As if the last post wasn't fun enough...I'm STILL in the first set of DVDs on the Psychology of Flight Anxiety. This 2nd DVD has 12 more lessons. I feel a little overwhelmed that there are 12 more lessons at the very beginning here as there was SO much information in the first DVD. But we'll see where it all goes...
Lesson #9 - Accepting Real Fear, Controlling Synthetic Fear
This lesson continues on with the mindfulness idea which, of course, is very powerful for me. Capt. Bunn explains that when we are mindful there can still be fear, but we understand what is real and therefore it cannot spiral out of control. However, when we resist being mindful, imagination can take over. In flying, "What Is" is never the problem. The problem is, "What If". And then he proceeds to take the words of my therapist right out of her mouth. ;) He says that when discussing this "What Is" vs "What If" idea, people often say, "Well, what if the plane actually IS crashing?" to which he replies that when people know they are dying, or believe they are facing death, they actually don't freak out. Instead, there is some reconciliation with death at that point. He goes on to prove this point by discussing the phone calls from the planes on 9/11 which is exactly the conversation I had with my own therapist a couple of weeks ago. Those people knew they were about to die, and yet, the phone calls were calm.
On a side note, I think often of all those people on those planes on 9/11 and how much they gave to the rest of us. These phone calls are amazing gifts left behind to the living from those who are gone. Not only for their own loved ones but for all of us to have a glimpse into the mind of one who knows they are about to die. And my therapist and Capt. Bunn are both correct in saying, they weren't in a panic. They were saying good-bye. Which was sad, as most good-byes are. But they weren't screaming and yelling into the phone. It is a good reminder to all of us. I think the whole idea of fear of death for many people, myself included, is the period beforehand...the idea of knowing you're about to die. Once we're gone, we're gone. So why worry about that? But these phone calls make it pretty clear that the panic our imagination conjures up is not the reality.
Capt. Bunn goes on to remind us that we learn this fear imagination in childhood. When a child does not have a deep, empathetic attunement with a parent/adult, they cannot always see fearful things as they are because the world is an adult world and so then they go into an imaginative world and create stories that are not real, but can be very, very scary. I could spend hours and hours discussing this idea and how it relates to my life...but I'll just leave this with...I get it.
Imagination based fear is something we, ourselves, create. That's the first step in understanding how to manage it. Real, reality based fear, cannot be controlled, but this fear will not spiral out of control. Imagination based fear CAN be controlled. Increased mindfulness = decreased anxiety.
Lesson #10 - Modes of Experiencing
If we can have the courage to experience reality, we can completely avoid the "What Ifs". We have a creative mode...where imagination lies and a scientific mode which sees things as is...simply as an observer. Interestingly, we generally stay out of our creative mode when helping someone else. Some people say they don't have trouble flying when they are helping someone else. We also have an avoidant mode where we try to experience nothing at all. A person who wants to handle things through an avoidant mode is afraid of ANY fear, real or imaginary and they tend to find themselves in level 7 (see last post to understand levels) quite quickly. Thus, they prefer to feel nothing. Any situation they can't control is a threat. Yikes...hitting a little close to home here...
Lesson #11 - Going Into Your Own Movie
Capt. Bunn starts by saying this part of the program should be enjoyable and that people say this tool was the most invaluable part of the program. Good! Enjoyment! I need some of that right now! :)
The process starts by remembering how in childhood many of us likely went to a movie that may have had sad parts. He brings up Lassie...but I certainly remember Bambi. And how when a loved one saw us with tears running down our face, they may have tapped us on the shoulder and said, "Everything is going to be okay". The idea in this process is to find a way to tap our ownselves on the shoulder when our imagination starts running wild and remind ourselves that everything will be okay.
He draws a picture of a movie reel with various pictures and starts with moment #1 - the plane is flying along just fine, moment #2 - there is a noise, moment #3 - no noise, moment #4 - no noise, moment #5 - no noise, moment #6 - no noise, moment #7 - the flight attendant asks if we'd like something to drink.
A person that stays in the reality movie experiences the above as hearing a noise in moment #2, asking themselves what that is in moment #3 and then saying, hm...I don't know in moment #4, and then going back to whatever they were doing in moment #5 and #6 and then when the flight attendant talks to them in moment #7, they say, "sure" and get a drink.
For a person who is afraid to fly however, the movie starts the same way, but by moment #2, it changes significantly. In moment #3, this person asks themselves what the noise is and then in moment #4, they make up something like "Oh my gosh, the airplane is going down", in moment #5, they feel tension which then reinforces the feeling in moment #4, in moment #6, they are convinced they've proven their theory right and now believe the plane IS going down...no question about it and then in moment #7 when the flight attendant asks if they'd like something to drink...they don't even hear the question.
