"The mind is everything.
What you think you become.
" - The Buddha Chronic anxiety is caused, at least in part, by thoughts.
Anxious thoughts.
Our thoughts are the way we tell ourselves what's "true" about the world.
If you suffer from driving anxiety disorder, chances are you believe some things about driving that simply aren't true, and you probably have a bad habit of reinforcing these "truths" via negative self-talk that's always expecting the worst to happen.
You're likely afraid of some aspect of driving without really knowing why you fear it.
That's a good indicator you're suffering from irrational, distorted thinking.
But you can change the way you feel by changing the thoughts that make you unnecessarily anxious.
Positive affirmations are an effective way to do this.
Affirmations are really just the substitution of more helpful thoughts in place of painful, unhelpful ones.
They help reprogram the linkages within your brain and body between certain thoughts and certain feelings.
Here are 7 positive affirmations for driving anxiety to help you calm your fears and drive with more peace, self-assurance, and confidence.
Tell yourself:

1. I trust that life supports me.
   I am safe.
   - The truth is, you are safe.
   Driving is an everyday activity that untold millions engage in without incident.
   The thing that makes you feel anxious is the belief you're in danger.
   You're really, really not.
   
2. I am solutions oriented.
   Driving anxiety disorder is solvable.
   One of the main reasons people become more and more afraid of driving is because they see it as an intractable problem with no real solution.
   This is false.
   This disorder is very treatable - IF you're willing to change your belief that it's not.
   That's the starting point for all therapies: the belief that change really is possible.
   
3. I take charge of my emotions, my desires and my abilities.
   You've gotten in the habit of letting fear take charge of you instead of the other way around.
   I know the fear feels big and unmanageable.
   That's perfectly OK.
   It's still just a feeling, YOUR feeling.
   It's a feeling that belongs to you.
   You don't belong to it.
   
4. I'm confident.
   I know I will solve my problems successfully.
   Confidence is simply the belief you can do something.
   The more you believe you can do it, the more likely you are to do just that.
   Confidence starts with belief.
   Beliefs are just thoughts, and affirmations are an effective way to start changing them.
   
5. I live in the present moment and I'm confident of the future.
   All anxiety disorders, including fear of driving, are about what "might happen" in the future.
   The reality is, whatever you're afraid of ISN'T happening right now.
   In this moment, right now, you're OK.
   What you're really afraid of is that you won't be OK in the near future.
   Take your focus off the future and put it back in the present where it belongs.
   The future is just the present that hasn't happened yet, and it's going to be fine.
   
6. I face difficult situations with courage and conviction.
   I always find a way out of such situations.
   There's no doubt that facing driving anxiety requires a great deal of courage.
   Something else that's not in doubt is that you've faced difficult situations before and gotten through them.
   There's lots of evidence in your life that you've somehow found your way through hard things.
   I mean, you've gotten this far, right? You'll work through your fear of driving too.
   
7. Today, I'm willing to fail in order to succeed.
   This may sound strange, but failure is not something to be feared, but accepted as an inevitable part of learning new behavior.
   You can pretty much count on it.
   You're going to have to get comfortable with (or at least tolerate) failure in order to eventually succeed.
   You simply cannot learn to do something new and difficult without doing it wrong sometimes.
   Just remember that the only real failure is choosing to do nothing.
   

These will probably feel strange at first because you're arguing with your negative, irrational thoughts and you won't believe the new things you're telling yourself.
Remember that repetition is a key part of success for affirmations.
Repeating healthy, life-affirming thoughts has a hypnotic, mantra-like calming and soothing effect that will eventually change how you feel.
Say these affirmations to yourself (out loud, if possible) whenever you experience driving anxiety.
They have a cumulative effect which may not seem like much at first, but it will lead to surprisingly positive changes over time.