18. Panic-Free With Captain Tom Bunn

In this episode, I interview Captain Tom Bunn, airline pilot turned social worker! Tom’s approach to ending panic in all situations (not just flying) is based on legitimate scientific research and my hope is that his approach could help clear out any panic you’re having so you can continue to dive deep into ACIM and be the miracle worker that you are.

Transcript

This is From Anxiety to Love Radio,

The show about undoing anxiety through a course in miracles and other pathways of love.

Gain insights and tools to deepen your awareness of the peace that already exists within you.

I'm your host Corinne Zupko,

Author of the award-winning and best-selling book From Anxiety to Love.

Hello my friends,

On today's episode of From Anxiety to Love Radio,

I'm interviewing someone really cool.

He's an airline pilot,

A former US Air Force captain who flew the Air Force's first supersonic jet fighter,

And he's a licensed clinical social worker.

His name is Tom Bunn,

And he's a fellow New World Library author.

He wrote the book Panic Free,

The 10-day program to end panic,

Anxiety,

And claustrophobia,

And this book is the result of his many years addressing flight panic in his role as an airline pilot.

So he's basically taken the principles in his program and extended them to additional anxiety issues in this book.

Now you know this is a show where we usually focus on a course in miracles,

But today is a little bit different.

As you know,

I used to have panic attacks,

And I couldn't fly on an airplane without my husband.

During a flight,

I'd either need to be medicated or I'd be literally white-knuckling a meditation the whole time just to try to keep myself calm.

That's changed for me now because of A Course in Miracles,

And to be totally honest with you,

I'm still shocked at how my fears of flying have fallen away.

Tom's approach to ending panic in all situations,

Not just flying,

Is based on legitimate scientific research,

And my hope is that his approach could help clear out any panic you are having,

Hopefully in 10 days,

So you can continue to dive deep into A Course in Miracles and be the miracle worker that you are.

Now before we get started,

I just want to mention that I'll be speaking for the fourth time in the Community Miracle Center A Course in Miracles conference in May 2020 in Los Angeles.

These conferences are so much fun,

And they're really a wonderful time to connect with fellow mighty companions,

And you and I can share lunch or dinner together,

So if you come,

Please definitely connect.

It's like a huge A Course in Miracles party,

And to be totally honest,

There really is something about being in the same room with like-minded people.

It's like that power surge that moves mountains.

I have a few tickets available at cost.

We're not hiking up the price,

So if this event speaks to you,

Again,

It's May 2020 in Los Angeles,

Visit fromanxietytolove.

Com forward slash ACIM conference,

And maybe you can utilize some of the tools that we will be talking about today if you don't really care for flying,

If you'd have to fly to Los Angeles.

It's a great opportunity to practice,

And I would absolutely love to meet you in person.

So let's tune in to my conversation with Captain Tom Bunn.

Captain Tom Bunn,

Welcome to the show.

I am so excited to have you here.

Thank you,

Corinne.

I was sharing with Tom before we started recording that our show here at From Anxiety to Love Radio typically focuses on A Course in Miracles,

But when our mutual publicist reached out to me,

Because Tom is also a New World Library author,

When she reached out to me about Tom's book,

I could not pass up having him on the show.

Tom's book is called Panic Free,

The 10-day program to end panic,

Anxiety,

And claustrophobia,

And the cool thing about Tom is that not only is he a licensed therapist,

But he's also a pilot and has flown many flights and helped many people with even flying anxiety.

So we are just going to have such a great conversation,

Tom.

I'm so excited.

Me too.

I'm glad we're going to get the word out that we can fix this problem.

Which is amazing to me.

I mean,

I wish I knew of you and this work years ago when I was struggling so much with flying and with panic attacks because your work is really pretty groundbreaking.

I am just so excited to get the word out there.

Yeah,

Well,

We were struggling to find a way to fix panic at the Fear of Flying program,

First at Pan Am and then the one I set up myself,

SOAR.

I thought cognitive was going to fix it and I tried for years to get cognitive therapy to stop panic,

But the problem is for many people when you get really revved up into a state of panic and you're overwhelmed,

You've got no cognition available to do cognitive anything with.

You can't say,

Oh,

I'm in a state of panic,

I need to do this technique.

You just can't happen.

That goes offline.

Yeah.

So we had to find something that would work automatically.

I don't know if you've probably heard this term thought stopping.

Jerry Lynn Ross came up with that.

She was also working on something that would work automatically back in the 80s.

So the idea is if you have an anxiety-producing thought,

Wear this rubber band on your wrist so it's available anytime you have an anxiety-producing thought,

Snap the rubber band,

Cause some pain.

The idea is,

Yeah,

It'll inhibit the thought sooner or later.

And I had that same reaction.

I'm not sure I really want to invite people to inflict pain on themselves.

So I had the idea,

What about instead of inflicting pain,

What if we just can teach a person to routinely or habitually or maybe even automatically shift from an anxiety-producing thought to a positive thought?

