Until quite recently, every time I have flown, I have had this little moment – right at the point where I stepped from the air bridge walkway on to the plane.

I looked at the doorway in front of me, the mechanisms and rivets and bolts and levers. Looking for something, a stain, a dent, any imperfection that might alert me to something, I didn’t know what. In fact, I didn’t know anything about what I was looking at. I’d see the bored faces of the ground crew milling about outside the aircraft, and the relaxed easy smiles of the cabin crew waiting to greet me as I entered, and found reassurance in their seemingly uneventful day.

I stepped through the door and in that moment, surrendered myself to the will of fate. I willingly incarcerated myself in a metal tube, knowing full well that it would soon lurch me and my fellow prisoners forward to a speed of 150mph before somehow elegantly lifting itself up into the sky.

Thrust back into my seat as we heaved forward, I’m thinking to myself, “keep it straight, keep it level, go go go! Isn’t this fast enough?” And then, the ground would gently tip away and drop out below. A little lurch to left, “Whoa!  Ok..we’re ok we’re up we’re up”.

My grip on the armrests gently loosened, as everything began to smooth out and quieten down. Then the cabin crew unbuckled and began their duties, I could breathe a little deeper. With a gentle ‘bong’, the seatbelt sign disappears, and I come back to myself. Out of the window, I watch the tiny cars below streaming along the roads, snaking out into the distance.

It was always incredible to me. Always like a child in awe at the fact that I was thousands of feet above the ground screaming along at over 400mph. As we climbed out into the sky, breaking through the clouds to the stars or the sun, I settled in for the journey.

But then, came the bumps!  A little shudder at first, then a heave and a drop, “Why does it always start just as I’m about to eat or have a drink? I hate this, please stop!”  I just couldn’t let go and accept what was happening.  I was trapped in a superstitious belief that if I relaxed, I’d be punished with even worse turbulence or even the unthinkable. I actually thought that my fear was necessary to hold the plane together. A totally irrational but overwhelming emotion.  The turbulence passed as we moved into clear air, and once again my body relaxed and I dropped down in my seat, exhausted with the tension released.

Then, a few years ago, something changed. Something deep inside shifted to a new place.

I received a Birthday gift. A flying lesson at a local aerodrome in North London.

I arrived feeling a bit nervous.  After a half-hour explanation of avionics and the basics of how a plane works, we headed out to the little Cessna aircraft.

Buckled in and headphones on, I was watched carefully as my instructor prepared the plane, started the engine, and headed off towards the runway.  After a quick ok from air traffic control, he threw the throttle to full and we roared off, weaving and bumping along the grass field. We climbed gently up to two thousand feet, just below the scattered clouds. The rolling green fields of Hertfordshire spread out below us.

“Ok, ready to take control?” He asked. “Uh yeah, Ready.” I responded, not really sure if I was.

“Ok, you have control.”

I gripped the wheel tightly. “Ok, I thought, “keep it level, nose a bit up, what else?” “What else did he say I have to do?” “Are you ok?” He asked, sensing my clear tension. “Just relax your grip, let the wheel move freely. The plane will stay level.”

I loosened my grip so that my hand was more or less just feeling the wheel but not gripping it. All was well. The plane bobbed a bit but yes, it was staying level.

“That’s better.” He said “Just have the lightest touch on the wheel and keep an eye on the instruments.”

We puttered about for a few more minutes before I noticed we were heading for some rather thick clouds. “what do I do in a cloud?” I said.

“Nothing.” “The plane will bounce and heave around a bit, just keep your hand near the wheel.” “Let it find its own way.” “Ok,” I thought. “I can do that.”

We entered the cloud and immediately the plane started bobbing left and right, a little lurch and heave, but I kept my hand loose and relaxed. The plane hopped and dropped, wobbled and lurched but I felt the movement through the wheel, like a car going over a pothole. It stayed level and straight. Then we popped out the other side back into sunshine and all was smooth again.

“Ok, we’re going to head back in now, would you like to do the approach?” He asked

“Yes, I would”. I was relaxing and gaining confidence.

I guided our plane, under my instructor’s watchful eye, back and down towards the runway.

“I’ll take over at forty feet.” He informed me. “Forty feet? I gasped.  “ok… I think?”

