Do you ever notice that when people are fearful, even reasonably intelligent people don’t think clearly?  Maybe even do completely nonsensical things? I confess that this short story puts me in that category.

Has that ever happened to you?  Was your problem created as a direct result of your fear? Fear itself has a biochemical effect on the body, which draws blood away from the brain. Inane behavior sometimes follows. 

Read on, and you will understand what I mean.

My Irrational Fear of Technology 

It was a sunny, yet cold, winter day.  My friend and I drove to his son’s house to drop off Christmas presents with my black standard poodle, Monet, sleeping comfortably in the back seat. It took an hour, but I have a Tesla, and I used the self-driving mode, so it was a relaxing drive. 

We stopped at our neighborhood grocery store to pick up a few things on our way home. We were only a few feet away from my car when I realized I had forgotten my mask. I immediately turned back to my car to retrieve it, but I could not open my door! I was baffled! Nothing like this had ever happened before. 

A little backstory on how the Tesla Model 3 door handle works might make this clearer to you, readers. You have to press on the left side of the handle for the right side to pop up. It’s impossible to open the door unless the handle pops out.  When I pressed on the handle, it remained stubbornly flush to the car door.  My friend and I both tried to push on the handle with all our strength to no avail. Monet, the poor poodle, was marooned in a car that I could not open. 

I immediately thought that it was a software malfunction.  After all, software controls my whole car; it is essentially one giant computer. My fears mounted. If this was a software malfunction, could I ever trust the self-driving mode again?  It is what I love most about my car! 

This fear about a computer malfunction and my inability to get my poor dog out of a freezing car set my mind into a panic mode.  

My fears grew as the minutes passed. We walked around the car, trying each door, over and over, with no luck. I worried that my car’s computer had crashed!  How could I ever trust it to drive me again? And even more pressing, what was I going to do to get my dog out safely? 

We stared at each other.  “How do we get home?  Even if we got home, how do we get Monet out of the car? We could not leave him locked in a freezing parking lot all night!”   My fears escalated.

Fortunately, a guardian angel got out of his pickup truck that was parked nearby and offered help.  We explained our situation, and luckily, he had the equipment needed to unlatch the car door.  It opened, and Monet was safe! We could drive home! 

I called the Tesla helpline on the way home, entirely convinced that the car’s computer system had failed.  The first thing the woman said was that the door handles were frozen.  I immediately discarded that suggestion, explaining that we had been driving for an hour and the car was warm.  She said someone from the service team would call me back.  

Twenty minutes later, we were home, with my dog safely in his bed, but my angst had only increased.  Fear about my car’s programs crashing gripped me, and I experienced numerous irrational thoughts. My thoughts tormented me for another hour because my car was in the driveway, running, with the door open.

I finally reached another Tesla service person. “We can have a service person there in three days, ” he responded. Next, he told me to turn my car off. I have never turned my Tesla off.

My anger got the better of me. “I can’t turn my car off! I can’t close the door, or I’ll be locked out!  Am I supposed to keep my car parked in this driveway, with the door open and running for three days until you get here?“ I yelled.  It was absurd. “I’ll get back to you,” he replied.  

I went out again to check the doors.  The back door handle gave a bit, and then miraculously, it opened!  It WAS frozen shut! Then I remembered, we had stopped at a car wash on our way home.  Water must have gotten into the handles, and during the hour-long drive at 14 degrees, they froze. 

What Triggers Your Fear? 

I felt so foolish!  Had my fears of technology not taken over my emotions, I would have listened to the first person who told me that the handles were merely frozen.  Instead, I carried on for hours. I allowed irrational fears to build up, making, as the saying goes, “a mountain out of a molehill.”  The Tesla service center knew that my handles were frozen shut, but I refused to listen. I could have saved myself hours of angst.  

Have you ever experienced a similar situation? I had a minor problem with a simple solution, and because of my fears, I could not see what was right in front of me. 

 We all experience anxiety and fear in our lives.  Do you allow fears you are not even fully aware of to guide your thoughts and decisions? Do you nonsensically negate the obvious solution to your problems, as I did with my frozen door handle? My fear blinded me to the solution that was crystal clear to others. 

Do you know where your fears come from? For me, technology is a trigger. I didn’t grow up with computers, and I am uncomfortable around them.  

One common source of fear permeating the United States is fear about the election and the government. Are you following social media sites that are causing feelings of irrational fear? Perhaps you are in such a heightened state of fear that you’re not thinking clearly. Your rational mind knows better, but your fearful mind does not.  

I just saw an interview with someone who had stormed the Capital.  He was convinced that the election was “rigged” and asked, “What else could I do?”   His fears compelled him to disregard the facts and act irrationally; just like my fear made me ignore the Tesla agent who told me my door handles were frozen.

This recent experience reminded me of how important it is to practice releasing fears before making decisions. Once heightened anxieties make their way into our minds, we may take inane actions that magnify a situation.  

Release Your Fears

You may be thinking, “Reverend Kathi, this is easier said than done. How on earth am I going to let go of my fears?”

The perfect place to go to practice letting go of fear is the Heart Self, where no fear exists. The Heart Self is that part of you that is “made in the image of” God. 

The next time you are anxious about a problem or worried about a situation, breathe deeply and consciously move into your Heart Self.  In that space of wellness and peace, clarity reigns.  

I will try to remember this next time myself! Blessings to all as we share this journey we call the human experience.  

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