Camino mind
|MC_PREVIEW_TEXT|
View this email in your browser (|ARCHIVE|) In this first issue of the new Fall season of CreativeBoost, I’m going to share something personal because there are elements to it that can help you in your own work as a creative pro.
Earlier this Summer, I put on my backpack and walked 725km across Spain on a 1,200 year old pilgrimage route, called the Camino de Santiago (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camino_de_Santiago) . Even as a seasoned walker, it was tough. And at times gruelling. But I did it anyways.
camino
I’m still processing much of the experience, but what I’d like to share are observations I made about what I like to call the Camino Mind: a more resilient, more compassionate way of looking at ourselves and others, which can serve us in every aspect of our lives.
Turn around. There is your Camino. Not what’s ahead that needs to be tackled is some kind of hurry, but what’s been accomplished. We spend too little time doing this: too focused on the road ahead and the goals we set. When was the last time you stopped and reflected on the work you’ve done to get you to where you are right now? The best you have given is precisely what powers you forward. Not some abstract change. The you of now is enough.
You are already empty. I started my Camino believing I had to empty myself so that I could move on from terrible loss. I was wrong. I was already empty. My Camino let me decide what was going to put back in. And to do so with compassion for myself as much as for others.
Pain is a cycle. If we’re not careful, we can spend over lives making bad decisions rooted in avoiding pain. Instead, look at it as something to be mitigated: you’ll make better decisions. Walking great distances teaches us that things are going to hurt inevitably. But not all at once. And not forever. And surprisingly, not even the next morning when you wake at 5:00AM to do it all over again. Accept this and you can draw a circle around the present and live with a sense of fulfillment and purpose. So sit with the pain: stop running from it.
Accept your teachers. On the Camino, the rocks pulverized my feet (no, I won’t show you the pictures). Because I fought them. Tried to step around them. Complained about them. Things only got better when I stop resisting them and saw them as my teachers. It was like having to relearn how to walk. But I did it. And by the end of my journey, I was scaling in my bare feet the massive rocks where the Atlantic met my long, dusty trail.
We are in service to each other. I’m not great at asking others for help: I’m stubborn. So when I found myself one day really over-exerted and drained by the heat, it took a lot for me to accept kindness from someone I barely knew. In doing so, I was reminded of something that had been said to me earlier by a man who ran a donation-based refreshment stand outside of Astorga: “what good is life if all we do is help ourselves? Help others and every day you make change.”
“You are your Camino.” I saw that scribbled on a wall at an albergue in Los Arcos. It stuck with me. The way you think about the world is expressed in the choices you make every day in how you live and how you react the world around you. Stop judging whether things are good or bad. Stop telling yourself that same old self-limiting story around failure or loss or doubt. Change your mind, change your story and everything changes.
You don’t get to decide how others feel. For someone who writes a lot, I have a hard time letting myself be vulnerable. Some of that comes from a belief I’ve long had that some problems are too personal, too hard. That talking about things in an unvarnished way makes others feel uncomfortable. But as a family member wisely once told me, it’s not my job to decide how others feel. I took a chance on my Camino. I created a private Facebook group, documenting everything and holding back nothing about what that walk was all about. And I was surprised by the response. So many people took time to cheer me on, and even for some to just sit with me when things got difficult. They cared because they wanted to. Not because I asked.
Your judgement impedes acceptance. Once you learn to accept the world as it truly is and stop trying to shape it and the people in it into something it cannot be, you understand that the only change possible is the one where you be the change you desire. Who cares if other people walk faster than you or seem to hurt less than you do? That’s just your ego talking. Give it something less valuable to gnaw on than your self esteem.
We are strongest in the broken places that have mended. Loss comes to us all. You try to carry less (http://us4.campaign-archive1.com/?u=89226eb68936fc712577977b8&id=f35246d184) , choosing which burdens are in the past and letting those go. For the rest, if we sit with it long enough and listen to it rather than scorn it, we can turn pain into something more useful, beautiful. And some of that yields to joy. If we let it.
How you search is more valuable than the problem you want to solve. Ever notice that we are better at solving others’ problems than dealing with our own? That’s because your ego is at the helm of the latter. There is always an act of surrender that’s involved in making the brave decision that you don’t have all the answers, and that you must go out of your self and find a new path. “What matters most,” Charles Bukowski reminds, “is how well you walk through the fire.”
Very best, Patrick
P.S. You’d be doing me a personal favour by sharing this newsletter with friends and colleagues. Do that now by clicking either of the green buttons below.
http://twitter.com/intent/tweet?text=|URL:MC_SUBJECT|: |URL:ARCHIVE_LINK_SHORT| Tweet (http://twitter.com/intent/tweet?text=|URL:MC_SUBJECT|: |URL:ARCHIVE_LINK_SHORT|) http://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=|URL:ARCHIVE_LINK_SHORT| Share (http://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=|URL:ARCHIVE_LINK_SHORT|)
============================================================ |IFNOT:ARCHIVE_PAGE| |LIST:DESCRIPTION|
Our mailing address is: |LIST_ADDRESS| |END:IF|
unsubscribe from this list (|UNSUB|) update subscription preferences (|UPDATE_PROFILE|)
|IF:REWARDS| |REWARDS_TEXT| |END:IF|