazard perception test and every time I drove I felt like I was going into battle. I could no longer relax and sit back and enjoy my journey home. I knew, felt, saw, and heard every minute of every drive. When I did make it home I’d worry about what I could have done better. If that horn I'd heard was aimed at me. Why that erratic cyclist felt like he was going to come through my window or I’d be somehow responsible for knocking him off and injuring him?
So what did I do about it? And what can you do?
I started using my imagination for good instead of bad (for want of a better phase). Do you know you can use your imagination for good? Instead of imagining the worst, you can think of the best thing that could happen. The best part is that you already have the skills to do it because you’ve been perfecting them overthinking for years. So why not use them to think about the best things that could happen?
Easier said than done you might think…
And I get it, it’s human nature to consider the worst that could happen but with the same level of practice It’s possible to learn and teach yourself to see the good in everything too. And, if fear and a heightened state of alertness are the response to overthinking accidents. What do you think the response to daydreaming about arriving safely and enjoying the drive is?
Yes, you guessed it, a more enjoyable drive where you can relax, feel calm, and build your confidence to enjoy driving again…
So the choice is yours; Which route do you want to take?
Visualisation is a fundamental key to hypnosis and hypnotherapy and in you building your confidence to easily feel able to drive and feel good doing it. Now there may be other reasons for the fear. Perhaps, an accident or an overbearing driving instructor of your past or you may have always struggled with confidence, and these can all be explored through hypnotherapy.
The No. 1 thing you can do now is to use your imagination to visualise yourself driving confidently
Imagine using your wonderful creative mind to paint a delightful picture of yourself driving tomorrow, now I don’t know where you’re driving to. Perhaps it’s to work, home, or visiting a dear friend. Only you will know, as you are in full control of your imagination and the emotions you can enjoy from simply seeing yourself driving well and enjoying the freedom of the road.
I don’t know whether you can see a beautiful coloured picture, almost as if it’s a photo a movie, or a realistic drawing or you get a sense of it in your mind… but you might just find that the clarity of that image can increase now…
You could simply notice that as you go about your day you feel comfortable in the car, with nothing of importance to do except enjoy the drive and you might even find that the more you focus on enjoying the journey the easier the journey appears to be now…
Perhaps you are in the country or driving down a lovely tree-lined road or you might even drive past a part where you can hear children safely playing with their friends… perhaps even feeling slightly overwhelmed as you turn down a street you are unfamiliar with but knowing that you are in control and you are easily and effortlessly able to overcome any obstacle now… feeling calm, relaxing relaxed and you might just like to focus on your breathing for a few moments, slowing taking in a deep breath as you relax now… enjoying the journey… and I know that you can feel calm whenever you think about driving now.
And because you feel calm about driving you can take a slow deep breath and let out any tension or anxiety you may have been holding and there’s no reason to hold any tension now as you drive to your meeting, appointment, home… and I wonder what it’s like when you allow your mind to imagine how well you can drive, how confident you can feel, how good it can be to simply use your mind for good. Able to easily and effortlessly use your imagination to drive easily and effortlessly anywhere.
Take three slow deep breathes as you imagine now… would you prefer to use your imagination for relaxation and calm or tension and fear, only you will know as this is your choice and you can easily relax as you effortlessly make a decision that is right for you to so easily make now as you can easily imagine
Driving with ease
Driving with confidence
Driving whilst relaxed
And you may find that before you even know it you’ve arrived at your destination, and you probably already know that you’d rather use your mind to imagine how wonderfully comfortable you can be whilst driving anywhere, at any time, in any car…
And isn’t it nice to know that once you used to think about what might happen and now you can think about what you know will happen? Able to easily and effortlessly drive home easily, confidently, and enjoy the journey. And Sooner or later you might find that you don’t even notice arriving home, of course you’ll know which way you took but you’ll arrive at home wondering where the last 20 minutes went as you were so focused on enjoying the trip, perhaps you were listening to music, maybe you were singing along you might even enjoy some quiet time before you get home or enjoy a podcast or an audiobook. Only you can decide, as this is your visualisation, your daydream.
And you might find some time every day to imagine how good driving can feel, a little time to relax and enjoy everything you love about the confidence, the freedom, the joy of simply getting into the car and driving…
So, you get the gist… you get to use your mind to create whatever you wish it to create. And since the mind can’t tell the difference between reality or an imagined reality you may as well use it for good, don’t you think…
If you found it hard to picture yourself driving confidently, you might find it useful to listen to one of Me again therapy's self-hypnosis audios. They can help you to picture yourself expertly driving whilst feeling all of the emotions you would like to feel like confidence and calm. To explore the full range of easy to use trance-formational audio programme Click the button below
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