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Subject to change. Hello everybody.
Welcome back to the show.
Welcome back to the podcast.
New listeners, old listeners, wherever you are in the world, it is so great to have you here back for another episode as we of course break down and discuss the psychology of our 20s.
Okay so this is not our usual episode.
I think typically with the topics I choose to discuss I want to make sure that most people can relate to them right.
I feel like there are some very universal experiences not just of our 20s but of being human that I would say around like 80 to 90 percent of us can say yeah I totally get that I've been there I've experienced that I can see myself reflected in that topic.
This one is for a unique subset of my listeners who can relate to a fear of flying.
A fear of flying that is what we are going to talk about today.
I have spoken about this on and off in certain episodes about how I was so terrified of flying that I didn't fly for like a very long time and I would even do like you know 14, 15, 16 hour road trips in order to avoid a two -hour plane ride but a listener actually dm'd me the other day and she was asking
me for this specific episode where I talked about it and I couldn't remember so I thought you know I've spoken about it maybe for a couple of minutes here and there but this deserves a full spot on the feed for people to come back to and to listen to if this is something that they fear and that they
experience. So yes we are going to talk about a fear of flying, how it manifests, what it looks like and of course how to overcome it.
I remember when I was really struggling with this maybe two years ago was when I really started to be committed to overcoming this fear.
I was going through and like searching for answers everywhere and I remember looking it up on TikTok like what are the best tips for a fear of flying and there were some great tips but a lot of what I received was like informative videos about like plane safety and like interviews with pilots and I
really needed something else and I think I also realized that it was kind of a turning point for me where I was having all these huge opportunities to be able to go overseas to go to the US go to Europe fly everywhere and you know go to these events and travel and I wasn't going to get that opportunity
again and if I let myself be held back by my fear of flying I would really really regret it now I also have to say when you live in Australia like those big long international flights are definitely something you really have to you know it just adds a little bit more intensity to the fear like if I
want to overcome my fear of flying and therefore give myself the opportunity to go to Europe or to experience like a beautiful Italian summer or to go to the U .S.
for work that's like a 24 -30 hour commitment and it was one of those flights that really like pushed me to finally get over this fear and find strategies that worked for me back in 2023 I had this like really cool opportunity to find in London to speak at like the podcast show and I was not going to
give it up so I want to talk about how I really got through it because now I'm not gonna try and toot my own horn here but I'm a bit of an expert like I definitely still have my moments of fear and anxiety but I really went about this in like a systematic way of like this is not going to control my
life and I will say I know it sounds like a very small privileged fear and in many ways it kind of is but it can also hold you back from a lot of experiences that we want in our 20s right there is a lot of glamour and romanticism to solo traveling and to just traveling in general and having backpacking
experiences and summers abroad that if you really deeply fear flying you can feel a lot of FOMO around and feel like you are going to really miss out on and therefore you're going to miss out on really getting everything that you can out of this decade.
So hopefully by the end of this episode you feel capable to have those experiences even if getting on a plane and flying to whatever destination it is is part of it like you feel capable of saying yeah I'm scared of this thing but I'm going to do it anyway because this is what I want to do with my time
and what I want to do in these younger years of my life.
So yeah we're going to talk about why we have a fear of flying the different types of fears that create the broader fear and also why avoidance and ignoring the problem is only going to make it worse and the baby steps and the mental steps and the psychological steps that you can take and you can perform
to be okay with getting on those long flights or even just getting on an hour -long flight.
I really do believe that this is a fear that is easier to overcome than you would think.
So without further ado, let's get into it.
If you have a fear of flying, let me just tell you, you are not the only one.
even if people don't really talk about it.
There have been some recent estimates that about 40 % of us have some fear of flying and that has only increased since the pandemic.
Obviously because a lot of us weren't flying.
