Do you have road rage?

ROAD RAGE

Has this ever happened to you?

I was making a turn this week and one of the drivers behind me felt that I wasn’t making my turn fast enough. The driver behind, honked their horn. I’m thinking “I’m going to make my turn when it’s safe for me to turn”. How can a vehicle three cars behind me on a hill possibly see what’s coming from both directions?

But then I thought about it further and it isn’t that the person can see  something that I can’t, it’s that the person is filled with stress and tension. At that point, I thought I should just get out of my car and hand them one of my business cards and tell them that I’d be happy to give them a free session so they could control their road rage.

This is one of the wonderful things about being a clinical hypnotherapist and understanding how the mind works. Although the person honking their horn from 3 cars back, thinks that they know something that I don’t know i.e. it’s safe for me to turn, the truth of the matter is, I have knowledge that could help them live their lives in a better way, in a safer way, in a happier way.

Because when the car in front of you isn’t turning as quickly as you would like, you should ask yourself why you believe you have a right to further harass the person trying to make a decision about turning safely? And how is your honking and making rude hand gestures going to improve the situation? It’s not and the root of the problem lies in tension build up and negative stress within you- the other driver.   

Stress and tension clouds our judgement and who do you want on the road in front of you? A stressed out know-it-all or someone who is focussed on safe driving? I know who I want on my roads.