Years ago (about 20 to be exact), my parents upgraded a flight to first class for me. I still talk about how much I hated it because the flight attendants were talking to me so much and offering me so many things that it drove me crazy. I can see how that was simply because I was in the above loop and their distractions were just making it worse for me. This scenario is what Capt. Bunn calls "going into your own movie". And boy...am I GOOD at this!! :)
Lesson #12 - Practice Exercise to Prevent "Going Into Your Own Movie"
The exercise goes like this...the next time you're riding in a car, call out loudly, as rapidly as possible, everything you see. You'll inevitably find that the mind will actually go off the reality movie and you'll see something that will then remind you of something else. The trick here is to try and begin to identify when you are in your own movie and when you're in reality. When the imagination takes you some place and you stop calling out loud, take note of when you're in your own movie.
When going into your own movie, you are adding in something to the flight, which was discussed on the last CD...we can't add or subtract anything. We just need to experience what IS.
Lesson #13 - Pushing Past The Fear Barriers
Every time you push past a fear, it simply becomes a bridge to the next place. He discusses looking at times in one's life when you pushed past difficulty...his specific examples are childbirth, running your own business, and learning how to drive...which I have done all three. He says looking back on them, they almost look like nothing at all because you pushed through all the fear and just kept going. So, although it seems nearly impossible to overcome this fear of flying, Capt. Bunn suggests making a list of things you have already overcome in your own life so you can see what you've already been able to accomplish. Being that he made part of my list for me with his own examples, it's pretty easy to see that this is possible. Of course, I actually DO believe this is possible and although I might be a "little" skeptical...I do believe I can overcome this fear.
Lesson #14 - Roller Coaster Effect
Life has highs and lows. The momentum in life is what keeps us moving forward. When we're on a high it's great, the lows aren't so much fun, but that momentum from the high takes us through the low and back up to another high. When we are afraid of the low and try not to experience it and put on the brakes, we lose momentum and can get stuck in the low.
Capt. Bunn discusses Dr. James Masterson's study showing that when people start to come out of their shell and start living in a way that expresses their true self, they almost always run into into feelings that are hard to deal with. What is important is to note what we do when we run into to challenging feelings. He discusses the Masterson triad #1 - when we start to express the best of who we are, we often find out we may be doing things that not everyone else wants us to do and we may find ourselves very alone and we can sometimes move into #2 which is dysphoric feelings and in order to get away from these feelings we may put on the brakes and go backwards or we continue along to #3 and find a way to mask the feelings in #2 sometimes with some behavior that's not good for us. I discuss this idea ALL the time with clients of mine. That in order to move forward, we must actually push through the difficult feelings...experience them...and move forward without trying to mask them. That keeps up that momentum in the roller coaster of life.
This step is a beautiful analogy for me. It is how I strive to live my life. When you set out to do something new, or to behave true to yourself, or simply live life as it is, you WILL run into to difficult feelings. It's part of life. We must push through those to get to the other side...the other high in the rollercoaster. Life has ups and downs. Period. But if you push through the downs, you WILL find the ups again. Pushing through the difficult feelings of flying is how I get THROUGH this fear. Not around it. Not masking it. Not pretending it doesn't exist...but instead walk THROUGH the difficult parts and knowing that difficulties aren't bad. Instead, they're just part of the process.
Lesson #15 - The Thousand Moment Life
None of us know how many moments we'll live, but in this exercise Capt. Bunn says let's imagine that someone is going to live One Thousand Moments in their life. Of course, the person doesn't know this. Capt. Bunn uses the analogy of a gopher and how he feels that sometimes this is how humans live their lives if living with anxiety. They live sort of below the surface, popping up their head now and then...we keep popping our head out trying to determine if it's safe. In this analogy, the person keeps popping their head out to moment 999, of course never knowing that life is safe...because it simply isn't safe. We could die at any moment. We don't know when that will be. When at moment 999 this person finds out it IS the last moment, they finally relax because they don't have to worry about it anymore. But what is the point of this kind of life???
Capt. Bunn discusses people who live life as above until they are faced with a terrible illness and they realize their days are numbered and they live those final days with so much more joy than they had before. I think we've all heard those stories. And I would venture to guess that none of us want to live this way...and yet, many do (myself included for most of my life). Anxiety becomes familiar and our brain likes familiar, even if it is uncomfortable. I discuss this a lot with my clients (and remind myself of it almost daily). Capt. Bunn goes on to remind us that the first time we experience trauma, we are unprepared for it and then we can often spend the rest of our life waiting for it to happen again and trying to constantly avoid it until the very last moment when we can finally relax because it is never going to happen again. He says, "Hell of a way to live a life, but it's what we do".
