Collapsing the fear

“Fear is Fear. What you do with it is up to you” - Stan Smithy

Driving anxiety is very common and the reason I know this is because about 20% of my clients tell me that they are experiencing anxiety when driving. I always tell them that this is just their perception because the fear was there before the driving incident that felt like a panic attack. They love to argue with me telling me about the accident a few years back but this is still not the issue.

Here are some examples of clients who said they had driving anxiety. Rob liked to drive fast. He had a fast car and a slow car. When he drove the fast car he was focused and alert. The opposite was true when driving the family car where one is generally relaxed and chilled. He came to see me for slow driving anxiety. What was happening in his life at the time the anxiety showed up was that he was selling his business. It was a long and slow process. This feeling started to manifest in different areas of his life. In this case he called me about the driving.

Jennifer was a client who was in her early 40's. She called me after getting dizzy on the highway. She felt that when she was passing two trucks, they were about to topple on her and pin her down. As she cleared the core issue, she revealed to me that when younger, she was brutally attacked by a gang who had pinned her down. Years later it came out as a driving anxiety. Driving in the city was okay. No big trucks but the highway was a nightmare.

Sue never went out. Her home was 5 minutes from the hospital. Again she called because of her so called driving anxiety. In this case a fear of something bad happening was always on her mind. What if she was 100 miles away or worst? How can she make it to the hospital on time to save herself? This issue was affecting her quality of life big time. No vacations, no joy and worst of all it affected the family too. Issues of guilt and shame were really strong. When and where did the anxiety originate exactly? We never did figure it our completely but it started before she drove.

Jim was affected by driving on the highway too. He drove for a living and one day in November had a panic attack and could not get into his truck to drive. When he called me it was for anxiety. After a few sessions the truth surfaced. He had been with his grandfather in November at the age of 6. On that November day there was a big snow storm. His grandfather while driving him home had a heart attack and passed away. Jim remained in the car for 6 hours before being rescued. Years later, by coincidence or not, it was November and Jim had a panic attack while driving. Until he went into hypnosis he never connected the dots.

There are many stories that I can tell you and one which is true to my heart is about a gentleman by the name of Mark who was also experiencing anxiety. He had a rough start as a new immigrant to Canada and yet his story was of a young man who had a passion for life and adventure. He ended up married to a woman who was very fearful. In order to please her he stopped being spontaneous and stopped taking risks. Everything was dangerous. Every bad thing became a possible problem. What makes the outcome special is that when we collapsed the underlying fears, the dog phobia which he had all his life vanished and was replaced by a joy of puppies and kittens.

I hope you get the understanding that anxiety is the cumulation of other fears from a multitude of experiences. When the root causes are addressed all fears in different areas fall down like a house of cards