How to Stop Letting the Passenger Drive: Changing Your Relationship with Anxiety

Looking Through the Windshield

A collection of practical thoughts on anxiety, trauma, grief, depression, and creating meaningful change.

One of the first questions I ask many new clients is, "Tell me about your relationship with anxiety.”  Most people pause.  They aren’t expecting the question because they’ve spent years thinking about anxiety as something to eliminate rather than something they have a relationship with.  The reality is that we often can’t control whether difficult emotions appear. What we can change is the relationship we have with them.

Many people understandably come into therapy hoping anxiety can simply disappear. Medication and therapy can absolutely reduce symptoms, and for many people they do. But there are also situations where painful emotions are an understandable response to difficult circumstances.

Take for example an older individual with an adult child suffering from substance abuse issues.  Are that person’s worry, sadness, and fear likely to disappear through medication or talk therapy?  Possibly.  But maybe not.  The goal, then, isn’t to become a parent who no longer worries.  The goal is to become someone who can carry that worry without it consuming every waking moment.

One of the ways we begin changing that relationship is by reducing rumination. This is the deep spiral one might fall into in this situation: constant worry, constant fixation, a deep sense of sadness as their focus is entirely on their adult child’s struggles.  Instead, therapy tries to help them to have a healthier relationship with these types of symptoms.

I often ask clients to imagine anxiety, grief, or depression as a passenger in the car. During periods of excessive rumination, that passenger starts reaching for the steering wheel. Before long, they aren’t just riding along—they’re deciding where the car goes.  Before we know it, we’re driving wherever they tell us to go.

So what does it actually look like to keep your hands on the wheel? It often starts with simply noticing when anxiety has taken over. Rather than immediately reacting to every worried thought, we pause. We acknowledge that anxiety is riding with us, but we don’t have to obey every direction it gives. Instead, we intentionally redirect our attention back to what matters in that moment—our values, our relationships, our work, or whatever road we were already trying to travel.

The goal of therapy is to keep our hands on the steering wheel. To recognize those distressing thoughts and feelings without allowing them to take control of where we’re going.  Anxiety, depression, grief, etc. may come along for the ride.  They just don’t get to decide the destination.

The passenger may never completely leave the car. But as long as we’re looking through the windshield, we’re still the ones driving.

About the Author

Michael Davidson, MSW, LICSW, is a Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker who provides therapy for adults experiencing anxiety, depression, trauma, grief, and other life challenges. He offers in-person therapy in Vancouver, Washington, and telehealth throughout Washington.

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