A lot of us weren't having the exposure to an aeroplane or to air travel that would help beat a fear instead it was sustaining an anxiety through avoidance that you know bad things would happen when we get on a plane and we weren't having any of the experiences to prove that that would be the opposite
of the case like that wasn't going to happen i want to talk about where a fear of flying comes from um firstly by talking about my own experience so for me i felt like this just crept up on me when i was 18 19 i solo traveled around europe like i met up with some friends but my to get to europe from australia i
did that all by myself and i you know was not flying business class i wasn't flying premium economy i was flying like on china airlines china southern airlines like not a great airline in like the back of economy and I remember my flights being like $800 return and the food was awful on one of my flights
like we didn't even have a tv screen and it was like 15 hours like the whole experience was like not a pleasant experience and I was totally fine oh and by the way like that ended up being like I think a 30 -hour flight because we had to do two flights with a huge layover and I was completely alone that whole
time and like it wasn't the smoothest sailing and I don't remember having any real fear and the same on the way back as well like I actually I don't know if I've told this story before but on my way back from Europe when I was 18 um and like I did my first big solo trip on my way back I got stuck in Taiwan for the night
and I'd run out of money like I didn't have any money on my travel account I didn't have a sim card for Taiwan like I was completely and utterly kind of stuck I wasn't sure if I was going to make the flight and the whole experience was actually really stressful and I still like got on the plane and didn't
feel any fear in fact I felt quite peaceful and so I can reflect on those experiences and be like oh there was a time when like I really wasn't scared by this and then COVID happened the pandemic happened I was meant to I think like a lot of us I had these big travel plans uh because I was about to
graduate university like I was I had just graduated and I was like great 2020 is like my year for um traveling and I'm gonna save up and I'm gonna go to Russia like this was before the Ukraine -Russia war like look how much has changed like I was like I'm gonna go to Russia and then I'm gonna go to the US
and maybe like a bit of Asia and just have a great time and I had no fear around getting on flight like it was not in my mind and then I didn't fly for two years no one really flew in Australia like if you're from Australia you know the lockdowns here were like very very intense and then I had the opportunity
to fly home to see my parents in Melbourne and oh my goodness I remember going to book that flight and being like oh my god suddenly all of these fears are coming up for me like I suddenly am picturing myself walking onto that plane and the only sensation I can feel is like a deep pit rock heaviness
in my stomach and I didn't book the flight I drove down and then when I had when the time came to go back up I drove back up again like and it was like a 12 13 hour drive like it was ridiculous and it was totally inefficient totally like unsustainable totally expensive as well and that was my first
like real moment of like oh wow this like fear has suddenly emerged for me and it kept coming up all these opportunities to go and see family finally being able to see family like i would not catch a flight and then the one time that i did that i really had to i um didn't get on it like i literally
was about to board and i was like i i'm gonna fully freak out and i'm going to like i remember having this fear of like i am going to panic when i'm on this plane and i'm going to try and get out of the plane i'm going to pull the emergency exits and I'm going to scream and I'm going to like fully freak
out and I'm not going to be able to control myself so I shouldn't get on this flight like I was just so terrified of having a reaction that I wasn't prepared for and I was so terrified of my fear so that is kind of where I was at when I realized I needed to change something so for me I think it was that I
hadn't I think underlying this there had always been a more general like claustrophobia and a more general fear of the unknown but because I had flown so much as a kid because my parents were always traveling for work because then I'd done you know long a long flight when I was kind of not even in my
20s yet like I had been exposed enough that the anxiety didn't have time to feed itself with fantasy um so that's really where mine came from I think for a lot of others it could be your fear of flying comes from a negative experience so you've just had one really terrible awful flight that has completely
shaped and dominated how you think about flying.