And so I thought,

Well,

I would ask people,

Well,

What's some big deal that you've done?

Because I thought it would have to be a pretty powerful positive thing.

And one person I remember in particular,

She said,

I run the New York Marathon.

That really impressed me.

I wouldn't do that.

Too much training.

I couldn't handle that.

So anyway,

So I said,

All right,

So I'm going to give you a hand signal.

When I give you the hand signal,

What I want you to do is to go step,

Step,

Step,

Take yourself back to the marathon.

So I'd say,

OK,

Plane's taxiing out,

Give it a signal.

Plane's taking off,

Give it a signal,

Cruising along,

Smooth air.

So we would link up the things that are going to happen on the flight.

And those were just ordinary ones.

But we'd even take,

Oh,

You're beginning to think your plane's going to fall out of the sky,

Step,

Step,

Step back to the marathon.

So the idea was to shift automatically.

OK,

It worked for some people.

It didn't work for others.

Couldn't figure out why.

But then something happened that,

You know,

I got to tell you that this was stumbled on.

And what happened was a woman said,

I'm going to link it to nursing my child.

Now what would you think of telling a person who says,

I'm going to link my fears to nursing a child on a plane?

You've got to be crazy.

You're going to get on the plane and think you're never going to see your child again.

I don't know.

But I didn't say it.

So we went ahead and we went,

You know,

The way she planned to do it,

We linked all those things I mentioned one after another that happened on the plane and linked it to nursing her child.

She called back.

You linked this in the therapy room or actually on the plane with a person?

We did it on the phone,

Actually.

On the phone?

OK.

And so I would just say,

OK,

You have the baby there and you're sitting in that room where you nursed the baby.

And OK,

Let's just imagine you have a little black and white picture by the baby of the plane taking off.

And so,

You know,

20 or 30 pictures of that would cover the whole flight.

She called back a week later.

Perfect flight.

And nobody had ever had that good a result.

And then but I didn't think that much about it until it happened a couple of more times.

And then it was clear that every time a person links to nursing a child,

They have great results.

OK,

What's going on?

Turned out that recently it had been discovered,

Sue Carter is the big researcher on this,

That when a mother nurses a child,

She produces oxytocin.

It's a peptide kind of a hormone.

What oxytocin does is it shuts down the anxiety and fears because you can't produce stress hormones while you're producing oxytocin.

So what was happening was we were not just shifting negative thoughts to positive thoughts.

We were linking the negative thought to a memory that when jogged caused her to produce oxytocin when those things happened on the plane.

So she was producing this protective hormone that just kept her fear system shut down on the plane.

So now we've got something really remarkable that we can do.

Now guys may wonder,

Well,

How is this going to work for me?

That was my next question.

But there are half a dozen situations where nature has it set up for us to produce oxytocin.

They all have in some way something to do with reproduction.

So let me just explain nursing a child.

Why does that have to do with reproduction?

It takes a long time to do that.

So what if halfway through the nursing the mom got anxious about,

I've got a lot of other things I need to do.

I've got to stop nursing and clean the house or go shopping or whatever.

So nature protects the child's interest here by when the mother starts nursing and all the time she's nursing produce a massive amount of oxytocin,

Keeps the fear system shut down,

Can't produce stress hormones.

She can have the thought.

She has other things to do.

But it doesn't cause any urge to do them.

Okay.

So there's two things that oxytocin does.

One is just talked about it shuts down the fear system by preventing the release of stress hormones.

The other thing is it causes bonding and that's been in the press,

The media for some time.

How when oxytocin is artificially administered people are more friendly with each other.

Okay.

So another time oxytocin is produced naturally is when you pick up a newborn child.

Here it's to cause bonding.

So you feel protective of the child.

There's a second situation that has to do with reproduction.

Okay.

Here's one that could change your romantic life.

When guys have an orgasm,

They get a big blast of oxytocin.

You know what happens?

We get relaxed and you get annoyed at us because we fall asleep.

Right?

Now if you knew that nature is trying to do something here,

It might make a difference.

Nature is giving the guy this big blast of oxytocin for bonding so that before he cocks off he thinks,

Oh my God,

I've got to be with her forever and he goes to sleep.

So nature has figured it out that,

Hey,

You know,

This activity could cause a child and if we can have two people taking care of this kid that might be born,

The kid's going to be better off with two parents rather than one.

So let's get the guy to stick around.

Then with females,

There can be some oxytocin there but more at foreplay if the chemistry is good.

So that the fear of getting physically close disappears.

And strangely associated with that,

Dogs.

When you interact with your dog,

Your dog looks at you like you are the only person in the world.

I'm totally devoted to you.

That's like what happens in good foreplay,

Right?

Interesting.

Yes.

Of course,

As you know,

You can depend on the dog the next morning.

Guys,

Well,

We don't know.

So woman's best friend.

So that's the rundown on oxytocin and what we want to do is to find a situation where – oh,

By the way,

One more.

