How To Create Happiness On The Go & Eliminate Stress In Our Driving

This podcast episode by Kara Payton of the Happiness Habit discusses our tendency to fight our true nature in our commutes to and from home, the way society's busyness and stress affects and encourages this collective tension, and what we can do in real-time to return to our true north, calm ourselves, shift focus away from a combative nature and breathe.

Transcript

Welcome to the Happiness Habit podcast. I'm your host Kara Payton, And this is your podcast for becoming the happiest person you know. Today we're gonna talk about something that affects all of us, Anybody who drives anyway. How we create stress and rob ourselves of happiness in our cars, In our day-to-day drives, In our rushing out the door, In our long commutes or road trips. We do something so small, And most of us are guilty of this. I was talking with a friend a few weeks ago about how I drive back and forth from Detroit, From Kansas City to Detroit often, And it's about, It's anywhere from an 11 hour drive to somewhere around 12 and a half, And it can even be 10 and a half if you're really just on it and have a cooler full of things and don't need to stop a lot, But it's a long, It's a full day's drive. And she just was so bothered by the fact that I was a happy road tripper and that I actually love to be in the car. And I break my own laws about this and what I'm about to share with you, So please do not think that I am just blissfully smiling behind the steering wheel every single day. This does not happen, But I've noticed that I significantly have a better experience when I am following these bits of, Keeping myself aware of these things as I'm driving. So what we tend to do, Most of us, I myself included, Is that we have this almost, We use our vehicle as this resistance or this tool that is allowing those driving around us and ourselves to use it as almost a, Not what it's meant to be used for. It's a machine to get you from point A to point B. And sometimes we interact with other drivers using this vehicle as like a weapon or a correction or some sort of rule maker or like a block. And we stress ourselves out by driving too close to the person in front of us as if that's going to make them drive faster. We know how that goes, It's not going to happen. They may even drive slower. We use our vehicles almost to kind of push around and spite others and enforce the rules of the road on others and have this indignant expectation that somebody is going to drive differently because of the way we are treating them in our car. And I don't know about you, But there have been a few times where I have had a good day and I will get in my car, But I will be behind somebody who's aggravatingly slow or just doesn't really seem to have an awareness of what they're doing. They're on their phone, They're distracted. And we, For whatever reason, Take that on and get stressed about it. And it's not doing anything to the person in the other car. It's not helping anything, It's not guiding them, It's not being kind, It's not changing their behavior. And all of this stress and undue pain is just sitting in our car as our mind is just throbbing with this anger of get out of the way, What are you doing? Pay attention, Go home, Move, Go faster. I am in a hurry, You don't know anything. And so the mentalities that I have adopted and when I do adopt them, I have a really good time and I even find myself leaving a car, Even if I was having a bad day, In a really great state. And it is to one, Stop your expectations of everyone else on the road. People behind the wheel of a car are going to be people. You're gonna have the one who's trying to pass a snack back to her screaming children. You're gonna have another who doesn't have a clue which turn is their turn. So they are going to drive 20 miles an hour until they find which turn is their turn. And in which case, The first turn that they thought was that they're gonna start to turn and so you're gonna get really impatient and get really close to their bumper and then they're gonna slow and really, Oh, That wasn't my turn. And so they're gonna get back on the road that they were on more in front of you and you're gonna get really, Really frustrated because now you've thought that they were turning and they're not and so this one's it. And so you wait and you nearly hit them just to make sure that when they are turned enough out of your way to where you can go, You speed slam on your gas and rear pass them. There's also the person who is on their phone and texting and swerving and in the middle of two lanes and next to that, There's the guy that's riding your bumper even though you are going the speed limit because he's in a hurry. There are going to be so many different, Extremely predictable people on the road. We could categorize them, We all know them. Don't expect them to be any different than they are. This is setting yourself up for failure and disappointment behind the wheel of your car every single day. People are people. People are going to drive great, People are going to drive terrible and you're going to encounter all of them every single day you're behind the wheel of your car. The moment you stop setting yourself up for this conflict where you know the people you're going to interact with, So why let yourself drown in this misery when it is your mental choice to be in misery because of it. If you know it's going to cause you pain, You have a choice to make. Let it cause you pain or don't. Anticipate and expect it, Ah, To be expected. Another driver on the road that isn't doing what I want them to be doing. That is rule number one, That is my biggest rule and it has helped me to just let them be them and let the world and the driving world and the chaos or fluidity or traffic or jamming up or delays or expedi, Whatever's going to happen on the road that day, I let it be that. I am not here to fight