Walking Through Fire: A Journey of Courage and Charity

Have you ever wondered what it takes to walk through fire for a cause close to your heart? Imagine the courage and conviction needed to face such a challenge. Join me as I recount my extraordinary experience of participating in a fire walk to raise funds for 125, a charity dedicated to supporting street sex workers in Bristol. You'll hear about my deep admiration for the vital services they provide, from essentials like food and toiletries to crucial medical access. I'll also share the inspiring story of a lead consultant I work with, whose dedication to 125 as a new trustee played a pivotal role in my decision to bravely step onto those glowing embers.

Overcoming self-doubt and taking positive risks is at the heart of this episode. Learn how I managed to conquer my fears and commit to this daunting task through impulsivity and accountability. The overwhelming generosity and support I received not only helped me surpass my fundraising goal but also exemplified the power of stepping out of our comfort zones for a meaningful cause. This journey isn’t just about walking through fire; it’s about the transformative impact of facing our fears head-on and the incredible sense of accomplishment that follows.

From the intense build-up of excitement to the electrifying walk across the embers, I’ll take you through every exhilarating moment of the fire walk. This experience left me with a newfound confidence and a desire to encourage others to find their own "fire" to walk through. Whether it's picking up a new hobby, planning a dream trip, or making a significant career move, embracing challenges can lead to remarkable personal growth. Don't miss the concluding discussion where I invite you to connect with me on social media, leave a review, and subscribe to stay updated with future episodes. Your support means the world, and I can't wait to hear your feedback!

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Hello and welcome to Find your Inner Glow, the podcast that focuses on mind, body and soul, and I am your host, kirsty Harris. I am a spiritual transformation coach and an intuitive healer. I have been helping women for years and years and I am here just to give you the knowledge that you need to really tap into your essence and find your inner glow. So get comfortable and let's get into today's episode. Hi everyone, today I want to talk to you about what it's like to walk through fire. So if you follow me on social media, you will know that in February I did a fire walk to raise money for a charity called 125. So in my previous life not actual previous life, but in my working career I worked a lot with this charity and supported women who were active street sex workers, and 125 helps to create this really safe environment for them. It helps them to basically access the services that they need, because when women are living that really chaotic lifestyle, it's incredibly difficult for them to be able to tap in and get the support that they need. So 125 used to offer like lunches, food, toiletries, clothes, access to a GP where they could get a script to help them if they were struggling with drug addiction and they also have an outreach van where they would go around and see all the street sex workers on an evening and they will just check in on them and make sure that they're all okay. That you know. Unfortunately, street sex workers are really likely to get attacked, um, so it's really yeah, it's uh, not not ideal, not an ideal situation, um, for the street sex workers who are out there on the streets of Bristol. But 125 do an incredible job and I've seen the work that they do, from working with women who are in prison to supporting them to leave, to try and help them get out of sex work, to really just give them a place of love. It is just the most loving charity and what I love is that like one to five just, and it has a really important place in my heart and I absolutely love it. I love the charity. I think they're absolutely incredible in all the work that they do.

Speaker 1: 2:28

So I was at work the week before the event and we were talking about charity and one of the lead consultants that I work with. So I actually have a part-time job. I'm not full-time in my business yet, but it's coming and I work in this part-time job as a specialist trauma-informed practitioner. So I work with organisations and the place of work I work at to be able to embed trauma-informed practice throughout everything that we do. So, yeah, it's a big job but it's a really good one. And, yeah, when you start to see things get embedded and start to see the progress, it's really, really rewarding.

Speaker 1: 3:10

And, yeah, we I was talking to the lead consultant and she was like oh, I've just become a trustee of this charity. And I was like, oh, fantastic, like, and this consultant, oh my god, I want to be her when I grow up. She's just the most incredible, incredible woman. She is just I don't know how she does it, but she just she's able to just communicate and deliver information very effectively. Even if it's abrasive, even if it's not what people want to hear, she delivers it and people just still absolutely adore her and she is so, so well respected. So, yeah, very, very God, god, in awe of this woman, she's just incredible. So I was like oh my god, that's amazing.