When you get a really solid hug for 20 or 30 seconds,

That produces oxytocin.

Oh,

Wow.

Okay.

All right.

So we look for a place where we get the supply.

Now how do we get the supply to be delivered on the airplane?

We just link it through doing this repetitious exercise half a dozen times or so.

Not one day but on a series of days.

We link the things that are going to happen on the routine flight to the memory that will cause oxytocin to be produced when whatever thing we're linking to happens.

So when you say linking,

You mean that you are thinking about the – yeah,

Can you explain linking?

Just what that looks like?

It's like I was saying if you ask the mother to go back to remembering nursing the child and pretend that someone is with her there holding a photograph near the baby's face of the plane taking off or landing or whatever it is.

Or if it was a guy,

I would say that you just made love and you're lying there feeling really close with your partner and she's holding a picture of an airplane by her face.

So both of those are memories.

You're remembering that lovemaking and in that memory,

You're picturing a picture of the plane taking off.

You could ask your partner to do it but I don't think it would fly.

Good point.

But you could do it with your dog.

Yes,

You could.

You could definitely do it because your dog would go along with it.

You could scratch your dog on the head.

By the way,

We actually have these photographs on the website,

Fearoflying.

Com slash photos.

Oh,

Great to know.

Fearoflying.

Com slash photos.

And we have actually three different parts of the exercise.

What I call phase one,

We link to the things that happen routinely on the flight so that every few minutes you get a blast of oxytocin to keep you supplied throughout the flight.

The second phase is to go to the what ifs.

What if this happens?

What if that happens?

The things we worry about?

Those things,

Just to think about them causes anxiety.

In order to try to work around the anxiety,

I suggest people use a cartoon character in the situation rather than a person because we are conditioned when we watch cartoons to know cartoon characters get into impossible situations and yet they always get out of it.

There's no dead cartoon characters.

So you've got Homer Simpson on an airplane and he's worrying if the wings are going to fall off.

The cartoonist draws a picture of a plane over Homer's head with the wings broken off and that one is being held by your baby's face or by your lover's face or your dog's face to link it up.

And then the third part,

And this is where we really get into the panic issue,

There are five main things that people notice as major symptoms in panic.

Pounding heart,

Rapid breathing,

Tension in the body,

Sweatiness and sometimes psychological changes like feeling out of body or like things aren't real.

So we want to make sure that panic doesn't start with one and the first trigger the second and the second trigger the third until you have all five and you have a full blown panic attack.

We want to put a spacer as it were between those things so one can't lead to the next.

So we take each one as a separate item and link it to an oxytocin producing animal.

Interesting.

Can I jump in real quick?

So you just named the five elements of a panic attack.

Pounding heart,

Can you repeat those again?

Yeah,

Pounding heart,

Rapid breathing,

Maybe to the point you feel like you can't breathe,

Sweatiness,

Tension and the psychological changes.

Some person said it's like there's a plate glass between you and all of reality.

That's one version or the other is that you're looking at yourself from outside.

Okay,

Thank you.

That makes a lot of sense because I know in this years and years ago I used to have an issue with exercise induced anxiety because my heart rate would increase and that mimicked the sensation of a panic attack and so it was exactly what you're describing.

The rapid heart rate led to and the increased breathing from exercising led to the next thing until it put me into a panic attack.

So you're saying to put spacers between those and to link each one of those with a memory,

An image that produces oxytocin,

Is that correct?

Yeah,

It's kind of like if you went to a department store and bought some imitation pearls and you broke the strand,

You'd have these pearls flying everywhere.

But if you went to a drawer and bought some expensive cultured pearls,

They put a knot between each pearl.

Now the reason that knot's there is to keep the pearls from rubbing against each other because that coating is very fragile.

But it also serves the purpose of if you broke the strand,

Only one bead would come loose.

So it's kind of like we're putting a knot between each of those five things,

Those beads that panic attack is composed of.

So you go through this process with each one of those things.

Yeah.

That's great.

It really shows up to an oxytocin producing moment.

But that's not the only thing we can do.

What we're talking about so far is preventing the release of stress hormones.

The other thing we can do,

And this is something discovered by a neuroscientist,

Stephen Porges,

It's when we are with another person who we feel physically safe with and psychologically safe with,

Someone who is completely non-judgmental,

We sometimes feel our guard let down because when we're with people,

We're always sending and receiving signals unconsciously.

If we're getting really benign signals from another person,

And once again,

Unconsciously and processed unconsciously,

In ordinary social situations,

We probably are physically safe.

We're getting signals that we're physically safe,

So that calms us a little bit,

But we're not totally at ease because we're not getting the signals that we're not being judged.

But when we're with a person who's a really good friend and easy going,

We're getting signals that we don't have anything we need to be on guard about.

And what happens is these signals actually activate the vagus nerve.

Now,

When you take a deep breath and then slowly exhale,

That slow exhale activates the vagus nerve and calms us down.

So activating the vagus nerve is a good thing.

It calms you down.

It calms you down.

