With me, turbulence never used to bother me, until one late night over the middle of Iowa in a 210 full of bull semen(ok it was bank stuff, but bull semen sounds more intense), I flew through some towering cumulus and I swore the wings were going to rip off. Since then I've been a Sally. I stay a mile away for every knot of wind aloft between 8 and 12k feet from anything with serious vertical development. That keeps you pretty clear of most of the nasty turbulence, but sure is a hell of a lot farther away than 20 miles(the distance that keeps you away from what's ACTUALLY dangerous). Working on it, so far my Sallyness hasn't been an issue. Most of it is flying these old ass airplanes. The thought that creeps into my mind is "what did some moron do with this thing 10,000 hours ago that's going to manifest itself to me, right now". I don't call negative things confidence boosters so much. Things that make you more aware is how I look at them. In other words, experience. Turbulence is the only thing so far that I've really had to work at getting over. I've had a lot things happen to me, but I lived and they made me more aware/alert to areas I had no experience with and/or became complacent with. Which is what you mean I'm sure, just adding my 2 cents.