Novels
Le Feu intérieur: transforming what burns
There is in each of us an inner fire.
It is not always seen. It does not necessarily make noise. Sometimes it rises abruptly: an anger, a sentence too sharp, a gesture too quick, an urge to send everything packing. Other times it hides beneath a silence, a fatigue, a resignation, a passivity that resembles calm but which, at its core, contains something unexpressed.
This inner fire is not bad in itself.
It often signals that a limit has been crossed, that a need has not been heard, that an injustice has been felt, that a frustration has built up, that a word has not found its place.
The problem is therefore not having fire within us. The problem begins when we no longer know what to do with it.
── Anger: a signal, not a fault ──
We have sometimes learnt to distrust anger. We have been told to remain calm, to be reasonable, to bear it, not to make a fuss. So many people end up confusing two very different things: feeling anger and becoming violent.
Anger is not violence. Anger is an emotion. Violence is a way of acting.
Anger can say: “What is happening is not just.” “I am not respected.” “I need to be heard.” “Something must change.”
It becomes dangerous when it is neither recognised, nor understood, nor channelled. When it does not find words, it sometimes seeks a gesture. When it does not find a limit, it seeks a target.
That is how anger can turn into violence. Not because it was bad at the outset, but because it did not find a just path.
── Frustration: the lack that builds up ──
Frustration is another form of inner fire.
It arises when something escapes us: an expected recognition, a hoped-for achievement, a fairer relationship, a security, a place, a change that does not come.
An occasional frustration can be bearable. But a repeated frustration becomes heavier. It builds up. It settles in the body, in the voice, in thoughts.
Over time, it can produce two opposing reactions. Some explode. Others go out.
The former become aggressive, impatient, harsh, sometimes unfair. The latter fall silent, give up, withdraw, end up believing that responding is of no use.
In both cases, the frustration has not been transformed. It has only changed form.
── Silence: protection or imprisonment ──
Silence is not always a weakness. It can be a protection.
One sometimes falls silent because speaking would be too dangerous, too costly, too painful. One falls silent to avoid conflict, to keep a relationship, not to make a situation worse. That silence can be necessary for a time.
But when it lasts too long, it becomes a prison.
What we do not say does not necessarily disappear. It can bury itself, harden, turn into bitterness, sadness, cold anger or restrained violence.
There are peaceful silences. And there are silences that burn.
The difficulty lies in recognising the moment when silence no longer protects us but prevents us from existing.
── Violence: a response when speech has no longer found a way ──
Violence can take several forms.
It can be physical, verbal, psychological, symbolic. It can manifest itself in cries, insults, threats, humiliations, contempt, control, domination.
But it can also be more discreet: ignoring someone, making them feel guilty, refusing to listen to them, crushing them with silence or authority.
Violence sometimes gives an impression of power. It can give the feeling of regaining control. But this power is fragile, because it rests on the destruction of the bond.
Violence does not repair the lack. It displaces it.
It can frighten. It can silence. It can impose. But it does not truly transform what is burning inside.
It often leaves behind more shame, rupture and misunderstanding.
── Passivity: the other face of the fire ──
We speak much of visible violence. We speak less of passivity.
And yet, passivity can be another response to the same inner fire.
Where violence says: “I will force the world to hear me,” passivity says: “There is no point in speaking any more.”
The passive person is not necessarily indifferent. They may be exhausted. They may have learnt that their words change nothing. They may be afraid of disturbing, afraid of conflict, afraid of being rejected.
But by no longer responding, they sometimes end up abandoning their own place.
Passivity can then become a violence against oneself: one accepts what should be refused, one falls silent where a limit should be set, one lets others decide in one's place.
── Transforming the fire: neither exploding nor going out ──
Transforming the inner fire does not mean suppressing the emotions.
It is not a matter of becoming cold, neutral, insensitive or perfectly calm. That would be an illusion. The living feel. They react. They are crossed by tensions, desires, fears, angers, impulses.
To transform the fire is to learn not to obey it blindly.
It is to be able to say: “I feel that I am angry.” “I understand that something is touching me.” “I recognise that this situation is awakening a wound or a frustration.” “But I am not going to let this emotion alone decide what I am going to do.”
That is where a freer response begins.
── From reaction to response ──
There is a great difference between reacting and responding.
To react is to be gripped by the emotion. To respond is to recognise the emotion, then to choose what one does with it.
The reaction is fast. The response demands a space.
That space can be tiny: a breath, a silence, a step back, a sentence held back before it is uttered, a limit set differently.
But that space changes everything.
It makes it possible not to confuse what one feels with what one must do.
── Assertiveness: holding one's ground without crushing the other ──
Between passivity and violence, there is a more difficult but fairer path: assertiveness.
To be assertive is not to be harsh. It is not to impose. It is not to always be right.
To be assertive is to be able to express what one feels, what one needs, what one accepts and what one refuses, without humiliating the other and without disappearing oneself.
It means saying: “I do not agree.” “This situation does not suit me.” “I need time.” “I want to be respected.” “I understand your point of view, but I cannot accept this.”
Assertiveness is a standing word. It does not deny the anger. It gives it a form that does not destroy.
── The thought that builds what follows ──
What we think of ourselves influences the way we experience situations.
A person who always believes themselves to be a victim can end up interpreting every difficulty as a confirmation of their powerlessness. A person who always believes themselves under threat may attack even before being attacked. A person who believes themselves to be worthless may accept situations that diminish them.
This does not mean that a victim is responsible for what they suffer. This point is essential.
An injustice, a violence or a humiliation remain the responsibility of the one who commits them.
But a wound can then organise our gaze, our expectations and our reactions. It can lock us into a way of seeing the world that prolongs the pain.
To transform the thought is therefore not to deny the wound. It is to recognise what it has produced, then no longer to give it the power to decide alone what follows.
── Fire as creative energy ──
The same fire can destroy or illuminate.
A recognised anger can become a limit. A frustration understood can become a project. A silence traversed can become a word. A pain integrated can become a strength of attention to others. A wound named can become a path.
What is burning within us is not always to be extinguished. Sometimes, one simply has to learn to carry it differently.
To no longer make it a weapon. To no longer turn it against oneself. To no longer let it choose our enemies. To no longer let it write our whole story.
── Conclusion: a light that does not devour ──
The inner fire is part of the living.
It reminds us that we are not machines. It reminds us that we have limits, needs, wounds, desires for justice, expectations of recognition.
The stake is not to feel nothing any more. The stake is to transform what burns into word, into limit, into choice, into just action.
Violence was a response when speech had no longer found a way. Passivity was a response when action had ceased to seem possible. But neither of the two was a freedom.
Freedom begins when we can recognise our wound without abandoning our future to it.
Then the fire ceases to be only a threat. It becomes a light. A light capable of holding without devouring.