It’s tricky to know where to start with this one. Its been 9 years since I last embarked upon this kind of trip, and the same amount of time since I last tried to document my experiences in this kind of format. I thought that I had lost the blog I wrote during my 2015 journey along the Via De La Plata and Camino Sanabres between Seville and Santiago De Compostela, but was pleasantly surprised to find out that it was in fact still ‘active’ (it can be found here: https://backforbonfire.wordpress.com/)
In many ways, I find myself in a somewhat similar place mentally and physically as I was back in Valencia all those years ago; I have been struggling to live a full and healthy life. I have had recurring periods of very poor mental health particularly since my early twenties, typically characterised by overeating, isolation, low motivation and self-loathing. I have been extremely lucky to have a very supportive family and group of friends, who have helped me in so many ways. Part of that support has been helping me to go to counselling, and I have again been very fortunate to find a number of great people to talk to over the years. At times, I have learnt how to be kinder to myself.
Looking back on the posts from my 2015 trip, I didn’t make any specific references to the poor mental health I was in at the time. I had spent a month in Valencia studying for a CELTA English Teaching qualification. During that month, I had spent much of the time when not at the small college where I was doing my course either binge-eating or in bed. Even signing up to the CELTA had been an act of desperation in many ways. Similar to what I have been experiencing most recently, I had been in a bit of a downward spiral for the months prior to even arriving in Valencia, and the few weeks that I was doing the course was a little bit of a culmination of this. My motivation for doing the Camino was that it was the very last thing I wanted to try in an effort to just feel good about life again. I had no plan for what I would do after the journey; I just wanted to connect with something that might give me hope for the future.
My memories from the 2015 walk are still very vivid. I have often found myself recalling snapshots of places and people; I remember the dark mornings walking before sunrise, the arid olive groves in the south, the high hills in Extremadura, and suddenly getting back to green grass and rain in Galicia.
I never wrote an ending to that 2015 blog, and didn’t even write a post detailing my final day of walking and what my immediate reflections were having made it to Santiago and returned home to the UK. What I definitely didn’t find, either on arrival in Santiago or in the subsequent months and years since, was an ‘answer’ to my problems. I did decide to find another counsellor to work with, and with their help I was able to meet an amazing person and experience a truly loving (in the romantic sense) relationship for the first time in my life. I also made progress in my career, finding a job and place to work that made me feel challenged and rewarded in a very positive way. For a time, life was the best it had ever been, and I felt like I had learnt to live with my shadow rather than trying to run from it.
Things began to unravel in early 2020, and the onset of COVID instigated a spiral down into one of my darkest times. My relationship, which at that point had lasted just over 3 years, came to an end. The detailed reasons behind this I will not go into here, but it felt as though staying together was just too difficult. What followed for me has been the familiar cycle of self-isolation, unhealthy eating patterns and a struggle to find meaning and purpose. On top of this has been a lot of feelings of guilt, partly surrounding the break up of the relationship itself but also a sense that I am incredibly lucky to have a vast number of advantages that many people in this world do not have; I have somewhere safe and secure to live, I have enough time and money to do more than just work and can enjoy leisure time, all on top of the key advantage of having a loving family and group of friends around me. I have very often found myself lost in a highly negative and judgemental narrative about myself and my life. Shame has been a pretty consistent companion over the past 4 years, and the last few months has been particularly acute to the point where I have struggled to get out of bed let alone out of the house. I have had to take periods off work, been on various medications and had more counselling. Things have helped for a time, but right now I find myself back at the bottom.
Even with this, I start my journey with positive and hopeful intentions. Above all, what I want to get out of this trip is to connect in each moment with where I find myself at the time. The sights, the smells, and sounds. Looking for much more than that seems foolish, as being as present as possible in those moments gives me the best chance of connecting with the higher power that can guide me towards a fuller and more healthy life.
One Step Bey0nd 