Firewalking: A Trip Inward

by John Anderson, F.I.R.E. Certified Firewalking Instructor

Firewalking is one of the oldest human rituals on the planet. In every culture around the world, people have used Firewalking as a means of healing and purifying their communities and themselves. Firewalking, next to prayer, is one of the oldest transformational tools the world has ever known. In native cultures, the shamans and medicine men were called upon to walk on hot coals, rocks or lava to purify the community. Surprisingly, Firewalking made its way into every single culture on the planet. Even Middle Ages Christianity embraced the mysteries of Firewalking. The Catholic Church canonized St. Francis of Paola in 1519 in part because of his incredible ability to handle fire. In front of church officials, St. Francis reached into a burning fire and grabbed a handful of red-hot logs. He also stepped into burning kilns and helped blacksmiths by handling red-hot pieces of iron. Most often used for ritual purification, healing and worship, Firewalking is still being used today as a local custom in such varied places as India, Spain, Bulgaria and Fiji. Firewalking in Africa, especially among the !Kung tribe of the Kalahari Desert, has been used in powerful healing ceremonies since their tribal beginnings. The !Kung are master firewalkers, and their ceremonies include rolling on the fire.

One of the first lessons we learn as children: fire burns. For many of us this lesson goes in very deeply, and not only includes the sting of a burn, but translates into a fear of the fire of our own passion, desire, and dreams. Up until 1492, most people believed the world was flat and that if you sailed too far you would fall off of the edge. Christopher Columbus, through his own direct experience, discovered that the world was not flat. Once he returned from his voyages, that belief was changed forever. For most of my life, I believed that if I stepped on a bed of red-hot coals I would severely burn my feet. However, once I did, that belief was changed forever.

Our beliefs are our pre-conceived filters for our everyday life. We allow our beliefs to form our reality so that what we believe becomes what we experience. This is what Firewalking is about; it is a metaphor for all of the challenges we normally shrink from. When you learn to walk on fire, you learn that you control your beliefs and therefore your everyday experiences. In learning how to walk unharmed across a bed of red-hot coals, people are really learning how to overcome fear. The fire is meant to stimulate fear. We learn that fear is a belief - in this case an obstacle that is between you and where you want to go. As we step onto the fire, we pass through a membrane of fear, and in doing so, learn to make fear our servant instead of our master. The point is not to deny the fear, but to look at it closely and to see it as something that blocks you from attaining a goal. Instead of crying about our fears and problems, blaming others, making excuses, or basking in denial, we are forced in Firewalking to confront our fears and pay attention to them. This close attention enables us to gain the insight that will set us free of our fears.

A Sufi tales tells of a man who was terrified of snakes. One day, while at a mountain resort, someone casually said, "Be careful of the poisonous snakes we have around here." This completely ruined the man's day. Every time he passed a shadow, his body contracted. His head was constantly turning - looking for snakes. Finally, that night when the man entered his darkened room, while fumbling for the light switch, he saw on the floor a coiled snake ready to strike. He became so overwhelmed by fear that he had a heart attack and dropped dead. The next morning the housekeeper found the man dead on the floor next to a coil of rope. What killed this man? It certainly was not the snake, for there was no snake. What killed him was his own fear. Our fears are always turning fears into snakes. Firewalking can help you to realize how powerful your fears are and let you master them. Once you master your fears, there is no goal that you cannot achieve.

Firewalking is used as a tool to help us see our self-created limitations. The message conveyed by Firewalking is that you can do anything you decide to do. Firewalking helps you to recognize how incredibly powerful you are. It helps you to address your fears and shows you how it is possible to overcome your self-imposed limitations. It also shows you how exhilarating it is to actually choose your own reality. Instead of pain, you choose power. Instead of anger, you choose forgiveness. Instead of judgment, you choose acceptance. When you reach the heightened state of consciousness, you can change your body's response to danger, tension and stress. According to Andrew Weil M.D.: "..Firewalking demonstrates how, through non-ordinary states of consciousness, we can modify our body's response to ordinary harmful external stimulation. What does this mean? Well, if you don't have to experience pain, redness, and blisters on exposure to red-hot coals, then you don't have to get infections on exposure to germs, allergies on exposure to allergens, or cancer on exposure to carcinogens. What a largely uncharted territory in which to discover powerful new techniques to bolster natural resistance to disease!"