I was talking to someone about this one of my friends she has a really she's a terrible fear of flying and I hope she doesn't mind me sharing this story but I'll keep it anonymous she was flying back from the Philippines and they flew through like a thunderstorm like a lightning storm like they they
flew through a storm and it was not anticipated and it was terrifying and the plane was shaking and she thought she was gonna die and it just sounded absolutely awful and it was like from then on out like the fear had emerged like that was a triggering event that was a catalyst for her fear another
really big one is a lot of people experience or a lot of people report an uptick in their fear around flying after a crash so if you remember like mh 370 or a bunch of these other like flights that have come down in recent memory that were everywhere in the news everyone was talking about it it was a crazy
tragedy that leaves an imprint because of something called the salience effect or a salience bias where really intense captivating highly emotional news stories or things going on feel like they're actually a lot more common just because they are dominating so much of the headlines and they're dominating
so much of our thinking space like our brain is like oh because this is more apparent it must be more common even though it's only been one plane amongst hundreds and hundreds of thousands this was a big thing that we saw following 9 -11 that was actually a real moment for people of a real moment where a lot
of people shifted from being totally happy to get on a plane to a real avoidance within a lot of people and some people still I was reading an article like there's people who reported having no fear about flying until 9 -11 and even what are we now like 24 years on like they still won't get on a plane
because of how our memories work and how our brain influences our decision making and our behavior to protect us from what it fears and to help us survive when really you know something like a plane crash or something really terrible happening on a flight doesn't actually happen all that often this kind
of links to a broader deeper idea of why do we fear flying you know a lot of people will say I fear crashing or I fear turbulence or I fear the confined space so at its root a lot of these come down to a deeper more simplistically labeled fear the big one being the fear of the unknown and the fear of being
out of control so obviously when you get on a plane you you're not in control anymore if something bad was to happen there is nothing that you can do really I know that probably gave you a jolt of anxiety but we're going to discuss why how to overcome that but really that's what the fear is coming down
to if you are someone who is already scared of uncertainty who is already scared of not being able to control their environment or is scared of the unknown flying can be a real triggering event this also really relates to a fear of crashing right or a fear of turbulence or a fear of something bad happening
on the flight you kind of realize that in that situation and in that moment you might be quite powerless and that powerlessness like that feeling is one that you are not comfortable with potentially being exposed to there's also the deeper fear or a deeper kind of phobia claustrophobia this was also one
that was big for me my big thing was I don't like being in enclosed spaces I don't like getting in elevators I don't like at the time when my fear of flying was really happening I didn't like even catching the train like into work in Sydney I didn't even like going in tunnels so it was all coming down
to this claustrophobia I remember specifically like I would avoid driving in any tunnels around this time and when I would go into a tunnel I would really feel like the panic rising and I was particularly scared of there being traffic in a tunnel because I was like oh my god I don't want to get stuck
underground in this enclosed space like that just sounds like my worst nightmare like everything is closing in on me and so I remember talking to my friend and being like who who travel so much for work and being like how can you cope with being locked in this metal tube for hours like you get in they
close the door you're not coming out nothing you can do can allow you to exit and he actually said something really beautiful to me he was like yeah but isn't that really nice because while you're suspended up and up in the air like you get this beautiful break from reality like it's actually quite
special you get to completely disconnect you get to just like float in this like space and time that is just like all for you and I was like hmm yes like I'm slightly convinced by that I'm not fully on board but I do really see like where he was coming from and he also said to me he was like there are so many
situations like that that you're going to be exposed to in life where you just have to be a bit stoic about it like think about so many other things in your life where you are in a space or an event or a situation or a context that you can't change and you just have to find a way to accept it and so learning
how to overcome a fear of flying actually what it really does is teach you a lot of lessons about dealing with discomfort and anxiety and your inability to control a situation in general like it helps teach you how to do that in so many other broader areas of your life but again just to summarize those
are the real big reasons that we fear flying we fear a terrible event occurring maybe we fear death we fear injury we fear the plane crashing and therefore we become quite worried about turbulence we become quite worried about small little things and then we also have a deeper fear of the unknown a fear
of being out of control and also claustrophobia a fear of enclosed tight spaces when you have a fear of flying if you're not someone who's familiar with this what this can feel like is a lot of anticipatory anxiety so I remember last year I caught a flight from Bali to New York and the whole two to
three days before that happened it was all I could think about I was obsessed I was obsessed I was googling what kind of model the plane was being was going to be I had to know exactly where my seat was going to be I had to know exactly what food was going to be served on board what time we were departing
what time we were landing all the possibilities of things that could go wrong and yada yada yada like it was all this like information seeking was all coming back to anticipatory anxiety like I wasn't actually in any danger at that point I wasn't being triggered I wasn't in the situation that I feared
but my brain was almost like well let's prepare you by almost copying the anxiety that you will eventually feel right now so you can get used to it of course that didn't work like it doesn't work your brain tries to come up with all these different ways to manage something that it sees as difficult
but really the biggest thing you can do for yourself is expose yourself to the fear and see that you are still capable which we're going to get to eventually the other big thing with the fear of flying that you're likely to feel is like when you get on the plane I would sweat I would shake I would like
um like just literally my whole body would shake and I would be like pushing my foot up and down like bouncing my foot up and down everything felt very very hot I felt like I needed to run I literally felt like a scared rabbit and I found that actually that was the worst before takeoff but once we were like
10 -20 minutes into the air I felt quite calm because I was like okay I'm in it now I'm in it like the sense of like yeah there's really nothing I can do took over and I was like well I may as well just enjoy this experience so that's really what it feels like it feels like a panic attack it feels like
a lot of anxious worry it feels like you are stuck you're trying to fight or flight obviously trying to run away or fight back against this thing that feels like it's threatening you i .e being on an airplane but it all comes back to like a real like you're the fear center of your brain and your like
nervous system is not properly responding to your circumstances so it's seeing danger where danger is not.