Speaker 1: 3:51

And then we started talking about the charity events that the charity was doing, so what one, two, five were doing. And then somebody was like oh yeah, they're doing a fire walk and I was like, do you know what I would really, really love to do? That I would really love to do that. That is just me. All my friends, they absolutely love cold dipping. Okay, and I tried it.

Speaker 1: 4:11

I tried it once, got in, was like, okay, cool, great, out, I get, did not enjoy that process whatsoever. And then the second time I got in up to my ankles or like, just yeah, probably a little bit more, I like halfway up my calves, I'm gonna be generous with myself and I just simply went I can't do this and ran out of the water. So I was like you know what the cold isn't for me? I've never been one for the cold. I hate cold weather. Honestly, I feel like I am just one of those little solar lights that you put in the garden. I'm always powered by the sun and heat. So I was like, oh, a firework, it's like that's for me, that is for me. Um.

Speaker 1: 4:49

So I was sat there and I was like, oh my god, that is so, so amazing, like I would love to be able to do that now. This is the key. This is the whole point of the of the cold cast, of the cold cast. This is the whole point of the podcast which I'm talking about, my thought process, which took me from I would love to do that to me walking across fire. Okay, this is the thought process in which I went through and there's no spiritual element to this. There's no, just um, there's no secret to this. There's. This is just exactly what happened and I'm hoping, by sharing this, it can help you reflect on the areas of your life.

Speaker 1: 5:29

What is your fire? So mine was actually walking through bloody flames. Do you know what I mean? But what is your fire? What is that thing that you would really love to do and that you're so longing to do? And you're like, oh, I'd love to do that, but there's always a reason not to okay. So hopefully this is going to help you reflect on that part of your life and help you realize that, yeah, maybe actually I can do it.

Speaker 1: 5:54

So I was sat here and I was just staring at my laptop and I was reading it and I was starting to get really excited. You know, when you get that feeling in your tummy like, oh, this is exciting, and I still was like, oh, I would love to do that, I would love to do that. How cool would that be, how cool would it be. And then I was like, oh you know, or maybe I'll just sign up because it's weeks away. And I realized, oh my god, it's next week. And I was like, oh my god, that's so soon, I don't have time to mentally prepare myself.

Speaker 1: 6:21

Oh my god, what if I burn my feet? What if I bit? Like literally I was like, what if I burn my feet and I can't go to the gym and carry on with what I wanted to do at the gym? Like you end up saying to yourself a whole load of bullshit, okay, of why you shouldn't do it. Oh my god, what if I burn my feet and I can't go to the gym? Honestly, you're probably sat there now being like Kirsty, what the fuck are you on about? Like, what the fuck are you on about? So what if you burn your feet? You're raising money for charity. You're raising money for a good cause, but this is it, isn't it?

Speaker 1: 6:54

Even though the cause I truly believe in, I love and have worked with before and feel very, very connected to the charity through my own career of working with women who are sex workers, I was still putting my doubts first. I was saying, what if I can't do it? What if I sign up and I can just pull out if I need to? What if I do this? What if I do that? Or what if my feet burn and I can't go to the gym? Like these are all nonsense. This is all nonsense. Okay, let's not dress it up in any other way other than this is fucking nonsense. Okay, this is nonsense.

Speaker 1: 7:29

I'm saying to myself, and I allowed myself to start to spiral with one doubt and then another one, and then another one, and then another one, and all of a sudden I'm like sat there going oh well, I can't do this, but guess what? You absolutely can. And I just went to myself like, literally, I talk to myself all the time. Anyone who like sees me, they must be like oh my god, she's absolute crackers. Anyway, I'm sat there and I just go Kirsty, just fucking do it. Now.