Positive thinkers live in a different chemical world than negative thinkers. Your attitudes, in part, determine the strength of your body, the effectiveness of your immune system and ultimately, the state of your health and whether or not you will recover from a major disease. This is not philosophical or abstract: it is hard fact! An exercise you can use to prove to yourself the power of positive thinking is as follows. Take a five pound weight and hold it in your outstretched arm, time how long you can hold it there while you tell yourself that you are tired, bored, want to sit down, and your arm aches. Now switch arms and think to yourself: this is light as a feather, I feel great, I can do this all day. There will be a measurable time difference between arms. This exercise is just another way of saying that you create your own reality. By simply changing the way you perceive things, you can change your reality and the outcome of any challenge.

What you focus on, and what you believe about it, is what creates the world you live in. If you believe that nothing ever goes right for you and that you are unlucky, eventually that belief will start to take over and that is what you will experience. If you believe you are successful, things always go right for you and nothing can stop you, eventually THAT belief will take over.

So what stops most people from getting what they want? Fear! Fear of failure, fear of success, fear of rejection, fear of the unknown, fear of disappointment - they are all the same! Even successful people have fear; they just refer to it a little differently - they call it stress. "I'm stressed out. I don't know if I'll be prepared for the meeting." They are afraid they won't be ready for the meeting. You might as well call it what it is - fear. So when someone says they are stressed out, what he or she really means is that they are afraid. Fear is not always a bad thing - how you respond to the fear is what is important.

Someone who is afraid of heights looks down and his heart starts racing, he gets butterflies in his stomach, and his hands tighten up and start to sweat. He may get completely paralyzed from the fear.

Someone else, let's say a parachutist, looks out the door of the airplane and his heart starts racing, he gets butterflies in his stomach, and his hands tighten up and start to sweat. But he says: "Now I'm ready." Both people have the same physiological symptoms and the same fears but the way they respond to them is completely different. The first person perceived the heights as something life-threatening and worthy of fear. The second person had the same fears but perceived it as a challenge. Your perception determines if you experience fear or excitement. Your perception, what you focus on and what you believe about it, creates the world you live in.

Pay attention to what you do with your mind and you will quickly see how you create your own reality - how you create your experiences of life. Paying attention to what is in your mind can dramatically transform your experience of being alive. It can make the difference between having a great life or a miserable life. Your experience of life depends on what you pay attention to. Pay attention to the decisions you make. If the decisions you make are limiting - make different decisions! You must program yourself for the way you want to perceive life.

Mark Twain said: "Most folks are only as happy as they make up their minds to be." When faced with any situation - make up your mind to be happy!!

Pay attention to what you are focusing on right now. What you focus on becomes your reality; if you focus on failure, you reinforce failure. If you focus on success, you become successful. Believe in yourself, and you are unstoppable; you can achieve any goal that you want to. By paying attention to your thoughts and changing them to "I can do anything" and "I welcome all challenges," you will make dramatic changes in your life. Firewalking is a powerful tool that can help you modify your limiting belief system. Firewalking can help you transform your life from one of fear and self-doubt to one full of self-confidence and optimism. It can help prove how powerful positive thinking really is. Unlike motivational speakers or self-help books alone, where your memory fades away quickly, Firewalking is a physical manifestation of your inner power. Walking across a 1200-degree bed of coals is something you will never forget.

NOTE: Firewalking is potentially very dangerous. Any information given within this article is solely for informational purposes. Under no circumstances should you firewalk without the supervision of a trained firewalking professional. Should you do so, you are accepting full responsibility for your consequences and actions.

Now forming Firewalking workshops, if you are interested in learning more see: www.Firewalk-NC.com. Portions reprinted from Extreme Spirituality Radical Journeys for the Inward Bound by Tolly Burkan (© 2001) and used with permission.