it. Fighting reality, What resists, Persists and we, If we are going to torment ourselves with what is actually always going to be that way, We're causing ourselves undue stress and we're doing ourselves a complete disservice because we could be having a good time behind the wheel of a car. It does not have to be awful to commute to work every day. It does not have to be awful to sit on a highway at five o'clock every day. It is only our choice. So recognizing that is what I would consider rule number one. Rule number two is a little bit of an appendage. So while this is happening, Not only can you not let it affect you, But you can actually remove yourself from it. And what I mean by that is when a car is being a little bit slower, You can interact with this by being really, Really close to them and which means that every time they slow down, You'll have to hit your brakes and every time they speed up, To maintain that proximity to somebody without hitting them is actually a lot of work. If you've ever tailed somebody impatiently and just been aggravated that they will not just move, We have to do this and put ourselves and act and participate in this process of being super, Super close to them in some way that's stressing them out and stressing you out. Now, We deep down are good people. All of us have a good core. We have this innate desire to be connected and kind and good to other people. That is our nature. And when we operate out of sync with that, That causes a stress because it's a conflict of who we are. It's a conflict of our higher selves. So if we would just, What's the best way to operate in that situation? You can't change their speed. They're a totally different driver. You can't influence in any positive way by being that close. So if we just backed off and let them have the space that they need, We're not going to the same destination most likely. And I know there are times you feel like you are going to be behind this person for six hours and you're gonna follow them all the way to Albuquerque. However, That's not the reality. And you don't have to be involved and involve yourself in unnecessary stress of what it means to be on somebody's tail for the foreseeable future until they go their way and you go theirs. You don't have to participate. You don't have to be a part of it. If you back off and back up and remove yourself from the circumstances, Because we have all of the drivers on the road and in our acknowledgement that they are going to be that, But there's another step. There's a level up from that. When you are letting drivers and the road be what it is and stop expecting it to be anything else, And you don't participate in the tension and stress that is the drivers out there, When you become one of the problematic pieces, You're involving yourself on another level. And it is definitely a lot more denigrating to your spirit and denigrating to your mood and emotional home. So that would be my rule number two. And rule number three, A big one is know yourself, Know your habits, Know these things in advance. That way you can set yourself up for success. I myself know there are two times that I need to leave. The first time is the time that I need to leave to absolutely get there. Doorstep to doorstep, Minute to minute, Zero time to spare, Nothing. That is, It's going to take me 35 minutes exactly to get from point A to point B, Getting in my car, Turning it on, Flying there, Having absolutely no room for any delays, Any anything and walking into the door. And that does not include climbing upstairs and going into whatever office or wherever I'm going that day. It is the bare minimum. And then there is the time that I like to call my stress-free driving leave time. It is probably closer to 41 minutes or 42 minutes to a 35 minute thing. And that's how much time I need to gather my belongings inside the house. It's how much time I need to get in the car. It's how much time I need to drive with the exception of maybe being an exit being closed or a person being very slow that day or some kind of delay or turn or missed exit or whatever's gonna happen. And then there's the time that I need to get parked, Get situated, Walk in right on time, If not a couple minutes early. Those are two different times. And if we choose the latter, We can operate the entire time without a need to participate. And it gives us the way of, You have somebody slow in front of you, Big deal, Back up, Give them room, Wait till they turn, No big deal. Ah, We have the guy that has absolutely no clue what he's doing. To be expected, Let him figure it out, Go around him if I can or take another route if I can. But that way we put ourselves in a need to where we have to participate in this awful place when we like, You don't understand, Have exactly 35 minutes to be there or I'm going to be late. Zero room. If you give yourself the second time, You're actually, You really do have a choice. Because yes, The choice of the first, If you only have 35 minutes to get there, You really, You have a choice, Be late or fight and be late. We have an illusion that if we fight it, Somehow we'll get there earlier. And the second gives you the actual choice. I can be there on time and stress-free or I can be there on time or early and stressed out. So that is my thoughts for how to create happiness while you're driving and how to remove the stress and the things that we do. And honestly, I feel like most of us do it because we're just, That's the nature and the feeling on the road today. There's just this like combative nature. There's this respond, React, Offense, Defense type of driving that's going on that's more prevalent today than I feel like it's ever been before. But that is my thoughts for how to create happiness while you're in your car. Thank you for tuning in. Until next time, Keep working toward becoming the happiest person you know, Because the world really does need your higher self to show up.