Here we are at the end of season 5. And it's flown by, isn't it?

It really has. I can't believe it, and it's been our best

season ever. It it's been what's the word I would use to

describe it? Brilliant. I thought you were

gonna come out with something different No. I'm very simple. I'm very simple. But

it was great, though, wasn't it? It was it was great to hear people's different

perspectives on driving. Yeah. It really was. Everyone has

a story to tell about driving, which is great. But,

also, everybody came with their own idea, their own

perspective, And it really fits beautifully with our idea

of one size does not fit all. No. It was it was really good and

there were some highlights. There were. And I think I

learn a lot. I definitely did. And I think my students are

now feeling the benefit of that as well. Yeah. Which is great, isn't it?

So let's have a little look at who we had on on what we did.

So we started season 5 with Omni who

you met through a coaching Yeah. And Emily had a fantastic

well, not a very nice story, but her recovery and

what she's doing now to help others is just brilliant, isn't it? It's

it's such a it's it's a great story of of

adversity, and she's come through it. So it's it's brilliant. That was

the thing. The fact that she's over it. And omni is one

of the few people whose driving anxiety

does actually come. from driving for good reason

because she had those accidents. Yes. Exactly. And so that was why it was

important to talk to her because the majority of the people that we speak to

Actually, their anxiety doesn't come from their driving. And she was a

confident driver before, and then all of a sudden, it just changed, didn't it? So

-- Yeah. Definitely. But what was interesting is we when

we spoke to Harmony, we hadn't spoken to Josh Fletcher, who will come on to

his episode in a minute, but her episode links

really nicely into his. So if you listen to the 2

together, The way that omni overcame her driving anxiety

was actually through tolerating anxiety, and she had

to do that type of exposure therapy where she just had to sit in the

car until the anxiety disappeared. Eating her sweet. She

was eating her sweets, drinking coffee, just sat there, doors

open, and then when she was more comfortable, she could close the doors and be

inside the car. So I think those 2

fit really nicely together even though we didn't plan it that way? No.

Exactly. Most of the ones I think we're gonna talk about today

are the guest episodes, but there was one episode. We did

parallel parking for Auntie Anne, and it's proved to be a

really popular episode. So Parallel Parkini is

obviously a bit of a thing. It is, and I think a lot of

people had never taught. how to parallel park. So this was quite

a a new thing to them, but also some people have a fear of

parallel parking, and we gave some hints and tips of how

to parallel park and the steps that you can take to be able to do

that. Yeah. And I'm I've always parallel park just a bit

in a hit and miss way, but I have to say I'm getting much more

effective at my parallel parking. I'm doing a lot better

since talking about it, so hopefully other people are too.

Now the next guess that we had on was Carla McClaren,

and Carla's an author and a research her into emotions,

and she was just great fun to have on, wasn't she? Yeah. And she

had some great stories as well. So that was interesting as well. You

know, And from the states, so, again, a a different

perspective on driving. Yep. Definitely. And I really love

the idea that instead of your remote being a problem that you have to

solve. Thinking more about, well, what are my emotions

trying to tell me? What is it? that's making me feel

that way? And what do I need to do to listen to

my emotions? Yeah. because we all have them. Yep. So we need to

learn how to make the best use of them. Yeah. And she talked

about panic and anxiety and about having a look and saying,

okay, are you relevant? Is what you're saying true? Do I

need to look out for these things? And then talking to your motions and

sent. Actually, panic is not that sort of a situation today.

That's okay. You can stand down, but feel free to come out

again if there is danger at a lay stage, so the idea

of communicating with your emotions. So I think that could

be quite helpful. Definitely. And I think that would be a work in progress as

well for people because that's probably the first time they've encountered

that thought process. Yeah. So I think it's you know, don't don't just oh,

that didn't work. Just have again little thought into it

again. What am I what's my emotions telling me? Yeah. Keep trying it because

it is something that if you're brain keeps telling you

danger danger danger, and you keep ignoring it. Those signals are

just gonna get louder and louder and order until you take notice.

So the idea of going, okay. I'm hearing what you're saying. Let's have a

look. No it isn't you've got it wrong. You've misinterpreted

something and communicating with them. Hopefully, you can calm

them down. Get the soldiers to stand down. Exactly.

Yeah. Exactly. Alright. Or the other thing about emotions was

increasing your emotional vocabulary. And there's some really

good research on this that if you can use more

words, different types of words to describe different types

of emotions. The research shows that actually you can manage

your emotions much more effectively. Yeah. Rather than just saying

I'm stressed. Yeah. Definitely. -- one step deeper, don't you? Yeah.

Those weasel words. Weasel words. Carla described them. Then

we had on Joshua Fletcher and also know anxiety,

Josh. So anybody who follows him on Instagram and TikTok will know him

better that way. He was great. He told us so much

information for me shown. Yeah. And it's I've taken

his information, put it into lessons with students.