Yes, danger could eventually appear, but you're not actually in any danger in that moment.
Your brain is reading the environment and reading the context wrong.
And when I began to realize that, that my anxious thoughts about something didn't make anything more or less likely to happen, that also was a great relief to me.
So we're going to take a quick break here.
And when I return, I want to really get into the tips that I have for overcoming my fear of flying.
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The biggest thing I can say to you if you have a fear of flying is that you need to find any possible way to stop avoiding the situation.
To stop avoiding flying, flights, airports, whatever it is.
and what you want to do is really approach that in slow manageable steps.
So I knew that when I was really getting ready to like beat this fear or at least find a way to handle it that I had this big thing coming up this big flight that I really wanted to do.
So I wanted to fly to London.
I wanted to make it there and I wanted to be able to get on that plane and you know maybe not feel okay but still be able to go through with it so in the lead up like the six month lead up to this flight I started doing small things to help myself so I went to a flight simulator I would watch videos
on YouTube of people entering planes like getting onto a plane sitting down showing their surroundings like a lot of them were like reviews of certain seats on like different airlines like Like I'd watch like, oh, the Emirates A380, like flight from Doha to wherever, like what the seats would look like
and what the meals were like to just really see.
Then I also started saying yes to opportunities that would require me to do very short flights.
So one hour, two hour flights around Australia.
And for the first couple of flights, I took someone with me.
So I would literally be like, OK, do any of my friends need to fly to Melbourne this weekend?
let's see if we can get on the same plane.
Like I paid for my dad to like fly on one of my flights with me to just help expose me to this fear, this fearful state.
So the first flight I did was an hour.
I think it was even less.
And I did it with my dad and it was hard.
It was hard, but actually I realized by the end how proud I was, how much relief I felt getting off the plane and how I was like, wow, that was not as hard as I thought it was.
And that's what the avoidance makes you believe it keeps you in this state where the biggest source of truth is your fear about a situation and your thoughts about a situation often which are false so the only truth you have to rely on is what your brain is coming up with but when you actually expose
yourself to the situation a much different reality becomes apparent I then did a two -hour flight with a friend um just me and her and then a one -hour flight by myself and that was really hard because we got stuck on the tarmac and that was something that I hadn't anticipated and it kind of threw me
for a loop but what I did was I was just reminded myself of how it felt to have someone else there with me how really like I was still able to do it by myself and I had a list of things that I knew would help me out so I still have this list in my phone and it's a number of strategies that I knew would calm
my anxiety and break me out of a panic attack so one of them was to just do some guided meditation to do a breath work exercise I actually downloaded this app called the dare app which I've spoken about before and they do guided meditations for a fear of flying and guided meditations for panic attacks
and I would just sit and I would listen to that meditation until I felt better I also would just do jumping jacks at the back of the plane like in the little flight attendant area just until I felt better or squats something that would like make me feel like I was escaping or doing something about the anxiety
within me I put cold water on my wrists I had something sour to bite into I also would bring coloring in books I just had a lot of it almost felt like I was building a military right like I was building my line of defenses against this anxiety and I said I'm only allowed to panic if I get through all
these things and I don't feel better obviously you know maybe my anxiety would be able to jump a couple of hurdles but I had a whole list of things that I could do so there was no way that it could get through all of them something was bound to work something was bound to make me feel better and I also just
allowed myself to be okay with being scared I was like okay I'm just going to accept this feeling like I feel anxious but I'm going to look around at my environment is there anything to feel anxious about is there anything to feel scared about and what I would do is I would look to other people and I
would mirror their response so I'd look at the people in front of me I'd look at all the heads of the people on the plane and I'd be like okay well these people seem fine these people aren't panicking so obviously like if I can't trust myself and my own evaluation of the situation I can trust theirs
and they seem okay I also reminded myself something that I knew very very much to be true it's the biology of us as humans our psychology is that we cannot panic forever so even if I was on the verge of a panic attack I knew that eventually it would subside so it was okay if I felt myself falling into
the state it wasn't going to last forever it was eventually going to go away I know that my body could only sustain panic and that level of alertness and stress for so long so I remind myself it's just sensations you know it's just my body trying to protect me, it doesn't change what is actually happening.
