Tag: regaining lift

Regaining Lift: A Stall Recovery Guide for Life

Regaining Lift: A Stall Recovery Guide for Life

AP2

“Time doesn’t heal emotional pain, you need to learn how to let go.” ― Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart

During my adolescence, I was bullied relentlessly for over two years.

It was one of the most challenging periods of my life. I was at boarding school at the time. Halfway across the world from my parents. I felt isolated and alone. So, I withdrew.

That was how I defended myself.

Fast forward several years, long after the bullying stopped, those defences turned into a prison. The more I struggled against them, the stronger the walls became. Eventually, that prison became a fortress, and I found myself in a deep depression that lasted over a decade.

It wasn’t until I came home from work one day that something changed.

I found my son playing on the living room floor. All he wanted was to play with his dada. I remember looking at him without feeling anything – not a shred of joy. I wanted nothing to do with him. At that moment the shame was too much. I went to my room, closed the door, and began to cry.

The walls came crashing down.

Then, something remarkable happened. I found the bottom of the pool. I recall looking around the room with such clarity. It was like I was using my eyes for the first time. And I knew what I had to do. Something I’d been putting off for years. This time I didn’t hesitate.

I picked up the phone and called for professional help.

The Mistake I Made

Now, I’d like to say the rest was history. But that’s not how this story ends. Rather, it’s how it started.

A big mistake I made was thinking that waking up would happen instantaneously. Like my alarm going off in the morning. 

That somehow the grand cosmic reason for my being would become apparent, and I would live happily ever after. (What a dope.)

The brutal reality is that letting go is a slow, arduous process. (On second thought, it’s just like my alarm going off in the morning!) It’s a process we must practice over and over again. 

We first recognise that we’re struggling, and then we let go – we sink into our emotions. Once we find our feet again in the present – once we find the clarity and perspective we need – we push off the pool floor and rise to the surface. 

We then take a much-needed breather before repeating the whole process over again.

A Stall Recovery Guide for Life

Of course, this is far easier said than done – especially if you have been clinging to your defences for a long time. 

So, we need a roadmap – a set of steps we can follow to help us do that – to first shed our defences and then find the strength to pick up our swords and fight for the life we want. 

This brings me full circle to the stall recovery pilots employ in real life. I believe the series of steps they take provide a useful framework that we can use to recover whenever we suffer from a loss of lift in life. Happily, it follows an easy-to-remember acronym I made up called RAPID, which stands for:

  • Recognise (take the autopilot out)
  • Accept (let go of the controls)
  • Push the nose down (come back to earth)
  • Increase thrust (protect your energy)
  • Do it again (climb away/pitch back up.)

This RAPID framework also provides a neat structure for my high-flying book. I plan to do a deep dive into each of these sections over the coming months as I go about researching/writing it.

For now, I want to give you a brief outline of each section so you can get a good idea of where this flight is headed. (And as a way to wrap up this initial series on stalling.)

Anyway, here it is. 

Step 1: Recognise (Taking the autopilot out)

We can’t solve a problem we’re not aware of. If we don’t know we’re stalling, what hope do we have of recovering from it? We first need clarity before we can take appropriate action.

We need to understand what our stall warning alarm is really telling us (whether that alarm is grounded in reality or not). To do that, we need to build self-awareness.

How do we build self-awareness? By taking the autopilot out. This is step 1.

Step 2: Accept (Letting go of the controls)

The point of increasing self-awareness is not self-improvement but self-acceptance. (The paradox here is that self-acceptance leads to genuine change.) 

This is the equivalent of letting go of the controls.

We must accept where and who we are – whether we like it or not – to regain control of our lives. A significant part of this section will explore the shedding of the defences we use to protect us from feeling vulnerable.

I’ll briefly highlight this point for now: Letting go is defined by a willingness to feel vulnerable.

Step 3: Point the nose down (Coming back to earth)

The paradox of vulnerability is courage. We derive true strength from our willingness to shed our armour and show who we really are. This gives us the courage to take action.

Not any old action – an action grounded in reality based on a set of intrinsic values. 

Invariably this means we must sacrifice something – just like a pilot must sacrifice height for lift, we must do the same. We must give up what we want to do and instead come back to earth to do what we should.

