Walking on Fire

“Where focus goes, energy flows” – Tony Robbins

What you focus on becomes your reality. Our minds can affect our physical body and emotional state. To demonstrate this, close your eyes and imagine biting into a freshly cut lemon. Imagine, as vividly as you can, drinking the sour lemon juice, feel it flowing through your teeth, to your tongue then down your throat. Now, open your eyes. Do you feel saliva forming in your mouth? Yes? This is the power of focus. You did not physically eat a lemon but by just focusing and thinking about the lemon, your body has a physical reaction of forming saliva. Wait, before you let your imagination run wild and start to think about Grade 8 Wagyu Beef or Bluefin Tuna Otoro Sashimi, the power of focus has more important uses than satisfying your gustatory cravings.

Look on the bright side, focus on the positives, count your blessings. These positive thinking advices are common sense – positive thinking does improve your emotional state. Of course, the reverse is true as well – focusing on the negatives will make you feel miserable. A little science here – our eyes can focus on things we pay attention to, everything else is blurred in the background. Our conscious mind works in the same way – it is designed to only hold and process a limited amount of information. Everything else is ‘blurred’.

A simple exercise proves this point. Firstly, observe your surrounding and take note of all objects that are green in colour. Next, close your eyes and call up a mental image of your surroundings. Lastly, with your eyes remained closed, count the items that are blue in colour. How many did you get? Not many, I would guess.

You are probably thinking: “Yes, I practise positive thinking, but I cannot help feeling upset when something bad happens”. Positive thinking is easy when everything is hunky dory. When s*** happens, positive thinking may not work. This is because you have not learn how to focus your mind. You cannot whip your mind into thinking positively. Instructing it to thinking positively does not work. Fortunately, the key to positive thinking is easy. The secret is simply asking yourself quality questions.

Do you have a ‘little voice’ in your head talking to you all the time? Most of us do. Mine is a little devil, telling me to buy the latest iPhone, spend money on the coolest gadgets. Our mind is designed to always answer our questions. When posed with a question, the mind will search for solutions. It will not rest until it finds a solution. Therefore, questions tell our mind what to focus on.

How to use questions to focus your mind

The good questions to ask yourself are ‘What’ and ‘How’ questions. Never ask yourself the ‘Why’ questions. “Why am I so unlucky?”, “Why is my boss so mean?”, “Why am I such a loser?” Often, your mind will answer these negatively-framed questions in disempowering ways:

“You have always been unlucky, you will continue to be unlucky”

“What else do you expect from your boss, your performance is lousy”

“Oh, you are not only a loser, you are fat as well!”

These answers sound familiar right? We can get stuck in endless loop of negative focus if we ask too many ‘why’ questions. Our mind will always give us an answer but sometimes the answers make us feel worse.

The better questions to ask are:

“What can I learn from this?”

“What are my next steps?”

“How can I improve?”

“How can I prevent this in the future?”

Your mind will come up with empowering answers:

“You will learn that luck comes to those who are well-prepared. You should be better prepared in the future”

“The next thing you can do is to discuss your performance with your boss and agree on areas to improve”

“You are not a loser, keep learning and you will achieve success soon”

With these empowering answers, you will feel more hopeful and optimistic. As a result, your emotional state will remain positive. Give it a try. Ask yourself: what can you get gain out of this? *wink.

No! I don’t mean going for plastic surgery to change your looks and feel more confident thereafter! It is simpler than that.

In the previous article, I shared how emotions and mood directly affect our lives and our chance of achieving happiness and fulfilment. Therefore, instead of becoming a passive bystander to our emotions, we must master them and take control of our life.

So, what affect our emotions? Many people believe that emotions are mostly triggered by the external environment. Sure, most of us will be upset over a difficult colleague, over unfair criticism or even sometimes just simply by bad weather. Yes, our emotions are our feelings when something happens to us. Because of this, many of us believe that we cannot fully control the external environment and thus be at the mercy of our emotions. We can only feel better if the external triggers improve or change. That may be why we feel better when on vacation to take a break from work and stress. That may be also why we quit our jobs hoping for a change of environment. While these actions are certainly useful to improve our mood, they may not be practical and sustainable. Fortunately, there are also simple and realistic ways which we can directly influence our emotions to make us feel better. More importantly, these steps are available to us internally without having to change the external environment. So, let me tell you more about Tony Robbins’s 3 factors that affects our emotions and how to use them to stay happy and satisfied.