Speaker 1: 7:58

This is my approach to a lot of things, which you know. I feel like there is merit in this, sometimes not always working out for me, because obviously you should never really make a decision from impulse. Okay, you should always kind of like think about it, do your research. No, I don't live like that, I just go, fuck it, we'll do it, we'll find out and if it's not, at least it's a good story for the whatsapp group. Okay, that's normally what, um, that's normally how I operate, which, again, I don't recommend. I recommend like I'm one side of the scale and then I have people in my life who are the other end of the scale. I'll just be very impulsive, just do something when, um, I don't really think things through.

Speaker 1: 8:43

I do think you need an element of thinking things through, researching, making sure that everything is okay for you, you feel safe in what you're going to do. It has to be a positive, calculated risk, not always just an impulse. And then I have people then who are on the other end of the scale in my life and they're like, oh, I end up thinking about things too much and then I end up never doing the thing. So you need a nice balance, okay. Or you know, you can just take the inspiration from the yes man movie and just say yes to things, and just say yes and then worry about it afterwards Only if it's a positive risk, okay.

Speaker 1: 9:23

So me raising money for charity, doing a firewalk, where there was comprehensive training provided beforehand and the organization had done many, many fireworks before was a positive risk. Okay, don't just go. I'm going to go spend all of my money on gambling and lose all your money. You know I'm not advocating for that. I'm advocating for you to take positive, calculated risks, which has elements of research in there. But you take the jump, okay, and you cannot sue me for this. I am just giving you advice, I'm not telling you you should do anything, okay, so don't come and sue me, babes, because I'm not here for it. But I do think there is an element of us where we are always so afraid to step outside our comfort zone that sometimes we need to go just do it.

Speaker 1: 10:13

So there I was, like 10 minutes later, signing up and signing my life away to do signing it and just being like, cool, I've done it now. And then the next step was to tell people about it, because I was like when I start to tell people about it, then I'm committed and I have to do it. And then, you know, another set of thoughts came what if I don't raise any money? What if I pull out? What if I'm not able to do it? Da, da, da, da, da.

Speaker 1: 10:41

And I again I went Kirsty, just do it, I managed to raise over my target. So my target because I had six days. I was like I would like to just raise one to five, so 125 pounds, just because this would just really help me um, well, not help me, help the help, the charity. And yeah, I was like it's six days, it's not even payday during this time. It would just be a really nice thing to be able to raise and contribute. So, yeah, I raised over my target. So, thank you so much to everybody who donated. It was absolutely amazing. So, yeah, thank you so much. It just shows like, yeah, the power of like putting yourself out there and, you know, showcasing an amazing charity and raising money for them. It just shows like, yeah, how amazing people show up and do that for. So, thank you so very much.

Speaker 1: 11:32

And one thing I really look, I'm not against charity, but one thing I love about this charity is I know the money is going directly to the charity. Okay, sometimes when I come across people in the street and they're like, oh yeah, can you donate, I'm like, well, I don't actually know where this money is going, but I know where the money is going in this charity and that feels like a really good cause. It makes me confident in donating and fundraising for this charity. Um, everyone is different when it comes to charity. I am like I've done loads of charity stuff before. I often give a lot of free treatments away, free things away. I've got people in the Inner Shift Collective for free because they really needed it. So I often do give away things and I do charity work. But, yeah, I always like to make sure the money is directly going to the charity and it's actually going to be beneficial. And that is just a really random tangent. So, yeah, so let's go back to me, okay? So I've signed up and and now I'm putting myself out there and I'm saying, yeah, okay, cool, I've done it, that's it. Now people are making donations and I feel like so overwhelmed with the gratitude for people giving the money and donating and it's just amazing.

Speaker 1: 12:46

And then we get to the night. So throughout this entire process I didn't feel nervous. I didn't feel anything other than excitement. So on the day, I was really struggling with my emotions. I was feeling really down.