That means prioritising people over productivity, and our values over validation. 

Step 4: Increase thrust (Protecting your energy)

The other thing we must prioritise is our health and well-being.

In aviation, we have a saying: Energy is life. Without it, we cannot maintain lift. So it is with us. This is why we must protect/prioritise our own health above all else.

This section will look at how we do that. It will also explore time management – how we can protect not only our energy but our attention as well.

Step 5: Do it again (Climbing away)

The final step is a reminder that letting go is a practice we must repeat. To help us remain grounded as we return to our lives and chase our goals and ambitions.

A significant threat when recovering from a stall is re-entry – pitching too fast too soon before we’ve gained the energy and lift to sustain us over the long haul.

So this final section will look at life balance – how to balance the four forces of life – to help us stay grounded when we’re flying high, whenever we encounter some of life’s inevitable turbulence.

Closing Thoughts

In a nutshell – this is my 5-step guide for regaining lift in life.

Just in case you think I’m pulling all of this out of my pilot’s hat, well, I am. But, after some research, I release that these steps closely follow the methods used in ACT, CBT, and DBT. Quote, “Three of the most effective methods to improve anxiety, mood and self-confidence.”

To land this post, I want to make a final point. 

I’ve defined stalling as a loss of meaning (lift). Stalling is inevitable because change is inevitable – because loss and heartbreak are inevitable. That’s why I think it’s wrong to think in terms of trying to avoid stalling.

The major issue we have isn’t a loss of meaning. It’s an inability to accept and process that loss of lift.

That, ultimately, is the whole point of letting go: so we can move on for the purpose of rebuilding the meaning of our lives. Hopefully this guide will help you do exactly that.

This is part six of a series of posts on the subject of stalling in life.

Part 1: Stalling: The Aerodynamics of Life

Part 2: Stalling: Why We Lose Lift

Part 3: Stalling: Why We Lose Lift (2)

Part 4: Stalling: The Paradox of Meaning

Part 5: Stalling: Why Letting Go is the Key to Regaining Lift

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You can find more of AP2’s writing here at: https://wiseandshinezine.com

You can also find him on Medium at: https://anxiouspilot2.medium.com

Stalling: Why Letting Go is the Key to Regaining Lift

Stalling: Why Letting Go is the Key to Regaining Lift

AP2

“The harder we try with the conscious will to do something, the less we shall succeed. Proficiency and results come only to those who have learned the paradoxical art of doing and not doing, or combining relaxation with activity.” 

– Aldous Huxley

“From birth, man carries the weight of gravity on his shoulders. He is bolted to the Earth. But man has only to sink beneath the surface and he is free.”

– Jacques Cousteau

Drown-Proofing 

When it comes to our psychology what’s happened is this.

Our hands and arms have been bound together, and we’ve been thrown into the deep end. The more we struggle, the faster we sink. The more we panic, the more oxygen we burn, the quicker we drown.

As it happens, this is something navy SEALs do as part of their bat-shit-crazy survival training. It’s called drown-proofing.

The trick to surviving drown-proofing is to let go. You must surrender in the face of death and allow yourself to sink to the bottom of the pool. From there, you lightly push off the pool floor to rise back to the surface. 

Finally, you take a big gulp of air before repeating the whole process over again.

The problem with drown-proofing (the reason so many cadets fail at it) is it’s completely counter-intuitive. It’s counter-intuitive for two major reasons.

First, are our deeply ingrained survival instincts screaming at us to do something. (This is what makes drown-proofing such a cruel training exercise: Your survival instincts are pitted against you.)

The second reason is our deeply ingrained belief that we must exert some kind of effort to exact any sort of result.

Diminishing Rates of Return

The logic goes the more I put into something, the more I get out of it. 

When it comes to effort versus reward, we assume it’s one-for-one. Twice the effort garners twice the reward. But this is only true for certain menial tasks like washing the dishes or folding the laundry. 

The reality is the vast majority of things work on a diminishing rate of return. That means the more you put into or experience something, the less rewarding it becomes over time. 

To use work as a classic example. 

