Lesson 4: Take a Deep Breath and Fly
Lesson 4 covers relaxation techniques, things we can do to break the panic cycle and extra tips for flying comfortably. It will give the students the skills they need to help them relax while they're flying.
Introduction
When I was afraid to fly, I refused to go anywhere by plane for several years. When I had no choice and I had to fly again, I thought I’d be physically ill from the panic I was experiencing. My heart was beating so fast I thought I’d have a heart attack and I was so dizzy, I thought I’d have a stroke. I shook like a leaf in a hurricane, I found it hard to breathe and I was nauseous. I had nightmares that had me dying in horrible ways and I became so superstitious it would have been laughable if I hadn’t been genuinely terrified. And all that was before I even got on the plane. My husband literally had to drag me on. I could not, did not have the power to, truly couldn’t walk onto that plane by myself.
I tried medication and embarrassed myself. I had rituals that I was convinced would make a difference – I had to wear the same outfit every time I flew. I had to make eye contact with the pilot because he wouldn’t kill me after looking me in the eye, would he? It never occurred to me that he wanted to live too. Nothing logical occurred to me because I was consumed by my fearful thoughts and the more I thought them, the worse they got. By the time we landed anywhere, it took me a full day to recover. Then I lost a day at the end of the trip because I started worrying about the flight home. What a waste of what could have been two great days.
We’ve now learned what the fear is and we’ve learned about the plane and the people who are involved in a flight. Also important is the ability to retrain our bodies’ reactions from tense to relaxed, from nervous to calm, from terrified to excited. We have to teach our bodies to stop perceiving danger and putting us into fight or flight mode and we have to convince our bodies that we’re safe and comfortable. Instead of shaking and palpitating when we’re on a plane, we want to be relaxed.
Fear isn’t something you can just lock in the closet and forget about. You have to take it out and face it to overcome it. In this lesson, we’re going to learn several ways to do that. We’re going to stop thinking negative thoughts and start thinking positively. We’re going to learn relaxation techniques and we’re going to learn how to stop our fearful feelings from getting out of control.
When people meet me now, they find it hard to believe that I fly several times a year; this summer I’ll be flying cross country. The important thing to understand here is that nothing changed but me. The planes are the same, the pilots are the same, all the people involved in the flight are the same, flying is the same. But I am different now because I learned how to deal with my fear.