It slows the heart rate and breathing rate.

The problem is you've got to breathe then,

Right?

But here,

We have something that will last as long as you are with that calming person or as long as you are remembering being with the calming person.

Let me bring in some research that was done fairly recently at the University of Arizona.

They took 102 people and they wanted to put them under some stress and see what some different interventions would do to alleviate the stress.

The stressor was putting your foot in 38-degree water.

It doesn't sound terrible,

But two people dropped out,

Couldn't handle it.

Anyway,

So you got three groups.

The first group,

The intervention,

Of course,

They had people hooked up to the monitoring equipment,

Heart rate and so on.

And they would say,

Okay,

Put your foot in the water.

And then when they put the foot in the water,

They told them,

Think about your day.

That was what they did with the first group,

The first third of the 102 people.

And they measured them.

The second group,

They said,

Oh,

By the way,

I didn't mention this,

But everyone in the research study was in a committed romantic relationship.

So they asked the people in the second group,

When your foot is in the water,

Think about being with your partner.

The third group,

They actually had the partner there,

Physically right there.

So you know that that group with the physically present partner did well.

The thing that was amazing was the people who thought about their partner did just as well.

Now,

I wanted to throw that in because we're just using the memory of being with a calming person.

Now,

Look,

If you've got someone available,

You actually could link it up to being with them.

But you don't have to have a person with you.

In fact,

The person doesn't even have to be alive.

You just need to remember a time when you were with a person and got this calming effect because you were picking up signals with them from their face,

Voice,

And body language or touch.

So the way we set this up is take yourself back to remembering being with this person and imagine that they are holding,

Let's use the panic thing,

For example.

Let's imagine you have Clark Kent on an airplane and he's thinking that he's going to be just fine because if anything goes wrong with the plane,

He can just grab it and become Superman,

Grab the plane and put it on the ground.

But as the plane takes off,

He realizes someone on this plane has kryptonite.

That's the substance that makes it impossible for him to do anything special.

So he starts to panic.

Now,

He would have perhaps the whole five things that would happen in panic,

But I just want you to use him for one thing,

Pounding heart.

Imagine that on his blue business suit,

He has huge red bold exclamation marks drawn there.

That's how cartoonists show pounding heart.

Now,

You take that cartoon,

You see,

Once again,

We're using cartoons because we don't – you remember how you talked about just thinking about pounding heart and rapid breathing could put you into panic.

We don't want to have that happen with the exercise.

That's why we use the cartoons.

You're not having pounding heart.

Clark Kent is having pounding heart.

I got you.

So you're not associating this experience with yourself.

You're seeing the cartoon character.

Right.

Get it outside.

Put it in the cartoon character's world.

And have him have that cartoon being held by your friend's face.

Your friend is holding Clark Kent,

Having a panic attack,

Pounding heart in the cartoon.

And that cartoon is right by their face,

Which is sending you safety signals,

Particularly the area of their face around the eyes.

Okay.

Now,

You want to link also to the quality of their voice.

That's the second part of being with that person that will come.

So how do you do that?

You hold a corner of the cartoon.

They hold a corner of the cartoon in your imagination.

And talk a little bit about it.

It doesn't matter what you say.

What matters,

The quality of their voice is where the calming signals are.

So as you talk about poor Superman can't become super,

Then the safety signals in your friend's voice become infused into that pounding heart subject.

And then touch.

As you're having this conversation,

You notice your friend just put their arm around your waist and is giving you a hug.

Face,

Voice,

Touch.

The three things that activate the parasympathetic nervous system.

Within the parasympathetic nervous system,

The main player,

The vagus nerve,

Goes to the heart,

Slows the heart,

Goes to the lungs,

Slows the lungs' breathing rate,

And goes to the organs in the abdomen and tells them,

Hey,

There's no emergency.

Just chill out and take it easy.

So this all happens,

All this training,

All this linking happens in your own mind.

So when you're in the experience,

Is it this thing that you call the unconscious procedural memory that then kicks in?

Yeah,

That's right.

That's right.

And I'm glad you mentioned that because I would be guessing that as people are listening to think,

How am I going to remember to do this?

Okay,

Unconscious procedural memory.

Okay,

Something everybody actually knows about when you drive your car.

You've been doing it for,

Well,

When you first started it wasn't easy,

But as you did it,

It got easier because a part of your brain was absorbing the task and memorizing it.

Now it's so memorized by your unconscious procedural memory that now you can be driving along and have a conversation.

And who's driving the car?

It's being driven by your mental autopilot.

Now that's the part of the brain we want to train to take care of you because unconscious procedural memory is in the sub cortex,

Which isn't bothered by stress hormones.

You remember the problem with panic?

Hey,

When you get overloaded,

You can't think clearly enough to do anything to help yourself.

Well,

This part of the brain is okay when you get stressed.

This is the part of the brain that's used by people who do extremely high stress life and death situations like firefighters,

Policemen,

People who work in emergency rooms.