Speaker 1: 13:00

I took myself into Bristol and had dinner by myself and usually that cheers me up because you know food, but no, I didn't feel that great. I also had cheesecake and ice cream. Didn't make me feel any better, so I was feeling quite low when I got to the place and then, as I walked in, I overheard two ladies saying oh yeah, I'm here on my own. And I just interrupted oh hey guys, are you here on your own? And then, yeah, they were like, oh yeah, we are. And I was like, oh cool, do you mind if I like tag along, I'm on my own too?

Speaker 1: 13:31

And then we ended up spending the evening together, which was so, so lush and, yeah, so big shout out to Alice and Katie, who were absolutely beautiful people. Well, they are beautiful people, um, and, yeah, we supported each other through the firework, which was great. And then we went into the hall and we sat down and there we had Karen at the front. So Karen runs Blaze, which is the firework company, amazing, amazing company. Um, so, yeah, karen was at the front with her little disabled puppy well, disabled dog and ran through all the training that we needed to do absolutely amazing training. It was very like interactive, very expressive, lots of shouting, and I was like, oh god, you know, really hyping us up ready to go.

Speaker 1: 14:17

And then we got led out to the fire and you can see everybody had come as like spectators. So watch us all walk across the fire. There was quite a lot of us as well, there was about 50 or 60 of us, I think. So we were all out there and we could see the fire lift. We had the samba band playing with the light up drums, which was just giving such vibes and, yeah, with the samba and the drumming, it was just like, oh yeah, this just feels really, really right, right.

Speaker 1: 14:47

Also, like I forgot to mention that Karen is a shamanic practitioner. So I have been drawn to the shamanic path for a very, very long time and I thought about becoming a practitioner over and over again and then I just decided, okay, maybe this isn't for me, but on the run up to this, I was constantly, constantly being drawn back to shamanic practitioner, to the shamanic practitioner role. So that's something that I've just been kind of exploring more in detail, but I'm not going to talk about that right now. But I just thought it was very interesting that she was a shamanic practitioner and obviously she has a deep connection with fire and I've always felt that I've had a deep connection with fire.

Speaker 1: 15:38

So we walk out out, everyone's cheering, the um samba band is going, it's beautiful. And then it's time to walk. Okay, so with fire walking, you have to keep a brisk pace, because you don't, if you stand you will get burnt. Okay, so you end like it's not hot coals, it's hot embers. So this is like a medium to light wood that's burnt and then you walk across it. So you should, it shouldn't hurt, but it's absolutely exhilarating. So you're in the right mind frame. You're like cool, let's go. And then people start to walk, people are going and it's quite a quick pace as well. It's like let's go, let's go, let's go. So you're carrying that energy and that momentum of let's go, let's go. It's so, so invigorating and also like consuming and like the samba band is going and I'm just feeling like the vibration of just everything just being so freaking exciting.

Speaker 1: 16:28

And then it's my turn to walk and all I can see is this path of embers, lit up, glowing orange, and I'm like oh my god. And Karen turns to me. She's like are you ready? And I was like fuck, yeah, karen, I'm ready. And she was like go. And I was like okay. So then I started like walking at a brisk pace and I was like, oh my God, this doesn't hurt, this feels incredible. And then I got. I got to the end and I put my heart, my arms up like a little victory, like I did it. Like I did it, everyone's clapping and cheering. I'm getting like like flashes from the photographer, like it was just like oh, very crazy moment.

