If you’re approaching the holidays dreading the visit to the folks back home, maybe it’s not your relatives that make you hesitate about the flying. Maybe it’s fear of flying that’s hanging over your head, making you apprehensive about the once-yearly holiday flight.
In a survey on Fearless Flight.com conducted a few months ago, 35% of the almost 5,000 who responded said they fly once a year. I’m imagining that the majority of these flights take place over the holidays or for summer vacation. As the holidays approach, many travelers will soon be faced with their once-yearly fear of flying. But fear of flying makes them wish they could stay home and forget the family visit. The rest of the year–no worries about flying if there’s nowhere to go. Out of the sky, out of mind, so to speak.
Are you by any chance one of those once-yearly fearful flyers? How do you cope?
Put off thinking about it until a few days beforehand?
Or do you begin dwelling on it the moment you make your reservation?
Unfortunately neither are very good coping strategies. It’s during the flying off-season that you need to work on your fear of flying. Take action. Be willing to do something so you’ll be able to fly ALL year, any time you want.
One of the actions that you can take is to get some education. Fearful flyers tend to have a lot of misinformation or not any information at all about airplanes and flying. So their brains make up stories to explain what’s going on when they hear a sound…see something strange…feel that unusual sensation that takeoff can bring. For a fearful flyer, a normal part of flight can fuel what Capt. Ron calls “that can’t be good” thinking. They hear a normal sound and suddenly they’re thinking, “THAT can’t be good!”
But don’t take my word for the power of education. Follow the advice of Kathy, a recent graduate of our program. Capt. Ron and I interviewed her about how she became a fearless flyer after 30 years of being a no-fly fearful flyer. Yes…she was grounded for 30 years! Can you imagine the enormous courage it took for Kathy to work on THAT kind of fear?
Last spring Kathy came to Capt. Ron’s Cleared for Takeoff class in Phoenix and bought a Fearless Flight Harmonizer. All the information she learned in the class from Capt. Ron helped to calm much of her fearful thinking about what goes on up there.
She says the Fearless Flight Harmonizer was another important element in helping her fly fearlessly. The CD helped distract her when she was flying even though her first reaction hearing it on the ground was, ”Wow, that’s a pretty weird CD!” Now she won’t fly without it. She even showed Capt. Ron and me the extra set of batteries she keeps in her little carryon bag–for Kathy the only worse thing than flying without her CD would be not having the “juice” to play it.
Kathy has flown eight times since July! I’d say she’s quickly making up for lost flying hours during those 30 years she was grounded, wouldn’t you?
Welcome to the friendly skies, Kathy!
