If You Had Trouble Ordering The Audio Course

I've gotten several email saying the link to order the SOAR Audio Course at the special price didn't work. Actually, the link was good, but the link was so long that the person's email program spilled the last few digits of the link onto a second line. Thus, what appeared to be the complete link was a few numbers short.

If you tried to order and had trouble, email me and we will work it out.

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More On Last Week's Essay

In response to last week's essay 'Generalized Anxiety. Claustrophobia' an email was received which goes even deeper into this issue.

The writer said that in some cases what appears to be a real fear is really a metaphor for more primitive fear, a feeling of not being in control that goes way back, perhaps to a time when language was not developed. If that is the case, are we just 'spinning our wheels' when dealing with real fears that have deeper roots?

I absolutely agree that what appears to be a 'fear' is often a representation, a metaphor, of a fear which (thus far) has not been put into words. But I have also come to believe that attempts to put the underlying fear into words will almost defy success. That doesn't mean we are always 'spinning our wheels' though. Even when we cannot put the underlying fear into words, if we feel it while trying to put it into words, doing that in the presence of another person (friend or therapist) can help reduce the impact of the fear because, in the attempt to put words to it, the sense of connectedness with the other person does get linked to the underlying and unworded fear.

That actually points to the crux of the problem: that there was not good-enough connectedness between ones own mental functioning and that of the mother.

It is shocking, we believe, when a very young child discovers the mother has a separate mind. And that shock can only be successfully dealt with if there is an empathic connection between the mother and the child.

If so, separateness can be bridged by a feeling of communication that is more than mere communication. It brings a feeling of connection: that our fates are not separate.

Is the fear that the tunnel will collapse a metaphor for the collapse of empathic connectedness? And with the collapse -- now that the child knows the mother is separate -- what might the child think? 'What will happen to if my mother doesn't feel it when I am distressed? If she and I are separate, and I am at her tender mercies, what if she has no tender mercies? What then?'

If it seems that the tunnel will collapse and one will be crushed under tons of tons of weight, with no chance or hope of rescue, because no one knows and no one cares, is that not the collapse of empathic connection?

If our original insecurity is the result of this shock -- the shock that the person everything depends upon has a separate mind which is not connected by empathy, what must we do? Our only chance for survival is to find control.

Originally -- and this is very early -- the infant gets the idea controls everything. In a way, it does. In early infancy, when the infant feels hunger, and imagines what will satisfy hunger, the thing that satisfies hunger magically appears. Why? Because mothers are almost always responsible in the first few weeks, and months.

So originally, the infant mistakenly believes it controls everything. When it discovers that is not the case, unless there is an empathic connection, control must be re-established. But control cannot be re-established, because mom controls everything, or see it seems. If we cannot count on her for empathy, then we must ourselves get that control which will let us disentangle ourself from her, and survive her agenda.

But it can't be done. According to Dr. Ralph Klein, defeated, we try to figure out what 'the deal' is in this family. What 'the deal' consists of is what the child has to do and be in order to survive and get basic needs met. It is at this time, Dr. Klein believes, that we must abandon the real self -- the self we were born to be -- and must adopt to the false self the family requires.

Connection is (almost) everything.

We must be wired up to connect in order to survive having been born. If there were no instinct to connect, there would be no connection to the breast or to the bottle. Interesting, though, the connection to the breast or to the bottle is the result of the far, far great instinct to connect body to body and mind to mind.

It is connection body to body and mind to mind that calms. The crucial question is this: how consistenly available is good connection? Is it good and consistent enough for us to take it for granted, to be secure, and to internalize it?

If we do internalize it, we have something inside that carries us through life pretty well. If not, we may not be able to avoid overwhelming distress unless body to body and mind to mind connections are present every moment. It is, for many of us, like the Chris Christopherson's song, 'Help me make it through the night' (lay your warm and tender body next to mine, . . . and help me make it through the night). Is it just the body? Or must there also be a mind-to-mind connection? And, if part is missing, must it be imagined to be so?

Secure kids are secure because the empathy of their mind to mind connections and their body to body connections are consistent enough to have been internalized, or, memorized in such a solid way that to remember such moments is to re-live them and to bring back feelings of calm.

But to deal with flight anxiety, we must -- at least -- reach the specificity of the 'tunnel' that we fear will collapse. Though it is metaphor, it does represent the underlying unwordable fear well enough to bring the edge (if not more) of that unwordable feeling into awareness. And that is what we need for the Strengthening Exercise: to bring the edge of the fear -- not too much of it -- into mind (so that the terrible fear of cosmic aloneness and abandonment under the 'collapsed tunnel' which is metaphoric of our catastrophic terrible and terrifying relationships can be 'neutralized', by being mentally connected to a moment when there WAS a connection.

