If you are new to this series, please start here: Dreadless: An Introduction.
It’s a stormy Friday afternoon in February, 2016. I’m working on my blog when my brother calls. He needs a ride to a small town about a half-hour south of here, where his car broke down last weekend. It’s been fixed and he needs a ride to go pick it up.
I consider it a measure of how accustomed I had become to being able to drive that I even hesitated. A number of thoughts flashed through my mind . . . I was in the middle of something, I didn’t really want to spend my afternoon driving, I didn’t want to go out into the stormy weather . . . then it dawned on me. A year ago, I didn’t even have my license. Just six months ago, I wouldn’t have been able to drive the hour round-trip on the freeway there and back. What a miracle it was that I could make this choice.
My thoughts went from that to how many times in my life he had given me rides, then to how many times so many people had helped me in so many ways. Of course I could take time out of my day to repay the world a bit of the kindness that has been heaped on me all my life.
“I can do that,” I answered. I felt incredibly and, I think justifiably, proud.
It was a very long road from “I’ll never learn how to drive” to “I can do that.” As I’ve been writing this blog series, I’ve been presenting the steps I took to overcome my emotional challenges around driving in an order based upon the telling of my story. Now I’m going to recap them, but I will reorganize them here into what might be a more useful order. Without really intending to, I’ve structured my discoveries in the form of twelve steps.
The twelve steps are presented with the intent to help anyone overcome emotional obstacles by drawing on the strength of their own personal power.
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Visualize success. What is your end goal?
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Identify potential support systems, both real and imagined. For the real supporters, make sure to communicate clearly the nature of your challenge.
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Give yourself Permission to Be: It’s ok if you don’t do this. Your value as a person does not rely on succeeding at this task.
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Identify your stressors and where the challenge fits in with them–does adding the challenge create too much stress? What can you do to reduce your current stressors?
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Identify your current methods for coping with stress and overwhelming emotions.
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Carefully replace your unhealthy coping methods with healthy coping methods, until you no longer need the unhealthy methods.
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Identify your voice of self hatred and create a personal statement that replaces it with positive language.
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Identify and disprove the False Story: What are you telling yourself about your relationship to your challenge that simply isn’t true?
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Identify and clarify the True Story. Now that you’ve proven there is nothing intrinsically wrong with you, what is the cycle of emotions blocking you from proceeding?
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Find the weakest point in the cycle and break it. Where can you start to disassociate the negative emotions from the task at hand?
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Start with the least difficult task related to the challenge and do it until it is no longer so difficult that it presents a negative association. Don’t worry if it seems painfully small or simple. Think of me sitting in a parked car, freaking out.
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Continue moving forward through the challenge while staying within your comfort zone, pushing the edge of your emotional obstacles, moving at the pace that works best for you.
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Ok, I lied, this is a thirteen step program: Recognize and celebrate your successes, however small!
As I’m sure you’ve gathered from my story, the road to success is not always straight and swift. These steps need not necessarily be taken in the presented order. Some of them will necessarily need to be repeated or taken in tandem, such as replacing unhealthy coping methods while riding the edge of your comfort zone. Some may be repeated over and over again, like giving yourself permission to be. Use the steps as a guide, not an absolute.
So, I’ve learned to drive. I have my license. I’ve learned to drive on the freeway. I’ve gone on my first solo interstate road-trip. What’s next, you ask?
Well, other than learning to drive a stick, and then forgetting how to drive completely in a few years when robotic cars take over the roads . . .
Use it or lose it
One thing I’ve noticed in the time since I succeeded in getting my license is that even after you reach ultimate success, the process requires maintenance. If I go for a long period of time without driving, I still get a twinge of anxiety when I start up the car again. It’s a shadow of what I once felt, but it reminds me not to take the comfort I now have with driving for granted. So, one of the things I will be doing for the foreseeable future is continuing to drive when the opportunity arises. This is especially important with the things that are still more of a challenge, like freeway driving or driving under hazardous conditions.
On to the next Challenge
I want to try this method on something else that presents an emotional barrier for me. There are many things to choose from. I’m still not inclined to try out for team sports, for example, or ride my bicycle in traffic. There are many other things that I know I have the ability to do, and want to do, but have build up negative associations around, such as marketing my books, for example.
I haven’t quite decided which challenge to rise to next, but when I do, I plan to blog about it. I have an idea in mind to write a sort of journal-style blog with my next challenge, mirroring this series but following the story as it happens. So, stay tuned for the next saga!
Passing it on
I will continue passing on my story and all that I have learned from the process of overcoming these obstacles. Eventually, I intend to compile this series into a short book in order to make the material more accessible.
It is my sincere hope that even a portion of my story will resonate with someone facing a similar challenge and help them find a way through. If you’re reading this, maybe that’s you, since you’ve continued this far! I appreciate that you have read my story through, and I would love to hear your story, if you feel inclined to share it. Whether you’ve been inspired by the material here, or whether you have your own story of trying to get past emotional barriers using your own methods, please comment below or email staffchronicles@gmail.com.
That’s it for Dreadless. I’ll be taking a short break from blogging for the next couple of weeks while I pay a long overdue visit to Central America. When I get back, it’s back to 101 Things I Wish I Knew Before I Wrote My First Book! In the meanwhile, please peruse my site, take a look at my fictional books, or check out 101 TIWIK if you haven’t yet.
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