Caroline Kothari: Firewalking and Bar Bending Highlight Enjoyable Camp Experience

By Caroline Kothari

Caroline is a freshman at Woodlynde School.

           In the summer of 2010, I went to a camp called Omega Teen Camp. It’s partly a normal summer camp, where teens come together to learn new things and have fun. The thing is, it has some unique classes in it, besides sports, cooking, drawing, etc.  

One such class is “Feel your fear, Find your power”, led by Nancy Chernoff. Nancy Chernoff travels the world and does fear workshops all over North America. She also does this in the corporate world. Her company that she founded is called Fearlessflame Empowerment Workshops. She resides in Montreal.

I met her at Omega Teen Camp in the summer of 2010. On a whim, I signed up for Nancy’s class. It was something new, something that I needed because I was lost, but what I didn’t know was how much I gained from her workshop, which I attended for three summers. In her class, the first day we just get to know each other, pretty normal right? The next day, we get a board, have a meditation about our walls, draw what our walls are, and then break through them.

The message we learn from breaking the board is that we choose to move forward. This exercise helps us own our true power that we all have within.

The second day, we set intentions and make affirmations. We do something that is called the four-square process. We sit in a circle in different small groups and we go around and say our negative beliefs. Each person repeats the negative beliefs they heard from that person and then each person picks one or two negative beliefs and turns it into a  positive affirmation. We get a henna tattoo of our positive affirmation.

The third day, we break an arrow with the soft spot of our neck. It shows me I have the power to change any situation with my voice. The soft spot in our neck represents our voice. This is a very powerful exercise when you break that arrow on your neck.

The fourth day we bend a rebar with our neck. A rebar is 6 feet, 4 inches long  and is used  to reinforce concrete structures. We put one part of the bar on the soft spot of our neck and then the other part goes on our partner’s soft spot of the neck and we bend it together. It’s honestly one of the most amazing hugs you will ever get when you meet at the end once the bar bends. This exercise is about what we resist...persists!!

For two years, each time I took the class and got to this exercise, I wasn’t able to do it -- and that’s for two reasons (my bad balance) and me not believing in myself.

The third year, it worked for me. It was the best feeling ever for me when I finally bent the bar, because I knew then that I believed in myself and also knew nothing could stop me from reaching my goals. I bent the bar with Nancy Chernoff.

In 2010, I went firewalking for the first time at Omega Teen Camp. It was such an amazing experience.

Knowing that I could walk over flaming hot coals and not die to me is really amazing. We know from childhood that fire burns and to stay away from it, so walking over it and not dying felt like an amazing accomplishment to me, even though my feet got burned.

To me, there is also a deeper message to it: the fire is physical, but it’s also about the fire of our own challenges and dreams. Mastering it in a physical way, actually walking over fire, showed me that I can also master everything else that is a challenge in my life.

Granted I did burn my feet, but still the message went in deeply. The good part about burning my feet was being able to spend time with Nancy, because she had to drive me around in a golf cart for the rest of the week. And ever since then, we’ve been really good friends.

This workshop changed my life three times. It changed the way I think about life and it made me the joyous person I am today. I recommend anyone to take a Fearlessflame Empowerment Workshop. You will not regret it! I am sure of that. This workshop has helped me beyond words and so has Nancy.