Unless we can find a moment -- with SOMEONE -- in which there was no terror (because the two of us were attuned, maybe not forever -- but for a moment) where can safety exist except through control? And when we seek safety through control, to have enough, we must control everything and everyone, and that is not possible.

Or, we must shrink our world to make it so incredibly small that we can control everything and everyone in it. That may be possible. But it is a very limited life, a life which places crushing limits on those we are in relationship with, and requires them -- as well - to be incredibly small.

That, I am afraid, describes one of the pathologies therapists commonly see in clients: in order to attempt to feel safe in the world, they spin a web of control through dependency and shame and guilt around people in their lives, including their children.

And when such webs are spun around us as children, webs which keep us in such a very small world, simply to entertain the idea flying off to explore the world at large strikes panic in us.

So, as I see it, we can only find emotional safety in empathic connection, not pseudo-empathy used to weave a web around us.

Once we locate a moment of genuine empathic connection, we use the Strengthening Exercise to spread that feeling to other situations where emotional safety is needed for us to function.

A further issue in the email

The writer of the email posed the question, 'If we constantly connect to another for calming how can we learn to calm ourselves. Won't we always need either in the abstract or the real  'donors' for calming our anxieties . . . ?'

As I see it, we learn to calm ourselves by borrowing calm from moments where it existed when it existed, and carrying it elsewhere. Just as we take honey from the bee hive and carry it to the kitchen where we put it on our bread so our bread tastes sweet. We sweeten our bread by sweetness taken from where it is created. We calm our activities in day-to-day living by spreading it on our activities. But we have to find places to get it. And those little moments of connectedness with another are where we get it. Never mind it didn't last. After all, we are all afraid, and can only connect briefly until fear pushes us to get away from the person. (That fear that pushes us to get away is, again, fear of being connected to the restricting or crushing 'tunnel'.

We want the connection; we want the sweetness. The connection and sweetness can be in the tunnel we fear will collapse. Is the fear of connection with another well-founded? Yes, and no. Based on past experience, yes, we can't count on connection being good. But, no, we can learn to have our antennae out for genuine empathy in our connections with others.

We need to have experiences which are empathic connection in order to have a supply which can carry along when we are alone. But we don't necessarily have to have constant connection to do that; we just have to have moments, and the moments may be from the past.

We just have to gather them from our memory, and relive them. Even though the actual connection may have been lost (or maybe not, for who knows what they recall in their moments of solitude about the moment of connection), it was real with it happened. We have a right to it. We have a right to apply that supply to the things we fear so we can function.

Once applied to the areas where we can't function, we become able to function. and then -- perhaps -- we can do a better job of managing our fears (and our need to control, and to not be controlled) that cause relationships to faulter.

Yes, we do need real 'donors'. And yes, our fear of connection can be so great that we can't connect with them. So something has to be taken from the past in order to calm our fears so we can approach 'donors' in the present.

As I see it, the key is to find another person who has the capability of empathic connection, not just connection. It is the empathy that makes connection safe. An overbearing person who, because of their fears is overcontrolling, is like an 'overbearing' tunnel, collapsing on you.

What so often goes wrong in the relationship with mom is that mom, instead of responding to our needs, expects us to minister to hers; she expects the infant to parent her. Or, put another way, she wants the infant to calm her. This turns everything upside down. The job of the real mother is to calm the infant. The infant has no capability whatsoever to calm itself for months after it is born. And so the mother than has had a baby so the baby can comfort her destroys the baby's capability to learn to calm itself because it is enslaved to the career of calming the mother.

But also consider the mother who has the same issue, that the infant will be overbearing, that in infant is too much for her. She may simply withdraw. Guntrip has written extensively about the therapy of adults who have had such childhood experiences; he speaks of the infant whose mother has withdrawn emotionally as 'the baby in the steel drawer'. The image is, to me, powerful. It is a desk from an office, a desk made of steel, and the baby is simply put in the drawer, and the drawer is shut, leaving the baby alone, unable to escape, unable to open the drawer, unable to cry out well enough to be heard outside, and touch only the cold metal.

When early relationship are so terrifying, we develop PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) in which there are 'flashbacks' which come powerfully to mind. When an adult, such as a combat veteran, has experienced terrible things, 'flashbacks' are both emotional and visual; one sees the situation which is carved in stone in ones mind as vividly as when it was taking place. And the emotion of terror is as intense as in the moment when it was taking place.