To control our emotions, we can simply change 3 factors – (1) our physiology or body language, (2) our mental focus and (3) what language or words we use to label our experiences. Let’s focus on the simplest one first – changing our body language to change our emotions.

For a long time, psychologists believe in the ‘Classical Cognition’ theory where the brain is the only element capable of thinking. The rest of the body do not influence thinking and simply execute actions commanded by the brain. In recent years, a new theory has emerged – ‘Embodied Cognition’ where our mind and body are actually inter-related and both are quite capable of thinking. Not only does our mind influence our movements, the state of our body also affects our mind as well.

Let me share an example: The traditional theory suggests that we do happy things when we feel happy while the new theory says that we may feel happy when we do happy things. One familiar example to show how our actions can lead our emotions – say we are feeling tired or drained, suddenly we come across a silly video of cats being scared shitless by cucumbers on YouTube and have a good laugh. Instantly, our mood is better and we feel more energised. Conversely, a negative state of body can put us in a negative state of mind. Slouching and dropping our shoulders make us feel sad and depressed. Frowning gets us worried. Sitting down for too long makes us feel tired.

So, how can we use our body to regulate our emotions? Here are some of my personal favourites:

1. Adopt a positive posture: Adopt an erect and alert posture. Stand tall, straighten your back, pull your shoulders back. The general idea is make yourself look ‘bigger’ and these postures will help you feel more confident and assured. Think King Kong.

2. Change your movement: Speed up or slow down depending on what state you are in. If you are feeling sad and depressed where you can’t muster any strength to do anything, get moving. Start walking faster, bring more energy and speed into your life. This will make you feel more alert. Do not be like those zombies in The Walking Dead. Conversely, if you are in a panic or anxious state – slow down. Adjust your body to calm down. Instead of rushing everywhere, slow down and take mindful steps, be aware of your surroundings. You cannot feel anxious when you are in ‘Zen Mode’.

3. Mediate. When you were depressed or sad, can you recall how did you breathed? Were you panting hard or it was slow and calm? You probably cannot recall. Right? When we are in a negative emotional state, we usually do not pay attention to how we breathe. So, if you are in those states, mediate and pay attention to your breath. Inhale and exhale slowly, using deep diaphragmatic breath instead of chest breathing. Consciously feel each breath. Physiologically, this will calm and relax your body. Mentally, mediating mindfully will train you to be more aware of your emotions and help take your mind off negative states.

4. Look up: picture someone who is sad, is he usually looking up or down? Down right? So, look up when you are feeling down. When our eyes look up, we naturally go into a thinking mode. This allows us to focus on thinking and less on the emotional feeling. On the our hand, when we look down, we go into a reflective mode that makes us more emotional.

5. Whistle or Laugh: There are some actions that we cannot do well when we are sad or angry. Like laughing, our minds cannot focus on angry thoughts when we are laughing. Similarly, we cannot whistle well when we are angry or sad. Just doesn’t work. Try it.

6. Exercise: This is simple enough – exercise has been proven to lift moods. The body produces endorphins, the hormone that make us feel good, when we exercise. To me, exercise is like super pill that includes the other steps we talked about – changing posture, speed and breathing.

Sound too simple? Yes, I agree as well. Thankfully, all these actions work, whether in the moment or over a longer term. So, I invite you to give a try. None of them require external help, hefty investments or specialised equipment. You can start today and be immediately successful in managing your emotions. What you will need, though, is the acute awareness of your state of body and the unwavering belief that you can influence your emotions using your body. So, start living right today, one breath at a time.

“Just move on … Once I’m negative, I will think foolish things. What for? Being positive is very important so that you can do more things and achieve your goals … If I don’t give up, I will fulfill anything that I want”.

