lifeis1adventure

The brain is a powerful weapon…when it’s working for you it’s brilliant, when it’s working against you it’s a royal pain in the ass!!  So many people have ‘brain issues’ when it comes to flying but not many talk about it openly. I have. And now I want to share publicly. Not for any other reason than that something I say might help someone else.

I thought I was alone until someone told me that I seemed to be going through the psychological phase of flying. I hadn’t realised it was a thing!!  And over the 2 years that followed I realised that there were a lot of people who had, or were going through similar things to me, but from different triggers and to different outcomes.

I believe that most people suffer because of an accident, a really close call or fear of some description. Mine sits in another category all together called my private life! In 2013 I experienced what I consider to be the most difficult year of my life so far. I lost a lot of people, and because of circumstances I didn’t have time to process or grieve until the end. I stayed strong for as long as I needed to be…and then I fell apart in a massive way. I became erratic and anxious among other things. I suffered from panic attacks. It unravelled my entire being, and with it my flying.

At first I hadn’t realised there was a problem. There was several months of falling deeper into the hole before I hit rock bottom. I just couldn’t figure out what was going wrong. At the end of the previous season I had finally started to put it all together, why was nothing working? Oh I know, it’s because of that really scary flight I had in Manila… no, no, that’s not it…oh, oh, it’s because I did badly in Canungra and I had put all that pressure on myself…nope, not that either. Every time I thought I knew the answer I would suffer another setback. It had reached a point where I would be the first to set up on launch and pumped for a flight and conditions were great…and then I would go to launch and freeze. Literally not being able to move a muscle.

The meltdowns were debilitating…completely unreasonable, completely frustrating and completely irreparable for that moment in time. I would spend an hour or more kitted up in horridly hot conditions, wanting to fly, but not being physically able to…and then I would eventually give up, beating myself up, a sobbing mess, packing up and driving down yet again. Or if by some miracle I had managed to launch, I would spend the whole flight petrified and headed for the LZ. And then I would land, and beat myself up for landing. What was wrong with me? I love flying! I kept thinking I had figured out the problem, but I couldn’t seem to fix it. So many unreasonable fears crept into my existence and then became engrained in me. No matter how hard I tried I couldn’t seem to find the answer. I did for a very brief moment consider whether I should give up. Maybe paragliding wasn’t right for me. But then I would remember that for the first 2 ½ years flying was fun! And I loved doing it. And I had goals. And I’m a stubborn bitch who doesn’t just give up because I’ve hit some hurdles!

The thing that took me a long time to realise is that it is impossible to fix something you don’t understand! I kept turning up to comps, each time thinking that I had it under control and each time leaving disappointed at my inability to get my shit together.

I had an excuse for everything. I would hear the crap that was leaving my mouth and think, who are you? What have you done with Nikole? You are so full of shit!  And that was hard in itself. I actually believed the bullshit, but that’s because I hadn’t yet understood what was going on.

So I began the long journey to find peace and try get over the fears that were preventing me from flying. It feels like I tried everything. People kept asking me what was wrong and wanted to help which was really nice, but I got so bored of telling my story. And funnily enough it wasn’t even THE story because I was yet to discover what that was. I tried hypnotherapy. I’ve never been a big believer in that but I figured I had nothing to lose apart from a couple of hours of my time and a bit of money. So I had a couple of sessions. It was really good for putting me into a state of zen, peace that I was missing, but it did nothing for my fears and my flying.

So what did help? Firstly it was acceptance, and on 2 levels: firstly acceptance that there was a problem. You can’t fix something if you don’t accept it exists. And then acceptance that some days I’m going to turn up on launch and not want to fly when other people are. And that’s ok. Because these people don’t know me, what my story is, or what I’m battling. So just because they say I should fly doesn’t mean I have to. Once I got to this point things started to improve. I stopped beating myself up for starters. This was very important.  Telling yourself that it’s ok to feel the way you feel and be ok with the outcome that those feelings lead to is a big step to combatting the fragile brain. Plus it’s impossible to make any good or rational decisions when you’re in panic mode!

But I was a long way from fixed! It was always 2 steps forward, 1 step back and sometimes 1 step forward, 2 steps back!

I just couldn’t seem to progress, and then on a lovely day in Greece last September, on tour through Mt Olympus, a Greek God-ly light globe went off above my head! 2 ½ years later I finally understood everything! I wanted to scream and go back and change everything but I couldn’t. So I reasoned with myself, took time to process, then started the journey over the final hurdle!

So to summarise…I was extremely broken, and because of this a bunch of unreasonable fears had manifested themselves and weren’t going anywhere. Added to this, I had lost a fair bit of weight, so I was now carrying almost 8kg of ballast and not even making the middle of the range on my wing. And for someone who wasn’t flying much, that was too light. My tolerance of bumps of any description was zero! I had stopped having fun. I didn’t want to fly because I was scared of being thrown around. I had lost all self confidence to deal with anything that could go wrong and I was scared of my pod. Amazing! Time to finally fix this shit!

