Well, we were on a season break. We sharing with you some bonus shores from an old episode. Normally we create one short for each episode. For this break, we focus in on one episode in particular, which is episode 72. Rewiring the brain understanding and overcoming driving anxiety with Joshua Fletcher. And we've clipped this into several small shorts, all around five minutes each. This episode is probably the episode that we share the most with those of you who gets in touch and are asking for help. So, if you have driving anxiety, there's probably something for you in one of these shores.

every Facebook group that I'm in, whenever I'm in anything and I say what we do there is always I can guarantee, there is always someone who will say, I really need you. But then they say, then they don't really want to make a change. They're quite happy with the status quo. They, they don't want to do anything about it. And I guess it's because they don't want to feel

Good.

fear or those feelings.

No, nor did I, you know? But what's really interesting is that when someone understood, explain to me the cycle I was in and why it was happening. Was like, now I understand why I'm doing something scary. There's something called the, the, the cornerstone of, I work with all anxiety disorders, complex and whatnot, but the cornerstone of everything that I do is practicing the willful tolerance of uncertainty. It's a skill that you cultivate. And so, you know, I get people coming near with panic attacks and generalized anxiety, ocd, many things, and they'll come in and they'll say, Oh, Josh, you've had an amazing week. I wasn't anxious at all. And now for me, you know, okay, I'm, I'm happy about a chilled week, but I'm not at interested in that because that's not recovery. Recovery is Josh, you know what, I, five times this week I was anxious, but I did stuff anyway. I willfully tolerated my anxiety. and actually I'm feeling a little bit more confident with it and that's when I get the pompoms out and start clapping. Cause that's long-term change. Now if you're someone who is trying to get there without ever feeling anxious ever again, then you, you, you're just thanking the threat response. And these are the people that often give the credit to other things. So depending where you are on your driving anxiety recovery journey. Some people just won't get behind the wheel at all, and that's fine. You know what your next task is. Or you could just not, you don't have to drive again. It's completely up to you. You know, it's your choice. Or if you're like somewhere down the line like. I can drive, but my partner has to be with me or I can drive, but I must have a diazepam nearby just in case. Or I can drive, but I must have my cold bottle of water and ice cubes just in case I panic. If you are that person, get rid of that immediately because you'll never wire the brain to get the credit. It's these kind of things and it's just like, where are you at a little bit at a time, and that's what I did just a little bit at a time. Took me a while, but got there until one day you'll be sitting there just daydreaming driving.

So the thing I got from that was face the fear, but in a nice way, like small steps.

Yeah. Face to fear whilst getting the credit. Now, uh, safety behaviors in exposure therapy are the one I I the one of the things I hear a lot, particularly on social media and stuff, like I've been doing the exposures and I've still got this anxiety, this driving anxiety. And I'm like, okay, well, well done. First of all, facing your fears. Let's see where the brain is failing to acknowledge that you are getting the credit for driving. And then this is when the safety behaviors come out. So it's like every time I get anxious, I have to open a window. It's like, why? Because I might get more anxious. Well then your brain's not fully learned that you can tolerate that anxiety. Everyone can tolerate that anxiety. Believe it or not, some people are quite harsh on themselves and be like, oh no, I can't. Like, yes you can, you can do it a bit at a time. So I always talk about the willful tolerance of uncertainty. You get good at it, it becomes a skill, and you start to learn that you can tolerate it. Anxiety's not nice. There's, I don't, there's no like sit, I don't like the term sitting and accepting it. No, I'm not gonna accept it feels like crap. Why would I? But I'm gonna tolerate it and that's what I can do. The thing that gets in the way are these eight wave, so I would be like, if I started to panic on the motor way, I'd take the next junction off. Well, well done for getting on the motorway to me, for me, but then I'd be like, well, I've just thanked the amygdala there because it's given me a false alarm that there's danger. And by me acting like there could be danger, I've just thanked it. Next time, obviously a shortened version. Next time I go on the Moway and feel this panic, I'm saying the slow lane. I'm like, no, I'm gonna actually go in the middle lane and panic a bit more. You know? And hand's gonna be a bit clammy and all that, but it's fine. I'm not gonna lose control, if anything. My perception is gonna be even more attuned because it's the fight or flight response that our ancestors used. They're gonna be more attuned to predators around them. They're gonna be more aware of what's happening around them. Um, and that's what happens. And that starts to pass a little bit at a time. Obviously build up to it. If you're someone who can't, won't go anywhere near a slip road or anywhere near an a road, you build up to it a little bit at a time. And sometimes that means just going one junction, one junction without safety behaviors. Might be 30 seconds, might be a minute. Without safety behaviors, you've done some brilliant rewiring there. And keep building and building and building, you'll have setbacks. But in general, that's that the exposures the way through that If you've been in an accident, a traumatic accident, which is rare and stuff, you might need some intervention from a trauma specialist, you know, and have trauma interventions like EMDR therapy and trauma therapy and stuff. Again, that's quite rare. Know, most people in car accidents do not develop trauma and PTs D, but some people do. And if that is, you know that there is treatment options for you as well and you will be ending up doing that exposure therapy as well. So there's no way.