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

Note: if you have trouble getting in, try using a cellphone or a different regular phone.



==========

The SOAR Library -- Open And Free



Articles for you on aviation and flight anxiety are at www.fearofflying.com/wordpress/

==========



"This Has Opened Up The World For Me"



Hello Captain Tom. 



My flights to Santa Fe and Houston were wonderful. The pictures (the photos are at this link and this link) speak for themselves. I tell everyone about how I've overcome my fears with your help and the SOAR program. 



The pilots and flight attendants have been especially friendly and understanding and really appreciate what the program has done. 



This has opened up the world for me and I hope to do more traveling in the near future.  We have a glorious country and I want to experience more of it.  Again, thanks



==========



"Doable For The First Time In My Life"



Hi Capt. Tom,



I have written you before about my successes in overcoming my fear of flying, but I felt the latest occasion worthy of another expression of gratitude.



Last Sunday, I was on my way home from Europe after nine weeks when I was scheduled to leave JFK on a Delta flight to Seattle. The weather was hot, NY in a heat wave of ninety-five degrees, but all seemed well as I waited for six hours in the terminal (I came over on the QM2).



We quickly boarded, found our seats, and closed the doors (I didn't feel trapped for once!) We were told we would wait a few minutes for a our taxi slot. Then the captain told us we had an indicator light on.



Although this worried me, I have learned to be confident that pilots aren't going to put themselves at risk either. Unfortunately, we sat for four hours in that ramp, then two more on the taxiway as a thunder and lightning storm passed over us. No departures for hours on end, even the ramp workers were called inside to avoid the strikes.



After five hours, I was really afraid, but the training I got from your course really helped me overcome my fear reflex so that I could rely on my facts (i.e. flying is relatively safe, pilots are conservative creatures, breathe while the adrenaline burns off, etc). After we got in the air (six hours late), all I had was a pounding heart-rate to contend with!



I didn't have any drinks nor did I cry at all. I have never done that before! It was the longest flight I have ever done alone and it was probably the best ever. I just wanted to say thanks again! This is especially wonderful too, because I fell in love in Scotland and I am flying back in August, and that seems doable for the first time in my life.



God bless.



Sincerely,



==========



Fix The Flying Problem Now

Get started with the program that works. SOAR was established in 1982 because no programs existed which could help people with moderate to severe difficulties. Even today, no other program offers help that is effective except for mild difficulties. No matter how difficult flying is for you, we can help.



Full Length Course



We have the full length SOAR Video Course on 11 DVDs and we have the accelerated FastTrack course. The full length course provides the maximum help possible. More info.

FastTrack



FastTrack is for you if you have a flight coming up soon, even tomorrow! It includes three hours of the most important video clips from the full length course. More FastTrack info.

Get started now. The SOAR FastTrack program can be on your computer's screen in two minutes.

• Fast Track is inexpensive.
  


• Fast Track gives you the most help possible in the shortest time.
  


• A twenty-minute private session and unlimited group counseling sessions are included.
  
  


• What you pay for Fast Track is 100% transferable to the complete SOAR Course DVD or CD.

iPod Or Other Media Players

Complete a compact (about five hours) version of the SOAR Course on the go. Download it to your computer. Play it on your computer, iPod or other media player. More info.

Which To Choose

If you are unsure which is best for you, please call me at 877 332-7359 so we can talk it over. You will feel better as soon as you decide to act.

We are always here to help. As you go through the program, call or email whenever you have a question or a concern.

==========



Being Traumatized By Your Own Empathy



Recently someone with great insight emailed about empathy and the distress it can cause. She wrote, "When I see media coverage about plane crashes, I think, Oh those poor people -- what they must have been going through.  Having this empathetic response, I get hooked into thinking that produces anxiety and fear about that situation even though that didn't happen to me. I want to remain an empathetic and compassionate person, but I find myself wanting to "unplug" my awareness of these events, because this pattern of thinking results in fear-based paralysis."



First, it will help to draw a distinction between empathy and identification. In many cases, what seems to be empathy is actually identification. Identification is putting yourself in someone else's shoes and imagining what you would be feeling if you were in that situation. This involves intellect, thinking, and imagining. Since this process is intellect-based, the feelings produced often fail to match the other person's feelings.



Second, people who have been in crisis situations report calmly focusing on the situation and what to do about it. Terror is rare during an emergency. The awful experience we believe the person in crisis must be having is likely not what they are experiencing. Recall what happened on 9/11 when passengers on a doomed airliner called loved ones on cellphones, and talk with them for what they knew would be the last time, calmly. On the other hand, terror is often the case when looking back at a crisis and thinking "What if . . . ". There is more information on this in the video at this link.



Empathy is less intellectual. It is more direct. Neuroscientists now suggest that empathy is based on "mirror neurons". In research with monkeys, mirror neurons are activated when a monkey sees other monkeys break peanuts in their hands, and even in total darkness when the monkey merely hears other monkeys break peanuts.



It is important to understand that, to have a mirror neuron response to the breaking of peanuts, the monkey must have previously experienced breaking peanuts. If all monkeys have the same experience when breaking peanuts, when any monkey breaks peanuts, other monkeys present share the experience. Mirror neurons give them the feeling they would get if they were breaking peanuts.



But if breaking peanuts meant one thing to one monkey and something different to another monkey, mirror neurons would still activate but the experience produced by the mirror neuron activity would not result in a shared experience.



