Six Meters Of Fiery Fear, and How Areté, My Inner Warrioress, Took Me Through The Flames…

Now the first thing to say about a firewalk day with Chris is that he is a movie man through and through and he makes his events cinematic. He positions everyone as the hero of their own film, using an emotionally manipulative soundtrack (it is enormously fun to guess which film each song came from), complete with stirring voice overs. You have to buy into this, and if you can let go of your sceptical hindbrain, it’s enormously affecting. If you can’t let go of your sceptical hindbrain, you will have to sit awkwardly for a few hours with it screaming at you, but don’t worry — it will gradually be challenged throughout the day. Enough that, eventually, you will be able to see that your scepticism doesn’t serve you in all instances, and at all times, and here and now should be gently set aside. Huge lesson right there. Be open. Assume you don’t always know best. Trust the teacher. Trust the process. Because a lot of this day is about learning to get out of your own way.

The more you resist the process, the less you get out of it, and I am certain the same can be said for life in general. The firewalk day is full of moments that you choose to feel comfortable or uncomfortable about — dancing, interacting with other people, eyes-closed activities, shouting out loud, walking glass, and finally, the firewalk —  and it is a choice, which means you do have control over how you decide to feel. Every time you feel uncomfortable, Chris helps you to recognise the lesson in there. The limiting thoughts that are getting in your way.

For instance, I started to quietly freak out early on when Chris said that some people will get blisters, or “fire kisses”, from the firewalk. I had to drive home straight after and teach a high impact fitness class early the next morning, and the possibility of getting blisters put me in a right tizz: what if I couldn’t drive? What if I had to limp to class the next morning and apologise for not being able to teach properly? It was essentially an audition class at a new club, and I was taking it seriously.

The brain buzz over this was stopping me from being able to concentrate on anything else, so I had to eventually put myself out of my own misery by asking for clarification: how bad would those blisters be?

And Chris proceeded to have a conversation with my resistance in front of the group which was a bit of a head f*** for me but so interesting and perfectly illustrated his point: most of us have built a set of limiting beliefs that wants desperately to keep us comfortable and is highly resistant to anything that threatens that status quo. I was willing to withhold my participation in the entire process to maintain my comfort and avoid risk of discomfort. This is something I do all the time, and it hurts me personally and professionally. But it was a huge relief to let my resistance have voice, and be spoken to and reasoned with, instead of melting my mind into an anxious puddle as per norm.

(As a short aside: yes, you can get fire kisses, which are very small blisters. They are not common. I only saw it happen to those hardcore people who did all six consecutive walks without giving their feet time to cool down. No-one had any concerns or regrets though, and my feet were perfectly happy to drive home and jump around the next morning).

Which leads me to the next key point: Chris kept demanding we be less reasonable with ourselves. Or more unreasonable, if you prefer. This was key to my inertia: I had become so damn reasonable with myself. Jump in cold water once, pat on the back, good girl Adele. Do one thing for selling my book or my fitness classes: pat on the back, good girl Adele. I had become boringly, relentlessly easy on myself. I’ll take just this much discomfort thank you, and that will do…but limited risk equals limited reward. I knew this intellectually, but I couldn’t connect that knowledge to an emotional or energetic capacity to leap in headfirst and make positive, powerful changes in my life.

So we spent the day observing our own thinking and feeling — which is a priceless exercise everyone should do at least once a year I think, to identify and root out the bad coding that we inevitably develop — and finally came to the firewalk itself.

Chris introduced us to the idea of personifying our feminine warrior self through the day, and creating triggers to call upon her. This is insanely powerful. Think Beyonce with her stage alter-ego Sasha Fierce. Now for me, I think I’m very average. In some areas I know I do very good work, but I expect very average results and this blocks me from carrying out the sort of self promotion essential to creative and entrepreneurial endeavour. I don’t think I have what it takes to excel in the fitness or writing industries. After all, there are millions of people working in the same areas, so why me?

But…I used to be a firecracker.

I used to believe I could excel.

Instead of “why me” I used to think “why not me?” and the psychological distance between those two ideas is chasmic.

Chris’ proposition that we all have a warrior inside, who has walked with us all our lives but who we have learned to shut down over time, resonated very deeply. And believing in her power somehow took the pressure away from trying to believe in my power. I feel like… she is in me, but she is more than me. She is braver than me. She is wiser than me. She is kinder than me. But she can share those things with me.

I say “but what if I fall?” and she says “oh but darling, what if you fly?”

Before the firewalk, we all named our inner warrior. Some people used superhero names and others used statements of power. Mine came very easily: when I was a teenager, struggling with loneliness at high school, I created a female warrior called Areté and wrote stories about her to give myself strength. I would consider what she would do when faced with difficulties. I very literally personified my own warrioress into her.