This week I had the good fortune to play “test pilot” for a day, performing a maintenance flight on an aircraft that had just had a new engine installed. The “test pilot” title was our joking way of referring to the fact that I’d be the one to discover if a bolt wiggled loose or some bizarre thing was wrong with the new engine, and — if so – I’d get to demonstrate my proficiency of engine failure checklists and emergency landing procedures.
(Alas, no Maverick-inspired ejection handles in this plane, and my 130 knot cruising speed was a wee bit short of Mach 10, though I did give the throttle “just… a little… push…”)
The flight went fine, of course. But in the process, I observed a number of critical details that all of us can apply to our human experience, which–let’s face it– is really that of a soul coming in to be a test pilot of a human bodymind “aircraft” that seems to have limited and complicated performance capabilities.
To work with this metaphor, we must first begin with the idea that your body and mind are, like an airplane engine, a complicated yet vastly powerful way of creating and directing energy (fuel) that allows you to fly where you want, when you want, and how you want. (Except when you encounter, ahem, performance issues. More on this later).
When you’re born, you show up with a brand new engine. It appears to be sparkly clean, but it has already been shaped by a number of factors, including the karmic doo doo, er, I mean, the pre-existing conditions established by your parents, your DNA, the time and place of your birth, and the culture you’re born into, as well as the glorious and breathtaking potentials inherent in the unique design of your engine.
For the sake of this metaphor, let’s say that all humans have internal combustion piston engines. (Yes, you can upgrade to jet turbines but that is a class for another day.)
For aircraft, there’s a “break-in” period that requires particular care (in the case of my flight this week, doing laps over the airport for a couple of hours) followed by regular maintenance.
But for humans? Nobody thinks in terms of a “break in” period, and if they did, it would likely be considered the developing of cynicism and hardening of the heart required to survive in a “life sucks and then you die” world. Which is tragically and ridiculously incomplete as an interpretation, of course, but apparently our species likes drama and victimhood.
So. Let’s look at the optimal “break-in” period for humans, and then a bit of regular maintenance that you can do daily.
ENGINE BREAK-IN:
The purpose of my test flight this week was to ensure the piston rings got properly seated in the cylinders. Screw this up, and you end up consuming brontosaurus levels of fossil fuels in the form of wasted oil, not to mention your engine will likely run hot and die early. In the airplane, that meant giving extra attention to monitoring RPMs, power settings, cylinder head temperatures, and flying the optimal performance settings given by the manufacturer.
Which is exactly what we do NOT do as humans, with our bodymind “aircraft.”
“What? The manufacturer has optimal performance settings? Don’t be ridiculous. We HUMANS know best, not the manufacturer. Forget Creation, the Universe, God, Nature, the cosmos. The way WE do things here in our culture is to pretend that there is no manufacturer, and therefore no need to bring reverence and care to the arrival of a brand new soul and its associated engine and airframe.”
If we were to set up “new engines” (how’s that for a hilariously Matrix-like label for our precious darlings – our children and grandchildren) for optimal performance and longevity, we would:
- Create the conditions for them to access full RPMs, by allowing their innate curiosity and intrinsic drives to guide their development, rather than parenting from the “NO” mindset. As a tiny example, when my son was two, his curiosity led him to discover the kitchen knives. Rather than making his natural curiosity wrong by creating a culture of “no” in our household, I showed him about sharp blades, demonstrated proper and improper usage, and helped him learn to use these “dangerous” implements correctly rather than to fear them as scary and, in so doing, develop no skills.
A child’s curiosity IS their outlet for the natural energy that we are all born with. We either train them to suppress or express this natural flow, and this shapes the contours of their experience for their lives. The same goes for the “but why?” stage of childhood. Curiosity that is cultivated, allows a lifetime of full RPMs for that child’s engine. Curiosity that is ridiculed or blocked with “because I said so” authoritarianism lowers the power settings for that child’s engines.
And we wonder why employee engagement statistics suggest that 2/3 of all employees are not engaged with their jobs. Obviously there are multiple factors that contribute to highly engaged workplaces but the overall culture MUST be one that encourages individuals to run at full RPMs so they can bring their best every day. A critical element of living in flow is having a sense of self-determination and self-efficacy –qualities that are nurtured and developed from birth and childhood, not just in the workplace.
- Monitor the “cylinder head temperatures” of our children and respond in ways that allow the child to co-regulate their system, giving them skills for life. When babies cry and children “act out,” they are expressing some “red line” indicator in their engine, so to speak. But rather than help them troubleshoot and explore and feel safe learning how to manage their own engine indications, our society is such that we make their behavior the problem, often shaming or punishing the behavior without any clue that the behavior is an INDICATOR of something under the surface that is calling for compassionate, caring attention. If something is “too hot” within their system (some intensity that the child isn’t able to regulate, either physically, mentally, emotionally, or energetically) the solution is not to shut off the indicator or ignore the gauge. The solution is to get curious about the inner workings of the engine (one’s inner experience) and provide loving attention to that which is feeling unloved, unsafe, uncertain, or alone. Creating a culture of psychological and emotional safety where children can learn to co-regulate their own engines, allows long-term optimal performance for all.
