Flying has made me realize that there are endless applications of flight metaphors for life. This is one of the many things I love about flying; it makes me an all around better educated person. When pilot knowledge is applied to my life on the ground, I can see how the realities of flying that will get you killed, are often applicable as metaphors in daily life that wind up causing “crash and burn” scenarios.

The problem with fear.

When flying, there is certainly risk involved. You’re leaving the ground and you’re operating a piece of heavy machinery in the third dimension where you don’t just have to worry about forward, back, right and left – but also up and down. People who don’t fly will say, “it’s just like driving a car.”

I can assure you as a person who flies planes and drives a car – they are nothing alike.

When you let fear get the better of you in flight, it often kills you. The problem is, when things go wrong up there, you’re immediate “freak out” reaction is the thing that gets you killed.

Take a stall spin for example. This is that corkscrew nose dive you see stunt pilots do for your enjoyment at air shows. Great for aerobatic planes, not so good for the average aircraft. If you make super tight turns, lets say at a 45 degree angle around a point while flying, and you accidently pay more attention to the moose you’re trying to look at on the ground, than your flight controls, there’s a really good chance you’re going to stall your plane. And at that steep of a bank, there’s a good chance that when you do stall it, your first reaction is going to be the fear factor reaction, “the plane is sinking and I want it to go back up, so I’m going to pull back on the stick to get my nose up and crank my ailerons hard in the opposite direction of my fall to level out.”

The particulars of a stall spin – from AOPA.com

Seems reasonbile. You pull back on the stick to take off. And you turn the stick right or left on a turn to crank the ailerons in the direction you want to go… so 1 + 1 = 2, right?

Wrong.

Your immediate reaction to fear is causing you to do the exact wrong thing. The more you pull back on the stick, the more you cut off your wing’s angle of attack to the air… that means you sink even faster. And the more you try to “steer” the plane like a car by cranking the stick to the left or right with the airlerons, the more you’re not only stalling your plane by decreaing the lift of the wing, but you’re also now causing yourself to fall into a spin.

Not good!

By letting your fear of the plane falling overrun your emotions into panic, your fear filled responses are sending you plumitting to the earth faster and faster with less and less control and possibility of recovering.

So what do you do?

Don’t react out of fear. See my earlier post about the importance of letting go in life’s stalls.

Letting go and relaxing allows you to think straight and remember your training. Letting go allows the plane to level out before you have a chance to make the situation worse by over controlling the airplane. Letting go usually means you recover the plane from the stall, before it becomes a spin and you easily avoid the crash and burn scenerio.

See what I’m getting at here?

Remember your training and breathe deep when fear confronts you head on!

How do you deal with your fear factors? How does your brain go into “freak out” mode and cause you to crash and burn? How can you let go in a moment of duress, remember your training, and survive an otherwise emotionally charged crash and burn scenario?

Try these steps to develop the skills to conquer your fear factor.

Step One: Recognize the Signs.

As a pilot, you have plenty of warning signs you’re about to stall your plane. Fixation on a single point, over steering the controls and slow, sluggish response are all signs your plane is in trouble. And from my experience, they’re signs in your life that there is trouble. You’re fixated on a single point instead of surveying all of your life. You’re holding too tight to the controls (that would be YOU trying to CONTROL things). And maybe even things seem to be moving slow or sluggish in your life. They aren’t progressing as fast or as planned as you’d like. Let’s say you thought some guy was “it,” only trouble is he just broke up with you. Watch out! You’re about to freak out and make things worse!

Step Two: Pause.

Well, you did it. You knew you were headed into a stall but you ignored my advice, and the signs, and now the situation, just like my airplane, is slipping…. Slipping…slipping.. as it sinks from altitude in the sky. Holy sh*t – you’re falling! So what do you do? You head out drinking. Yeah, that’ll make the bad feel better. What could possibly go wrong? You’re fear of the pain that break-ups bring,  has casued you to head out to get intoxicated. Only now you feel worse and you want to text that man, or ex-man, of yours. PERMISSION TO FREAK OUT! Well sorry Charlie, but permission denied. This is the exact moment, when you’ve ignored the warning signs, that you need to stop, take a deep breath and let go.

Step Three: Remember Your Training.

That’s right – let go and remember your training. Take a deep breathe and recollect yourself now. Let go of the controls, let things recover and you can still regain some altitude, or in your case… maybe it’s dignity your after. Put the phone away or better yet, don’t go out drinking! Stay home and sober until you’ve properly healed from a break-up. When there’s no threat of drunken relapse, you’re free to go out and enjoy a glass of pinot.

Step Four: When Stalls Become Spins

What’s that? You ignored the warning signs that you were sad about your breakup and decided to go ahead and go drinking anyway. Not only that, you brought your phone along too and now you’ve sent your ex a drunk test. And guess what? Thirty minutes later he still hasn’t responded! You know what’s awesome about this? Nothing. Nothing is worse than missing someone, getting drunk, texting them against your better judgment and not hearing back. But you haven’t crashed and burned yet. You’ve lost some serious diginity altitude, but this plane called your life is still flyable. If you let go now and don’t dig deeper. Don’t apply more pressure on the controls. Just let go and stop. Then in the morning, get to the root of where your life stall happened and how you can fly better and recognize the signs better next time.

Getting back to the basics, learning what your fear factors and more importantly – what your fear factor triggers are will help you deal with life’s spinning stalls. You can’t always live without fear, but you can always choose how you’re going to face (and hopefully overcome) what holds you back. Don’t settle for a passive life where you let your emotions rule you. Don’t become a victim to any of life’s circumstances. Address your fears and work to develop your skills to cope with them. When things in you life get a little sluggish, learn to relax until life naturally balances itself out. Just like my plane, I guarantee you it will work and you’ll feel better.