How it all began Why endings really are beginnings and what the Caminho de Santiago has to do with it.
It all started back in 2017. I had just made the painful experience of ending my long term relationship, which included not only leaving behind my boyfriend of that time, but also his loving and supporting family that I felt being part of.
This decision led to what has become for me the beginning of a new chapter in my life - the beginning of my journey towards more consciousness, simplicity, happiness, satisfaction, “realness”.
In that summer, I felt the urge to do something I had never done before - walking on the Caminho Portugues, 230 km from Porto to Santiago de Compostela, with nothing but a 7kg backpack and plane tickets to and back from Porto. I left Porto alone, insecure about this whole trip, heartbroken, and arrived in Santiago ten days later with new friends for life, a new perspective on the world, and an interesting tan.
What happened on this journey for me to completely overthink my choices? Did I find some “saint” along the way, who lead us pilgrims towards some kind of enlightenment? Of course not - I rather think that everything we find on the Caminho is already within us. In fact, the Spanish saying “people go to Jerusalem to find Jesus, to Rome to meet the Pope, but on the Caminho to Santiago people are in search of themselves” is very true.
So, what were these findings and what did they initiate?
When we walk for 10 days in a row with what are at the beginning of the journey perfect strangers, but along the way become close friends you share the most private moments of your day and life during the Caminho with, you realize how little it takes for happiness and satisfaction. During this journey, all that matters is, are my clothes dry in the morning? Will I find enough food/water on the way? Do I still follow the arrows? Will I find a place to sleep, shower and wash my clothes?
Nothing else is of importance.
The choice of clothes to wear becomes incredibly easy as there is only one outfit available anyway. Shoes need to be nothing more but comfortable. Makeup is just annoying at some point, and so is shaving our legs everyday. We become very grateful for simple things, such as the first coffee in the morning in an old fashioned café, shadow, fresh water, a clean bed, the smell of nature, the possibility to walk without pain. Only when everything is so reduced to the basics, we can pay attention to what we consider “given” and don’t think about in our daily lives.
I realized that something in me had profoundly changed when I needed to buy shorts and a t-shirt in Santiago and therefore entered a mall. It hit me - all about this mall looked “fake” to me, like a facade that consumerism had built for us to be distracted from ourselves. Why do we need so many shops to sell us things we think we need but really don’t? Why does society suggest us that we need to have so many things? Why don’t we know and even think about how everything is produced? That there are actual people manufacturing it, that it doesn’t “grow” in shops or warehouses? Why do we judge ourselves and others mostly based on belongings and looks instead of for who we are as people?
So here I am now, 3 years later, still trying to figure out on how much we really need to be happy and finding ways to simplify daily life. I do believe that, by not being distracted by stuff and just be more mindful about my everyday choices, life becomes deeper, more exciting, happier.