Jason Chee, Multiple Para Games Medalist

William Shakespeare said: “Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.” Jason Chee was different, he never sought greatness. Yet, he found greatness from within. 

Jason was a regular serviceman in the Republic of Singapore Navy where he served on board the RSS Endeavor, a landing ship tank, responsible for looking after the systems on the ship. He loves his work and with plans to pursue a part-time degree in Mathematics, Jason had his life planned out. However, his life changed on 10 Dec 2012.

Jason was doing his rounds when he was caught between a motorised winch and rope. In the horrendous accident, he lost both his legs and his dominant left arm. Three fingers on his right hand were all that remained of his limbs. Although he survived the accident, his future looked grim.

I was sad when I first read about the accident. Sad, not just because he lost his limbs so gruesomely. But also because that he survived. Like many others, I wondered, which was worse – being dead or being painfully alive. Such injuries would have left anybody traumatised and depressed – giving up on life or questioning why they were dealt such a bad hand. Not Jason. Brought up by his mum to be always positive and calm, he possessed phenomena mental strength. He may have lost his limbs, but he did not lose his spirit. He never allowed himself to focus on his problems or became negative. After winning the fight to survive, he focused on recovering and trained himself to use his right hand. 

Within months from being discharged from hospital, Jason took up table tennis and represented Singapore in the 2014 Para ASEAN games which he won Silver and Bronze medal. Despite of this remarkable feat, Jason believed that he could perform better and found strength to train harder, wining more medals at International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) events and at the 2015 ASEAN Para Games.

However, Jason’s resilience would soon be tested again . In Apr 2017, he started to lose vision in his right eye. Tests revealed the cause was due a cancerous tumor. Thankfully, the cancer was contained within his eye and did not spread further. However, treatment meant removing the eye and causing Jason to be blind in one eye. Still, he remained strong, always focusing on the positives and possibilities.

“Even though so many things happen to me, importantly I still can see what is in front of me. I can see a rainbow, I can see the sun, I can see the moon. I mean, I’m still alive. I cherish every moment.”

Drawing strength from his indomitable spirit and never say die attitude, Jason continue to compete in Table Tennis. Even though losing an eye affected his depth perception and game, he won a gold medal in the 2017 ASEAN Para Games against all odds, beating his arch-rival from the 2015 finals match.

So, how can we be like Jason? Why some people suffer disadvantaged circumstances but find great success. Or why some blessed people amount to nothing? The answer, I believe, lies in our emotions.

Our emotions have a bigger bearing on our lives than we think. We often discard emotions as fleeting or temporary. Holding on the notion that ‘tomorrow will be better’. But unknowingly, these emotions continue to lurk within us, affecting us subconsciously. Many of us also choose to believe that we are rational and discard our emotions as temporal irrationality, choosing to ignore or deny.

However, the world is changing. We can no longer ignore or deny the effects of our emotions on our lives. In the past, before social media and the internet, our emotions were more stable and were triggered less. We were worried about getting a good education and putting food on the table. In contrast, today, we live in a connected world of faster pace, with stress and society triggering our emotions more easily. Older generation never had to worry about how many likes they received on their Facebook or how many followers they have on their Instagram. Unfortunately, most of these emotions today are negative, engulfing us in a depressing state. So to be happy in today’s world, we have to pay closer attention to our emotions and understand how they affect us.

Firstly, our emotions affects our thoughts. Our thoughts affect our decisions, which in turn, affects our actions. Actions over a period of time become habits. When we continue to reinforce habits over time, they become our character. And finally, our character shapes our destiny.

Our first lesson in emotions were when we were learning to walk as child. Our parents cheered every step we took as we associated walking with positive emotions. In our minds we were going: “Oh, walking makes those giants excited and shower me with love and attention, let’s walk more”. Soon, we master the habit of walking!