It was also nice to know that I'm already doing some of the stuff

already. So, you know, baby steps. Yep. But

it was almost like field of fear, but it wasn't. It's like Let's

just put that to sit behind the wheel first. And then the next step

might be to start the car. And what I found interesting with Josh

is he's had it before as well -- Yes. -- driving anxiety. So he's

coming from a a real place almost, not just research. He's

he's been through it as well. So -- That's it. his own experiences. So you

mentioned the fear of the fear, and it is a case of feeling the fear,

but like you say, feeling it in baby steps. So sometimes I

think we say field of fear, we think that means go and jump out of

narrow plane even though we're scared. So it's not so much the

making the big action and doing it anyway. It's that

tolerating the fear, tolerating the anxiety,

but in small chunks -- Yeah. -- taking it in baby steps,

getting used to that. That's exactly. Yeah. No. It was great. And, also, he

mentioned the word agrophobia. and I have never thought of

that before. But that keeps popping up for me now. I keep hearing

it and seeing it at different places. So that idea of If where you

drive is getting smaller and smaller and smaller, then it's a type of

agoraphobia that you're actually only driving within

what you deem to be your safety area. Yeah.

Exactly. So, yeah, it was and that was again a a massive

clue for us. It's like, what's happening to others when they come and see

us. So -- Yeah. Definitely. And then the other one that he said about

not giving other things the credit when you're driving

goes well, that you take the credit personally,

so you don't give the credit to an open window or you're

driving in structure or the fact that you were wearing your

lucky pink jumper or whatever it might be. You take the

credit yourself if you were brave, You

tolerated the anxiety and you did it anyway,

then that's down to you. No. Exactly. And that's something we

should be our own cheerleaders. Yeah. Absolutely.

Definitely. Then, of course, we had on Kate Muir, who was

the director of the Devina programs.

And, again, loads more information that we didn't know.

She taught us loads. Yeah. And It it's

interesting those hormones. We always think of it's only

women, isn't it? But it was nice for me to know that we could go

through it as well as you know, men do have this. Yes. They have the

andropause where they can have a decrease in their testosterone.

So the male version. We didn't know that. So that's been

really interesting. And there was quite a lot of response to

Kate's episode. So it's been an incredibly

popular episode. And what what we hadn't realized

until then was that within perimenopause groups,

it's well known that one of the first signs of peremenopause

is suddenly experiencing driving anxiety on

the motorway when you'd been perfectly fine before Who knew? Who

knew that? So that was the whole idea, wasn't it? Us exploring that

mystery driving anxiety. And, yes, hormones

are definitely a culprit. And they play a part, don't they? They play a big

part. They do. And then our final guest expert was

Tracy Hennigan, who came on to talk about sleep. Sleep or

tired? Yes. Exactly. Yeah. That getting down to the nitty

gritty, are you tired, or are you sleepy? Because they're different things.

She talked about how the fact that if you are tired, that

does increase your anxiety levels as well. So there's definite

gonna be something in that, isn't that, for some people? If they're driving

tired, if they've been having a really busy time, life, stress,

etcetera, or being up in the middle of the night for one reason

worrying or family things, then this is a real cause

for anxiety. It is. And I know it affects me when I used to, you

know, work nights. So, again, you know, the lack of sleep

does affect your decision making. Yeah. And it puts you on that

level of high alert. Yeah. And it was also nice to know that having a

nap is good. Yes. Yes. I'm sure you do like that one.

It was really helpful for her to talk about circadian

rhythms and night owls and early birds.

And that really having to think about when your test is, when your

lessons are, and whether that could have an impact on your

anxiety as well. And she gave some clues, didn't she? Some

ideas for if you have got an early lesson or an

early test, ways to roll back chain

your sleeping patterns slightly so that those timings feel a

little bit more human. Plan for it. Yep. Definitely. Yeah.

Future plan. him. So we learnt loads. We

learnt loads in that season, and I'm I'm hoping everyone else has.

And I know people have because the comments we're getting through now from people, are

saying I love the episode. You know, that I didn't realize that,

and that's me. So that's been really nice to get feedback

from people. but also finding that people are listening to us as well. Yeah.

So big thank you for me for that one. Yeah. Definitely. Thank

you so much for listening, taking the time We really

hope it's helpful. That's the whole point of us doing it, taking the

time to talk some things through, normalize a

few things so that you know you're not alone. And then, hopefully,

to help you think about things from a different perspective maybe or

just give you a few things to try. Yeah. Exactly, isn't it? It's it's it's

part of that and sharing as well. Yeah. So I'm not quite sure how

we're gonna beat this with season 6. I I think that's gonna be gives

us something to aim for. Gives us something to aim for. Yeah. Let's see how

we do. Great. So we are

gonna take a season break now. for the next 6 weeks.

However, having said that, we're not gonna abandon you and leave you empty

handed. What I've done is pulled out some bonus

shorts from some of our very early episodes. So there's

gonna be a new bonus short landing each week in place

of a full podcast episode. And they're they're all under 10 minutes

long, and, hopefully, it'll give you a chance to recap some of

the information from the early episodes. if you've listened before

or catch up if you haven't listened before. So we hope

that that will see you through until we start season 6 in

6 weeks time. So until we see you in season 6,

drive safely. If you've got any questions, all of our contact

details are in the show notes as always. Don't forget to share

any of our episodes that you think might be useful on your social

media to friends and family or anyone else who might find it

helpful, and we always love to see a 5 star review

on your favorite podcast player as That's a really helpful

way of making sure that other people can find the podcast

So all that leaves us to say is until next time, have a great