As a woman, I know how difficult it can be to access your inner truth. It took me years before I was able to find my authentic voice. But now that I have, I cherish the power it confers. I can express my emotional reality without fear or shame. I can use my newfound voice to be vulnerable (I like you), to ask for what I want (a 35% raise), to state my desires (yes to sushi, no to chicken wings), or to stand up for myself (no, you’re the veterinarian, you express my dog’s anal glands).
But mostly, I use my authentic voice to scream, “BITCH WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?!?!” to cars who signal to merge in front of me and then change their minds.
Before I found my authentic voice, I might have tried to understand why someone might signal to merge, and then decide against it. I might have told myself that the nice lady didn’t know where she was going. Maybe, I would have decided, she had the radio on and didn’t hear that her signal was still clicking. But that was before I found my voice.
Now I know that rationalizations are a lie you tell yourself. These days, if I open my mouth on the highway in reaction to another’s driving gaffe, the honest, authentic truth will leap out of me: “GET OUT OF MY GODDAMN WAY RIGHT NOW OR I WILL CRUSH YOU!!!”
See the difference?
Some people would call this road rage. I call it road honesty. What kind of society do we live in if we can’t be honest with ourselves in the privacy of our own cars? Not one I want to live in, that’s for sure.
To get the most out of yelling at cars, you have to breathe with your whole body. When a car starts to act out on the road, I like to take a deep breath and express myself from the bottom of my tailbone, not from the base of my neck. I’ll yell things like,
“Oh my god. What are you—no!!!! Are you kidding me, you piece of garbage??!”
or
“Pass the truck. Pass it. JUST PASS IT ALREADY, YOU SICK FUCK!!!”
or
“SERIOUSLY?!?! WE’RE NOT EVEN GOING THE SPEED LIMIT!!!!! WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU??!”
What you decide to yell at cars doesn’t really matter; what matters is that it comes from a place of integrity.
So the next time a car gets all up in your face on the highway, use it as an opportunity to access your deepest truth: Take a deep breath, summon your courage, and then scorch the asphalt with an authentic shriek.