Conversely, negative emotions put us on a different path. Let’s say you were in charged of a project which you thought you performed fairly well. Instead, your boss did not agree and passed you over for promotion. Obviously, you will not feel good. You will probably feel unappreciated and a deep sense of injustice. Because of these emotions, your thoughts are on the negative portions of the incident – lamenting, ‘my boss is bias, she doesn’t understand my challenges, I can never meet his expectation, I have worked hard for nothing’. You decide to never lead a project under this supervisor again or just put in minimum effort to get by. Finally, this shows up in your work and soon you develop a nonchalant attitude. Obviously, you will remain disengaged throughout your life and that will become your destiny. Of course, you may say that this is an oversimplification. But the effects are obvious. 

On the other hand, if you are able to control your emotions – calming yourself down instead of being engulfed in rage – you can positively re-frame the meaning of the incident and focus on positive thoughts. You may think: ‘Maybe I did not consider the requirements of my stakeholders, maybe my preparations were insufficient, maybe I did not communicate clearly with my supervisor’. By re-framing your focus, you can think of actions that empowers you. Like: ‘How can I do better next time’ or ‘what can I learn from this’.  You will decide to take actions that help you become better. With positive emotions, thinking and actions, you will build up positive habits and never give in to negativity. Lastly, you develop a character of strength and never-say-die attitude. Paving the path toward sustained success and contentment.

Today, Jason is back in the Navy, continuing to serve the nation in the best way he can. His story is poignant reminder of the power of positive human spirit. We may be down but we can always choose to be positive and optimistic. So, it is clear that being able to control your emotions and not letting your emotions lead you is critical. Fortunately, it is not difficult to master our emotions. In this multiple-part series, I will share tips from Tony Robbins on what affects our emotions and how can we manage them better.

No matter how you are feeling currently, the following parts will benefit you greatly. If you are currently feeling down and will like to change your outlook, you will learn practical tips on mastering your. Even you are already on high spirits, you too, will benefit from learning how to sustain your positive emotion and thinking. So, read on.

Part 2 – Change your body to feel better

“Yes! Yes! Yes!” I was chanting to the tribal music playing in the background. My bare feet taking small steps on the cool evening floor, moving together with 12,000 other participants waiting to change their lives. Feeling excited and yet anxious, I was staring down on the ground, trying to focus and remember what I had to do, ignoring the orange glow casted by flames burning in a distance.  

Finally my turn came. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I did my power moves for the last time and stepped onto 1,000 degree Celsius burning charcoal.

The day was 1 Feb 2018, 11 p.m. I was getting ready to walk on fire as part of Tony Robbins’s Unleash Your Power Within Seminar in Singapore Expo.

Most would have first known Tony Robbins through his books and seminars. For me, it was quite different. I had not known who Tony Robbins was before the movie ‘Shallow Hal’ by Jack Black and Gwyneth Paltrow, where he played a cameo role.

Years later, I chanced upon the book ‘Awaken Your Giant Within’. I thought to myself: ‘Oh, isn’t this the self-help guru in that movie? Wait, he really is a self-guru!” I always love reading – I picked up the book wishing that I could also ‘Awaken my giant within’.

But, I gave up after 50 pages. During that time around 2010, I was a career soldier with the Air Force, satisfied with leading a comfortable lifestyle. I had no motivation to complete the mammoth 600-page book. Soon, it was forgotten, sitting with hundreds other books in the corner of my bookshelf, never fulfilling its promise of changing my life.

Fast-forward 6 years, a big career switch, a daughter and a personal tragedy (my brother suddenly passed away at 36 years old) later, I was no longer comfortable. I was not satisfied with how my life had panned out. My career switch turned out to be more challenging than expected. While I looked forward to a new life in a commercial organization, I quickly realized that I was out of depth for my role as a sales trainer and strategist. The armed forces trained me well in leadership and organizational skills yet; I discovered that I had to learn everything from scratch in the new role. I often questioned myself if I made the right choice to leave the Air Force. I longed for a better life.

In early 2017, I read a Facebook advertisement on Unleash your Power Within seminar and learned how Tony Robbins changes lives of millions. Like the book, I thought the seminar would transform me into a better person and gave me the drive to do better. However, unlike the book, which cost $29.90, I balked at the seminar course fee – cheapest ‘Gold category’ ticket for the 4-day seminar was $1500, which I could not afford. Therefore, I gave up on the thought and went back to the struggles of reality.