But when we, as adults, have 'flashbacks' to early childhood, instead of being both visual and emotional, the 'flashbacks' are only emotional. This causes the emotion to be mistaken as being caused by the situation one is in at the present; though the emotion is a 'flashback' from terror when one was one or two or three years old, the emotion is not recognized as being that. Instead, if one is with a lover, it is seen unmistakably caused by him or her!

And thus, the lover is dangerous, or the lover is not emotionally empathic, or the lover is overbearing, or whatever the past emotional experienced was.

So far as I can tell, the only way out of this vicious cycle is to understand that 'flashbacks' occur, and that 'flashbacks' are so real, so intense, and so in-the-present-moment, that we have no clue whatsoever that they are 'flashbacks' from age one, two, or three. It may help to understand that when we let our guard down and reach for intimacy, we must give up control. Since control is used to reduce anxiety, giving up control leads to anxiety, and opens the door to 'flashbacks'.

These 'flashbacks' drive us back to the safety of withdrawal. We need to learn that 'flashbacks' exist, and that 'flashbacks' happen to us. We need to undersand that when 'flashbacks' happen to us -- because they are intense (often more intense that reality) -- they seem to belong to the present. They can take over our connection with reality. If so, we don't have much of a chance of attributing them to the past. And, of course, attributing feelings in the presence of an intimate partner which are really about the past, damages the relationship.

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Flying Again After Six Years

Tom and all,

Just want you to know I have just returned from 11 days on Maui. Flew from Great Falls, Montana over and back. The program works. I used the strengthening exercise before, used distraction techniques at times, but generally enjoyed the flight. It is amazing to me to be 37000 feet above the Pacific Ocean and enjoying it. 6 years ago I started flying again, It has become more and more easier especially with your program. I feel like I am finally really living my life. Thanks and Happy Holidays!

PS My husband and I are now thinking of going to Austrailia....14 hours over the Pacific....will, keep you posted, but am very optimistic!

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'My Soul Sings With Joy

Hi Tom,

It is with profound gratitude that I am writing to you as I cannot thank you enough for my newfound freedom. I had lived with the paralyzing fear of flying for many years and each time I flew, the anxiety reached new heights. The last flight pre-SOAR was a 2-3 hour flight seven years ago. I took two xanax and white-knuckled the entire trip - waiting for and anticipating every little nuance that could spell disaster - turbulence, losing an engine, a wing breaking, plummeting to earth. The movies I created in my mind were very frightening. It's amazing what a lack of knowledge and a little imagination will lead your mind to invent!

Three years ago for our 30th anniversary my husband had to give a presentation in San Diego. He wanted me to go along and we would then spend our anniversary there. He booked the flight with my blessing and weeks later I backed out. He then threw in a Mexican Riviera cruise - still not enough to entice me on that plane. Normally, I am not a quitter and I don't give in to things easily. Yet this paralyzing fear of flying seemed insurmountable. I felt miserable, like a failure, and angry with myself for not being able to do what everyone else seemed to be able to do so easily. I knew at that point that I would never fly again and all the places I wanted to see and experience so much - Europe, New Zealand, Tahiti - were places I knew I would never get to see and experience.

So what brought me to SOAR? Early October, my daughter mentioned she would like us to go to London with her. She had studied there and knew I would love the history and architecture and she would love to be our guide. I told her there was no way unless they could lasso England and attach it to the US, but it was fine if she and my husband went. They started to make plans and I started to get angry and frustrated with myself. I kept remembering Ellen DeGeneres talking on her shows about making a life list, things you want to accomplish in your lifetime. I never sat down and wrote one, but I knew at the very top of my list would be overcoming my fear of flying followed by a trip to Europe. At that point I decided that I would not, could not, let my life go by without facing my fear. So I told them to book me, too. Then the fears hit and began to overwhelm me. I wondered what I had just done. I knew I needed help and googled 'fear of flying'. That's how I found SOAR!

!
nd my new life. I read all the wonderful success stories and felt if they could do it, why not me? It is the single, best thing that I have EVER done for MYSELF.

Words cannot begin to express my gratitude to you and SOAR. Your reassuring words and calm voice were enough to give me cautious optimism and begin me on my journey. I listened over and over to the MP3 downloads and practiced the strengthening exercise over and over. I learned that most of what I imagined could not happen, and that if something did there were backups and backups to the backups. Very reassuring to say the least. However, I still needed to get on that plane. Having you tell me that I didn't have to do the strengthening exercise perfectly for it to work was a big help. Your patience, understanding, and explanations to my questions were and are invaluable. Thank you.

