Suzie Chick

For this month, I’d like to share with you a little personal story in the hope that parts of it resonate especially as we draw 2022 to a close and look forward to the new year with renewed hopes and dreams.

I recently faced a bit of fear and anxiety when I decided to get back behind the wheel. It’s been over 20 years since I was last drove so this has been quite the refresher. The large gap in time was due to practicalities but as my first lesson approached and I started to feel a bubbling of nerves I wondered if maybe my avoidance had been more than just geography. 

Driving as metaphor

The activity of driving provides us with freedom, choice and independence. When we take to the wheel, we take control of the direction we’re heading in. To drive requires courage and faith to head into the unknown. 

We should always be in the driving seat of our own lives. When we let someone else determine our direction, they are at our wheel, and we have misplaced our agency.  Just the word drive puts us in touch with motivation, dynamism, energy and momentum. When we drive, we’re moving forward in our lives. 

My return to the wheel was far more than just about the physical act of driving itself. 

Avoidance (FYI not a good idea)

When we feel fear and anxiety, its perfectly natural for us to try and avoid the very thing causing us difficultly. I was certainly guilty of this when it came to stepping back into the driver’s seat. Excuses of time, money, finding the right instructor and wanting to do some preliminary reading (yes really) were all in my repertoire of avoidance.  And as we pretty much know avoidance only makes things worse in the long term. Dodging driving caused my anxiety to rise, not fall. With every passing week, my slightly scary goal became louder and bigger and more troublesome to face.

A worry shared

My first step to get out of avoidance city, was to name my anxieties out loud. I thankfully have some lovely close friends whom I could share my driving woes. And funny enough, when I opened up, they opened up too. They also had experienced worries about driving, not worlds away from my own. I felt instantly relieved and a great deal lighter. I was not alone.

With my anxieties shared, I felt able to personally explore what my fears could be about. Matter of responsibility, control, risk taking and becoming more visible arose through my reflections. These themes were not unfamiliar to me.  My fears felt young in both their sensation and origin. I needed my adult self (and inner parent) to comfort and reassure my young fears. 

Exposure therapy 

The only way I was going to overcome my fears was to do a little exposure therapy.

And so, I felt the fear and did it anyway (as per the title of the infamous Susan Jeffers book from 1987) and booked my first lesson. 

Not unsurprisingly my young fears came to surface in the first few lessons. I was overly tentative with my turns, anticipating risk when there was none and struggled to take up space in the road. With every lesson, I confront these fears and with that my confidence grows. 

This is a process and it’s going to take time (and a lot of patience on my instructor’s behalf). So, it’s baby steps for now and celebrating the small little victories that come with every lesson. It’s been a personal journey already and I haven’t even travelled that far (in mileage terms). 

Photo by Giorgio Trovato on Unsplash