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THE PICTURE OF ROAD RAGE |
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| Can you picture road rage? It does not come as a surprise to you, does it? You know that you will feel it sometime today if you drive at all. It may be simple annoyance, and you’re not driving alone so the annoyance does not accelerate to anger. If you are alone, it could become anger and given even a few more minutes, it could be ROAD RAGE again. Create a picture of road rage, your own picture. Does it look like this? The feelings of tension, stress, palpitations, ruthless judgment, jumping to conclusions, hatred, head about to burst, hopelessness, desire to smash something, disconnectedness; you rant and rave, sometimes shouting that will keep the sound in your car but at other times, the shouting is loud enough to be heard on the street. Your horn may be bleating; your fist may be up and swinging. What part of that picture is your picture? If you only experience mild annoyance and momentary anger which you easily talk yourself out of, you are experiencing the mildest form of stress, which you can easily ease and make your life just a little more pleasant.
If, however, the anger moves on to the other steps: palpitations, judgment, hatred, headache, ranting and raving, shouting, horn blasting, fist swinging, desire to hurt someone, the techniques for dealing with road rage will require more steps. If after your outburst, you try to assure yourself that you were perfectly right in acting the way you did; the other(s) were stupid jerks, too worthless to own a car. After you reach your destination, you calm down and try to distract yourself from a harsh self-judgment. All too often, you carry the rage into the house where it continues. What is happening to your relationships? |
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Seen in retrospect, it is humiliating. Perhaps you imagine being seen by your boss or someone else you want to impress.For many, this view of the past causes deep regret, they vow not to do it again, and that lasts, but only until the next incident. Dealing with road rage does not begin after the incident. Your picture of ROAD RAGE must change now….. OR You can just go on as you have, feeling miserable, ashamed, out-of-control, and more than a little frightened that you might truly lose control of yourself on the highway and your car end up in a heap of smoking wreckage. OR You can go on just the way you are and end up with the meltdown in your living room. Violence in the home is bred by the very same rage that creates rage on the road. RAGE is no respecter of location. Once you have mastered it on the highway (or in the living room and taken it to the highway), it can be acted out in any location. It can be acted out in any situation. It can be acted out on any person. It can shame you in public places or destroy relationships in private places.
What to do about it? There are many steps and many techniques, all of them simple. Here's a good one to begin with. Create the picture of you expressing the face of road rage. Imagine seeing the veins standing out on your temples, the ugly, snarling mouth, the hatred and anger in the eyes. When you have a clear picture of you looking very full of rage, superimpose upon the picture a big red X. Breathe deeply and promise yourself that you will never let yourself act that way again. This is your moment of decision, a do-or-die decision. Once you have made it, you must replace the X'd picture with a picture of you driving sanely and comfortably. Imagine yourself calm and collected, slight smile on your lips and a deep feeling of self-confidence and control in your mind. This is the new you. Never look back; never recall the original ugly picture of you in rage again. You are now committed to doing the little things that will quickly improve your entire life. You will find other simple techniques to eliminate rage and contribute a wealth of pleasure to your life. Watch for them.
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