Voices In My Head

We all have an inner dialogue, the voice in our head that talks to only us, that we think is us. And while there are many times we need to think actions through using our inner dialogue, there are other times we must somehow quieten the voice. And trust another inner self.

Take a quiet moment, and imagine a pink flying pig. Now try not to think about a pink pig flying on little pink wings. Go ahead. Try.

It's not easy is it? You've never seen a real pig with wings, but somehow this make-believe mental construct was in your head and you could not get it out. So just how much control over your inner dialogue do you really have? And consider this; while you were thinking about a pink porker flapping its little wings, you were not able to think of anything else. Unless you are hearing many voices in your head at one time (in which case you have real problems), you can only think about one thing at a time. Our powerful inner dialogue, what we think of as our own very personal center of being, is limited to thinking of only one thing at a time. It would seem clear that when landing a plane, we'd best not be dreaming of flying pigs. We need focus.

The voice in our flying head should be a suspicious double-checking always-questioning voice. This flying voice stays ahead of the airplane. What is the latest weather report? Has our fuel burn changed? What would I do if an engine quit at the outer marker? Where is the traffic? How will the wind change on final?

The practiced patter of the inner voice is an important and enjoyable part of being a pilot. There are many things to think through. From planning alternates to cruising altitudes, to being actively aware of how the flight is progressing. Passing a checkpoint a little late may be within normal margins of error and measurement. Or maybe the winds aloft have changed. A dramatic change in the winds aloft from those forecast may indicate the weather patterns are different. Our inner flying voice says check the destination weather.

The inner voice teaches us to fly better. In the cockpit, if I'm thinking about what is for dinner I am not thinking about why I am 30 feet off my altitude. (Remember there is only one thing in the conscious mind at a time.) If I am thinking about being 30 feet off my altitude, it is the start of being on the right altitude. If I am thinking about dinner, it is the start of never being able to exactly hold my altitude.

Jim Fannin, a performance coach to many superstar athletes says you should, "go on a mental diet and think about what you think about, the intended result being a clear mind with less thought." He claims that, "the average person has between 2,000 to 3,000 thoughts a day," of which some 60 percent are chaotic and not really useful. However after learning to train the inner voice,  "the superstar has 1,200 and every one of them has a purpose" (Ketcham, 2005). The experience of flying tends to focus the mind anyway, it's something people love as the worries of the world get left on the ground, but we should work on our inner voice on the ground as well. Pay little attention to impatience, gossip, prejudices, anger, jealousy, envy and other negative thoughts that crowd our heads. All whining, negative thinking and excuses need to be ignored and eliminated. You have one voice, let it be positive and useful.

The inner voice leads us through memory items. There should be a list in your head of the actions to do when an engine quits, or the cabin depressurizes, or there is a fire. Your train the inner voice with ground school and quiet personal mental review. Your train the inner voice with checklists and reading magazine articles or buying 'seven habits of successful pilots' books. But then making the plane do what the thinking mind has decided is part of another inner self.

Cognitive psychologists describe two types of knowledge that humans use to function: knowledge of and knowledge how. Knowledge of facts and rules, landing aircraft have priority, standard holding pattern is right turns and whatnot is called by the trick cyclists declarative knowledge. The other type of knowledge is called procedural, and is the knowledge that enables us to perform music, to move the muscles in the tongue to talk, or to land in a crosswind on an icy runway.

Procedural knowledge is difficult or impossible to write down and is difficult to teach. It is best taught by demonstration and best learned through practice. Even the best teachers cannot usually describe what they are doing. Procedural knowledge is largely subconscious. The voice that talks us though declarative knowledge (turn right at the holding fix, start the time when abeam outbound) really does not help us for procedural tasks (wind is 20 gusting 30, you're cleared to land). The traditional inner voice just gets in the way sometimes.

We train for procedural knowledge using repeated practice, both mental and actual. We immerse ourselves in the task and learn to let it happen without worrying about it. Without the voice in our head criticizing and slowing everything down many skills will become smoother and more automatic. So how can we learn to focus, how to teach the inner dialogue to be quiet and let the rest of the body and mind get on with the job in hand.

Meditation has been practiced for thousands of years as a way to focus, as a way to silence the yap yap yap of the babbling inner voice. In his 2002 keynote address to the American Psychological Association in Chicago Herbert Benson, PhD, of Harvard Medical School declared that mediation has been shown beyond any reasonable doubt to quiet the central nervous system. You don't need to be a Buddhist for this. You don't need a robe or a shaved head. You don't need to believe anything more or less than you do now. And you don't need a mat or an incense stick.

You do need to sit in silence for 15 minutes.

It is sounds the cheapest, simplest, quickest and easiest thing in the world. However cheap, quick and simple it is, it is not easy. Turns out that doing nothing, thinking about nothing, is one of the hardest things in the world.