Step 1: order new wing with better weight range! I considered taking a step back to a Makalu but after much consideration (like a day, I’m an impulsive person!), I decided not to. But the XS Kantega was perfect for me.

Step 2: ditch the pod and go back to the open harness which felt natural and safe. I didn’t need to think in an open harness so I could concentrate on flying and enjoying myself (sure, I couldn’t read my instruments but meh, minor issue).

Step 3: fly when I felt comfortable and only then. Get the fun back in the sport because if it’s not fun what’s the point?!

What amazed me was how quickly things started to improve once I took some steps back. I felt solid in my wing and my confidence returned. That’s not to say it was instantly smooth sailing, there were still freezes, but the next one came around 6 months later! For ages I felt like I had forgotten how to fly though. For 2 and a bit years all I had done was sleddies with the exception of a handful of 30 – 45 minute soaring flights in smooth conditions and a couple of very shaky 10km XCs. My brain had been so preoccupied with whether I can launch, then hurrying myself to the LZ that I had forgotten how to do the in between stuff. Some experienced pilots may say that it doesn’t happen like that, but for me it did. I had to remind myself of the things I needed to think about when I was wanting to stay in the air, simple things like reacting to the noises on my vario when it said I was going up! I had spent so long ignoring them, being preoccupied with fear and wanting to land, that I almost instinctively ignored them and had to make a conscious effort to listen!

I listened to podcasts. It was almost a relief to hear that other people had gone through this stuff…and then I’d have some feelings of frustration as to why I seemed to be taking so much longer to recover!

I had to learn to just go with the emotions, opt out of flying earlier and avoid the meltdown. On many days I chose to sit out the morning, be a driver and then fly the smoother air in the afternoon. It wasn’t a matter of ability, I have flown much rougher air without a problem, it was about putting myself in a happy place and not allowing myself to fly in conditions that would potentially scare me and set me back. What was important was to keep flying happy. And if it meant opting out of flying ‘just in case’ then that’s how it was. I also had to learn to deal with the frustration of not instantly returning to my pre breakdown ability (which let’s face it, was never amazing!) but I am certainly capable of doing far more than I have been displaying!

My fragile state was vulnerable and any conversations that took place on launch could make or break my day. The slightest murmur of the air being rough and it just about grounded me on the spot. So I did my best to avoid people who I knew were likely to talk about the conditions and do my own thing. I took to listening to music to ensure I drowned out any possible whispers. I am very capable of judging conditions on my own so I needed to only listen to me. I also made sure I surrounded myself with positive people, those who were helping me move forward without even realising it. I’m pretty lucky to have some pretty incredible people in my life who always look out for me! They don’t even know how much they’ve helped me.

The battle isn’t over yet, I am yet to return to my best flying, mostly hampered by lack of air time thanks to shift work and shitty weather, but am excited that that is up ahead. For now, I am enjoying feeling good in the air again and feeling good in general. I still get nervous when I get to launch but they are now controlled nerves and not debilitating ones. I can stay calm in the air and focus on improving my flying. And when I screw it up (which I regularly do!) I learn from what I did wrong which I am mostly able to recognise straight away, and I cherish the knowledge that I am on the ground because I screwed up not because I chose to be there. This may sound strange but it was the reverse for so long! I feel like I have solved the puzzle, the pieces are all aligned, they are just not all clicked together yet.

So for all the painful journey I have been through I have learnt a lot about myself and how to cope with the challenges I’ve been faced with. If something in this might help someone out there reading this, here are some things I have found particularly important, and certainly things I wish I could have told myself 2 years ago:

Be kind to yourself. Kindness goes a long way in life, and that includes kindness towards yourself not just others. So be kind to yourself, give up beating yourself up because of what you didn’t do and celebrate what you did do. If you are having a moment, then take a moment, breathe, rationalise then go with it. You have nothing to prove to anyone, flying is your journey and yours alone.

Make every flight a positive experience. Focus on the things you did well rather than the things you didn’t. That’s not to say that you shouldn’t learn from your mistakes or aim to do better, I just mean that by highlighting the positives, the approach to each flight changes. Starting the day feeling good from the previous flight will lead to far better things than feeling negative because of the thermal you missed or the collapse you took last time you flew, the days of choosing not to fly from fear become fewer and further apart, the willingness to fly in air that was previously deemed potentially scary increases, the fun returns!

At the early stages of all this, when I had absolutely no idea what was going on, Kirsten sent me a quote that said: Attitude is the difference between an ordeal and an adventure.  I wasn’t able to use this until I knew what I was dealing with within myself, but it is the thing I think of all the time.  It is absolutely true and it can change everything! I am now capable of choosing the Adventure!

Everyone’s boundaries are different. Everyone’s journey is different. We must respect that we are different and something that has worked for me may not work for someone else and vice versa. Maybe I wouldn’t have this insight if I hadn’t struggled, but I believe I am a better person for it, and in time a better pilot. My appreciation of my achievements when they happen is so much more.

Thank you to all the amazing people who have offered assistance over the last too long! Thank you to those who have let me cry and not asked, and the extra special ones who don’t need to ask, they just hand me a beer and make me laugh!

See you in the sky 🙂