When under great stress,

We don't think so clearly.

So how do these people perform these things they have to do in these situations?

Training,

They practice before they put in the situation,

They go through training where they do hands on again and again and again,

A set procedure for the various things they're going to run into.

So that when they are in the real situation and do run into it,

Their unconscious procedural memory takes over and takes care of the doing the steps for them.

You said something in your book I remember about when we're under stress,

We don't rise to the occasion,

But we sink down to our training.

We descend to the level of our training.

That's something that they have said in some of the training regimens for people who do these high stress jobs.

You don't rise to the occasion,

Which sometimes people say,

He rose to the occasion,

She rose to the occasion.

You don't depend on that.

You can depend on the stress.

You may descend to the level of your training,

So you want your training to be really,

Really well done.

Yeah,

That's the importance of mind training for sure.

So what you've described,

Now actually before I ask you that question,

Oxytocin,

The options for that,

For oxytocin to be released,

Is it only sex for men,

Breastfeeding for women or your dog?

Or what you just described with visualizing somebody's face,

Their voice,

Their touch,

Does that also release oxytocin?

Well I think there's some dual purpose experiences.

For example,

One thing that I've heard that's a solid source of calming is wedding vows or the moment of getting engaged.

Because here,

You're getting both the face,

Voice,

And touch of a person who's completely accepting you.

And it also has sexual overtones.

So I think that there are some moments that do both produce oxytocin and activate the vagus system to calm us.

Okay,

That's helpful.

So it's not just,

So for let's say women who don't have children,

Who don't breastfeed,

Or haven't breastfed,

Then we have other options.

Oh well,

Yeah,

And then you could,

For example,

As you know,

Whenever a guy's being seductive,

He's always going to have a picture of an airplane by his face.

So that's just what you pretend is the case.

Okay.

Fascinating.

So then this training that you are describing,

Your book says this is a 10-day program.

Yeah.

Really?

10 days?

That's long,

Really,

Because I even have people who call and they're going to fly tomorrow or the next day.

And now,

If you link things up where you first go to an airplane situation and then go to a positive thing,

That's the way I did it originally.

You have to do it six,

Seven,

Eight times for it to lock in.

But there's some research out that was kind of interesting that says if you put the two things together at the same time,

Oftentimes it will stick in the memory with just one exposure.

So that's why I've switched to,

Instead of doing it sequential,

Step one,

Then step two,

That is first go to an airplane scene or an MRI scene or being up high or on a bridge or in a tunnel,

Whatever that is that's bothering you,

To take it instead to put the troublesome image and the good stuff together at the same time.

Fascinating.

And,

By the way,

Since I mentioned that,

You don't want to take an MRI or a bridge or a tunnel and just present that to the person's face,

Voice,

And touch,

Or to the sexual situation or the oxytocin-producing situation.

You want to break it down into as small pieces as you can so you don't overload the exoskeleton.

So this is similar.

Now I'm getting into some psychobabble,

But there's something called systematic desensitization where you break down that anxiety-producing event into much smaller hierarchical steps.

So like,

For instance,

If you're working on performance anxiety,

You're not just going to picture the performance,

You're picturing making the invitations for your performance,

Practicing,

Maybe feeling your fingers on the piano keys.

So that's what you're talking about with breaking it down into— Well,

Yeah,

You're breaking it down,

But keep in mind that when you're trying to desensitize,

You're trying to get—we didn't talk about this word,

Amygdala.

That's the part of the brain that releases stress hormones.

It sounds like a funny word,

But it's just the Greek word for almond because this part of the brain that's giving us all this trouble is the size of a nut.

So by the way,

Can't be very smart.

What does it do?

It just reacts to something changing.

It just reacts to something not expected,

Although it will react to a couple of things genetically built in.

S-shaped things on the ground could be a snake or falling.

That's why turbulence on the airplane is so difficult because let's say if you're up on a step ladder painting the ceiling,

If you lost your balance,

You would—no matter how much you're concentrating on painting,

As soon as you notice you—well,

What's happening,

I started to say you notice you're falling.

What happens is you notice you're falling because you get zapped with stress hormones and you totally forget about painting.

Well,

It's just one shot of stress hormones.

But on the plane,

It's one drop after another,

After another,

After another.

So you get not just a slight increase in heart rate,

You get this huge increase in heart rate with pounding heart and rapid breathing and sweatiness.

It's not a situation where you can say,

Here I am feeling like I'm in great danger,

But I'm sure everything's fine.

So we need to intervene and stop that pounding heart by using oxytocin production and we need to override the effect of the stress hormones with the face,

Voice,

And touch.

So you're doing all this in advance of the— All in advance,

All practice so that you get on the plane and you don't have to do anything.

Or you go to get to your MRI,

You don't have to do anything.

You go through a tunnel,

Bridge,

Whatever,

And you're just fine.

That's one of the things that I love about your book too,

Is that you do—I noticed you do have sections on MRIs,

Going over a bridge,

Going into a tunnel.

