“Give yourself permission to allow this moment to be exactly as it is, and allow yourself to be exactly as you are.” 

― Jon Kabat-Zinn, Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life

I’m finding that now that I’m home, a lot of “I wish I would haves…” are arising. Again, because I believe in re-dos, I’m not going to dwell on them (but I might write about them). I’ll just tuck them away and make note to explore them next time. Apparently I have a lot of willing traveling companions, so I am confident I will be back in Galicia sooner than later.

With the many paths to follow and the changing scenery, walking the Way will never get boring to me. If it does, then that in itself is something to explore. Leo Tolstoy defines boredom as “the desire for desires.” I think this is true because it is within boredom that you truly meet yourself. One can be bored sitting around doing nothing as easily as being engaged in something unfilling. In both situations one is observing the desire to be doing something else. With awareness, boredom can breed a new Way.

Jon Kabat Zinn wrote the book “Wherever You Go, There You Are.” It was a pivotal book for me and I highly recommend it. It is the first time I considered that human beings, in general, all have “monkey minds.” I truly thought I was the only one with a brain like a ping pong ball. I learned that Zinn was not only a practicing Buddhist but also a Professor of Medicine Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Medical School where he founded the Stress Reduction Clinic. He discovered that when patients sat in meditation and observed their pain, they began to have a different experience with it, thereby lessening the pain. He then combined his spirtitual and scientific findings and created a course called Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR). The course began to get increasingly noticed with the 1991 publication of his first book Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness He proposed that having “moment to moment awareness” of: illness, depression, anxiety, obsessive thoughts…can lead to a new understanding and relationship with it. As the thread continued to weave, I found a trained practitioner in MBSR who was running the eight week course about ten minutes from me. Key the fireworks. I was on my Way trying to let the moment be exactly as it is. The art of allowing may be another post.

Letting myself be exactly as I am can be a struggle interesting. On the longest day of the walk-15 miles- I observed that I was physically, emotionally, and mentally exhausted by the experience and by being in a group for so long. On the verge of a meltdown, I found a grassy path off the Camino bordered by high grass and wildflowers. I took myself out of my Way, plopped down, called John, and started to cry. I don’t really recall how the conversation played out except I forgot the time difference and he was trying to get Charlie to school and had to hang up. This probably made me cry more!

I observed that I was breaking down and this was okay. I also observed that I was sitting in a field making an international call on my cell phone in northwestern Spain on a magical trip. Crying. Except for scallop shells and yellow arrows, I had no idea where I was. There was a bit of humor in that realization. Being able to laugh at myself definitely gets me out of my own Way and back on track. I dusted myself off and hopped back on the Camino. I had a lot of miles left to go.

Note: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Kabat-Zinn