In the collective imagination, the car takes on layers of meaning. It becomes an extension of the self, a symbol of one's place in the world, an expression of one's way of conducting oneself through life. But when you're behind the wheel, it's important to remember that a car is first and foremost a means of transport with a practical function and, above all, with a sapiens at the controls.

Unfortunately, it's easier to learn to drive a car than to learn to drive oneself; and while there are driving schools and tests before you can get a licence, there are no corresponding compulsory courses for acquiring the appropriate ability to manage one's internal engine in line with one's desired goals and the kind of road being travelled. This discrepancy between external and internal driving ability often leads to behaviour ill-suited to the situation, or to unnecessary, counterproductive levels of stress with repercussions for others too.

How do you "drive yourself" better, so that you can also "drive the car" with greater attention and pleasure, even in difficult situations? The magic word is "presence" — with oneself, first and foremost. Stress is an ancient mechanism; it was born with the commendable aim of saving our lives when a sabre-toothed tiger appears and we need to get away as quickly as possible. It translates into a surge of adrenaline to the legs and arms, putting us in a position to run and/or fight. When we're at the wheel of our car with our hands on the steering wheel and our feet on the pedals… is any of that useful? No.

Presence, then, is that capacity for inner listening and familiarity with our own personal reactions — which differ from person to person — so as not to let the mechanism trigger automatically, but to intervene with the appropriate countermeasures before the hormonal discharge cycle kicks in fully. How is it done? By breathing and counting to ten, right from the very first symptoms. It may sound trivial, but by flooding the brain with oxygen and delaying the automatic activation of the stress mechanism by just a few moments — a matter of seconds is enough — reason regains the upper hand over instinct and allows us to choose how to manage the situation based on the context and our desired goals. Above all, it allows us to wake from the spell that makes us experience an overtake as a threat to our power, a horn blast as a reprimand, a flash of headlights in the overtaking lane as an act of bullying. It therefore saves us from attaching unsuitable and inconsistent meanings to external events that are often irrationally laden with emotional weight, reflecting thoughts and fantasies that have nothing whatsoever to do with reality.

When we forget that inside every car there is another homo sapiens, another human being, the field is open to imagination and irrational thinking that makes us see not what is there but what we fear or need to encounter. Starting with the breath — which recharges the rational mind — and choosing to shift our attention from inside ourselves outward, and therefore to the person inside the car that is… stressing us out, everything falls back into proportion. By bringing attention back to reality, the stress mechanism is blocked, as it no longer has any reason to exist in a society where conflicts are not resolved with fists and threats are not met by running away.

The first two phases of the centring cycle are, therefore: 1. attention to myself: "how am I doing?"; and 2. attention to the other person and the context: "who is there, what is the situation?".

The decisive phase, in choosing the attitude to adopt, is the third: "what do I want for myself right now?". I'm in the overtaking lane and someone is flashing their lights because they're desperate to go even beyond the speed limit… do I want to enjoy my drive in peace and find it annoying to have someone riding my bumper? I move back into the right-hand lane. Am I also in a hurry and do I want to overtake one more lorry before pulling back in? I carry on calmly at my own pace and whoever is behind me will wait. There's no point getting frightened, no point getting angry, no point giving the situation meanings it doesn't have.
Inside every car is another human being — not a threat, not an enemy; at worst, there is someone who can't drive, or who doesn't respect the requirements for road safety, or who is impaired; in which case the thing to do is simply to move away. Stressing ourselves will only do us harm, make us less clear-headed when it comes to driving — an activity that always demands attention and presence — and turn into discomfort what can become, with the right practice, a moment of relaxation and pleasure in which we bring our ability to drive, and to steer ourselves, towards our desired destinations.

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