You address those common triggers as well.

Yeah,

And the step by step by step thing.

When we break it down,

As you were just saying about doing desensitization to break it down,

All those activities are broken down into a number of steps so that you're not dealing with the whole thing,

Just a little tiny piece of it.

Neutralizing,

Neutralizing just one little piece at a time.

Okay.

Fascinating.

And now,

Do you need to—you know,

An example with turbulence,

If somebody,

Let's say,

Flies relatively comfortably,

But once that turbulence hits,

It's—you know,

Forget it.

That's when they get really triggered.

Is it helpful to have a picture of some oxytocin-producing person?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So you can either bring a picture along or as your plane is taxiing out,

You can look at that tray table that's right there in front of you and the seat back in front of you.

It's flat,

Rectangular and plain,

Kind of like your computer screen is or your TV is.

So take that scene in your mind,

The oxytocin-producing scene,

And project it from your mind onto the tray table.

You want to hold it there so that it becomes part of the tray table.

I don't know,

Half a minute or so.

So once you've made that part of the tray table,

When you're cruising along,

Once in a while you're going to look up and you're going to see the tray table.

You'll get a little oxytocin every few minutes that way.

You can also put your friend,

Whose face,

Voice and touch are so meaningful in terms of calming.

You can put that person's face there too.

Okay.

That's helpful.

Since we're on the topic of turbulence,

I have a random question to ask you.

Sure.

Yeah.

It's awesome that you are a pilot and a therapist.

I once learned,

And this helped me a lot in dealing with turbulence,

I love the beach.

Just like there are waves on the surface of the ocean,

Or if you look down when the water is really clear and you see ripples in the sand from the ocean current,

That's the same thing that happens up in the air.

It's just air ripples,

And that's what you feel when you feel that bumpiness of turbulence.

Is that true?

That's true.

What happens is you've got what we call the jet stream,

This fast-moving stream of air,

Maybe going 100 miles an hour,

Sometimes 200 to even faster.

It's kind of like,

Well,

Maybe the best way to explain it is let's suppose you went to a train station,

And a train comes rushing by the station but doesn't stop.

If you were trying to read a newspaper,

While that train's coming by,

It's not going to work.

It's not going to be much being caused because of the fast-moving train causing the air where you're standing to be,

As you just described,

At the beach.

It's mixing and bouncing around.

But if you were in the train,

The air would be smooth inside the train,

Or if you were several blocks from the train station,

You'd be okay.

So if you're in the jet stream,

If you're solidly in the jet stream and you're going eastbound,

It's giving you higher speed to get you to your destination quicker.

And it's smooth.

But the tricky thing is that the jet stream kind of snakes around,

So it's hard to stay in it.

And when you get on the edge of it,

Where the fast-moving air is scrubbing against the air that's not moving,

That's where you get that effect like the train going through the station.

That jet stream is going by and disturbing the air that's just sitting there.

Interesting.

Can pilots see that?

No,

You can't see it.

The way the pilots know about it is by listening in on the radio,

Listening in on air traffic control for instructions.

You might have several dozen planes on the same frequency.

What we're supposed to do is,

If we run into some turbulence,

We're supposed to report it to air traffic control because everybody else on the party line hears about it.

So then the next question is,

Well,

Where is that plane that just reported that turbulence and what altitude is it at?

So then we figure,

If we're going to that same place in five or 10 or 15 minutes,

Maybe we can get an altitude change to avoid the turbulence.

Interesting.

I feel like I have you.

I want to ask you every question that's ever gone through my mind when I've been flying in terms of what happens in the cockpit.

Hey,

Corinne,

I just want to throw in something because I said he a couple of times.

I want to tell you that the airline industry can be pretty sexist.

When we started getting female pilots in the cockpit,

Sometimes I would hear someone key their mic and after a female pilot had said something and the voice says,

There goes another empty kitchen.

Oh,

No.

Yes.

Yes.

But I tell you,

I have flown with a number of female pilots and they really are excellent,

The ones I've flown with.

I'm so glad you brought that up.

Actually,

My last flight from England to the States,

She was a female pilot,

The first pilot I've ever,

The first plane I've ever been on with a female pilot and I was absolutely delighted and so excited because I realized that that had never happened before.

Yes,

And I kind of think that maybe they don't have as much ego involved as guys do.

They may be safer than we are.

Well,

That's awesome.

Although,

I want everybody to be safe,

Which I know they are.

That's so helpful.

This has been amazing.

I am just,

Why doesn't everybody,

Since this works,

I mean,

You've had some pretty incredible success stories with working with clients with this system.

How come this isn't just spreading like wildfire throughout the therapeutic community to help people with panic and anxiety because your book is focused on not just not flying,

But it's focused on ending panic,

Anxiety and claustrophobia for any situation,

Right?

Well,

Yeah,

You know,

I really was only focused on dealing with it on the airplane.

I had assumed,

You know,

You know what they say,

Cognitive behavioral therapy is the gold standard for treating panic.

