Fear of Driving
Last week my daughter and I flew to a hospital across the state to address some of her health problems. The treatment we were looking to pursue was not available at the time. Since we only bought one way tickets, we needed a way to return home. I looked at all of my options including bus, train, air and auto. The auto, by far, was going to be the most economical way for us to return home.
The challenge was my fear of driving in a city. I had not driven more than a 20-mile radius from my home for the past eight years. Whenever I would think about driving past the community I lived in, I would begin to feel anxiety. Anxiety would also occur when I would have to pass a large truck or the roads were wet from rain.
My husband was willing to drive across the state to get us and take us home. I knew that was not logical and did not want to burden him when he was already tired from working all week. Since I have started using EFT on myself and in my practice, I have been clearing issues and borrowing benefits. I decided to rise up to the challenge and view this as an opportunity to remove a burden I had been carrying all this time. I had 36 hours before we were going to pick up the rental car. My goal was to clear the issue and as many underlying issues as possible prior to the drive. During this time, I went to your website and began reading as many articles in your archives concerning fears and began tapping for the statements that were in the articles. I also began to visualize the parts of the drive home that brought up the most anxiety and tapped for those issues.
Even though I don’t want to drive on the freeway
Even though I don’t like driving on the overpass
Even though I don’t like the winding lanes on the freeway
Even though I can’t control the other drivers around me
The day before we left, I walked over to the freeway and looked at the overpass and the bridge. Once again I started tapping on anything that came up and decided to use Pat Carringtons Choices Statements
Event though I feel anxiety about driving over the bridge, I choose to drive confidently and safely
Even though I feel uncomfortable driving fast on the city freeway with all these cars around me going so fast, I am a safe and skillful driver and choose to drive with confidence
At this time, I began to explore what else was going on in my life when I developed the fear. There was an employee at work that was very moody and created a lot of stress for me. I felt like I had to “walk on eggshells” with her because she would turn things around and create a lot of drama in the office.
Even though this person was driving me crazy, I choose to release my anxiety because she does not work with me anymore
Even though this person was out of control, I choose to release the power I gave her and to take back my power
Even though I did not feel safe when working with this person, I choose to take back control of my life
This was it, the morning of our drive home. I felt confident. Rain was forecast for the entire drive home. As I was driving through the city, I had some mild anxiety and began to tap without using any setup statements. I knew I was tuned into the emotions. The tapping quickly helped to calm me. I tapped a couple more times during the first hour of the drive. After that I felt more relaxed and did not have any further anxiety on the way home. I surprised myself and was able to pass trucks on the wet roads and along turns in the freeway.
My daughter’s health problems continue to persist. We will be traveling out of state next time. Instead of looking at flying, we will be driving to our destination. Being able to overcome this fear has allowed me to “expand my horizons.” In addition, I am a positive role model for my daughter about being able to identify and overcome limiting beliefs. EFT is a wonderful tool that we have both added to our tool box of coping skills.
Loren Fogelman, M.Ed, CADC I, EFT-Adv
