Rise up and Rebuild. Tend your fire, You must.
I’ve been tending my fire now for sometime. I know the forces that weaken it’s glow,
and those that make it roar. It hasn’t always been that way.
The idea of motivation in life is much like what is called activation energy when
starting a fire. Activation energy is the minimum amount of energy required to start a fire. The heat energy must overcome the activation energy to cause combustion. Only then will you have fire. Fire needs heat, fuel, and oxygen.
Heat is created through friction, which can be described as two surfaces rubbing together. Friction occurs in life as we dance and move between challenges, and differences. Fuel is what is fed to the fire, such as wood. In the same way what we fuel ourselves with determines the strength of our fire, and it’s ability to withstand. Oxygen is the element that keeps the fire going. Fire needs room to grow, and so do we. Each component in perfect alignment creates fire.
Mind. Body. Spirit.
The fire inside of you must be stronger than the fleeting idea of motivation.
The fire inside of you is an energy that will withstand if you respect it, allowing space for room to grow. What you feed it will determine what it becomes, it’s strength, and it’s glow.
My kids and I moved back in with my parents and started over, again. It was a different kind of starting over though. It was as if I had to rebuild who I was. I no longer knew how to “take the bull by the horns” like I had done so many times before in life. Hell, I couldn’t even find the bull anymore. The bull in me had been long gone. I had to learn not to ask permission to speak. Yes, I mean that literally. I had to unlearn fear again, and relearn believing in myself. Believing in myself was hard. Believing in nothing - harder.
I became the leftover ashes from a fire that I started. I’m not talking about the kind of ashes leftover from a fire that’s just gone out the night before. There were no hot coals lying beneath. When the wind blew, so did I. When it rained I was soaked and disintegrating into the ground. A sloppy mess of worthless ashes.
I’m here to tell you, no one, and I mean no one, gathers around a pile of sloppy ashes. Why would they?
Ashes to ashes, Dust to Dust. Completion.
Rebuilding - I began to remember what had sustained me before, and what had not. Things that once lit a spark in me became fuel for my fire - my becoming. On days when the wind blew heavy it roared and roared, scattering embers miles away. When My fire roared I chanted and sang in praise of it’s fierce and uncontrollable feats.
The wind never blows forever though. On days when a thunderstorm would roll through I spent time preparing new kindling to spark anew.
Because I have tended my fire, I do not worry about what will happen if a storm rolls through.
Because I have tended my fire, I know what must be done to rebuild. Because I have tended my fire, I am able to share it with others.