What are your highlights?

Its been a while since I've posted because I've been walking the camino de santiago and well typing blog posts on a phone is rather tiresome to me. I'm very spoilt when it comes to having a keyboard!

However tonight warrants a post because I was asked by a friend the highlights of my camino. That's a very tough question to answer. After walking for 3.5 weeks, about 25km a day remembering specific highlights can be difficult. Days blur into each other, events pass as epochs rather than moments and time distorts as you travel so far, but go no where. So when I was asked about my best moments I really had to think about how to answer that and the answer that overcame all other stories of friendship and kindness was that of personal growth.

I spent two very tough days in immense pain after changing boots for sandals and enduring the painful blisters that come from soft feet being told to toughen up. These two days meant that every step I took overwhelmed my brain with flashes of pain and agony and every movement became a test of will power to continue onwards.

At the start of my third day, when the blisters continued to plague me I mentally decided that enough was enough. I know I'm a tough person and I needed to prove that to myself. I needed to overcome that pain and walk as I had intended, as a strong, fit, young person. So, for the last time I let pain dictate my progress and as I walked I demanded the impossible of myself. I demanded myself to no longer feel pain, I commanded myself to ignore all signals and continue on. I willed myself to become master of my own pain and as I walked alone I screamed internally 'you are the master of your own pain, you are THE MASTER of your PAIN!' And the more I told myself this the more I believed it. After a few minutes my pain diminished as I convinced my brain to ignore it and I felt my spirits lift and walking became a joy again. About 100m later my pace had doubled and I felt alive again. This was a moment of complete and utter self development. I demanded more of myself, reached for it and took it. It was a changing point for me in the camino as I discovered that I really can be as strong as I want to be and nothing need hold me back, even within my strongest enemy I can find my strongest ally. I'm not at all saying that the ready of the walk was a pain free experience, quite the opposite there were definitely more testing moments to come but a weight had been lifted, I knew I could do it and the strength I thought was there came through when I needed it the most. We all have personal trials that we need to deal with, and we all deal with them differently but we should feel pride when we come out on top and find that inner strength we didn't know we had.