I'm not going to go into millions of details on this blog about my Malaysian adventures. Instead, you can head on over to my Adventure Blog and read all about it there.
I will however go into detail about how I went all smackdown on two fears that have plagued me for years - flying and heights.
The flying thing has been a serious mind pest since a particularly less than ideal flight from Auckland to Brisbane in 2000. It was the most violently turbulent and scariest flight I've ever experienced. It wasn't like the odd air pocket - this was almost diversion to another country material. I've flown over the Rockies in the USA and that had nothing on this one particular flight. Seriously, I've let myself be totally traumatised by turbulence for 13 years. Until this trip.
When I booked the flights, I made damn sure I had to get on as many planes as possible, and that they weren't the super familiar Boeing planes I've spent pretty much all my life flying on. I wanted Airbus planes, with their different noises and different layouts. I figured seven flights in 23 days should do it, with an overnight longhaul and a daytime longhaul at either end. I wanted short flights, medium flights and long flights. I wanted to see how I'd cope with total overload.
The flight from Melbourne to KL was okay, to a point. I had new anti-anxiety medication with me, actually it was stuff that was left over from my shoulder surgery which I didn't take because I was in a vulnerable enough state without adding a new medication I hadn't tried before into the mix. To cut a long story short, I didn't take Valpam with me. I took this new stuff instead.
At the boarding gate in Melbourne I started to freak out a little so I popped one pill. By the time we boarded and took off, I was okay calm. Not one Valpam calm, but okay calm. I had my dinner, watched a movie, started watching another movie, we had our snacks, we flew off the coast of Australia and the plane started bouncing. I popped another new pill and started reciting mantras to chill out. I took a nap-type thing and dozed off for a while.
About 4am, all hell broke loose. No, not turbulence - yes, it was bouncing and the seatbelt sign came on, but that was the least of my worries. I had to sprint to the bathroom and spew my guts out. Clearly the pills didn't agree with me, so I'm glad I hadn't tried them while convalescing after my shoulder surgery. However, this also meant two things - one, I was going to have to cope without them from here on in and two, they were of SFA use to me now.
We landed uneventfully in KL about three hours later and I felt like utter shite. I'd been able to get water and cans of 100 plus on the plane, but I was now sick and starving. I had something vaguely resembling food for breakfast and an iced coffee in a can a little later. I availed myself of the massage chairs, blogged and chilled until the new plane ride to Langkawi. It was only a one hour flight and totally uneventful. To be honest, I was too sick and tired to care about turbulence, which didn't really happen anyway.
Fast forward a few days and it was a silly 35 minute plane ride to Penang. Again, no turbulence and no issues. Three days later, a butt crack of dawn two hour flight from Penang to Kuching, Borneo. This was a little more bouncy but I had movies and music and books and a cute baby in the seat next to me to entertain myself with.
Three more days went by and it was onto an evening 1.5hr flight to Senai in Johor State. Yes, it bounced, but you have to expect that flying in and out of Borneo and over Singapore. From Johor I caught a bus to Singapore, then flew from Changi to KL. Again, no hassles. By this stage the anxiety on planes was pretty much non-existent. However, the real test was yet to come.
I'd been working through Tony Robbins' programs and my NLP certification, so I was okay with pattern interrupters and anchors and the like. I did a flight simulator in KL which really helped - I learned just how much concentration and effort and training is required to fly a plane, so I had more faith in pilots after that.
This "real test" that I speak of was my flight from KL to Melbourne. It departed KL at 1:30pm and was eight hours' duration, so I'd be awake the whole time. I hoped it wouldn't bump too much and if it did, my idea was to do Buddhist practices and recite mantras and meditate, then do Zumba moves in my seat and shimmy along to the bumps. I also planned to update my travel blog entries on my iPad, ready to copy and paste when I got home.
I needn't' have concerned myself so much with plans for the worst case scenario, as it hardly bumped at all. Sure, there were the routine "we're over Indonesia, bring on the jumping castle" moments which you must expect but other than that the flight was totally uneventful. Well, until we landed and the pilot seemed to be coming in too fast and proceeded to overshoot the runway a few hundred metres as he had to SLAM (and I mean SLAM!) on the foot pedal brakes three times to stop us.
So, flying conquered.
While in Langkawi I tackled the world's steepest cable car. I didn't think I could do it without really freaking out, but I did - and with no chemical assistance at all. While in Singapore I tackled the world's tallest observation wheel. Same deal. I went up the Petronas Towers in KL and had no issues.
Turns out I'm not scared of heights and never was. I listened to a Tony Robbins tape and discovered that I was scared of falling from a great height if the doors weren't closed properly, or scared of being trapped and not being able to get down if something bad happened. Like, whatever dude! Slim to non-existent chances of that happening. I seem to have particularly good Karma for these things.
And, tall buildings, elevators and high structures were therefore also conquered.
Remember, FEAR is an acronym for False Expectations Appearing Real. It's all a product of your mind and in Dharma, we are taught that nothing exists separate from our minds - we make it all up. So, therefore, all these fears are total made-up crap.
Awesome.