About 1 month before the program was due to run in February 2018, a new ‘Silver category’ was launched -costing only $700. I jumped at the opportunity and sign up for the program. It would turned out to be the best investment I ever made.

So, I turned up on the first day, excited but not knowing what to expect. The atmosphere was electrifying like a mega party – the motivational crew greeted everyone with hugs and high-fives. All 12,000 of us danced along to high-energy music, clapped and cheered. By midday, my palms were so sore from clapping, my calves burned from non-stop jumping and dancing. But I felt good, I felt excited, I felt that my life was finally going to improve, until Tony announced that everyone would be walking on fire on that evening. Oh s***!

The fire walk is a signature feature of the UPW seminar – it was designed to challenge and overcome our fears. Needless to say, I have not seen or heard about fire walks before. It did not help that Tony mentioned that the charcoals were burning at over 1,000 degrees Celsius. Like many, I was brought up on the belief that fire is dangerous and not touch anything hot. The last time I got burnt was when I was a mischievous kid, defiantly using my finger to prove to my mum that the iron was not hot. Well, I guess we are know how that turned out.

Luckily, Tony Robbins knew what he was doing. For hours, everyone practiced the fire walking drills – using positive self-talk, visualization and affirmations to get us into a state of intense focus and confidence where we ignore the fear of stepping onto burning charcoal. We did power moves – a series of positive body poses and actions such as jumping, clapping and chest thumbing, before visualizing stepping onto the charcoal. We rehearsed celebrating after completing the walk. I must have mentally walked over fire at least 20 times before the actual walk. My focus shifted from how hot the charcoal could be to how proud I would have felt after the  walk. Fear eventually became confidence. At 10pm, I was ready.

I did as rehearsed as I stood before the burning charcoal. I shouted my affirmations and performed my power pose – an awkward mix of clapping and fist pumping. Well, I did not care how silly I looked, I just felt great. I looked up and strutted forward, like how ‘The Rock’ Dwayne Johnson enters the WWE ring. I was going like: “if you smell~!” 5 steps out, I got burnt.

I stepped on a piece of hot charcoal and jumped. I cursed. It was hot! Of course, it was hot, who was I trying to kid? It was worse than touching the iron. Instinctively, I looked down at saw more charcoals ahead of me. But strangely, I felt no fear. I quickly remembered my goals, took a deep breath and walked on, 10 metres to go. As I reached the end I went crazy – celebrated exactly as I visualised, jumping, shouting my lungs out and hugging random people around me. I made it! I was overwhelmed with emotions. I did get burnt, the charcoal left a 50-cent sized cooked flesh on my left sole. But I felt great, I overcame fear. If burning charcoal did not kill me, nothing should ever stop me again. Indeed, my life changed from that day on.

The seminar and fire walk were a turning point in my life. After the seminar, I found new energy and passion. I wanted to be better person and effect a bigger change as a trainer. I dived deeper into the topic of human behavior and psychology. I finally completed the Awaken the Giant Within book, a few times over. I read all the other Tony Robbins’s books. I even bought his audio program and committed to master the techniques of positive mindset and behavior change.

As a result, I now regulate my own emotions better, challenge my fears and set empowering goals. I have grown to appreciate my family and career better. I have a new outlook in life and try to live with passion everyday.

At the same time, I want to pay it forward by empowering others with what I have learned. Thankfully, as a trainer, I am privileged touch many people, helping them focus on possibilities and achieving fulfilment , regardless of their situation. Seeing positive change gives me so much pride and energy to continue what I am doing.

So, at the 1 year anniversary of my fire walk, I am starting this blog Walking on Fire – where I share about growth and development, as a tribute to giants of positive mindset like Tony Robbins, Zig Ziglar, Napoleon Hill and many more. More importantly, to also help more people find happiness and contentment.

If you are looking to become a better person, I invite you to join me here and share this journey together.