In some loose comfortable clothes find a reasonably peaceful private place. Set a timer for 15 minutes or so. Sit down on a cushion or rolled up towel in stable cross-legged manner, with good upright posture, hands rested on the knees. Rest your eyes a few feet in front of you, not really looking at anything but not closed (we don't want to fall asleep). You don't chant (although some practices do: it's called a mantra) and you don't have to try the most pure Zen meditation, which is to empty the mind. Try counting breaths, deeply and slowly to ten. Then start at one again.

Slowly now. Breathe, one, breathe, two, why am I doing this. Aha! The yap yap yap of the inner voice intrudes almost immediately. Learn to let it come, acknowledge it, and then let it go. Bye bye. One, breathe, two, breathe, three, my leg hurts. Let it go. Quiet. Peace. Breathe, one, breathe, two, I think I'll have pizza tonight. Boy this is hard. One, breathe, two . . .

Soon the time will be up. Now try doing this every day for a few weeks. See if your concentration improves. See if you can find a little inner peace and calm. Studies, only recently made possible due to brain imaging technology, show that people that meditate regularly are more calm, have more focus, and can concentrate during intense activities better than those that can never silence the voice in their head. If it is true that 'performance equals potential minus interference'—then mediation may be a way to remove the limiting part of the human equation.

Richard Davidson, a professor of psychology and psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, has studied meditation for 20 years. Using MRI machines and Buddhist monks his researchers have seen brains unlike any they have observed elsewhere. The actual neural physiology is different. The monks' left pre-fontal cortexes are far more active than those in nonmeditators' brains (Conlin, 2004).Simple meditation really does alter the biochemistry of the brain for the better, just as running or weight training or yoga changes the body.

A very practical application of the skills learnt through meditation is the management of cockpit distractions. Many accidents occur when pilots are focusing their thoughts on stuff that does not matter as much as flying the plane and situational awareness. They are not centered. Flight instructors are required by the FAA to introduce 'realistic distractions' to the student during training, having the pilot reach for a pencil on the floor or find some information on a chart during a critical phase of flight. The student must learn to prioritize. This is good training. Even better training is the mind that can let all mental distractions go. The mind that notices the distracting whatever, and lets it fall away. Flying the plane. One with the wing. You recognize petty irritations for what they are, and simply let them go. Sam reminded me that although events may be beyond my control, my reactions to those events are entirely controlled by me and me alone. He stayed positive. He stayed focused.

Talking about flying with Sam when the morning clouds were still too low for pattern work, we spent some time discussing trim in the C-152. It's light enough on the controls that you don't have to use the trim a lot if you don't want, yet imprecise enough with the slack and give in the cables that you can fiddle with it more then you want. Students need to learn to put the airplane where they want it, then trim. They have to think this through a few times, as well as learn about not flying the plane through the trim control. Then they have to trim without thinking. You cannot enjoy flight if you are spending all your time thinking about the trim. That voice in your head has to silence. So trim already, relax the controls, rest the voice in your head, and fly.

Make it thy business to know thyself, which is the most difficult lesson in the world.

— Miguel De Cervantes

Inner peace is the key: if you have inner peace, the external problems do not affect your deep sense of peace and tranquility.

— Dalai Lama

Given a disciplined self, all things are possible.

— Alan Shepard

When the task is done beforehand, then it is easy.

— Yuantong

It became important to think as well as fly. . . . Good line pilots held an alternate in their minds for every eventuality. If this did not work out, then they would do that. Expecting the worst, they skipped one emotion when trouble appeared, and thus moved without pausing past disappointment to decision and action.

— Ernest K. Gann

Rebellion against your handicaps gets you nowhere. Self-pity gets you nowhere. One must have the adventurous daring to accept oneself as a bundle of possibilities and undertake the most interesting game in the world—making the most of one's best.

— Harry Emerson Fosdick

You cannot hit and think at the same time.

— Yogi Berra

The undisturbed mind is like the calm body of water reflecting the brilliance of the Moon. Empty the mind and you will realize the undisturbed mind.

— Yagyu Jubei

Action without study is fatal. Study without action is futile.

— Mary Beard

The body moves naturally, automatically, unconsciously, without any personal intervention or awareness. But if we begin to use our faculty of reasoning, our actions become slow and hesitant. Question arise, the mind tires, and the conscious flickers and wavers like a candle flame in the breeze.

— Taisen Deshimaru

I have come to discover through earnest personal experience and dedicated learning that ultimately the greatest help is self-help; that there is no other help but self-help doing one's best, dedicating oneself wholeheartedly to a given task.

— Bruce Lee

Learn to be silent. Let your quiet mind listen and absorb.

— Pythagoras

The quieter you become, the more you can hear.

— Baba Ram Dass

I always have an inner peace on the golf course. I try and stay calm and never let anything get to me.

— Tiger Woods

My mind is completely clear whenever I play.

— Ronaldo Luiz Nazario de Lima

Studying about Zen should never be confused with practicing Zen, just as studying art should not be confused with being an artist.

— T. P. Kasulis

Mindfulness involves intentionally doing only one thing at a time and making sure I am here for it.

— Jon Kabat-Zinn

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