Speaker 1: 17:15

And then I got off and I took a deep breath and that's when my body started to shake. So my legs started to shake, I started to shake, I started to go really hot. I was like, oh my god, like this is amazing, like this feeling, like this overwhelming feeling of just feeling really really good, came over me. That was it wasn god, like this is amazing. Like this feeling, like this overwhelming feeling of just feeling really, really good, came over me. That was. It wasn't like euphoria or anything like that or that intense, but it was just about feeling like that warm and fuzzy feeling which was like, oh my god, beautiful, amazing, love it. And um, yeah, it was, it was incredible. And I do feel like there was some sort of like energy release. I do feel like it was just a really cleansing experience. So fire is super, super cleansing and it also helps to bring in strength and courage, which is something I really needed at the time of the fire walk. And, yeah, it just is so indescribable. I really wish I could like bottle the feeling up and give it to you so you could understand how good it felt. It didn't hurt, my feet weren't burnt, my feet were very, very dirty, but other than that it was just a sensational experience. And then continue to cheer on everybody else. And, yeah, then it was just the end of the evening and I walked across fire and I was fine.

Speaker 1: 18:33

And the the thing is, when you push yourself out of your comfort zone, you say I'm gonna do this thing, I'm really really gonna do it. And you put yourself first and you say I'm gonna do it. It's amazing what happens. It's amazing what happens to your, to your mind, to your mindset, to everything. And yeah, it's just. You know, like in the beginning I was like can I do this? I can't do this, kirstie, just do it. Push yourself out there, show the world that you're going to do this. And then you did it.

Speaker 1: 19:04

The feeling is indescribable. Not only do you feel like this deep sense of accomplishment for yourself, your confidence increases, your self-esteem increases, you're feeling really, really good. And then you have these core feelings and then other people continue to validate them and reinforce them by saying well done, you did a great job. That looks so cool, tell me about what the experience was like. And then you start to lead by example. So now I have people who have spoken to me who are like I'm definitely going to do a firework. That looks so, so incredible and you start to inspire others and that is just. It's just in inspiring people to really step outside their comfort zone and do something that is really going to benefit them through confidence, through self-esteem, through mental, physical, spiritual elements, is intoxicating. It is intoxicating to be that inspiration for somebody else. So guess what? You don't have to walk through fire in order to be an inspiration to others, or to feel confidence, or to feel more love for yourself or to be more in touch with your self-esteem. You don't have to walk through fire, but you can pick your fire, okay.

Speaker 1: 20:18

Is it that hobby that you've always wanted to try but you've always felt too shy? Is it that holiday destination where you say this year I'm going to commit and save and it's going to happen? Is it the whole right? I've been working this job for the last 10 years and I'm not happy anymore. I'm going to change my job.

Speaker 1: 20:35

Sometimes it's appropriate to tell other people your movements and sometimes it's not. For example, like your job. You probably don't want to go in and be like, oi, everyone, I'm just going to better myself and leave all you fuckers behind. You're probably not going to do that. So what I would say is just yeah, pick your battles and who you tell about where you're leveling up. And sometimes you may not want to tell people about your level up. You might just want to go hey, I'm here and that's cool as well. And if you're like thinking about doing something big and you're worried about failure, take the pressure off and don't tell anybody you're doing it until it's done.

Speaker 1: 21:10

So that was my mindset, that was my whole process, that was my experience about walking across fire, and I just feel like this experience being very self-aware of what was happening for me during this experience it has provided so many like golden lessons for me to incorporate into other aspects of my life, my thinking, my behaviors, because it's so important for us to push ourselves out of our comfort zone if we want to grow and progress and all of that lovely stuff. So that's ultimately the moral of the story. Today, I walk through fire. Go and pick your fire and go and chase it, because you're absolutely worthy of it and you don't need other people to tell you that you can do it. All you need to do is believe in yourself, and I feel like that's a really nice place to leave the podcast today and, yeah, I hope that you have a wonderful rest of your day.

Speaker 1: 22:01

Thank you so much for listening. I know today's a little bit of a short episode, but hopefully short, punchy and to the point. Bit of a short episode, but hopefully short, punchy and to the point. And yeah, as always, guys, please get in contact with me on instagram, facebook, any of those things. And yeah, leave a review. Subscribe. Leave a review, click the download button on your episodes helps me with my reach and my and my views and it really helps and appreciate you and thank you so very much for being here and I will see you very soon. Bye.