Escaping the grip of negative thinking...even with trauma present

Overcome negative thinking and learn to live fully. A personal tale of confronting fears and choosing life over fear.

After a heavy rain, the sun came out with a vengeance. It dried everything up almost instantly. I was glad because I had to make a 2.5-hour trek on the highway to get to the airport.

With cruise control on, I careened down the three-lane highway singing my favorite songs on the radio.

I noticed, unsurprisingly, quite a few mirages on the road. They're quite intriguing, aren't they?

As I approached [what I thought was] another one, my car began hydroplaning on a huge mass of residual rainwater.

It spun a quarter spin, and I was sliding sideways across the water.
My car somehow jerked and spun to the other side of the road where it jerked again. Then spun straight across the road to the other side.

The second time across the highway, my car spun a quarter spin. And was hydroplaning up the highway sideways.

This time, I was looking out the passenger window where I could see the oncoming traffic. And there - headed straight toward me - was a semi-truck.

Panic set in and I thought I was going to die.

Suddenly my car jerked yet again. It spun me to the furthest left lane. And shut off just before nosediving into the ditch.

As the car teetered on the tip of the ditch, my body collapsed over the steering wheel. I cried like a baby.

That incident messed me up for an entire week. I felt like a zombie every minute of every day.
And understandably so.

I'm sure you can imagine the negative thoughts going through my head that day.

Unfortunately, negative thinking has become so pervasive in most people's lives that they start living like zombies.

And that's without a terrifying experience lodged into their psyche.

Negative thinking is a death sentence that you're willingly sentencing yourself to.

But here's the thing about negative thinking:

It's not you.

Your negative thoughts are an accumulation of not only your experiences but everything everyone has ever said to you. When faced with a familiar situation, those negative thoughts often rush back.

For years, I was terrified to drive in the rain. Every emotion and memory of that day would resurface with great intensity.

As did every negative thought.
And for a while, it prevented me from moving about as I wanted.

Until I finally realized:

That incident, while traumatizing, was but a moment in time.

And it was a choice I was making to relive it.

It was a choice for me to placate my negative thoughts.

And to keep the pain alive.

Because the chances of that ever happening again are remarkably small.
So I chose not to live every day afraid of looking into the headlights of that semi-truck.

When I started my car back up that day, the radio was still on.
And the song playing was 'Live Like You Were Dying' by Tim McGraw

Will you?

If you'd like to manage your negative thinking once and for all...

click here to Slay Your Inner Demon.