Out of Control

One morning while sitting at a stop light, I looked in my rearview mirror and saw a car coming at me at a rapid speed. I knew I was about be hit... and yet there wasn't anything I can do to prevent it from happening. I tightened up and braced for impact. I was hit from behind, then the car that hit me bounced off my bumper, rolled back and then forward, hitting me again, which in turn caused me to hit the car in front of me.

The female driver of the vehicle had unexpectedly suffered a seizure and this is what caused the collision. Fortunately, the woman's air bag deployed which prevented her from being seriously injured. My daughter was in the car with me and thankfully, we were not physically hurt, except for experiencing a few bruises and some soreness.

The next morning, my daughter asked me to take a different route to school because she didn't feel safe going that same way. I told her I didn't want the situation to control our sense of security, so we took the same route in order to face the fear of be unsafe. I actually thought that taking this same route and facing the possibility of us getting hit again would make me feel safe, but it didn't.

Since the accident, whenever I'm behind the wheel of the car, I find myself wincing when I see someone in my mirror steadily approaching me from behind or following me too closely. I know that I keep revisiting the accident and I've tried to shake it off, but still, after several months I continue to tighten up when a vehicle approaches me at a rapid pace from behind. I'm really tired of feeling this way and yet I can't seem to help it. So I finally asked myself, "what is it that I'm so afraid of?" I'm afraid of getting hit again... since the chance of this happening in the exact same manner is highly unlikely, I then realized that it's something much deeper that I'm really afraid of. I'm afraid of not having control over what happens to me and those I love. I'm afraid of being out of control. I never think of myself as a control freak, but I have to admit that being out of control is something that scares me. It took this accident to get me to see clearly that I need to surrender my need for control. I can steer the wheel, but it doesn't mean I'm in control of what happens to me on the way to my destination.

It's ironic that I fear being out of control, because all the major events of my life that led me in a different direction and created positive change, have been unplanned and ones that I didn't see coming. They reinforced my faith and trust in the fact that I am always given exactly what I need, even if it doesn't seem that way at the time. Everything that happens to me serves my growth and development.

So why then, knowing this to be true, do I now fear being out of control? It took this accident to remind me that I don't have complete control of my life. Each time I get in the car and become uneasy with the anxious feeling of wincing and tightening when someone approaches me from behind, I'm actually trying to control of all that happens to me through my fears. As much as I want to believe I have control of what happens to me, I'm much more uncomfortable with the thought of going through life being afraid and allowing my fears to control me. I know the only way to stop this uneasiness when I'm in the car is to surrender my need for control. Surrendering my need for control is surrendering my fear of being out of control.


Now, when I'm driving and I see someone coming at me from behind and I feel myself start to tighten up, I realize this is my pathetic attempt to control something that I have no conrtol over. Once I start to feel anxious I know it's time to say, "I surrender."