If you haven’t read part 1 of this story, go read it here: Driving Fear Stops People From Living A Complete Life. You can find part 2 here: Things Only Got Worse As The Driving Fear Increased. Here is part 3: The Key To Success And Overcoming Driving Fear.

The first thing that Tony learned is that his fear came from a deeply rooted subconscious association to driving. This occurred, for him at least, because of his wreck with his brother in the car. His brain made a subconscious association to driving and immediately labeled driving as a very bad, fearful, and horrible experience.

The same is true for anyone else who experiences driving fear. Either because of one very bad experience while driving, or because of a number of smaller fearful experiences, your mind has made a subconscious association to driving and has labeled it as being dangerous, bad, and something to be feared. The first step is to understand that your mind makes these types of connections all the time to everything. It’s normal and natural and it’s how we function in the world. You look at a door and your mind automatically makes the association to the door, the door knob, how to work the door, why you should use the door, and everything else associated with a door.

You don’t have to stop and look at the door, think about the door, think about using the door knob, try to think about why you want to go through the door in the first place. You simply take action and use the door. The same is true for your driving fear. Your mind and subconscious mind automatically associate driving, getting behind the wheel, and operating a vehicle as dangerous and something to fear. This happened, again, because of those few small experiences that you had in the past that created fear in you.

The problem is that your mind has created this fear of driving connection. It relates to driving as being dangerous. Yes, there is a degree of danger to driving, just like there is a chance of getting hit while walking across the street. This doesn’t mean it has to be dangerous though. There are a number of things you can do in order to reduce the danger of driving.

First, you can start by paying attention. This isn’t the paying attention so closely that you get paranoid and scared. But instead, paying attention and being aware of what is going on around you. Noticing the car pulling out in front of you two blocks ahead, or the car ahead of you about to merge into your lane. Awareness is the first step that Tony used, and it’s the first step you need to use.

The second thing you can do is to slow down. Who cares if the person behind you is in a hurry and riding your bumper. Let that person ride your bumper and do their thing. You take your time, pay attention, and drive at a speed that is comfortable for you. If that means doing 20 miles per hour under the speed limit to get started, then so be it. By slowing down and taking your time, you give yourself the comfort of feeling comfortable and the ability to respond and react much more quickly if you need to while on the road.

The final thing you can do to help get yourself started, is to start changing your subconscious association to driving. Begin to envision yourself driving along the road completely relaxed, care free, and completely in control of yourself and your vehicle. The only way to change your negative subconscious association to driving is to use the same tool that created it. Your mind made the connection with a few strong emotions, so you must undo that connection with a few strong emotions.

Be sure to feel strongly that you are in control of yourself, and your vehicle, and that you are completely relaxed and fearless while driving. As you envision yourself driving along, throw these emotions in as strongly as possible. Do this daydreaming a few times a day, day after day, until you begin to recognize your fear of driving starting to diminish. In the next and final part, we will talk more about how to overcome your fear of driving as well as some options you have available in order to speed up the process and learning curve.

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If The Fear Of Driving Alone Stops You From Living Your Life To The Fullest, Then You Need To Read This…

A very common fear that many people experience is the fear of driving alone. Your mind begins to race with everything that could go wrong while you are driving alone, and you don’t have the comfort of someone else there with you if it does go wrong. Before long, you very quickly lose all control of your thoughts, and every possible thing that could happen floods your mind and become overwhelmed, scared, and the anxiety and panic begins to set in.

You begin to feel your heart rate speed up and it feels as though your heart is going to jump right out of your chest. Your breathing becomes shallow and quick, and it feels as though you are being smothered as your chest tightens up making it harder and harder to breath at all. You can feel the sweat begin to form on your face and head, and your hands feel like you just ran them under running water because they are so wet. It isn’t long after all this that you begin to feel light headed and dizzy, and your stomach begins to knot up and you feel as though you could vomit all over the place.

Relax, you aren’t really driving right now, your just reading those words. But I know that you can relate to them because it’s exactly what you feel every time you get behind the wheel of your vehicle, and especially when you are driving alone. This is a very common experience for many people, and it’s something that anyone who experiences this problem very quickly wants to overcome. The good news is that there are ways to deal with your fear and anxiety while driving alone.

To start, you need to keep in mind is that your fear is completely a subconscious fear. It happens over a period of time and can be overcome, and undone. The key is to practice feeling relaxed, calm, and completely at ease while driving. There are times when you feel this way while driving alone, and you need to use these times to change your subconscious programming. When you are behind the wheel and you feel this calm, relaxed, completely at peace feeling. You need to use it to your advantage.

Start by paying very close attention to how you are feeling, and remember those feelings. Focus on them as strongly as possible when you feel them and continue to tell yourself “I am always calm, relaxed, and at peace like this when I drive alone.” This begins to program this thought and these emotions into your subconscious mind to help you overcome your basic fear at other times.

The next thing you need to do is recall these emotions when you begin to feel anxiety or fear. This means you need to literally take yourself back in your mind to the time when you felt calm, relaxed, and completely at peace. Recall how you were sitting, and sit like that. Recall what facial experessions you had. Chances are you were smiling gently, and you need to do that again when the anxiety and panic sets in.

The key is to recall as much detail as possible about how you were sitting, feeling, thinking, and everything else when you feel calm and peaceful. Then, when you feel anxiety set in, simply sit, feel, and think the exact same things in order to calm yourself down and get back to that state of emotional calm and relaxation.

You don’t have to experience anxiety or fear while driving alone. There are some very powerful techniques available that will teach you how to use techniques like the one above in order to reprogram your subconscious mind and overcome that panic you experience when you are by yourself.