For humans -- and for monkeys -- many activities produce the same experience, or have the same meaning. The more various activities mean the same thing to one person as another person, the more potential for empathy.



In order for empathy to produce the same feeling another person is having, we -- ourselves -- must have had the experience. How, then, can you have an empathic experience about someone else being in a crash when you haven't been in a crash? As the email said, "I get "hooked" into thinking that produces anxiety and fear about that situation even though that didn't happen to me." To have accurate empathy,  would we -- indeed -- have to have been in a crash?



First, the experience is based on identification, not empathy. You can't have empathy for an experience you have not had. Second, identification is likely to be a mismatch. Nevertheless, there is -- indeed -- a powerful feeling. Though none of us have been in a crash, we have been in situations where we have felt things we believe anyone would feel in a crash. From my point of view, yes -- we have had feelings of terror, but no -- feelings of terror are not part of a crash. They are only feelings we intellectually -- but incorrectly -- expect, when facing crisis.



That causes intellectually-based incorrect expectations. These
incorrect expectations produce grossly unrealistic -- yet distressing
-- anticipatory anxiety. As the writer of the email says, when she
repeats this in her mind, she soon produces a fear-based paralysis.



Identification might be made more accurate by recalling a situation you, yourself, have been in. If you have been in a life-and-death situation, most likely you will remember that during -- not after, but during -- the situation, you did not feel terror. When taking that into consideration, you can then more accurately imagine what others in a life-and-death situation are feeling: focused.



I have long recognized that people who have trouble with flying suffer -- not from anticipation of being dead -- but from anticipation of the experience expected when facing imminent death: in other words, the experience of hopelessness, helplessness, feeling completely alone, expecting no one would respond, or care about you.



Flying is a problem for us only because we have, at some earlier time, experienced hopelessness, helplessness, feeling completely alone. It is such an awful experience that we may be resolved to do anything possible to make sure we never feel that again.



It is also a situation we may be able to feel empathy for. However, since this experience happens when a person is alone and feels no one will respond, your empathic connection with the other person -- at least for the moment -- rules out feeling completely alone.



Researcher Allan Schore believes our prototypical experience of terror, the one our anticipatory anxiety is based on, comes from being left abandoned as young children to "cry it out". His research shows that children who appear to be asleep when left to "cry it out" are not actually asleep, but are in a frozen state of dissociated terror. See this link.



And, when we read of a person in a crash, though we may say our heart goes out for them, it is our heart that also goes out to us. Our mirror neurons associated with hopelessness, helplessness, feeling completely alone are activated. As John Donne wrote, " . . .  for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee."



We generally do not remember events prior to age five, because prior to that time the brain cannot record the explicit details involved in a narrative of an event. Yet, the brain is able to remember emotions and physical feelings prior to age five; in fact, all the way back to -- and perhaps prior to -- birth. Some neuroscientists believe this means it is possible for a certain stimulus to cause us the emotional memory of a very early event to replay in the present, and when it replays in the present, we tend to believe it belongs to the present (or alternately, that we are going crazy because this feeling doesn't belong at all).



Perhaps, since this emotional memory replay does not belong to the present, the sanest response is to think we are going crazy. To do otherwise, to attach this emotional replay to the present situation through rationalization, can only lead to major trouble. For example, when having a discussion with your spouse, when an emotional replay is somehow triggered, linking this emotion from the past to the present situation with your spouse can cause major trouble in the marital relationship.



Though thinking we may be crazy -- rather than right -- is a better solution, but not the best solution. The best solution is simply to understand that from time to time, emotions will be triggered which belong to the past, and that it is very unwise to maintain the position that the emotion rightfully belongs to the present context.



Operating on that basis can save a marriage; it can also save you a lot of distress about flying. That doesn't, however, get rid of those distressing feelings. What can be done? The Strengthening Exercise can help by linking thoughts of flying -- even to crashing -- to a moment of connection with someone. When it comes to flying, that is the antidote to dissociated terror or to feelings of hopelessness, helplessness, and feeling completely alone. Since we know what happens on a routine flight, we can link each of those things to a moment of feeling connected. And, if you can list the things you worry about, those -- too - can be linked to a moment of feeling connected. When it comes to more complex situations, such as relational difficulties, if the thoughts, images, and words that typically trigger emotional memory replay can be identified and listed, the Strengthening Exercise can again be employed.



 "No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the

main. If a clod be washed away by the sea,



Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or

of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and

therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee."



John Donne

Devotions upon

Emergent Occasions, no. 17

(Meditation)

1624 (published)



For more on mirror neurons, see this link.

==========

Anticipatory Anxiety

A client emailed the following:

I also wanted to let you know that I am finding techniques that are
a part of the strengthening exercises (anchoring moments of connection)
valuable for dealing with anticipatory anxiety. Just wanted to let you
know that in case you want to pass that along to others. If I catch
myself worrying about the upcoming flight, I place my hand over my
heart, and concentrate on bringing up moments of deep connections with
others. Soon, I start to feel a sense of calm and even joy!

If you find this helps, please let me know by emailing me at tom@fearofflying.com

==========

Do You Own A Web Site?

If you own a web site, consider becoming a SOAR affiliate. Place a SOAR ad on your website and earn a commission on sales the ad generates. Interested? See this web page.

==========