The Lessons of a Campfire
By Chris Crouch
Chris is an author and President of DME Training and Consulting in Memphis, Tennessee, USA. He offers seminars and consulting that focuses on improving employee productivity and career satisfaction. He recently published The Contented Achiever, and Simple Works.

There is something about sitting around a campfire on a cold night that warms more than your body. The sight of the flames licking the night air, the crackling sounds of the wood as it surrenders to the intense heat, the smell of the wood burning; these things all work in harmony to take you to a place of serenity and reflection. Watching a campfire is a heart-warming and soul-warming experience. It nurtures you and gives you energy.

While campfires give us energy many of our sophisticated time-saving, life-management devices such as faxes, e-mails, cell phones, voice mails, personal digital assistants, computers and beepers take our energy. Sometimes, it seems as if they are directly hooked up to your internal energy supply draining you of your life energy. Batteries and power cords are rarely enough to satisfy the demands of these devices. You must constantly supplement their power sources with your precious and limited supply of human energy.

These were the contrasting thoughts that passed through my mind as I sat around a campfire in the cold Arizona desert several years ago. As had become my habit, I was there for my annual escape from “busy-ness.” Actually, about a dozen of us sat around the campfire seeking the same thing, spiritual energy. It was our time to be at a spiritual place, with spiritual people doing spiritual things. In these circumstances, it is best not to try to think of anything in particular, to never try to chase your thoughts. It is best to relax, breath properly and let the thoughts come to you. The thought that kept coming to me as I sat by the campfire was, stay close to your nurturing source!

As my inner voice kept repeating this thought, I looked closely at the fire. Near the source at ground level, the fire burned intensely. A few feet higher, away from its nurturing source, the fire couldn’t survive. It was a short metaphorical leap from the campfire to my life. The fire was teaching me that I needed to stay close to the source of my spiritual energy. It was teaching me to quit trying to fill my spiritual hunger with material things. It was teaching me that close relationships, spending time on things consistent with my values and campfire watching was just as important as my faxes and e-mails. Just as many items can serve as fuel for a fire, many things can serve as a source of spiritual energy for people. I’ll share a few of my sources of spiritual energy with you and encourage you to look for your own nurturing sources.

Conversations with my spiritual team: call them guardian angels, call them spiritual beings, call them whatever you’d like…I have a team of spiritual friends that call on to intervene and support me as my life unfolds. Their support is intense when I call on them and ask for guidance and help…when I stay close to them. Things do not go so well when I forget they are there for me and try to personally over-control my life…in other words, when I fail to stay close to them.

Writing in my daily journal: each day I spend at least twenty to thirty minutes writing in my personal journal. Anything goes in this journal: sad thoughts, fearful thoughts, angry thoughts and happy thoughts. I often talk to my spiritual team, reflect on my life, plan my day, design outcomes, let go of outcomes and pray in writing through my journal. I never get too far away from this source. I do it everyday. It is as much a habit as eating and sleeping. You will never understand the power of this nurturing source until you try it. It’s very hard to explain to those who do not do it. Those who do journal will smile knowingly without needing an explanation.

Spending time with interesting people and seeking interesting experiences – some people and experiences drain you. Others energize you. Look for people and experiences that energize you. If you haven’t met someone or done something in the last thirty days that shook up your beliefs or made you think differently or made you stretch your thoughts, get busy. Avoid living a copy-machine life. Take a chance on something new and exciting.

Of course, you can’t stay close to your nurturing source if you have forgotten or don’t know what it is in the first place. We are all wired differently. No one knows the true sources of your spiritual energy better than you. If you know your sources, get busy making sure you stay close to them. If you don’t know your sources, you’ve got work to do. That’s the call to action. Think about your nurturing source. Determine what keeps the campfire of your life burning intensely. Look for your own personal sources of spiritual energy and stay close to it!

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