You're listening to the Driving Confidence podcast for drivers who want to be calm and confident on the road. We will be sharing tips, stories and advice to beat driving nerves and anxiety and build your driving confidence. Whether you are just starting out as a learner or have had your driving license for years, if you want to transform how you feel about driving, this podcast is for you. When people are feeling nervous and anxious, generally there are two or three emotions present. They are fear, which is your awareness of the present moment. Anxiety, which is your awareness of the future and anything you have to do to prepare for the future. Anxiety tends to be a, a forward-leaning emotion with a lot of energy in it because there's a lot to do to get ready. Your anxiety will generally move in response to. What needs to be done. So if you've got a ton of tasks that are not finished, you can expect to have more anxiety, you know? And if you've got a deadline that's coming right up to you, expect to have more anxiety, right? So anxiety is a very kind of forward-leaning, energetic emotion, which can destabilize you if you don't realize, right? That much energy and that much forward leaning it, right, it topples you. It can topple you. The third emotion that's there is panic. And panic is a marvelous life-saving emotion that is necessary, especially in a situation such as driving where literally you are in danger, right? We can do whatever we can to make ourselves safer drivers, but we can't control everything, If you don't know that your anxiety is trying to look out, however many meters ahead of you. And when you get to the place, and this is gonna be a difficult interchange, and oops, my tires may not be appropriately inflated. Uh, do I have enough petrol? Do you know, you wanna know all that before you go? Panic is also there because there is a danger to your life when you're driving. It's real. Right. And so panic has the fight, flee, freeze, or flock to safety behaviors in it. So when you're driving, you can expect fear, which is the present moment, anxiety, which is out in the future, and panic to be there. Right. So being a nervous or anxious driver is a little bit more honest than most people who say, oh, driving's nothing. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. Driving's nothing. Or people, I don't know if you've seen this, where you are, but I see people in cars, reading a book. I'm like, okay, okay. I'm getting away from you. I'm like, all right, I'm driving around you and go. I've seen people, I've seen women putting on mascara. Yeah, that does happen here sometimes as well. I think that's hard to do when you're not moving. That's absurd. That's absurd. My struggle, I must admit, I definitely struggle. I definitely struggle with husband. You can poke your eye out. Okay. So that's a person who's not listening to fear, anxiety, or panic. We don't wanna be anywhere near that person, right? We want to, I'll slow down. I'm like, you go, you go be yourself. I don't want you anywhere near my car. So yeah, there's so many different levels of awareness of the danger of driving. Right, and these three emotions are crucial for you to be a good driver. And the reason it's important to start kind of articulating between is this about the present moment, that's fear. Is this about my preparation for what's coming? That's anxiety. Is it about saving my life? That's panic. Then I become more able to understand the differences between them instead of having all three of unarticulated filling. My entire organism. Right? And so if I have a lot of anxiety before a drive, then I'm gonna check my tires. I'm gonna do what anxiety asked me to do, which is to prepare. Mm-hmm. I'm gonna check my tires and my windscreen and this and that. And if I feel my panic come up while I'm driving, I can ask, am I in danger right now? And then, No, no. I said, well, thank you. Panic instead of shut up. Panic. You're a liar. I would say thank you. Panic. Thank you. Panic. Now, um, you can step back and then let's continue driving. But for a lot of people, these three emotions feel like abuse, right? Yeah. They feel like I'm being overwhelmed, I'm being abused by my own emotions, and they're just trying to help. But sometimes if we're not aware of what's going on, it can feel like they're ganging up on us. And that they don't mean us well, if that makes sense. But they really do. So listening to it, Thank you for listening. Find out about the different ways that you can work with us on our website www. confidentdrivers. co. uk and begin to transform the way you feel about driving.