I’ve got a thing about heights. I’ve worked with it over the years and, am proud to report, have made considerable inroads into dispersing the effects of this particular phobia. I can now fly with the greatest of ease in any commercial two-winged flying machine bigger than a four-seater. I can handle express elevators. I can even manage myself with aplomb in gliders. I can abseil with abandon and I can conquer a scamper up sheer cliff faces as long as I don’t look down. So all in all, I’m prepared for most of the high-altitude exigencies of normal daily life but I must confess to having made less headway in this respect when it comes to helicopters. With all those other styles of upwardly mobile transport at my disposal, you may not think my ‘copterphobia would pose too much of a problem over the course of a lifetime but that’s not necessarily the case. I was up in Glasgow once, for example. I’d gone up for the day to take part in some corporate function and as part of their thankyou to me, they’d very kindly, at great cost, arranged for me to be flown around the Highlands for an hour or two in one of those little two seater bubble affairs and it would have been rude to have declined. So I smiled bravely, bottled the phobia, rammed the cork in tight, slowed down my breathing, centred my mind below my navel and in the manner of someone about to engage in a full-contact martial arts contest, girded my loins and stepped with courage up into the cabin. The pilot was an elderly gentleman looking a little worse for wear and, to my healer’s eye, displaying signs of imminent coronary. Politely controlling the shaking in my hands, however, I buckled my seatbelt and without fanfare or fuss we were at once high above the city, over the loch and up above the mountains amidst a cloudless blue sky, looking out at the unadulterated rolling majesty of the Highlands. My eyes, nearly in REM, were flickering between the view, me doing all I could to appreciate it fully, the pilot, in case he suddenly died, the floor in case it suddenly gave way, the blades should they snap off and my hands which were, I noticed with interest, white-knuckled and feverishly gripping the sides of the seat. This was patently stupid as no amount of gripping would help me were anything to go wrong, so I got myself to gradually let go until I was only exerting about 25 lb of pressure. It was in this moment, I realised that life is a ride. The view, if you take the time to look around you properly, is incredible. The experience, even when things are dread, is, if you let it be and don’t give way to self-pity and negativity, exhilarating. But if you focus all your attention on what can go wrong and in so doing you grip onto worthless supports – beliefs, social structures, relationships, jobs or habits that no longer serve you, for instance – and make yourself both mentally and physically tense and stressed as a result, you won’t enjoy the ride and when, at the point of death, it comes time to step out of the helicopter, you’ll think, damn, I could have enjoyed that had I relaxed a bit more, which waste of a lifetime would be a terrible shame to say the least. As it happens, the pilot didn’t die, the floor didn’t cave in, nor did the propellers fall off, I managed to remain halfway relaxed in a shaky kind of way and when I stepped down, as well as the overwhelming relief there was the gratification of knowing I’d at least mastered my mind enough to have enjoyed it in spite of being mostly scared out of my wits. The message being, that when life gets scary, as it inevitably will at times, check for where you’re gripping on unnecessarily with your arms, chest, shoulders, neck, thigh muscles, anus, belly, diaphragm (breathing), as well as with your mind - to those thoughts, beliefs and structures that no longer serve you - and let go. That way you’ll enjoy the ride and appreciate the innate magnificence, far more and when it comes to step out of the ‘copter, whenever that might be, you’ll think, at least I didn’t waste the opportunity - and you can’t do better than that.
