11.00am Thursday 5th June
So here I am, sat in the departure lounge of Liverpool Airport. I’m flying to Spain to spend a few days working with a client in Marbella. It’s an hour before my plane to Malaga is due to board and it’s starting already.
I can feel my heart rate has increased, I’m getting butterflies and a churning in my stomach, I’m getting hot as my blood pressure increases and I’m noticing as I type this that my hands are getting a little sweaty and I’m breathing more rapidly. I LOVE FLYING.
Sorry, did you think I was describing nervous feelings or maybe that I had a flying phobia? Did you perhaps recognise those physical sensations yourself? Isn’t it strange how the physical sensations for fear and nervousness are so similar to those of excitement and anticipation?
Fear of flying is such a common issue for many people. As I look around the departure lounge now I can tell which people are dreading the flight ahead. They are the ones sat quietly within a group of friends, pensive and looking as though they are a million miles away – or at least wishing they were. The interesting thing is, for all intents and purposes, they are a million miles away. Well at least in their own minds. You see they are already in a semi hypnotic state.
People who are scared of flying will generally have one, two or maybe all, of the following things going on inside them.
1) They will be experiencing the same physical sensations as I described earlier.
2) They will be playing movies in their minds of how awful the flight is going to be. Maybe of them being sick, having a panic attack or at worst imagining the plane crashing. They will play these movies in full colour, full volume and over and over and over again.
3) They will start talking to themselves in their mind. Telling themselves how much they are scared of flying, that the planes aren’t safe and questioning whether or not just to forget the whole thing and go home.
These, of course, are all very powerful methods of keeping that fear of flying.
It’s the unconscious part of our mind that conjures up these thoughts, feelings and emotions. You see, the primary purpose of our unconscious mind is to keep us safe and alive. Sometimes, however, it can do too good a job and start to restrict the things we feel able to do. Making it appear as though we have less and less choices in our lives.
The unconscious mind is also great at filtering information to “prove” that it’s right to hold on to that fear of flying. It will spot stories in the news about a single plane crash and latch our attention onto them to convince us that air travel is dangerous, filtering out the fact that there are millions of safe flights every year.
Consciously we can see the statistics that flying is the safest form of transport. Statistically you are more likely to die from a coconut hitting you on the head than in an aeroplane! But then our unconscious mind takes over and deletes, distorts and filters information until it convinces us to keep that fear.
With hypnosis, we work with the unconscious part of the mind to bring it back on our side. Of course it needs to protect us from ”real” and immediate danger but doesn’t need to give us all these terrible thoughts and feelings about something that is extremely unlikely to happen.
We teach mental first aid techniques to deal with the physical sensations, replace those scary movies with happy ones and install positive self talk.
The solutions are far too lengthy to post in a blog, however, if there’s enough interest I’m happy to create a guide to help you.
If you or someone you know are interested in a guide to help beat a fear of flying simply send me an e-mail to mark@markdarlington.com Alternatively, if you would prefer to talk through your individual phobia (whether flying or something else) feel free to give me a call on 0800 043 1946.
Until next time
Mark
Posted by markdarlington 
