Flow Friday - The Reset Flip
From Fear to Flow
You can’t think your way into flow.
In a recent session with a Wingmates member, we explored what happens when you tip over into the red of anxiety on takeoff.
Performance drops as the perceived challenge increases causing stress to spike. But this is a subjective state. Two people can experience the same event with completely opposite inner experiences.
Once you’re aware of the agency you have over your inner experience, you become empowered to take control of it. You can literally switch your state. Anxiety can become playful excitement. The feeling is real but it is not a verdict.
But you can’t go from anxiety straight back into flow. And we can’t think our way there. “Thinking positive” won’t cut it.
If you tell yourself you’re just excited, but underneath you still feel fear, you’ll experience cognitive dissonance — feeling better, feeling worse, feeling better, feeling worse as you try to argue yourself into a better headspace. If you’ve ever known what you want to do but still couldn’t do it, this could be why.
Release first, then reset.
If you’re mildly in the red a simple flip of perspective from “I’m afraid” to “I’m excited” can be all it takes. But the deeper entrenched you are in the red the more important it is that you actually get into your body.
The mind and body are a single deeply connected system. So when you are stuck you are stuck both psychologically and physically. Before you can flip your state you have to release yourself from whatever is keeping you stuck.
For example: you’ve pulled up on takeoff and your glider is off in the bushes. Or you’ve gone too wide on the turn and fallen out the thermal.
The mental scolding begins - “ah you idiot, you should know better, you suck.” “Ah no now people are going to think I’m a bad pilot” or “ah now they’re going to fly away and I’m going to land, what are they going to think of me, I have to get back up” - take a moment here to reflect on your own negative self-talk in these situations.
What does your dictator say to you?
If you then just try to talk your way out of it - “I’m ok, I’ve got this” you get stuck in the cognitive mode. And you won’t be able to embody the new state. So you first have to be able to feel and release the emotion.
“Ag I’m pissed off that I did that” - release it, and then reset.
It’s important for you to discover what works best for you but release can be a big breath out (like breathing through a straw as you exhale hard), a little cry in frustration, a laugh, whatever feels appropriate in the moment.
The key is not to get stuck in rumination. You’re not trying to figure out what went wrong. You’re not trying to convince your dictator of anything. You’re just allowing the emotion to rise, pass through you, and be expressed.
Then you can reset using a method of your choice. You could do a playful dance, shake out your arms, sing a playful song, hum, shift your focus onto something external, say a mantra (let’s fucking go) - whatever helps to shift your physiology back to the desired state and then shift your attention onto the task at hand - in the moment, in your body, out of the mind - and if you’re lucky, flow will return.
How do you plan to release and reset?
P.S. This is the kind of work we do inside Wingmates. There are only three founding rate spots left before the price goes up and doors close for a while. So if you’re on the fence, now is the time to join the world’s first flow-focussed flying community.
I think it’s probably important to understand where the initial fear/anxiety and self-deprecation is coming from. Is it a valid concern over strong, turbulent conditions and having a lack of skills or experience to cope with them? Is it a glider that’s a bit too hot and advanced, making the situation seem more dynamic than it needs to be? Is it a lack of understanding the conditions? Is this a “what will they think of me if I fail” kind of deal, or all of the above?
It is so incredibly freeing to stop giving a damn about what other people think, and IMO this is true in all aspects of life. I was raised to hold other people’s opinions of me in the highest regard, but the older I got, the more I realized that anyone who would judge me, make me feel bad, or choose to associate with me based on my looks or performance, these are people I don’t want to have around me. They can keep their superficial BS. If my human worth to them is measured by my performance, medals, financial success, what I’m wearing or driving, they can f**k right off.
I fly to have fun first and foremost. If I choose to challenge myself and I fail, I realize that it can happen to the best of us. I’ve seen some of the best pilots sink out, or end up on the ground. I could just never even try for fear that I will be judged by others, but where’s the fun in that? Who are these people and why would you care what they think of you??
If you go into something expecting to be the best and expecting to have zero failures along the way, then you are bound to become disappointed in yourself. Giving yourself grace, expecting to progress in baby steps, asking a better pilot or mentor for advice, receiving constructive criticism without shutting down, taking an educational tandem flight with an instructor to see what you can do better,… these are all the things we can do to relieve some of the anxiety and fear.
Don’t set the goal post so high for yourself and be sure to celebrate the smaller victories. It really adds up over time! Be patient with yourself. Stop focusing so much on earning other people’s respect. Are you flying to have fun, or to earn social accolades? Where does this internal need to immediately become a socially-recognized badass come from?
You are worthy of love and respect no matter what you do or don’t achieve, how fast or how slow, and anyone trying to make you feel smaller for trying and failing is not a positive asset to your life. Let them go. “Why didn’t you fly XC today??? Why didn’t you fly a 100km?!? So and so made it to Vegas! Don’t you love the nuclear conditions?!? How many points did you score today???” “I had my own kind of fun. I worked on improving my skills milking the light lift, was almost the last to land, but I hope you had a great time! Maybe one day when I feel good about it, I’ll join you.”