Held by Fire

10/10/26

We were taught as children that touching something hot once would teach us to steer clear of it. Although that is true what if we can begin to look at what the heat could be trying to do for us? What if the thing that burns us is also the thing that transforms us? What if the wounds were also shaping and molding the person you're becoming?

After spending some time thinking about the childhood Conditional Clause ("If you touch a hot stove, then you will burn yourself").. I began to think about what happens when we become held by the fire? What happens when something that was meant to be a quick lesson grabs a hold of you in order to create a purposeful deeper scar?

I think we can all agree that there's something magical and also scary about fire. On one hand fire warms us, it cooks for us, generates electricity, and produces light. In the same view it destroys and harms, it consumes, and it changes the shape of whatever it touches. As I took a deeper look into the element I was drawn towards taking a peek at how fire is created. I looked into what were the physical stages of fire creation? Here's what stuck out.

There are 5 stages of fire:

(1) The Ignition stage: Lots of oxygen is present, the fire is small confined and localized.

(2) The Growth Stage: Smoke, temperature and heat increases, Oxygen starts to drop and the fire spreads.

(3) The Transition Phase: A sudden flash transitions to a fully developed fire. Heat rapidly builds up, creating a thick buildup of smoke.

(4) Fully Developed Stage: Max heat is released as heat radiates at high levels creating toxic smoke gases.

(5) The Decay Stage: The fire has limited fuel left, temperatures drop, heat remains high but flames lessen.

After reading into each stage I started to feel. Feeling into being engulfed by my own life's fires. And when I would've preferred to get a tiny blister and been able to walk away seemingly Unscathed. I was engulfed by it, receiving a complete reshaping instead.

❓So what if the fire doesn't always mean you're being destroyed? What if the longer you "burn" the greater the restructuring? Is there anything we can do within our power to become more malleable? To lessen the burn?

We all have our own version of fire. None of us make it through life untouched by the fire. Whether that trauma is experienced through abandonment, fear, shame, heartbreak, loss or years spent surviving where safety should have existed. Fire itself is an experience. Experiences that caused our internal safety to be compromised in some way. Placing millions in a state that forfeits their ability to use their power to complete the final stage of burning. I mean it's just human nature to build walls during the process. To avoid feeling the heat at the highest level. Who wants to be set ablaze? And although not healthy by any means let's be honest, shrinking, numbing, avoiding, lying and sometimes addiction becomes safer as the flash of being exposed to more heat threatens in some way the safety we think is there. Or does it?

So what happens when our inability to complete the final stage of burning happens? Fire naturally moves toward decay when its fuel is depleted. But emotionally, we don't always allow ourselves to get there. Something else happens. The phase between the Fully Developed Stage and the Decay Stage. Another stage is formed. A stage I've coined "The callous stage".

The Callous Stage:

Where the fire that we endure hardens us and creates coping mechanisms that protect and trap us Simultaneously. The callous makes us aware that we've absolutely been affected by the fire and we are fully conscious of the trauma we hold. We can no longer not see our fears. The abandonment wound leaves us more sensitive. The addictions are more controlling. And the fire has somehow invited all of our trauma to center stage. The once hidden old coping strategies become our new reflections. What happened to us, now shapes how we move through the world (raises hand).

🧘🏾Now let's Pause.

What fire came to mind while reading that? Are there any fires that you've been trying so desperately to escape? Any old fires that you have allowed to callous over ? Sit with that.

(...Hand still raised) 🎶 "I'm not only a client, I'm the player president" I've had my fair share of experience with being lit on fire, getting to the Fully Developed Stage but afraid to fully burn... and becoming hardened by it. I've spent years walking hand in hand with my fears and wounds, and the callouses they formed. It wasn't until I fully accepted that none of my experiences were going away. The fire had already affected me and the callouses couldn't be ignored. I could no longer just sit with the obvious patterns and repeated cycles. The anger and disappointment in myself was there for a reason. Some relationships that once served purposes, now held me back. The childhood conditional clause wasn't applicable in this situation of my life. And the burn wasn't just meant to make me aware of the temperature of the stove. The goal was to be reshaped. Not being able to escape its heat, but to completely "decay" because of it.

"The Decay"

So what's the purpose of the decay? And why are we so resistant to it? In short- it's the fear of the unknown. The Fully Developed Stage has already shown us what needs to burn away. We become unavoidably aware of our coping mechanisms. Our patterns started greeting us before we even repeated them again. Relationships become an embarrassment to what we know we deserve. And somewhere inside the you that is asking to emerge is screaming "I cannot keep living like this!" This isn't just an isolated process. It slowly makes its way through every area of your life as the transformation quietly establishes roots. The fire's fuel has been successful and has finally started to lose its strength but not before its job is completed.

The "Decay Stage" is where we seem to have less energy for the old. We begin grieving our old identity, New beliefs begin forming. We figure out which boundaries need to be put in place. We care less about how things look and more about what they actually are. And we sleep a lot! (I know I did.) At the core we're re-establishing the relationship with ourselves. Our "new" self. The self that isn't visible yet but is deeply felt within and more than likely visible to others.. The people pleasing ends, and going out of our way to prove ourselves just doesn't feel right. We're quietly making a pact to never abandon ourselves again.

If we stop to look at how we

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