Graduation Day came a few short weeks after I started SOAR. I got on that plane and went to London. I met the pilots. Their answers to my questions were not what I wanted to hear - turbulence at least half the way, the co-pilot flying the plane with only 5 years experience, neither had flown that route for half a year, only fly that route 3 times a year. I became very anxious and unfortunately gave in to taking a xanax. I was very disappointed in myself and during the flight promised I would not give in to drugs on the way back. I thought about what had gone wrong when I met the pilots and realized I had preconceived answers to my questions. I realized it was much more important to meet the pilots and know they can handle whatever comes their way. In fact, in hindsight the most interesting moment was when the young co-pilot just shrugged his shoulders about turbulence as if it were no big deal. I can still see him doing that. On the way home from London, I did not go!

Drugs? Well, I did accept the small bottle of wine that came with my meal and saved it so I could raise the bottle and open it for a celebratory sip or two upon landing. What a triumphant moment!

My flights over and back were better than I could have ever imagined - very surreal. I had no anxiety. We experienced turbulence both ways - my most dreaded fear. It woke me on the way over and I remember thinking I wish it were a little less rocky so it wouldn't wake me and then went back to sleep! The thing I dreaded most was rocking me to sleep!! Amazing! I realize that I had taken a xanax, but my last flight was with two xanax and I was wide-eyed with anxiety the whole way. On the way back, without xanax, I also slept! I even ate the meals both ways. In the past, I would just push the food around and was glad when the flight attendants took it away. On the way back, I had a full cup of tea on my tray when turbulence hit. I quickly drank a sip for fear of it spilling. The fear was of it spilling, not a fear of the turbulence! Surreal!

We just came back from our second post-SOAR flight, three weeks after returning to the states. I brought xanax with me but never gave it a thought or remembered I had it until we unpacked. That brought a smile to my face as I looked at the bottle - the thing I relied on most in the past had never been in conscious thought. We had a very bumpy descent on the way home with very strong winds. Anxiety reached maybe a .5 at that point, but it was more just a concern. I figured the pilots would land the plane just like they had done so many times before. The worst part of the whole trip was the ride home! The cars were moving fast on the interstate and were close together. I wished they had 'eggs' around them like planes do and I thought how much safer a plane flight is. And then an amazing thing happened - I realized I MEANT it; that I didn't just say it! What a breakthrough for me!

I can only liken the SOAR experience to giving birth. Except this time, I was giving birth to me. I have a newfound freedom to see and do all that I thought was impossible. I am limited only by finances and vacation time - not by fear. I have a newfound strength and pride in what I have accomplished. The silly grin still comes to my face, my feet still walk lightly upon the earth, and my soul sings with joy. I have learned to SOAR. Tom, I thank you with every ounce of my being for opening the world to me. You are truly a gift to the fearful. I only wish I had discovered you and SOAR sooner as so many years and opportunities I have left slip by. BUT NO MORE!

With much gratitude,

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About The SPAM Problem

As SPAM has increased, efforts by internet email service providers (AOL, Optonline, etc.) have increased their efforts to stop it. In many cases, their automated systems remove what they think may be SPAM, without any notification to you.

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If you have any questions about this, please email me or call me.

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Wednesday Night Conference Call On Flight Anxiety

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For Your Convenience The Following Info Is Also Displayed Where You Enter The Chat At:
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Need More Help Than Meds Provide?

Nothing in the medicine chest works as well as what's in the SOAR 'tool box': 'The Strengthening Exercise'.

• Full Strength.
  
• Flight Tested By Thousands.

Seriously though, what we have developed provides far more help than any anti-anxiety medication can -- and does so automatically.

• SOAR is not just another fear of flying program offering relaxation and reassurance
  
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• SOAR was developed through twenty-five years of research, study, and experience

Which Way Fits You Best?

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  • Learn the cause and how to fix it in 'Psychology of Flight Anxiety'
    
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• The Guaranteed SOAR Audio Course on CD

  
  
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• The Guaranteed SOAR Audio Course on MP3

  
  
  The same complete information as in the Video Course but condensed into five hours of audio. Plus one important extra: 'Take Me Along' audio tracks to use during the flight.

  
  
  

  • Hear lessons on the web site - or download them to your computer or iPod
    
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• A Counseling Session

  
  
  

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