Lesson #16 - Tristan and Isolde
Tristan and Isolde is an opera dealing with feelings experienced when one knows they are going to die. Capt. Bunn shares that there are many accounts of soldiers who knew they were going to die because they were completely outnumbered in battle, writing in diaries of such peacefulness and sometimes euphoria, not panic and distress. Tristan and Isolde is an opera that discusses this very idea. Tristan and Isolde are given a death potion to drink, which they do, and now know they are going to die. They are at moment 999. Suddenly they realize there won't be a tomorrow...they don't have to worry about tomorrow or the day after tomorrow and they look at each other and fall madly in love. They become free to experience the other person just AS IS. Not adding or subtracting anything. They have a magical night and then wake the next morning only to find out they didn't die and immediately anxiety returns, dread returns, the need to control things and to control the other person returns and neither want to submit to the others' control and they fall out of love. ~ Sigh ~ This life we live is such an interesting one isn't it. All of this just to figure out how to fly on a plane. ;)
Lesson #17 - Ferris Wheel - Pandora's Box
Another great analogy for me. Capt. Bunn tells a story of a woman he worked with who told a story of being on a ferris wheel and realizing about 1/2 way up that there was no way she could handle how high the ferris wheel was going to go and she seriously wanted to jump off the ferris wheel, knowing it would kill her, rather than experience the fear she knew she was going to feel at the top of the wheel. I have been in this place as well.
Once there has been a life experience that has been so awful that we simply can't imagine experiencing it again...life may stop being about living and may begin to be about avoiding that experience again. It depends on being about how much control we have to avoid this experience again and we begin to try to control everything around us so we can be sure to avoid that experience. Yep. Yep. And Yep.
Capt. Bunn discusses that he believes that those with anxiety likely had some moment that creates this kind of fear in us, as far back as ages 1, 2 or 3 that sticks with us. A time when we felt alone. I firmly believe this to be true! But we don't remember it because we don't have explicit memory at that time in our life. But we all have implicit memory from birth and those memories stick with us. Sometimes that's what cause flashbacks...or PTSD in people. And that can cause some people to organize their lives to make sure they never experience that again. He goes on to discuss the nursery rhyme Humpty Dumpty and how it actually relates a level 7 experience. It's about one's sense of self being shattered into fragments and not being able to come back together. For most of us, we are able to put ourselves back together again, but if this experience happens enough in our lives, we work hard to make sure we don't have to keep experiencing it.
Capt. Bunn refers to a book by Volnay P. Gay called The Object of Psychoanalysis Literature Belief Neurosis and Daniel Stern's book Interpersonal World of the Child. Both these books share the idea that if a child is allowed to experience a full range of feelings with a parent's guidance, a child can learn to cope with a full range of emotions. On the other hand, when a child handles these experiences without the support of a parent, it puts the child into a level 7 experience that they will then try to avoid again for the rest of their life.
Capt. Bunn introduces the idea that once we know how to use the strengthening exercises that we're going to learn, it will help us avoid the idea of imaging the terrible things that we believe are about to happen. And what I love about this idea is that this isn't just about flying...this can help in all areas of life. :)
Before going on to the strengthening exercise, Capt. Bunn describes ways we try to avoid those terrifying experiences and this is where he brings up the idea of Pandora's Box. He explains that we actually split off a part of ourself that sort of sits on top of the box to keep it closed and the other part of us can just ignore the situation. The problem arises over the course of life when something happens that triggers the feelings in Pandora's Box and it starts to open and the person on top can't keep it closed. So, instead that part of ourself, knowing it can't stop the box from opening, sends a lightning bolt of anxiety to get the person out of the situation. Basically this is saying, Hey, I can't keep this box closed if you stay near these situations that is triggering it to open. This is called Signal Anxiety. This is the anxiety we feel when our own internal Pandora's Box is starting to open.
But what if the box opens? What's the worst thing that's going to happen? Basically that something in the box could come out and become conscious to us. And then Capt. Bunn says, we take it down to our neighborhood therapist and we work with it. This makes me smile so much because this is most definitely the work I have done for myself and what I do with others. And that Pandora's Box in my personal and professional experience is impossible to keep closed when giving birth to a baby and thus why many women experience postpartum mood disorders because their Pandora's Box flew open and now so many of these items they kept in their Pandora's Box have come out and must be handled. The good news is that once dealt with, we lose the stress that came with having the keep the Pandora's Box closed. That truly is the worst thing that could happen if the box opens. But instead, what many of us attempt to do causes a worse situation. We let anxiety stop us from doing things. And in this case, when we want to do something that means we have to fly, we tell ourselves that we can't fly so we back away from doing the thing we want. And I definitely believe that THIS choice is SO much worse than allowing the Pandora's Box to open. So, So much worse and why I am doing the work I am doing.
