The Morning Drive: How To Shift Your Perspective And Mood

One day last fall, I was driving the kids to school. It had started out as an ordinary morning…an early workout, a shower, and the craziness of bustling two young children out the door and into their days. Somewhere in between the grabbing of my lunch and the daily saga of getting my son buckled securely into his car seat, everything started to tilt in a very bad direction.

It became obvious as soon as we hit the highway and found ourselves face to face with a wall of brake lights. What followed was an excruciating 50 minutes of desperately trying to lower my 6-year-old's anxiety about being late. You see, this would be the second day of backed up traffic and a resulting tardy—something my daughter worries about often. This anxiety about being late is something that she has lost sleep over. Something that I, as a mom and a therapist, have been working diligently to help her reframe and manage effectively for months. And here we are…late not once, but twice.

So, while I think I did a fairly good job helping her to reframe the inevitable tardy she would receive, my own anxiety was raging out of control. My chest was tightening, and my shoulders were so tight I could feel the knots bulging against my blouse. It didn't help that when we got to the school—all apologies and explanations—my daughter's teacher pulled me aside to say, "You know, she will lose a dress out pass if she continues to get tardies, right?"

Leaving that school, I felt despicable. This was all my fault. I was angry at the teacher for being judgmental and judging myself for being late and putting my daughter through unnecessary anxiety. My face was hot. My thoughts swirled around and around in imaginary conversations where I was working desperately to redeem myself. All the while, I was also keenly aware that this was an over-reaction, and that it was not really that big of a deal. All of the wonderfully insightful things I had said to my daughter to help curb her anxiety were still fresh in my mind. But seriously, these insights did NOTHING for the pit in my stomach or the heat in my face.

So, finally, I slowly took a deep breath in and a deep breath out. I actively worked to avoid the repetitive conversations in my head and to refocus on…anything else—the song on the radio, a passing tree still heavy with vibrant fall foliage, my schedule for the rest of the day. Luckily, I had a full morning schedule and was, of course, running late, so I had to hit the office running. I was only about 20 minutes into my first morning session when I realized that my body had relaxed, my temperature had returned to normal, and I was fully over the morning's anxiety.

It was a good reminder that sometimes a perspective shift can help, but more often it also takes action to truly resolve anxiety. We have to actively redirect our thoughts and give our bodies the time to recover. If we only tell ourselves helpful things, but don't experience the letting go, it just doesn't work. And I was also reminded that it takes effort, patience, and control to practice the coping skills needed to reset. If it's sometimes this hard for me to do it, how can I expect my daughter to do it just because I'm telling her to do so? Rather, I need to practice what I preach and remember to coach calmly and faithfully.

But isn't that how it always is in life?