I can still remember it like it was yesterday. I was outside playing with my cousins when I looked up in the sky and saw smoke coming from my Grandmother’s house. My Mother was in the house asleep. I ran down the hill to my Aunt’s house to get an adult. It was all so surreal, it happened very fast. My Mom was rescued thankfully. No one else was in the house thankfully. Our family had a place to go thankfully, but the flames quietly danced in my memory for years.
I would like to say, I have been a fearless person my whole life, but as I got older something changed. It was as though I had reach my limit, and now I was at a cliff. I really tried to make my life be enough for me, but it still did not satisfy my deepest desires. I had become a life coach by this time, and I was beginning to feel like a hypocrite, because I knew that I had not pushed through my own resistance. One day, I was talking to a friend about getting outside of my comfort zone, and how I really wanted to become more outdoorsy. She suggested I take a workshop called..”Becoming an Outdoor Woman”. So I signed up.
I took some friends with me, drove to the 4-h center in Columbiana. I took several classes… dutch oven cooking, photography, frontier skills, etc… They were all great classes, but one was truly transformational for me. That was the backpacking and hiking course. Part of the instruction was learning to start a fire. There were about 15 of us ladies all around the campfire. My best friend from college sitting beside me.
The instructor (she was the bomb) instructing us on the tools needed, how to use the available resources around you to start a fire, then, but then we had to start the fire. We all got into smaller groups and took our turns. Then it was my turn. I waited for the instructor to do it again..
this is my instructor:)
Then I said, ” How do you make sure you do not catch fire.” She said, “The flames are not high enough to burn you.” I said, “Prove it to me, Put your hands in the flames…”. With amazement I watched her put her hands in the flame, and she did not get burned. I was near tears. She proved to me that I would not get burned, she proved what was capable, so what was I going to do. I collected the kindle I needed… hit the striker, and got a spark… then I blew on it. As the flame got bigger and bigger, I started to squeal. It was real. It was happening…. Only one thing left to do. Put my hand in the flame. EXHALE. PRAY. BELIEVE. and, and, and, and, SQUEAL. I had done it. The women around me were laughing and excited for me. I think my reaction shocked them all. I HAD done it. I did not die, just as my Mother did not die in the flames. I had conquered my fear.
this is me…:)
That was March 2017, since then my life has drastically changed. It has changed my marriage, my career, and in my finances, and I realize so much more about
my life now. One of my take aways for 2017 is this. How you do anything is how you do everything. It’s true. I had been carrying around the “fear” of fire my whole life and finally, to get the next phase of my life, I was going to have to let go of it.
So friend, I wanted to share my heart with you today. Hopefully, it will resonate with you and help you to identify your own fears, and what is standing in the way of you living your dreams. Whatever it is, I want you to know that you to know that you can conquer it. I conquered my fear of fire and now I can start them- (metaphorically) AND YOU CAN TOO!
If you would like to know more, schedule a discovery session with me today to see what is standing in your way.
ps. To here my experience of “Becoming an Outdoor Woman.” listen to Big Daddy’s Lawler’s radio show.
Click here.
Click on 2017 shows/ 08/19/2017 show/ (I will start talking around 4:52)
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