We could make a long list about what’s actually needed for a healthy, generative “engine break in” stage for children, (what would you include?) but it comes down to creating the conditions in which long-term optimal performance is considered – which is not typically how our society thinks about childhood. Replace curiosity with obedience, fit into the box of external expectations at the expense of one’s innate knowing, please those in authority, and ignore or shame all red-line indicators – these are a few unspoken cultural rules that set our new engines up for diminished performance over time.
What would it take for curiosity, intrinsic knowing, and caring connection – all recommendations from The Manufacturer – to be normalized within ourselves, our families, and over time, our culture and society, so that we consider long-term performance as paramount and revere the preciousness of our engines accordingly?
What human needs would need to be met, in order to access these higher order values and capacities?
And what is the engine that is You doing, to contribute to creating this kind of culture?
DAILY MAINTENANCE:
During aircraft engine break-in, it’s not uncommon to see tiny metal shavings in the oil, as the steel grooves in the cylinders get smoothed out during the initial flights. It’s a no-brainer to change the oil and filter to remove these solids promptly, so they don’t restrict proper lubrication of the engine and create premature engine failure.
But. Do we humans even THINK about changing our oil? From our earliest years, we are exposed to intense emotions–often projected onto us by others in the form of anger, fear, shame, criticism, ridicule, silent hostility, or our own unexpressed and unacknowledged grief, fear, guilt, and shame—and the residue of these energies and emotions ends up in our own systems – not unlike metal shavings in the oil flow.
However, instead of learning how to monitor and change our “oil filters,” so to speak, we just let these things build up. Unmetabolized grief and unconscious shame do profound damage to our engines, but we have been brought up in a culture where emotional maintenance has been either ridiculed or taboo – the equivalent of making oil changes impossible for an engine.
This is changing, of course, as more leaders and parents and voices speak up about the importance of emotional intelligence, mental health, and more. But these things are not just to be done in therapy or on retreat or when it all blows up in crisis.
Emotional and energetic “oil changes” are to be done daily, if our engines are to perform optimally. This may feel difficult initially but becomes as normal as daily toothbrushing — although in early stages most people would run naked through the streets rather than FEEL FEELINGS (which is to say: ain’t gonna happen) and the ego loves to play the card that says “don’t allow those unpleasant feelings because you’ll never get out of them” and instead hides in the pantry eating a box of cookies at midnight in hopes of soothing the incessant existential discomfort that comes from living with metal shavings in your oil. I mean, the unmetabolized emotions and dense energy (often labeled “trauma,” for better or for worse) that are clogging up your system.
A daily oil change can be as simple as nightly, before bed, inventorying what is still swirling in your awareness from the day and practicing dual awareness of your experience, in which you observe simultaneously your discomfort AND the deep okayness of right now.
The trendy term these days is “mindfulness” but whatever you call it, it’s the art of becoming witness to your experience — to observe “there is worry” rather than internalizing “I am worried” – and then noticing that your heart is still beating by some intelligence that you didn’t have to organize, and your breath is still breathing even if you forgot to set a calendar reminder to do so.
You are deeply and profoundly alive and well, no matter what.
Just in need of an oil change, that’s all.
Your “oil filter analysis” may reveal resentments, grudges, fears, worries, frustrations, doubts, anxieties, judgments … all of these build up over time if not cleared, leading to clogged pipelines and shockingly diminished performance.
It’s okay.
Witnessing presence and breathing are your inner maintenance shop that knows exactly how to reorganize the energies and get your system back into optimal flow.
You might not be on a first name basis with your inner mechanics yet, but get curious about your inner workings and they’ll introduce themselves once they perceive that you’re sincere in your desire to make oil changes a regular practice.
TSMOH:
After the new engine was installed in the aircraft, the TSMOH was reset to zero: Time Since Major OverHaul. Blank slate! Fresh start. New parts, new oil, new cylinders, new lots of things. With proper care and maintenance, the engine will now perform optimally for a couple thousand more hours of flight. Totally worth the extra TLC for these first few flights.
What is our human equivalent? Can we “reset” our systems and create a blank slate? Is it possible to transcend our evolutionary and emotional baggage and start fresh?
I’d like to think so. But it requires each of us to deepen our own relationship with The Manufacturer, by whatever name you give it. Whatever intelligence made apple trees, the Milky Way, and eyeballs is the same intelligence that made you.
It’s been running this cosmos for about 14 billion years as a series of experiments to organize stardust into forms of optimal performance (including trial and error extinctions: “whoops, that didn’t work”) and we’re either going to be a success story or another “whoops, that didn’t work” depending on whether we figure out that we need to care for our own engines and perform oil changes, or not.
As we convert the “metal shavings in our oil” – the hurts, betrayals, tragedies, disappointments, and judgments – into wisdom, we bring our engine into the realm of optimal performance for joyful flight.
But it’s more than just emotional alchemy and mindful self-compassion. We must also push the throttle forward to discover what “full RPMs” might be for our unique engine design – from a place of authentic curiosity about what makes us come alive, what brings out the best in us, what are the conditions we need to cultivate, to wake up in the morning and love our lives and be joyfully devoted to doing our part to support others to do the same.
Whatever the current state of your body-mind “aircraft,” you’ve been given the tremendous opportunity to fly it as test pilot, getting to know how it flies best and what’s needed to do so. Get to know your inner mechanics on a daily basis by prioritizing time with your internal experience and your breath, and prioritize maintenance.
The manufacturer designed you for more flow than you’ve allowed thus far.
Give the throttle “just… a little… push…”