Once you firewalk, you start to reassess all your assumptions, writes Niamh Hooper
It wasn't until I felt intense heat as the team brought over a wheelbarrow full of glowing embers and shovelled them onto our fire lane, that I began to hyperventilate. If this was a lesson in "mind over matter" and showing you what you're capable of, I was in big trouble.
This was not your average Friday night. I had turned up in London that morning for a seminar entitled Unleash the Power Within, with America's most successful personal development coach, Tony Robbins, whose audio programme has sold more than 38 million copies. And now, I was standing barefoot before hot coals and was expected to walk on them - this guy obviously was looking for a lot from us but clearly my power wasn't ready to be unleashed.
The boy before me walked, and suddenly it was my turn. I breathed deeply, something shifted within and I saw myself at the other end. I faced my fear. I walked straight through it.
Since that experience I've redefined what I believe I can do. Often when facing the apparently impossible a little voice pipes up with: "Whatever it is I can do it - for God's sake I've walked on hot coals!" Henry Ford was spot on: "whether you think you can or whether you think you can't, you're right."
This weekend Danish-born, New Zealand-based Mikal Nielsen is holding a seminar in Sligo, incorporating a firewalk. He first walked on hot coals 17 years ago and went on to train so he could assist others to do the same.
"For me, firewalking is about the experience of stepping into my fear," the 47-year-old says. "The firewalking course is not about firewalking. I can teach you how to do that in five minutes. It is about stepping up to face what is between you and where you want to be in life. The only thing between the two is fear, and it shows up in hundreds of ways. With firewalking there's a belief there that says it can't be done. And when people actually do it, a shift takes place in the brain - we start to look at and question all our other beliefs. Do we really need beliefs such as 'relationships are hard work' or 'there's not enough money to go around'? Do they serve us - and if not then we can start letting go of them. That's what the firewalk is about - personal growth. It's not a gimmick or a party trick."
Believed to have been first practised 4,000 years ago in India, the ritual is now found throughout Asia, Africa, North and South America and Europe. It is estimated that more than two million people have walked on hot coals.
Does Nielsen have any explanation as to how it is possible without burning your feet? "People say it's mind over matter. I disagree. I don't know anyone who can explain how it is possible."
Nielsen believes the key is to be "truly present". Of the 25 or so firewalks he has done, on occasion he has scorched his feet. "If my mind is present when I walk, I don't burn. But if it's not I will burn. The difference is state of mind - it's nothing to do with the coal bed. If you're really present, a shift takes place in the mind that triggers the body to sort out what needs to happen."
Incidentally, running rather than walking across the coals is not advised. It increases the chances of tripping!
Of those who have attended Nielsen's courses, 80 to 100 per cent have walked on the hot coals. But he says even if participants don't firewalk they will get as much out of the course.
"The power lies in your decision. You can't decide whether you're going to walk or not till you're there and I haven't had one person not walk because they were afraid. The shift had happened for them standing beside the fire and they said there was no need for them to walk. Most Westerners, because of their critical, analytical minds, do end up walking the coals though, so they can say to themselves they did it."
Since that night three years ago, I have firewalked numerous times and have assisted hundreds of other people to do the same. For some - especially those sceptics who doubt just how hot the coals were that they walked on - the experience turns into a good pub story, for others you can see in their eyes that their life is never going to be the same again.
