How one change can make another

Do you get angry when someone is tailgating you?  Do you tap the brakes to the point of almost letting them plow into your trunk?

I have a client who does just that.

She says, “I can’t stand it when people tailgate. I slam on the brakes and that usually does the job.â€

Does this sound familiar?

If you think about it, that strategy does not make any sense. You may be jeopardizing your own safety as well as that of the person behind you.

But we all do some irrational stuff when we are behind the wheel.

Your emotional state when you’re driving can tell you a lot about your emotional state in general. That means that if you are a giving and patient person in the car, it’s likely that’s the way you are at other times, too.  

We can use our experiences when we drive as a way to find out more about ourselves, and to practice being the way we would like to be when we are not driving.

I like to use tailgating as an example because many people, like my client, have strong feelings about it.

I suggested to her that we take a closer look at it because a reaction that intense is usually revealing of other things that are going on.

After further discussion of her experience about being tailgated, she realized that she did not like to be pressured or have someone else in her personal space in general.  

She said she has a similar reaction when she feels pressured in other situations in her life, and then she becomes angry and feels like pushing back, or running away.

We also discovered the fact that she is holding anger inside, mostly about her relationship with her overbearing father, a feeling which is always present and seeking ways to be vented.  

This seemed to be lurking behind many of her overreactions to everyday situations.  Her excessive reaction to a tailgater becomes a way to vent anger in a situation that might seem legitimate.

I explained to her that, subconsciously, she might create these “legitimate†situations, where she can process her internal anger through somebody else (which always seems to feel better than holding it inside).  

She might even be driving in a way that will provoke a tailgating situation just so she can vent that anger.  

This opened the door to further discussion about other incidents in her life where she gets angry with other people and ways she might have been responsible for creating those situations.

She did not feel good about how this inner anger was playing itself out on the road and recognized the “insanity†of it, so we took steps to change it.  

The short-term assignment I gave her was to think of a new and better way of handling the next tailgater.

 I had her create a clear vision of how she wanted it to go the next time.  

She pictured herself focusing on her breathing, and pulling over at the next available spot to let the person pass.

She also promised not to try to “get a good look†at the person, as she always does.  She admitted that having a face attached to the incident allowed her to focus her anger on a specific person, which felt more satisfying.

The long-term assignment was to deal directly with the anger she had toward her father.

After about two months, the feedback she gave me was that she was encountering fewer tailgaters and finding herself in fewer situations off the road that led to blowups.

Just the awareness of what was going on behind the scenes seemed to be enough to start turning things around for her.

Her affirmation: “When I am being tailgated, I assume that the person is in a legitimate hurry, and I let them pass me at the next available spot.â€

Brooke Loening is a life coach in Sharon who works with individuals, and runs weekly coaching groups on achieving growth in career, health and relationships. To make column suggestions, e-mail him at bloening@snet.net.