And so I had assumed,

I had believed the hype.

I had assumed it was really effective.

And when I looked at the stats a couple of years ago,

I was really surprised.

Only 17% of people treated with cognitive become panic free.

So a lot of what cognitive does is try to say,

Well,

You should realize it's not going to kill you,

So don't let it bother you.

Well,

That's not exactly satisfying to someone who just finds it really an awful experience.

And then the breathing exercises that are often prescribed,

They really aren't that powerful because after all,

Yes,

When you breathe out,

You do get the vagus benefit.

It does slow your heart,

Right,

But you have to breathe in again.

So it may not be the answer.

So the question now is,

Yeah,

How to get the word out.

And this is why we're having this conversation,

Because hopefully,

By getting podcasts like yours,

We can get the word out to people who will try it.

And the amazing thing,

You know,

It's very easy to think nothing will work when you've tried so many things that you've been told should work.

But I got to tell you,

If most of the things that you have been told should work,

And when they didn't work,

You got blamed.

No,

That stuff that has been given to you is not that good.

Right,

Right.

Wow.

You know,

It's also just such a big deal.

I really want to just highlight this for listeners that you have Stephen Porga's endorsement.

He wrote the Afterword,

I believe,

In your book.

Well,

Yeah,

Because his work was so important.

Actually what happened was we knew for years that some things were working,

But why?

And it was when I stumbled on his research and realized that these connections that we had been connecting between people and the airplane,

That we knew the oxytocin thing.

We understood that.

That was back in the 80s.

But why was just being with a friend so helpful?

And that was where Porga's work came in.

And now that we know what it is,

We know it's the face and the voice quality and the touch or body language of a person that you're with,

If it's the right person giving you the right signals.

He calls it the vagal break.

To give you some idea about what his opinion is about how effective the vagus is in overriding stress hormones,

He talks about if you're in a car with an automatic transmission,

Put your left foot solidly on the brake.

If you then use your right foot and press on the accelerator pedal and put more gas into the engine,

Think of that as kind of like the amygdala putting more stress hormones to your brain and body.

You can put more gas into the engine.

The car is not going to go anywhere.

So what we know about cars is the brakes will override the engine.

The brakes will override the gas going into the engine.

The same thing is true,

He says,

About people.

It's the question now is how do we apply the brakes?

And he's the person who figured out this is how you apply the brakes.

And the thing I've done is being able to take what he discovered scientifically and find a way to apply it practically.

You know what's interesting to me is I'm seeing two parallels with our work.

One is that with your book and with my book,

Readers have to do the exercises.

You can't just read what you've written and then change.

You have to actually do this linking,

This pairing.

Same thing with exercises in my book.

But the other,

I think,

Big parallel,

And maybe this is a little bit of a stretch,

Maybe it isn't,

With my work,

It's all about reconnecting to the love that I believe is within every single one of us and dwelling in that love and seeing that love in all of our brothers and sisters and what you've just described with bonding and connecting with other people.

That I would say is a form of love and that stimulates all these positive changes in the body and you're coming at it from a scientific perspective.

I've been coming at it through this spiritual perspective with A Course in Miracles.

It's really cool.

It's really cool.

Well,

So the same thing.

You discovered that this works in The Course in Miracles.

I discovered it worked with people on the airplane and Porteous explains,

Oh,

It's just because the vagus nerve is getting stimulated by the face,

Voice,

Touch.

We say,

Yeah,

That's.

.

.

Well,

He does talk about the heart-brain connection.

He talks about the love hormone.

So yeah,

He does make it very clear that what he's talking about in the social engagement system,

If you take it to its essence in its best forms,

It's clearly love.

Yeah.

Oh,

How beautiful.

That's really awesome.

That's super cool.

I have two more questions for you since we're approaching the top of our time together.

Number one,

My first question is just a practical question because I know I've met people who have trouble visualizing.

So how would you work with somebody who has trouble visualizing to do this type of work?

It's not so easy for me to do it because I'm kind of visual,

But I've had people who are very what we call kinesthetic.

They're very physical and so I have to find a way to talk them through the exercise where we're linking feelings,

Physical feelings.

Some people are more auditory,

So we just have to switch to finding ways to link how they represent things in their mind,

Which is verbally instead of visually.

Okay,

Okay.

That's super helpful.

Do you do work over the phone with individuals still?

Yeah,

Yeah,

I do.

Good to know.

Good to know.

I'm super excited about that.

Wonderful.

And now my final question for you,

Captain Tom,

Is are there any takeaways that you would like to leave our listeners with?

We've covered a lot.

This is just so exciting.

I love the parallels between our work.

Is there any takeaway that you'd like to leave?

The main takeaway is that if you have tried to fix this and haven't gotten results,

It's not you that's to blame.

It's the stuff that has been used is not as effective as the things we now know how to use.

We can fix it.

And it doesn't have to be any – you know something?

It only takes one person,

Coran,

Because you only need to remember being with one person where you have this – what Carl Rogers called unconditional positive regard.