Lesson #18 - Empathic Attunement, Identification
Capt. Bunn begins this chapter discussing how children grow up with anxiety. He discusses research and information I already know and believe. He discusses right brain/right brain connection between a mother and her child when they are emotionally attuned to each other. "When the mother or the father is attuned to the child, the child knows and feels this". If the mother is not capable of attunement, the next best thing is identification and that can also provide protection for the child. Now, fast forwarding into adulthood, this child can grow up feeling insecure knowing that there are people out there who do not identify with him or her which can be threatening. If the infant can not rely on attunement or identification, the next step is compliance which means the infant simply learns to do what he or she is told or suffer the consequences. If the child can't rely on any of those things, there is no basis for relationships with others. This is the hierarchy of quality, but there also much be quantity of these things. But more importantly, reliability.
Lesson #19 - Swimming Pool
"If we don't push past fear barriers, we don't experience life". Capt Bunn uses the analogy of being afraid to jump into a swimming pool. The swimming pool is life and we should be swimming in it, not walking back and forth on the side of the pool afraid to jump in. The indecision is what causes us anxiety. Once in the pool, we can live. "Being alive means being vulnerable" And there is my key word again... vulnerability. "Being alive, means danger". You can live your life maximizing your unawareness of danger, but doing so will only place you in greater danger". "You can live your life maximizing your unawareness of vulnerability, but doing so will shrink your world, and diminish your self as a functioning person".
Lesson #20 - Abstract Point of No Return
Capt. Bunn states that APNR (Abstract Point of No Return) is one of the most important concepts in the SOAR course. When the door closes on the airplane, you are past the point of no return. You can be in that situation in two ways...as the victim of that situation or as the author of that situation. Capt Bunn uses the analogy of being in a room full of people and there is a huge sheet of steel and a sledgehammer. One person in the room takes the sledgehammer and hits the piece of steel causing a terrible sound. That sound bothers everyone in the room except the person who did it. Because he was the author of the situation. Thus, if you're on the airplane as the author of the situation, it is a different situation than being on an airplane believing the doors have trapped you.
On an airplane, the Point of No Return is when the door is closed. The Abstract Point of No Return is when you decide, perhaps days before your flight, that you're going to be on that airplane No Matter What. Even if it kills you. You are so sure because of your determination and commitment that you are going to be on your airplane that it's almost as if you were on the airplane right now. In order to go into the state of APNR, you have to go into sort of an imaginary fantasy of the best and the worst.
First do a fantasy of what the very WORST the flight could be. Take it all the way through turbulence, terror, lightning storms and the airplane coming apart, crashing and dying and being dead. Then go to the very BEST a flight could be where everything is perfect. And then realize that it is not going to be the BEST flight and it's also not going to be the WORST flight. It will be somewhere in between. That's preparation for the APNR.
Next you have decide what your secret ways out are. What things would you do to cancel out of the flight. Would you back out if you picked up the paper on the morning of your flight and saw there was a crash? Would you back out based on weather? We must dispense with our secret ways out. The reason we have to do this is because there is a part of our brain that will remind us why we shouldn't be on the plane, but if we are completely committed, we can respond with So What...I'm going to do it anyway...then that other part gives up and moves on. If one can fully be committed to getting on the plane NO MATTER WHAT then when you get on the plane, you actually find that you have a sense of peace.
Capt. Bunn goes on to say that as you approach a flight, you will make the commitment and lose it and have to make it again, over and over. I have been here. I have moments when I am completely committed to flying and actually can see some fun in it, and then I lose it and have to start over. But Capt. Bunn says that it's important to keep doing this so that when you ARE on the plane and the doors DO close, you are there as an author, not a victim.
The good news for me is that there is no backing out of this flight. I'm going on this trip. It's for my kids and thus, we're going. Also, my personality would likely never let me back out at the gate or on the plane or if I was flying with someone else simply because I am a rule follower. I have a ticket. I'm going to fly. Nonetheless, being on the plane as an author and not a victim is a HUGE piece of this for me.
And thus ends the lesson section. The next DVD is real life stories and exercises to practice. And I keep plugging along.... :)
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