I also want to say flight attendants, they know how to handle this.
They see this all the time and I've actually seen a flight attendant help someone who was panicking on a flight.
I've seen random strangers help someone who was panicking on a flight.
You've got to remember most people are very very kind and very very good if you were sitting next to someone on a plane who turned next to you turn to you and said i'm really really scared would you dismiss them no you'd be like i totally understand let me help you so you've got to understand that most
other strangers will also do that for you as well most people are genuinely very nice and even if they aren't the flight attendants have to be like they're getting paid to be there they aren't just decorative like they have done a lot of training and their training also involves how to handle really
heightened emotional states for people for whom this is a big fear my other biggest biggest tip the thing that i still swear by to this day and this is particularly the case with long haul flights is to don't like just don't let yourself be bored create itineraries for each flight the same way that you
might wake up and you might create a timed to -do list about your day like you would create an itinerary for like a holiday of like in the morning we do this in the afternoon we do this in the evening we do this like these are our activities for the day I would do the same for each of my flight and the day
before I would make one of these itineraries so let me see if I can pull one up from my flight to London that I was talking about okay here it is I've managed to find it so we had two flights this was flight one I will also say that for my flight to London at the last minute I did ask my dad to come
with me and I paid for his flight which is something I felt very lucky to be able to do I had all these points that I had been like saving up for literally like because I wasn't flying anywhere but before COVID I flew a lot and I'd like saved up all of these points for that trip to Europe I was meant
to be doing never use them so I used those to get my dad a flight so that he could come with me because I was really really scared but this is what my itinerary looked like.
So hour one talk to my dad and get settled.
Hour two I had my routine like my nighttime routine.
So I got a face mask, I brushed my teeth, I put on my noise cancelling headphones.
Hour two again put on a movie.
Hour three finish movie and do some knitting.
Hour four have my first round of snacks, eat meal.
So like I was scheduling things to look forward to for each hour hour five start second movie get ready for sleep take a melatonin then it was like hour six hour seven hour eight sleep but if not i had alternatives which was to edit some of my podcast episodes or to do some coloring in i even had other
things to do as well like um i had a little lego set so i had activities like i was prepared then hour like 10 11 12 i had like um instructions to make Instagram posts like I had everything set up so that I had more things to do movie three and then hour like 14 prepare to land and then my second flight
this is what I said I said it was an eight hour flight I said this is just like a nine to five work day like that is what this is if I would easily sit in an office for eight hours in the same space that I would sit in a chair on a plane like this is the same amount of time so I had my hour one get
settled have some snacks listen to a podcast hour two do another face face mask hour three I could either write some episodes or write my books I was writing my book at the time or I could watch a movie hours movie movie right right hour seven listen to a podcast read hour eight talk to dad prepare to
land so like I had this itinerary for myself that would help me feel like my time was full the day before my flight as well the morning before I would go and get everything that I needed to buy slash needed to bring with me slash wanted to have so this is what I had for like the list I needed to buy
sour candy compression socks a puzzle book I also brought magazines and eye mask toothbrush and toothpaste portable charger water bottle I also bought my prescription sour candy I also had instructions for myself to download five movies that seems a little bit excessive make sure that everything was charged
wear comfortable but fashionable clothes which will come into the next tip that I have and then the morning of my flight I went for a really big swim and a really big run so that I was exhausted then I had an everything shower and I had a really healthy breakfast all of these things like putting myself
in the best possible place to be prepared for this flight and I had a daily reminder at the top of this list so this is my list that I have on my phone called flight prep I haven't updated it since the 3rd of December but the reminder on the top of my phone said you need to do hard things to grow acknowledge
the fear and run towards it anyway and so I had this like huge comprehensive list to come back to and can I tell you something that those itineraries that whole plan I didn't once have to use it not once it was so important that it was there but once I got onto the plane and I settled in and I maybe
did the first hour or two of my routine I realized that all this preparation really what it was doing was just making me feel more at ease with the possibility of discomfort but after the first hour I wasn't uncomfortable I wasn't scared I wasn't anxious I was okay so I was really able to relax into
the situation that is really what this preparation taught me is that you can do all that you want to do but when you are in the situation the chances are it's not going to be as bad or as hard as you previously thought it was now i want to bring us all back to that thing i said before that may have sounded
strange wear comfortable but fashionable clothes this links to something that I still to still do to this day which is that I romanticize the privilege and the act of flying by and this is going to sound really silly imagining that I'm someone really famous or really important and the person that I
tend to imagine is that I am Taylor Swift and that I'm getting on my flight and that this is just part of business and I romanticize this whole process of like having the opportunity to be a jet setter what that means like what that feels like and like would that person feel anxious would like Taylor Swift
feel anxious about flying probably not like would Beyonce feel anxious about flying probably not like this is this is like what they do like this is what it means to be someone who is successful and I kind of like to pretend that I'm someone else in that moment I am someone more capable I am someone
for whom this is really really normal and it really really works.
