Free Group Phone Counseling With Capt Tom Wednesday 10 PM - 11 PM Eastern Time

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Keeping Your Cool With Evidence Based -- Rather Than Belief Based - Reality

 

I've sometimes thought that what a fearful flier needs is the ability to appreciate how rare it is that something goes wrong in airline flying. It takes about five million flights to produce one serious accident. So, one approach I tried was to ask a client to imagine dividing up a highway billboard into a grid with five-million little blocks, and then to fill in just one of them with a photo of a crash. It would like like a fly speck -- virtually nothing compared with the area of the whole billboard.



It doesn't seem to work. The anxious flier can't seem to maintain the one in five million context. Instead, if it CAN happen, it WILL happen. And,the only way to be calm is to know that safety is absolute and nothing can go wrong. Otherwise, as soon as they picture the one crash in five million flights, that one takes over the whole billboard, which means it takes over their whole mind.



Maybe my mistake was how l assigned the imaginary task. Perhaps I should have said, imagine dividing a billboard into five-million little blocks. Put a picture of a plane arriving safely in 4,999,999 of them and in one, put a picture of a crash. I suppose the effort of placing 4,999,999 individual photographs might get the message across. In fact, if a person had to do the actual work, maybe only a thousand or two would be enough. Some tell me that watching their flight on the tracking board helps. After they see the flight they are going to be taking get to the destination a dozen or so times, they gain some confidence. They say, "It got there every time."



Still, it is interesting how a single possibility of something awful easily becomes all encompassing. I believe it goes back to parenting practices. It is easy for a child who has no concept of time to believe that the pain they feel is never going to go away.



Even though the child doesn't understand the first time, or the second, or even the fiftieth, at some point it works when the child repeatedly is told, "Honey I KNOW it hurts. I KNOW. It feels AWFUL. But it is going to go AWAY. It is going to go AWAY. In just a minute you are going to feel ALL better. It's going to be ALL right. You are going to be ALL right. Here, let me hug you until you feel better. You'll see."



Somehow, in time, this concept -- if the parent applies it consistently and while maintaining complete calm -- the child really gets the message: feelings don't last; feelings go away; things can be painful, but pain is temporary.

A child left to its own devices learns to deal with things. But the parent who over-reacts, teaches -- by over reaction -- that everything is dangerous, too dangerous to be exposed to.



If this is true, then it may explain why disaster, no matter how remote, no matter how unreasonable, no matter how little evidence there is for it, becomes the expected.



There was an article recently in the New York Times dealing with how some people remain cool and calm when others would lose the ability to function. The article says researchers in emotional regulation look at the "a-b-c" sequence. "A" stands for antecedent: what happens that causes a person to lose their cool. "C" stands for the consequence: the personal result. The important factor is what happens between "a" and "c". "B", the researchers say, stands for belief.



A person who has a belief that the plane is unsafe, or a person who has the belief that they may panic, will very easily jump from "a" -- anything unfamiliar -- to "c", fear for one, and panic for the other.







That sounds easy, but it isn't. Here's the problem. What if there is, at a certain point, no evidence? Ah hah. That leaves the door open for ANY possibility. And here is where people go wrong. In the absence of evidence, and seemingly unable to tolerate a period of waiting for evidence, they begin to imagine things.



Imagining good things causes good feelings. Imagining bad things triggers the release of stress hormones. If you are like most people, bad things are easier to imagine that good things. Some parents teach kids that they need to worry because optimism causes bad things to happen.



I'm not an advocate of the so-called power of positive thinking. To me it is just self-deception. As I see it, the key is to develop the ability to tolerate not knowing. If you can stand not knowing, you can wait for evidence. That way, when the wheels touch down on the runway, you'll know. Until then, stick with evidence based reality, and experience your flight just as it is, without trying to pretend you are elsewhere, without trying to block out awareness of what is going on. But rather, simply experiencing the sheer nothing-happening-ness except going through the sky that flying is all about.



Pilots sometimes refer to it as boring holes in the sky. That because pilots find the job boring. It is boring because it is safe, and that is the way we intend to keep it. Safe, and boring.

 

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After No Flying For 14 Years, Flew To Dad's 90th Birthday Party

 

Tom, I took my flight last Friday and returned Sunday. I  flew from Tampa to
Boston for my Dad's 90th surprise birthday party. (He cried when he saw me.) 
First flight in 14 yrs after I swore I would never fly again! 

 

I've missed
weddings and funerals in the past 14 yrs since I moved from Massachusetts to St.
Pete. because I wouldn't fly.  My pre-flight anxiety had become bad. I had
panic attacks during takeoff and landings.  A  couple of times I made my wife
and daughter ride by car with me to make that long road trip.  They hated it.

 

I
was determined to find a way to defeat my overwhelming fear because I knew there
would be a time I would have to fly ( my parents are old and my mother sickly). 
I purchased your DVD's over a year ago and I have been religiously reading your
emails.  All I can say is Thank You, Thank You, for your course. It worked!

 

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Yes, But Can I Take It Home With Me Where I Really Need It?

 

NASA is developing a brain-monitoring hat for airline pilots which can sense -- and warn pilots -- if they are mentally overloaded. The device measures blood flow, and the concentration of oxygen in the blood, in the brain.

 

Maybe someone should tell NASA that pilots are less stressed in the cockpit than anywhere else in their lives, and if they really want to help, the device should be installed -- not in the cockpit -- but at home.

 

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Discuss Or Schedule An Individual Session -- Call 877 332-7359



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