Fear of Flying or Fear of Dying

By Diane Owens • November 6th, 2007
SR-71B Blackbird, taken on December 1994 from ...
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Our website at Fearless Flight.com has the capability to track fear of flying keyword searches people make to end up here.  I look at them occasionally, hoping to come up with new ideas for this blog.

Today I noticed Google keyword searches from Canada, the UK, Australia.  People from every place imaginable are afraid to fly! The most popular keyword searches reflect this:  fear of plane crashing, fear of turbulence, plane crash statistics, flying safety–every fearful flyer is looking for some reassurance that their plane isn’t going to crash.

It always amazes me though that those keywords searches never list the really big fear, the “D” word that’s behind everyone’s fear of flying:  FEAR OF DYING.  That’s what it boils down to.  None of us wants to die anytime soon, but guess what–we’re all terminal (not to be confused with the airport building).  Some of us just want to exercise control of the time and the place –and fearful flyers want to do all they can to guarantee that it won’t be in an airplane on their next flight.

The very funny Nora Ephron writes in her essay on fearlessness that “I used to be afraid of flying, but one day my husband pointed out to me that it was narcissistic to think that my particular plane was going to crash.  That amused me and made sense, so it was sort of the end of my fear of flying.”

My new neighbor tells me that he used to be afraid of flying until he had to do it, over and over again for business.  Now he says he falls asleep before takeoff.

So what’s the key to your fear of flying?  And more importantly, how will you get over it?  The Nora Ephron approach (change your thinking) or my new neighbor’s (get on a plane)?  If neither of these works for you, explore fearless flight.com for ways to get over your own fear of flying.  Just don’t let fear of dying keep you grounded any more.

About the Author:  Diane Owens has been helping people overcome their fear of flying since 2005.  She writes about fear of flying for Fearless Flight.com and assists Capt. Ron Nielsen in spreading the message that flying is the safest way to travel on the planet.

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