Flying Lessons:
7 Ways to Break Free and Soar
An Overview
Do you believe you can fly? Do you have a feeling of power and
possibility inside that you’d love to set free? Do you long to lift
yourself above some of the old stories and patterns of your life and
soar?
Even if you dread boarding a 747, I’ll bet that you can summon the
dream of “flying” in some area of your life. Maybe for you, soaring
would mean having the money to give you new options, reaching the top
of your field, or quitting your job. It could it mean writing that
book, expressing your musical talent, or having the most exciting and
passionate relationship you can imagine. Or, maybe you see “flying” as
a more internal experience. It might mean increased powers of insight
or healing, or rising to new heights of ecstatic spiritual experience.
Or it could be as simple and grand as happiness, peace or joy.
The ancient and potent metaphor of flight kept showing up in my life
until finally, in my mid-50’s, I had the opportunity to fly in a
literal way. After eight years of flying in the passenger seat with my
pilot husband I set out to earn my own private pilot’s license.
Little did I know that the learning process would raise every fear and
doubt I’d ever had, and a galaxy I’d never expected to encounter. I
never suspected that Clio, my woman flight instructor, would give me
lessons for my life, or that I would come to refer to her as my
“aviation therapist” and my “spiritual teacher in disguise.”
Out of the hundreds of lessons I learned from Clio and from my own
flying practice, I’ve distilled my learning into seven that I believe
are the most central for all of us. They are deceptively simple pieces
of common sense; you’ll be able to see how the metaphor works right
away. Students of the chakra system of energy will notice that the
seven lessons correspond to the seven chakras. And each story
illustrates a core block that is healed with the “medicine” of the
flight lesson.
1. “Know where you’re going to land” means having a place to return if
everything falls apart—hopefully a safe place inside. We all have a
fear of not being able to survive, and so we aren’t about to “fly”
unless we know we can get back on solid ground. This lesson is the
foundation for all that follows.
2. “Bring enough fuel for the journey;” that’s an obvious piece of
advice if you’re flying an airplane. But how seriously do we take the
same advice in our lives? In my Flying Lessons classes and retreat,
you’ll learn how to scan your energy supply with a paper dipstick, and
you’ll find out what your premium fuel is and how to “fill your
tank”—so that you can avoid an experience we all fear: being without
power and crashing.
3. “Take the pilot’s seat;” who else is going to pilot your life
anyway? This one is about taking 100% responsibility for our lives.
When we do, we can rise above the fear that we aren’t good enough (or
wise or capable enough), and give ourselves the respect and care we
would give any capable pilot who was taking us to our destination.
4. “Remember why you long to fly” is a lesson about returning to the
beauty and magic of life that inspires us to keep on moving, despite
the failures and disappointments we all encounter. Especially when we
feel alone or fear that we won’t be loved, we need to remember our
connection to all that is, and to fall in love with our lives again.
5. “Communicate with the control tower” is about our relationship with
authorities and critics, inner and outer. How do we maintain respect
and integrity with laws and boundaries and still fearlessly develop
and exercise our own voice? And how do we form a relationship with
those unhelpful inner “controllers” who jam our radios and stop us in
our tracks?
6. “Broaden your scan” is a lesson about learning to use all the ways
of processing information, and to develop a scan that includes all of
them. When we encounter bad weather, our usual visible clues may be
restricted and we may fear that we are lost. Sometimes we forget that
we have inherited internal instruments like intuition, imagination,
instinct and heart, and that deep within, we know the way.
7. “Give way to the winds” is about surrendering to forces greater
than we. Like the mythological character, Icarus, we can crash if we
forget the power of nature and the universe. Despite our fear of
letting go, there comes a time when we need to know when not to
fly—when to be still in the face of Power and Mystery.
You might ask yourself how these lessons apply in your life. In my
workshops, we “unpeel” and expand each lesson, so that you gain tools
for a lifetime.
You’ll see how the things that stop us are not really in the outer
world; our obstacles are invisible forces in our “inner space.”
Applying the lessons can help you strengthen your relationship with
the invisible world, so that its “winds” can be lift you instead of
pulling you down. When you hear stories of my clients’ journeys,
you’ll see how their stories create a kind of “flight simulator” where
you can practice applying each outer lesson to flying past whatever
stops you.
I feel privileged to be sharing this material now, after a decade of
work condensing it. In the form of a keynote talk, a class and a
three-day retreat, participants have tested the flying lessons. “The
metaphor is so powerful,” they tell me. I agree, having applied it to
my breast cancer journey, to becoming a shamanic practitioner “flying”
to other dimensions, and to my healing, coaching and teaching work.
Now I long to expand my work by sharing this modelit with a larger
audience. When I have the privilege of watching others suddenly see
all their possibilities, it is like watching them take off and
discover a new spacious place inside. When that happens, I too am
lifted.
