“The last thing we did before the workshop end was to change a phobia for me – fear of driving in icy conditions – and I said how what I wanted to feel was ‘capable’ while driving in those conditions. Well, if you remember, I mentioned how I wasn’t able to bring up the feeling of fear as much as I thought I needed to while I was in the Whole Brain Posture. And really, I didn’t believe much was happening (even though I did feel some energy leave thru the top of my head). Still, I had that skeptic in me and I figured I would have to wait until winter to find out if anything had changed.
Wrong! The drive back to Little Rock was on highways of course and I hadn’t mentioned in class how nervous I get just driving highways anytime. Nothing over the top, but bad enough that if there is a choice, I’ll take a route that doesn’t involve driving on the highway. I don’t know why it bothers me, but if the highway is crowded I’ll be tense and have a tight grip on the steering wheel and cringe if an 18 wheeler comes up next to me.
So it isn’t far from the hotel to the highway back to Little Rock and I was merging onto it within a few minutes of leaving. I thought the highway would be fairly empty being a Sunday night. But the next thing I know, I’m merging onto a busy highway. Lots of cars driving too fast, changing lanes, bright headlights, I’m not familiar with the area so I had to watch the signs and then there was the construction as well. All the worst things piled into one. And by all rights I should have been hunched over the steering wheel, muscles tense with a pounding heart. Except that I wasn’t.
It probably took 10 minutes for it to even hit me, but I suddenly realized I was relaxed back in the seat, lightly holding the wheel and watching the traffic but not stressed out. I felt calm and relaxed. I was alert, taking proper care to watch the other drivers, but I felt . . . hmmm . . . what’s the word I’m looking for here . . . CAPABLE!!!
Really, it just blew my mind. It hadn’t occurred to me that my subconscious would generalize it to all of my driving. And I hadn’t even thought about my generalized anxiety towards driving while we were doing the balance. And the
funny thing was I kept thinking how NORMAL it felt to feel relaxed (if that makes any sense!). It was such a stark contrast to how I usually felt and until I experienced the change, I didn’t know that the way I usually felt was so different from normal!”