I wish someone had told me how to conquer my fear of turbulence

“I wish someone had told me” is a series of posts that feed into our inquisitive nature at CN&CO. From time to time we hear from someone in our network about something interesting or surprising that’s recently happened or occurred to them – or lessons they learnt. These blogs are a way to pay it forward and form part of CN&CO’s belief that the world can be a better place – and we all have a responsibility to make it so. This post is by CN&CO Recruit’s Michele Katz.

Your wings were built for this!!

Fears have a funny way of RSVP-ing to life’s events, even when nobody asked them to come. Sometimes they’re helpful (don’t pet the lion, good call), but other times they’re just dramatic (no, standing on a balcony doesn’t mean gravity is plotting against you).

Do fears actually help us, or are they just freeloaders in our mental space?

One of my biggest fears is creepy crawlies, particularly Parktown prawns. I once threw every Tupperware I owned in a failed attempt to capture one. (It eventually disappeared, which led me to consider moving house!) I am also not at all fond of  driving in the rain.

But my biggest fear of all is turbulence – which is not ideal when your passion is travelling the world!

You’re cruising at 35,000 feet, sipping your Coke Zero (no alcohol for me when I’m trying to maintain control and composure with every bump and jiggle), when suddenly the plane dips and jolts. The captain delivers his nondescript blah-blah announcement: “Fasten your seatbelts.” My brain screams, we’re going down! Reality whispers, we’re fine. But for me, turbulence is irrational fear’s playground. Statistically, turbulence rarely causes accidents, but try telling that to adrenaline-flooded limbs and a wildly beating heart.

Enter EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing), a therapy technique that helps rewire your brain’s “danger!” alarm. It’s like teaching your mind that turbulence is just atmospheric sass, not a death sentence. EMDR uses guided eye movements to process traumatic or fear-based memories, turning “I’m doomed” into “I’ll still make it to the hotel buffet.”

For nearly two years, I’ve been doing EMDR and it has genuinely helped me navigate the skies. Every now and then there’s a flight so bad that my first response is, damn, I’m going to need more therapy. But for the most part, I can fly again without feeling traumatised.

Life works the same way. We fear failure, rejection, or not being “enough”, and those fears build invisible walls. We don’t apply for the job because… what if I’m not qualified? We don’t start the business because… what if I fail? We don’t speak up because… what if they judge me? These aren’t lions in the wild. They’re paper tigers. Yet we treat them like predators.

So how do we get out of our own way? We process. We challenge the story. We “EMDR” our way through it, not literally with eye movements, but by rewiring the narrative. EMDR therapy works by helping the brain reprocess traumatic memories so they lose their grip. In life, we can do something similar: revisit the fear, question its truth, and replace it with a new perspective. Instead of “I’ll fail”, try “I’ll learn”. Instead of “They’ll judge me”, try “They might relate to me”. It’s about shifting from survival mode to growth mode.

Every time we face a fear, whether it’s stepping onto a stage or sending that bold email, we’re proving the story wrong. We’re teaching our brain that the balcony isn’t a death trap, the spider isn’t a villain, and failure isn’t fatal. We’re EMDR-ing our way through the mental clutter, one irrational thought at a time, until the fear loses its drama and becomes just another thing we’ve conquered.

So this is me, facing my fear, getting out of my own way, and EMDR-ing my way through my first blog. Every sentence feels like unexpected turbulence, but I’m holding steady. I’m doing it anyway, because growth doesn’t happen in the comfort zone. It happens when we challenge the stories that hold us back and rewrite them with courage.

Here’s to processing, pushing through and proving to ourselves that fear is just a story, and we get to choose how it ends.