I’m not the same woman I once was!
It’s a feeling that I have been unable to shake for a while now, but walking the Finisterre section of the Camino de Santiago last year was one of the ways I started to re-connect the dots around the woman I’ve become..!
Let me explain…
Pre-COVID and prior to launching a business, getting married and having a little boy (Joel)… I was a different person. And how could I not be, right? Just one of those events is enough to change you – never mind a combination of all four over the space of 4-5 years.
Amongst many shifts, I have noticed that I have different habits, different friends, a different way of seeing the world, a different way of communicating and even a different quality of energy.
It’s not an uncommon experience either. If you solely consider the life-altering shift of having a child; they often say it takes three years for new mums to feel like they’re getting some sort of remnants of themselves back again… and Joel’s only two.
I said to my husband the other day – “I feel like sometimes I’m 90% Joel”. I find it hard to think about what I want for lunch because I’m so consumed thinking about what Joel will eat. I forget to bring my trousers with me when I go away for a night because I’m consumed by packing for every eventuality for an unpredictable toddler. And I definitely struggle planning social events because sometimes I am just processing each day as it comes.
Now, as much as this sounds like a call for help, it’s not a bad thing – I’m not anxious about it at all, I loveeee being a mum – but ‘being mum’ sometimes takes up all the available space in my brain.
In fact, when you add ‘being mum’ to ‘being a business owner’, I sometimes wonder what’s left.
And whilst I’ve been on an interesting journey over these last 6 months to piece together the person I have become – alongside my role as mum and business owner – I am very aware that my sense of adventure and need for independence (that was very much part of my life pre-covid/ child) is absolutely something that has remained, and something that I must protect.
I’ve always been a huge traveller – a little Welsh “Dora the Explorer”. I have lived and worked in South Korea and Australia, saving up all my earnings so I could travel through many parts of Asia, across Australia and New Zealand, and also then visit a nice, small collection of places within the Amercias and Europe… and so I feel like it’s natural that I am missing that part of me that happily packs my bags and hops on a plane.
And – if I’m honest – I’m glad that part of me is still very much there … alive, well and desperate for the next adventure.
Bringing Becca Back
My first step back towards rebuilding my sense of self was my Spanish Camino, back in August 2023.
Over the course of four days, to celebrate my 36th birthday, I walked a whopping 135km across the magical, rugged countryside of Galicia.
It wasn’t just a recce and something I needed to do to launch the retreats part of my business… it was also something I needed to do for my soul!
I booked a flight, mapped out my route and packed all I needed into a small rucksack on my back. And, of course, after setting up everything I could possibly think to setup for Joel while I was away (his father is absolutely capable of caring for him but the pre-trip baby prep helped to ease my worries about leaving my little boy!), I was ready to go and reconnect with that part of me that needed to be unleashed into the wild.
An unbelievable sense of freedom
As I sat on the plane – alone – having not travelled in three years, I felt an overwhelming sense of pride.
Years and years and yearrsss ago, I had made a promise to myself to complete a section of the Camino and to then launch this as a mindful walking retreat – but then after having Joel, I started to wonder when I’d be able to actually make this happen. Yet, here I was sitting on the plane, ready to start the first step of that journey with my beautiful 18-month-old safely at home.
I was making my dream come true.
Stepping out onto that path on the first day, hearing the crunch of gravel beneath my feet and seeing the beautiful path and blue sky ahead of me – I knew I was coming back home to me.
There is something unbelievably freeing about the Spanish countryside – the warmth in the air, the fresh breeze, the soothing sounds of nature wrapped around the most beautifully rustic homes, with beautiful terracotta shades of orange dotted across the hills. It was stunning and a far-cry from the IKEA flat-pack homes you see filling every available square foot of land in the UK.
Although we will be covering a slightly shorter distance (90km) on the official walking retreat, I wanted to cover a little more during my recce (135km) so I could make sure the route I was choosing for my group retreat was the right route. There are a couple of routes that would work beautifully, so I needed to be sure.
And, my lord – you genuinely can’t go wrong in this beautiful country.
Along every step of the way I was greeted by beauty and consistently offered so many wonderful moments of gratitude. The magnificent beauty I witnessed along the entire route truly made this an experience that I will never forget.
So, whether you join us on this adventure or you go alone / with someone else, please – please – please add this experience to your bucket list. I genuinely cannot recommend it enough.
Highlights
It was reallllly hard to pick just three, but here are a few highlights that stuck with me the most…
1. The silence: I have never felt so peaceful in my entire life
Our world can be a noisy ol’ place to live, and inside our own chatty little brains – it’s not much quieter.