We descended under my control in a perfect approach and at what seemed like the very last second, he took over and we touched down, rumbling along the grass.

The engine roared as we slowed and taxied back to our parking spot.

I was totally pumped. “Thank you so much, that was fantastic!”

I said goodbye to the instructor and headed off to my car.

Driving back through the Hertfordshire countryside, I was struck by the fact that cars were zooming past me in the opposite direction at over fifty miles an hour with barely eight feet between us.

“Driving cars is so risky.” I thought. ” I do this every day but  never realised how close we are to each other.” ” Flying is so much…safer.” That was it. The moment I let go of my fear of flying.

But it got me thinking,  Maybe, this was a lesson about more than just flying. Maybe this was a lesson in trust and surrender. That I can relax my grip on life, give it some room to move, trust it. I decided there and then that I wanted to try to let go of anxiety and tension in my life, to see what would actually happen. To call the bluff on my fear. It was tested soon enough.

I was about to fly to Cape Town – a twelve-hour overnight haul from Heathrow.

Stepping onto the plane, I felt a deep sense of calm and surrender. I was in a totally relaxed state. I settled into my seat feeling content. I just knew that whatever was to be was to be. It had less to do with actually flying and everything to do with an inner shift from anxiety to trust. From fear to acceptance.

As the plane roared along the runway, all that I felt was excitement about leaving the British winter, getting to Cape Town, and having breakfast in the warm sunshine of a southern summer. As we gently banked over the sparkling lights of London and headed down over Surrey, I was free of any anxiety or concern.

We cruised on into the night, and as is normal when flying down over deepest, darkest Africa, we encountered some tropical stormy weather. I awoke at 4am to the lurch and heave of the plane as it plowed through the wild night.

But now, I was totally undisturbed! No fear and no tension in my body. I visualized the plane bouncing over the clouds like a bus on a bumpy road, feeling the speed of the plane adjusting and steadying itself naturally, through the jolts and bumps.

Rocked and soothed by the movement, I drifted back to sleep. Four hours later, I awoke to a silky calm sunrise over the red dunes of Namibia.

As I stepped off the plane, I felt refreshed and ready for the day ahead.

It was clear that something inside me had dissolved. Yes, I had lost much of my fear of flying but it was more than that. It was deeper and bigger. I had to some degree, successfully lost a fear of life itself!

What had become so real and embodied in me was that, just as the plane did not actually need my fear to keep it in the sky, so did life not need my anxiety, to keep things from falling apart.

It was like I had experienced a new perspective in microcosm.  How fear dominated my experience of life, every day and in every way. But even more, how because of this irrational belief that anxiety and tension had served me in some way, I had become addicted to it. An insane notion that without a mind and body overwhelmed by negative thoughts, fear, tension, and stress, everything would collapse around me.

I realized how I had allowed external forces beyond my control, to throw me around. From fear to relief, tension to relaxation, and back again. Bounced around on the turbulence of circumstance, like my plane in the night, bouncing from cloud to cloud, heaving into warm air and dropping into cold.

I saw how I was always throttling back, unsure of the path ahead, and consequently always losing height,  perspective, and vision.

But just like me, my plane was designed to handle rough weather. Its body, designed to be flexible and soft, to absorb and deflect the massive forces set against it.  Its mind, capable of re-adjusting toward the destination, keeping it level and moving, moving, always moving forward. Without motion, there could be no lift, and no ability to navigate or steer a course. Without forward thrust, there was only one way to go. Down.

This has now become an understanding from which I aspire to live. To understand that stress, fear, anxiety, and tension, have only ever caused me to become brittle and inflexible. Easily shattered by the winds of fate. A victim of circumstance. Now I choose as much as possible to move with the wind, to roll with the changes. Money in the bank, or no money in the bank. A woman by my side, or no woman by my side. Clarity of purpose or just foggy confusion.  Good health or poor health. Taking a risk or deciding to wait until the right moment.  But whatever my state of mind, I know that I have to keep moving, always moving forward, gaining lift and speed. Climbing ever higher, expanding perspective to a distant horizon. Letting go of my addiction to fear and anxiety. Realizing that it never has, and never will serve me.  Accepting the truth that I am free to fly.