Flying High

I was sitting in the departure lounge of Newquay airport last Monday at 3.30pm, working on my laptop and waiting to board the 4pm flight to Glasgow. Over the tannoy came a message for all travellers (12 of us!) for Glasgow to go to Gate 4. Encouraging. I packed up my laptop and obediently proceeded to Gate 4. When we were all present and correct, we were told that the plane had broken.....and they could neither fix it nor find another one. So there wouldn't be another flight to Glasgow until tomorrow afternoon. And please could we follow them to collect our luggage.

There followed a few seconds of 'Aaaaaargh!' Well - ok - it might have been nearer a minute! I was due in Perth at 9am the following morning to begin a 3 day Lightning Process course at 9.30am. After indulging in a few seconds of 'disaster movie', I paused and made a choice. I could indeed keep going with my wonderful movie, with all its accompanying physiological whoosh of stress hormones.....or I could decide to be calm and work out what was the best response. I chose to take 5 minutes to think calmly and make rational choices.....so much easier without stress hormones tilting me towards reactive behaviour.

At the end of 5 minutes I was able to see the situation quite differently. First of all, I was so grateful to all the technicians involved in looking after the planes for spotting that this one was broken; so much better for all of us to have discovered this BEFORE we took off. I was thankful that, unusually, my partner had decided to come on this trip too - I was not alone. We rang our son, who, having dropped us at the airport not long ago, now kindly returned to ferry us home again. More thanks. Our daughter made us a cracking packed tea whilst we were returning home, which gave us sustenance and joy as we drove up to Scotland. Thank you.

There were more choices to make as we drove up North. I could be cross, frustrated, angry, worried etc etc Or I could choose to look ahead and start preparing for the following day. How did I want to feel when I arrived? Exhausted or refreshed? Stressed or relaxed? Obvious, really, but it involved making a choice to see myself as refreshed and relaxed.

So often we buy into the idea that we don't have a choice, that 'things' happen to us and that our responses are inevitable. It's simply not true. There is always a choice to make. And the choices we make alter the experience we have.