You only have to have this one person whose face is accepting you,

Whose voice is giving you those signals,

Whose touch or body language is giving you this.

And you can think of it as a giant jar of peanut butter that you can spread on thousands of crackers.

You can put it in as many places as you want it.

You can take a person even who's no longer alive who can provide this quality that quiets you inside and link that to the things that are challenging.

And so couldn't you then use even a picture of let's say a spiritual figure that you feel a connection with,

That you believe can see you with perfect love and unconditional positive regard?

I mean does it have to be a real person or could it be like if somebody has a devotion to Jesus or a Buddha or an angel?

Could that be used?

I've worked with some people who use that.

And the question I have is if I go back to Portis,

If we're looking for what's on the face,

What's in the quality of the voice and what's in the body language and touch,

The things we know scientifically will work.

I'm also assuming that these figures who are recognized as having a calming effect probably are sending out those same signals.

But my concern is even if it's a person that you know personally,

I don't know that you could use a photograph of them because in a photograph a person is posing usually.

If it's a candid photograph,

Maybe yes.

But I feel safer if you can actually remember one to one because you see a person doesn't look at a camera the way they look at you when they love you.

True,

True.

That's beautiful.

So I'm looking for the real signal.

Got it.

Yeah.

That's awesome.

Wonderful.

Tom,

Thank you so much for taking the time to be with us.

I feel like this episode is going to be so helpful for listeners.

Everyone,

You can find more about Tom and his work in the show notes and pick up his book.

Panic Free,

The 10-day program to end panic,

Anxiety,

And claustrophobia.

I am just so excited for this to take off all around the world because I feel like it's going to bring so much relief to so many who need it.

Thank you,

Tom,

For your incredible work.

Thank you,

Corinne,

For having me on and helping get the word out that we can fix this.

I am honored and excited to do so.

Thanks.

I'm pretty blown away by Tom's work.

Being a therapist myself,

This is groundbreaking for the therapeutic community.

I had the opportunity after the show to chat with Tom about why his approach is not yet widely known.

We talked about how first it's new,

His book did just recently come out,

And we also talked about second,

How the methods in his book were really developed in a very unique environment.

So most therapists will treat a wide variety of problems and only work maybe with a dozen or so clients who have this debilitating fear of flying.

In their entire career,

They might only work with a dozen or so clients.

Now here,

As a former airline pilot and a licensed therapist,

Tom has worked with thousands of clients with fear of flying who were focused on this very one problem,

The control of panic that stopped them from flying.

So this unique situation yielded answers that had never even been thought of before.

I also have to tell you something awesome that I discovered.

Tom hosts a free weekly phone call and online chat to help anyone with panic,

Fears of flying,

Fears of MRIs,

Fears of subways,

Et cetera.

I will have the link to that in the show notes,

Which you can find at fromanxietytolove.

Com forward slash 18.

So now onto my takeaways.

Takeaway number one,

Oxytocin,

Otherwise known as the love hormone,

Prevents the release of stress hormones.

So if you know what your panic triggers are,

You can link that trigger to an oxytocin producing memory which negates the anxiety trigger.

So if you don't release stress hormones,

You don't experience panic.

Takeaway number two,

By visualizing a loved one's face,

Hearing their voice or feeling their touch,

This activates the parasympathetic nervous system and calms us down.

So these very cues can also be linked to anxiety triggers to neutralize that anxiety trigger.

And takeaway number three,

This is my most favorite takeaway,

Love undoes anxiety.

Now although Tom is talking about the oxytocin that is released in the body,

Again that's known as the love hormone,

That hormone interferes with anxiety.

So if we think about holding a baby,

Holding a puppy,

Or in my case maybe holding one of my pet chickens,

Or perhaps even if we start to feel totally connected to spirit and to God,

That love undoes fear.

This is where my work with A Course in Miracles has really helped me as my trust in spirit has grown,

My awareness of love's presence has grown,

And I feel a deep sense of love in my heart,

Often for no reason.

This feeling of love in my heart has exponentially grown since doing this work and so my anxiety has fallen away.

Thank you so much for tuning in.

You can find a link to Tom's book and other resources on the show notes for this episode at fromanxietytolove.

Com forward slash 18.

I am with you in your journey of undoing fear.

I'll leave you with the last few sentences from my book From Anxiety to Love.

I believe in you.

We're healing together.

Every gain that I've made is a gain for you and every gain that you make is a gain for me.

My gains are yours and yours are mine because we are one.

We're going to make it.

The light in you is too bright to fail.

If you buy a copy of From Anxiety to Love,

Make sure you take advantage of your free bonus,

The From Anxiety to Love Summit,

Which features six interviews with experts in undoing fear.

Get access at fromanxietytolove.

Com forward slash summit.

Thank you so much for listening and I'll see you on the next episode.

Reviews

That was so helpful and encouraging! I am going to look for Tom's book. You are a great interviewer, Corinne! 💕