You don’t realise how much noise we’re constantly surrounded by until you step away from the hustle and bustle of everyday life and into the magical acres of untouched Spanish countryside.
I was blown away by how peaceful and quiet it was. On day 4 (my birthday), I must have walked for about 3-4 hours without seeing another soul. It was incredible. And never once did I feel scared or alone – it’s impossible to feel like that along the Camino. I just felt calm and at peace.
I remember when COVID first started taking hold; suddenly the streets were empty and the cars vanished from the roads. Do you remember that? I saw images of London – with once busy, hectic streets now left empty and desolate. And although the conditions in which this happened were awful and hopefully never to be repeated – the silence, the quiet spaces – that all felt very needed.
Whilst the last few years offered a very different experience for each of us (and – as a mental health specialist – I’m well aware of the collective and individual trauma that still exists), the experience was also a moment of reflection for many to stop, pause and return to what mattered.
And sometimes, if I’m honest, I find myself longing for that quieter pace of life again (without the associated pandemic), and that’s one of the many gifts that walking the Camino brought to me (and more!) – it gave me space, it gave me peace and the open roads gave me a wonderful sense of freedom.
2. The beauty: I lost count of the amount of ‘awe’ moments I experienced
Sunlit forests, beautiful sunrises, quiet open roads and sandy beaches… this experience really did have it all!
I made a promise to myself to disconnect from technology during this walk so I could immerse myself in nature, but – in all honesty – the beautiful scenery definitely made this a challenging promise to keep.
Every time I turned a corner, I was absolutely blown away by how beautiful the world was around me. Walking happily through towns, countryside and even along coast lines, I was always presented with a wonderful variety of super beautiful scenic views. And although I was actually quite good at putting away my phone, at times I had to be super restrained and resist taking my phone back out for a photo – it was so hard to not try to capture the beauty of everything around me.
Even though I took a lot of lovely photos, I was also able to fully embrace reconnecting with nature. As I meandered through misty forests, I found myself lost in my steps, my thoughts and my moments of utter gratitude that I was blessed enough to be able to experience this in my lifetime.
There is a lot of beauty that exists in the world around us, if only we can step away from our desks for long enough to see it.
3. The personal challenge: My body loved the immense relief experienced by that level of physical exertion
We spend so much of our days seated at a desk, and our body’s weren’t made for this life.
We know this, we feel this instinctively every single day and it chips away at us because we know that we need to be doing something different. We know that we need to be living better. But we don’t! Why? Because we’re exhausted and our diaries are constantly calling us back to our office chairs.
And although I could have exhausted my body at the gym, or headed out for a run, it wouldn’t have been the same.
Walking for hours, over four consecutive days, immersed in nature and breathing in clean, unpolluted air, shifted something within me that had needed to shift – for a very long time.
It reconnected me with myself. It reconnected me with the earth around me. And it reconnected me with what truly mattered. There really is nothing else like it!
As I arrived at my final location, splurging on a fancy hotel for my final day of the trip, I lay on the immensely comfortable king-sized bed – smiling with content exhaustion.
I’d done it. I’d walked 135km in 4 days and survived.
My mind felt peacefully soothed, my body felt tired but relieved and my heart felt beautifully proud.
I will always remember sitting in Santiago airport on the way home, all alone but laughing so hard that tears rolled down my cheeks! I felt incredible; not just for what I had achieved, but for the space that had opened up inside of my brain and the part of ‘my old self’ that I had found a way to reconnect with. I was soooo deliriously happy, deep in my soul.
The only moment we have is now
If we just keep going and going and going, we’re going to burn out.
And it’s not just parents that find themselves on the edge of exhaustion – looking back at their lives and wondering who they’ve become; any of us can find ourselves in that space.
We focus so much on work and on our caring responsibilities that we forget to turn the focus inward and take a look at ourselves. Who are we now? Who have we become? Are we even happy?
Sometimes it just takes a moment of pause and a change of scenery to help us pump the brakes and reset our thoughts and our world as we know it.
For me, I find magic in the moments where I adventure into the unknown. In those moments where I step out of my comfort zone and into the beautiful world around me – losing myself amongst the trees.
What about you?
Every moment of every day offers us a chance to reset, recharge and reconnect to that magic inside of us. Yet we put it off, again and again – quietly whispering: I’ll do that tomorrow.
But what if we captured the moment and took the first step right now.
What if we realised that – in fact – the only moment we have is now.
And what if we chose to nurture ourselves, for the greater good of everyone around us.
A happier world starts with a happier you!
So, where do you find your moments of magic? What rejuvenates your soul? It’s about time you pressed that pause button, got up from your desk and took a look around.
What will be your first step?
