When the Camino Walks You

Reflections on the unraveling mind and body

This piece is arising as I walk the Camino de Santiago—each step not only carrying me across landscapes, but deeper into the terrain of the inner world. What I thought might be a peaceful journey has become, at times, raw and revealing. These words are shared from within that unfolding.

The Camino de Santiago is often spoken of as a journey of the soul, a path walked not just with feet but with the heart, the body, the entire being. But no one quite warns you that the real pilgrimage may have very little to do with the scenery, and everything to do with what arises inside.

In the simplicity of the walking life: wake, walk, eat, rest—there is nowhere to hide from what was once softly humming in the background. Worries surface. The mind fixates on the body: the aches, the fatigue, the discomfort. It tries to solve the puzzle of where to sleep, what to eat, how to avoid pain. And when things don’t go smoothly, frustration bubbles up.

Even when there’s recognition—“these are just thoughts, these are just sensations”—still, they arise. The old patterns don’t disappear because we see through them. They may even grow louder for a time, begging to be felt, known, dissolved.

This is the paradox of walking such a path. There’s clarity and contraction, peace and pressure, all moving in and out like breath. And it may not make sense to the mind. It may feel like “this isn’t going how I thought it would.” But that too, is part of the walk. Sometimes the Camino isn’t something you do; it’s something that does you.

And maybe the deeper invitation isn’t to transcend it, but to be fully here for it. For the ache. For the fear. For the worry. For the humbling, human truth that we can’t control what arises, only how tenderly we let it move through.