Many productivity studies show that most people max out at about 4 to 5 productive hours per day. The rest is just fucking around. Usually, to appease some CEO who feels the need to get their money’s worth. 

Obviously, 4 hours of work is better than none. 8 hours of work is better than 4, although those extra 4 hours will be less productive. 

However, the difference between an 8 and a 12-hour workday is next to nothing. Whereas the difference between a 12-hour and a 16-hour workday is undoubtedly counterproductive. (Factoring sleep deprivation and the probability that the quality of work will have diminished significantly.)

At this point you’ve stalled. You need to let go and return to earth for the night before you make everything worse. 

Of course, this is how an aeroplane works.

If I pitch up, I increase the amount of lift my wings generate. But I also increase the amount of drag I encounter. Depending on my performance (and what it is I hope to achieve), there is an optimum lift-to-drag ratio. If I exceed that ratio, I get a diminishing rate of return on my lift.

If I keep pitching up, eventually, I’ll reach a point where the air separates from the top of the wing resulting in a substantial loss of lift. This what’s known as the stall.

Understating where this point is important so I don’t exceed it. Of course, prevention is better than cure. However, understanding what to do once I have stalled is even more critical.

Not just because it constitutes an emergency, but because the way to recover is, you guessed it, counter intuitive.

Increasing Rates of Negative Return

This is the main point I want to make today. 

The moment we stall in life, the exact opposite of what we believe is true. Effort no longer corresponds with an increase in reward – even on a diminishing rate of return. 

Instead, we enter into an increasing rate of negative return. 

That means the more effort we put into something – the more we try to exact a result – the worse everything becomes. The more we pitch up, the deeper the stall becomes.   

The only way to recover is to let go. 

We must then point our aircraft toward the ground to avoid hitting it. It’s completely counter-intuitive, just like drown-proofing. If you don’t want to drown you must sink to the bottom of the pool.

Here’s the mighty big thing. 

When it comes to our psychology – when it’s something that exists purely within our mind – this is always the case. The more we try to control our emotional aeroplane – the more we try to fight the turbulence – the worse the ride becomes.

Happiness is the classic example here.

The more we desire happiness – the more we chase after it – the further the carrot moves. The more we wish we didn’t feel so anxious, or angry, or sad, the more gasoline we add to the fire.

The more we crave love and acceptance from others, the harder we find it to love and accept ourselves. The harder we try to fall asleep, the more we want to pull our hair out.

I could go on. So I will!

There’s one more example I want to bring up. The one I’ve been building to. One of the four forces of life known as meaning – the human equivalent of lift. 

The more we crave a meaningful experience – the more we desperately try to find meaning – the more meaningless everything starts to feel. The more we wish our lives or experience didn’t mean something, the more we believe it does.

Meaning, like all of the above, requires a counter-intuitive approach.

The Psychology of Letting Go

As complex as our psychology is the reason for this is surprisingly simple. It’s because our mind is both the cause and the effect of the thing we desire. 

We tend to treat our minds like a car we must drive to reach our destination. But the mind doesn’t work like that. This is because the mind is both the destination and the vehicle itself. 

When Buddhist monks preach about already being free, this is what they mean. You can’t drive yourself out of the destination your mind is already in. You can’t swim when you’re arms and legs are bound together. Your only option is to let yourself sink. 

You must sink into the uncertainty, pain, and fear. 

When you learn to do that – as petrifying as it is – you’ll find something remarkable happens. As if by magic you’ll find the clarity and perspective you need. You’ll understand where your fear is genuinely rooted.

You’ll find the bottom of the pool. 

From there, you won’t have to think about how you should act; you’ll know. You’ll push off the pool floor and launch yourself to salvation. You’ll realise that the only to fly upward from here is to point the nose down. 

God willing, you will avoid the ground in the nick of time. 

This is part five of a series of posts on the subject of stalling in life.

Part 1: Stalling: The Aerodynamics of Life

Part 2: Stalling: Why We Lose Lift

Part 3: Stalling: Why We Lose Lift (2)

Part 4: The Paradox of Meaning

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You can find more of AP2’s writing here at: https://wiseandshinezine.com

You can also find him on Medium at: https://anxiouspilot2.medium.com