Fire Walk

I remember when Anthony Robbins was a nobody! I found his book Unlimited Power in one of those airport bookstores on a bottom shelf as I reached over to pick up a gum wrapper I had dropped.

It had a reference to "Peak Personal Achievement" (which I thought was a book by the author of Peak Performance, that I really enjoyed). I opened it and looked through the contents, noted the chapter names and then one quote at the beginning on a page all by itself entitled, Success, by Ralph Waldo Emerson, as follows:

“To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty, to fine the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.”

I bought the book

I want to be successful just like you do or are (or were perhaps, or thought you were). After I finished I conceived a my “fire walk”. A fire walk is doing something you are scared to death of doing or that you know is way too hard for you to do.

Where the term comes from is you can go do Anthony Robbins four or five day course and at the end to graduate you must do a dinky-di ("authentic" in Australian) fire walk across hot coals. But as Tony (I of course call him Tony, now that I did my fire walk) explains, it is not walking the hot coals that is the point, but achieving your own personal victory over your own reluctance.

Fear of Small Craft

Well no one ever knew this and I will deny it if you say it is true, even today, but once I had to take a flight in a small 20-seater plane in Texas, and I could barely stay on board it caused me such angst, because the plane was just too small! So for me, as I was on my way for my second holiday in Australia I pre-booked (and paid for) a flight over the Tanami Desert Wildlife Sanctuary and nearby uranium mines in a “light plane”.

Several days into the tour and we are in Alice Springs (A Town Like Alice is the movie that explains most of this town quite well, if you’re a movie buff). And we’ve toured a bit already to get to the little out-back airport.

We file in to the corrigated steel building. I move reluctantly (having last minute second thoughts) and therefore am the last one out of the air conditioned tour bus. We are marched quickly passed a tiny, insignificant plane just for torture sake alone and I note with some trepidation that this thing could not fly as it is a toy and is likely just the model.

Nemesis in Kaki

Everyone is told to pair off and those who brought or hired friends, stand in a Noah’s-like queue (we don’t stand in lines in Australia only queues). I am alone milling about thinking my solitary status will grant me a reprieve when through the doors bursts a very enthusiastic woman of major proportions announcing she can hardly wait to get on the plane because she LUUUVES flying in the smaller-the-plane-the-better planes.

I look around for some good excuse (hoping to find a crutch or a fainting spell nearby) when she makes a bee line for me and gives me a great and hearty pat on the back.

“Hi, you don’t look so good. Are you afraid of flying in this little plane? It is a piece of cake.”

I about puke on her foot (perhaps a puking green excuse will get me out of it) but I didn’t have lunch yet, unfortunately, so only bile reminds me that I better just not worry about such a detail as puking.

She, who loves to fly in small planes, thinks we are at the front of the queue, but we are at the end. Two by two all those on the bus go off and come back white knuckled and white faced with just a little sweat still on their upper lip.

My stomach is churning and I am trying to act brave (whistle a little tune if you are afraid) and wishing this woman would just rush off to catch a mali fowl when the last in line are next. We march to the plane – I hoping not having a will will still mean they cart my body home to my parents.

A 16-Year Old Wonder

A teenager is sent to shepherd us to the plane, and climbs in as well to, I imagine dust the seats or something. He grabs a hat on the dash board of the plane and puts it on his head to announce, with some pride, that he (HE) will be our captain for this flight. This is too much.

Then, you have to literally climb in, ducking down and crawling to a seat. Once inside there is only the pilot’s seat (filled with said teen, complete with acne), your seat and a little seat in the back. She-who-has-no-fear grabs the seat in the back so she can, she tells me, lean out (I am not kidding) the back window once we are flying.

I turn to focus on the “technology” of this miniature anti-natural wonder and note with some concern that one of the dials has a great big crack right across the face (thinking I remembers something about vacuums in these dials being necessary, and thinking this plane will be down for maintenance now.

Take Off Straight Up

But I am wrong. The flight attendant/pilot says, “Buckle up and hold on,” and fires up the loud engines so they cannot hear you scream and proceeds with no more ado to make a short run down the bitumen (we do not have asphalt in Australia) runway and take off almost straight up.

The wind is high and the wings bounce as if they might break loose and I am trying not to keep my eyes closed so I can focus on the dial readings, just in case he fails to see one falling or something.

I sneak a peek out the window and find myself transfixed by what I see. Such surprising beauty!

I grab my camera and begin to snap shots and would have stood up and leaned out the window if I could have. Lucky I have my very powerful telephoto lens with me.

The entire flight I can hear nothing but the screaming of the wind and the engines as I just keep taking photos and hoping the flight will not end soon. The animals, the patterns on the earth – simply unexpectantly awesome.

Shot after shot. We are buffeted about mercilessly and my only discomfort is my annoyance that some of my shots will not be in focus! The landing is outlandish as a cross wind drifts the tiny little craft to the side and we stop as abruptly as we took off and before I realise how wonderful and how little fear I actually had.

And In the Back?

I look around to the back seat and what do I find….Miss I-love-flying-in-small-crafts, has not only puked in her little puky-bag and now holds it in her lap with paralised hands, she is also as green as a Brisi green tree frog and she can barely speak with her eyes fixed so wide open I wonder if she might have Addison’s disease.

Firewalk Over!

I am, however, victorious and do not have time to gloat. I bounce off the plane to assure the others on the tour that not only did I survive, but I thrived (the mantra you are to say when you do good in positive thinking circles).

That was my firewalk – doing something way too scary for me and way too hard for me. And I lived and I loved it. Sometimes the hardest and scariest things you have to do bring you the greatest joy. It is just climbing into your fear and feeling it and then finding out where the beauty and joy is within the fear.

I need to remember that lesson. Because sometimes fears become so big to me they can’t even be real. As they say, realisation is greater than expectation and for all of us that is true. Good luck out there and just do it!