Quote:
Originally Posted by Erin Pavlina  Steve and I attended the Unleash the Power Within seminar probably 8 years ago or so. We walked on fire. I burned my feet (lost focus midway through), Steve walked on the same coals and didn't burn his feet. So I can at least attest to the power of focus.  |
Here's my own "burned feet" story:
4 days before going to London to see Tony Robbins the first time I went to a firewalk here in Denmark. I hadn't tried it before, but figured it would be a nice "warmup" before the real deal. I had read a bit about the "science" behind walking on coals so I came there with the impression that it was mostly a gimmick and as long as you walked at a steady pace you couldn't get burned. I went there with my girlfriend at the time and although she was reluctant at first she decided to come after she had read up on the science herself.
When I did the firewalk I made ALL the mistakes in the book: I didn't think it was dangerous so the metaphor of conquering your fears was lost on me, I wasn't in a focused state because I didn't really believe it mattered, and most of my focus was on my girlfriend getting safely across instead of focusing on my own state.
After about two steps onto the coals I realized that it hurt a LOT and that whatever I had read about walking on coals obviously wasn't true. This caused me to start running (another mistake) which only made the hot coals lodge themselves firmly under my feet. When I reached the end of the firewalk we were supposed to put our feet in a big basin of water, but because I was running only one of my feet went into the water - the other (including the burning coals lodged underneath it) continued past the basin. I ended up with quite intense burns on that foot and had to have my girlfriend drive the car home after the event (I felt pretty stupid at that point).
Four days later I was in London and my feet were still hurting from the blisters on my foot. At first I wasn't sure if I wanted to go through the whole thing again, but after listening to Tony Robbins talking about the reasons for doing the firewalk I decided this was an important challenge. And this time the metaphor was VERY powerful because the fear of taking the first step was very real - the pain from the previous walk was still very present in my body. It took a lot determination to walk out on those coals that night, but I am really happy I did it and I only got one very small "hotspot" on the other foot. The feeling after doing it the second time was completely amazing and it really made me realize on a deep level that I CAN do things I set my mind to, even if taking the first step seems impossible.
Rasmus