… I could not land the plane
This story is about flying, so it may not seem relevant to you. It does have something to do with fear, however, and how we manage it. So, if you feel so inclined, please read on…
I always wanted to fly…
I had dreams as a child that I could just fly, just take off the ground and go wherever I wanted - oddly enough I remember flying in a lying position, on my back, feet first… but that’s outside the point. So, when I was offered to cross the United States in a small Cessna in the Summer of my 16th birthday, I was over ecstatic. Literally crossed the continent from Boston to Sacramento. That trip is a story for another time. But since that moment forward, it was anchored in my soul that I had to learn to fly.
Years later, I find myself living in the United States… finally. The land of my teenage Summer trip, the land of Simon and Garfunkel, the land of Jackson Browne, the land of Eminem, the land of barnstormers flying from farm lands to meadows, like Don Shimoda, in “Illusions, or the Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah” by Richard Bach. The land where you can learn to fly as a young professional because there is enough airspace (unlike Europe), it’s relatively affordable (at that point in my career), and a small strip of an airport is right there, with flight instructors, 20 min from my home.
I book my first flying lesson on that cold Saturday morning. And I am so excited and so focused on that upcoming lesson, that I totally disregard the fact that there is a severe winter storm and that, by the time I am hitting the highway to get to the airport, the snowflakes are so big and fluffy that my visibility is just a few feet in front of my car. Everyone’s driving at 5 mph and somehow I’m still hoping, because this is the day I’m supposed to fly again!… I made it all the way to the airport just to make sure that I was delusional about flying that day.
After several months of hard work, lots of reading, lots of training, lots of flying and practicing, I’m almost ready. One of the big milestones of learning to fly is the First Solo. The first time you take the plane up by yourself and go around the airport flight pattern 3 times with what is called 3 “touch and go”. Three simple take-offs and landings. I just did that with my instructor by my side, perfect touch and go 3 times. We are back on the taxiway and he says: “Ok, B, your turn”. And he steps out of the plane. “Time for your first solo”.
In that moment, my heart stops…
“Wait… I’m not ready… not today… you never said…” But no words came out of my mouth and he’s already stepped away with a big smile. “I’ll be on the radio so we can talk. You got it, B, you’re ready! Today is the Day…”
Today was not the day… Relunctantly, with some kind of odd feeling in my stomach, I taxi toward the runway, communicate to the tower, look around for traffic and align myself with the runway. Clear to take off. I prep the flaps, gauge the rudders, push the throttle forward and off we go. Perfect take off, and as I’m ascending, I look around with a big smile and say out loud “pretty cool” thinking I’m actually flying a plane by myself, finally, after two decades of dreaming about it. And then quickly back to reality, it’s time to level off, follow the flight pattern, check for traffic, initiate descent, turn into “Final” and… land.
That day was not the day.
I could not land the plane. Instead of landing and taking off again, I literally did Touch, or rather bump, and Go… as in… not actually landing, just coming too high, hitting the ground hard, bouncing, and pushing the gas to avoid re-bouncing, thus going back up for another round (that’s called a go-around). Once… twice… By the time I’m going up for the third time, my heart is racing, fear has invaded my head, my instructor is more and more silent on the radio, letting me figure it out by myself, knowing that more words would not be more help at this point.
And that’s where it hit me:
I had to make a decision.
And I had to make it fast. As I’m climbing a third time, a few things come to mind that are absolute certainties, like you rarely have in a lifetime.
Certainty #1: At some point, I have to land that plane... gas won’t last forever in the tanks.
Certainty #2: When I land, I better not damage the plane or the owner will kill me.
Certainty #3: I do know how to do this (I just did it 3 times with my instructor by my side) so the only way to do it is to manage the fear, because panic is not an option for #1 and #2 to be fulfilled.
I decided that my third attempt would be a continuous improvement one, a way to ensure that I still have directional control, altitude control, and overall control of what I’m doing.
It was still a bad touch and go but now I was back in control.
The fourth landing was a good landing, probably a perfect landing, the plane did it by itself, I barely have any recollection of it, it just happened as it should, simply and smoothly. My instructor met me on the taxiway, jumped in and said “Ok, B, let’s do this again.” That day, I did 7 landings, 6 perfectly performed, with my coach by my side, and one I cannot recall.
Good endings
To finish the story, a few months later, I soloed again successfully, and eventually obtained my pilot’s license. And the following year, a dear friend and I partnered to compete in an Air Rally over the northern lands of Quebec all the way up to the Cree country. Almost two weeks of uncontrolled airspace, flying freely between clouds, like barnstormers…
Why I’m telling this story…
Because we all face fear in our life. And when we are in a life-threatening situation, fear is necessary. It triggers the fight or flight or freeze response that can save our life. And it also requires us to respond adequately. In this case, I had to fight, I could not just escape the situation (flight) and certainly freeze would have been a real issue.
One challenge with our current evolution is that our primitive brain has kept us safe as a species for so long, using this response mechanism of fight/flight/freeze, it has no interest or impetus to change it. That is what has worked to get us to where we are and survive generation after generation. Yet we don’t face life-threatening situations like we have in the past, there are no lions and tigers waiting in the bushes to eat us every day. Yet we don’t need them to trigger this response because our brain also does not distinguish between real fear and imagined fear. So when you watch the news and get stressed out, that fear triggers the same response in your body. And we need to be able to manage that.
Managing fear doesn’t mean ignoring it, or just ‘letting go’ (which in the moment feels impossible). It means using it to our advantage, transcending it to become stronger. Courage is not the absence of fear, it’s the ability (the decision) to act regardless of the fear, to see beyond.
In DreamBuilding, Mary Morrissey teaches us that fear is at the edge of our comfort zone. It’s also the signal of our own growth, as long as we make the decision to transcend it.
Tapping also trains our nervous system to separate the fear from the fight/flight response so we can make that decision more freely.
That’s why in my coaching practice, I integrate tapping with the proven, reliable and repeatable framework for success that is the DreamBuilder® program, to help you accelerate your results and literally tap into your potential.
