hello do you have a fear of driving speed well in this video I'm going to explain where that
comes from my name's Paul and I work online with people all over the world to help them overcome
their fear of driving and many people I work with say to me I was driving one day and I've
been driving for years and years and years and I've never had a problem but suddenly I had this
panic attack a man's started sweating and had to break and my speed was coming down and down
and down and I found that I felt fine doing about 40 but everyone behind was flushing the lights in
me and honking the horn and people were getting mad and it made me feel worse and worse and in
the end I had to pull over and I had to phone someone to come and get me if you've ever had
that happen to you then the chances are that one of three things I'm going to talk about next has
been the reason why the first thing I'll explain is that this can come from a childhood event
so let me give you a case study of a client I worked with because this will make more sense
if you actually hear somebody's story this person was driving along one day and they've been driving
for many many years and they suddenly had a panic attack and they said to me that they felt like
they just wanted to hide underneath the steering wheel they said I just wanted to hide and put my
hands over my head and kind of curl up into a ball because I felt so scared so when they did
therapy with me we discovered that what they were actually doing was reliving an event from their
childhood So what had happened is this person had quite abusive parents and they knew that whenever
they were in the bedroom and they heard the front door open and slammed shut they were going to
get a beating because their parents used to come upstairs tied the belts off the trousers and beat
them so one they used to do as a defence strategy was whenever they heard the front door open they
would hide under the bed now think about it what did the person say was the problem when they were
driving they said they we need to curl up and lock into a ball and hide under the steering
wheel we see that's the similarity that led us to this event they were effectively reliving
this event from childhood I hope that happens is that when you're driving one day something
around you happens which triggers off this memory it could be something you see something you hear
maybe something on the radio an advert playing and there's a sound of a door slums or something
anything can take you back to that moment and this all happens within a fraction of a second so you
see the reason you've got a fear of driving at speed is and this sounds quite funny you are not
driving the car the five-year-old you is driving the car because your mind has remembered something
it thinks you're back in that situation and he instantly whips you back to that time when you
had a solution to that problem which was to hide under the bed so that's why you feel like you want
to curl up and hide under the steering wheel and that's how he works so you say imagine how
you would feel if you were five years old and you suddenly found yourself in control of a car you'd
be terrified because your arms and legs wouldn't even be long enough to reach the pedals in the
wheel and of course you'd be in a panic because you don't know how to drive and it's an unfamiliar
situation so you see what's happening is in your mind you effectively become that five-year-old
kid again and that's why you're having a panic attack now I do want to stress that was only for
that one particular client every single person has a unique reason for their problem so please
don't go thinking oh that's what it is for me every single person is unique and you have to
go through therapy and find out exactly why your calls was and it's not easy to do you need a lot
of skill as a therapist to do this let's move on to the second point which is it can be down to a
lack of confidence in general so sometimes what happens is when you drive at speed you are in a
life-threatening situation because driving a car at speed is dangerous and you have to
accept this some people say oh it's nothing I do it all the time that's because you're used to it
and you've been doing it for years and years and you've kind of forgotten how dangerous it is but
if you think about it driving a car at speed is quite dangerous potentially and if you have any
problems in your life which come down to a lack of confidence when you're in danger like that
when your mind sees your life as being in danger it will go into fight or fly mode I've done other
videos about this talking about something called the amygdala which is something in your head which
when you're in danger it goes into fight or fly mode they're actually more than two modes but
most people only know those two so you see if you feel threatened and your life is in danger even if
it's not actually where your mind perceives that it is it will come up with a defense mechanism
which is he wants to stop you from driving and as I always say driving anxiety has nothing to
do with driving so it's nothing to do with driving at all that's just when the problem is coming out
it's something else entirely it's a completely different issue in your life and it just comes
out when you drive so as I always say if you work on the driving directly you'll get nowhere because
the driving isn't the problem and that's where a lot of people go wrong including therapists
who waste the time working on the symptom which is driving instead of getting to the real root cause
of the problem the next thing that can cause it is learned behavior from parents many people who
come to me for help have said that their parents had the same problem and that their parents hated
driving and they were always swerving all over the road and they'd do anything to put driving
off and they didn't want to do it well if you've been brought up in that environment then no wonder
you've got the fear of driving but it isn't quite that simple people think well is that it's just a
case of thinking well my parents out the problem no there's more work to do than that because just
knowing that won't help you have to work out how that's giving you the fear because you may
have been driving for years and years and years and not had the problem but similar to the first
one because the childhood event is by far the most common reason for this some things happened which
is taking you back to Childhood and you're kind of reliving driving as your parents one why this can
work is by something known as identification of identifying it's got different names
it's when let's say you looked up to your parents and you really admired them and you
respected them and you wanted to be like them well sometimes your mind actually takes it too far and
you want to be like them so much subconsciously because all this stuff happens without you being
aware of it you actually copy your parents in many things that they do and that includes yes copying
their driving anxiety this can also happen with celebrities or friends or anyone you look up to if
they have driving anxiety you can subconsciously copy what they're doing because you want to be
like them it isn't the most common reason it's actually quite rare that happens but I have known
it happen watch these other videos on the screen to understand more about your fear of driving and
if you'd like to work in the one-to-one online from anywhere in the world contact me through
my website 1stdrive.com thanks for watching and as always I'll see you again soon for more videos