Visualizing and romanticizing the process, visualizing getting off the plane as well, visualizing what it's going to feel like to literally put your feet on the tarp on the tarmac or on like the whatever it is like the walkway, like visualizing that sensation, visualizing your first breath of fresh
air when you get off the plane also really really profound like your mind has like has so many superpowers and hidden talents and hidden capabilities built into it to get you through hard situations and its ability to reflect and remember and visualize and imagine future situations or past peaceful
situations is something that you can use to really pull yourself into a calm space when you are maybe panicking or you are maybe spiraling i also mentioned having a go -to meditation that you know and you have proven to yourself can bring you out of a stressed state mine was the dare meditation that's
really useful and finally have a backup calming option now i'm not going to tell you to go out and get a valium prescription or to rely on prescription drugs or whatever it or melatonin or something herbal or even like a glass of wine but just knowing that you have it there without having to use it
is incredibly helpful.
So I did have a valium prescription but let me just tell you I didn't touch it like I for a lot of my long -haul flights now slash ever like I think I've only taken it once and it was because I was really like I was feeling quite ill and I was also really like not feeling well mentally I was like hadn't
slept for like a couple of days just because I've been so run off my feet and jet lagged that was the only time I used it but I have taken so many international long -haul flights where I have not needed it but just the fact that I have it in my toiletries bag or that I know I can have a glass of red
wine and feel better even if even though I don't drink on flights that has been so powerful again it's just giving your brain and giving yourself all of these hurdles that it has to jump over before you are going to let yourself panic.
So having all of these different things that you can focus on, that you can zoom in on, that you can feel comforted by before you feel like you have to let your sensations take over.
I want to also remind you of that reminder I had at the top of that list in order to grow you have to do hard things so if you are someone who has avoided flying who is scared of it it feels really uncomfortable it does get easier and you do see more of the rewards of putting yourself in a hard situation an uncomfortable
situation something that you don't actually want to do but which you are able to come out of and realize that you are so grateful to yourself for doing it and it's actually not very common I think in our day and age that we do things that are very difficult and that we push ourselves really hard into
a place of discomfort and even fear and are still able to come out the other side and see the rewards flying when you have a fear of flying is such a great opportunity to feel what it really means to you know feel deeply proud of yourself and deeply accomplished for doing the hard thing over the easy
thing so I'm wishing you so much luck I know this is really really hard but I also want you to know that as someone who used to be so afraid that she would get off flights that she would drive freaking 13 hours to get places who you know avoided so many opportunities because of her fear I have been
able to get over it yes like it's not completely gone but in like two weeks I'm flying solo to the US for work and then flying back and that's like a 15 hour flight and the level of anxiety I feel about it is nowhere near what I would have experienced two or three years ago and I feel completely fully
capable of doing it and I believe that you can feel that way as well so sending you lots of love peace strength calm and the opportunity to really push yourself and to learn and to see what you are capable of thank you so much for listening to this episode if you are someone who also has a fear of flying
and you have a tip or a suggestion or a piece of advice that you personally have used that i didn't mention please drop it in the comments below i would love to have the comment section on spotify just be a you know just a huge page and piece and community notice board of advice and feedback and tips
and tricks for all of us to learn from each other I think that would be really really useful and again send this to someone who you think might need to hear it if you have a friend who you know also experiences this who is one of the 40 or a parent or a family member who has been avoiding or putting
or flying for some of the very reasons we talked about maybe this could help them so feel free to share it and if you haven't already make sure that you are following along the psychology of your 20s leave us a five -star review and follow us on instagram at that psychology podcast if you have further
thoughts questions queries about this episode or you want to suggest another episode i love hearing from you all over there and until next time stay safe be kind be gentle to yourself happy flying safe travels and we will talk very very soon at David's Bridal love is in every stitch from the initial
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