After a few hours of walking the pain was too strong. I felt like thousands knives were pounding my heels and I almost gave up. I sat on a stone, frustrated and desperate and just didn’t know what to do. I tried to find a place inside me where there’s joy, because the joy would burn out the pain. Without success.
Fortunately there is always a solution on Camino, I just didn’t get used to that fact then. In my case one sweet Spanish girl who was walking with me that day said magic words: “Try to walk in your teva shoes”. OMG, I did not even think about that option. After all, I really gave up … not my walking but my suffering 🙂

I had all day to think about the meaning of pain. Pain is so personal. It really belongs only to the one feeling it. Thankfully, pain is never permanent and it can be vitalising; it gives intensity in the place of vagueness and emptiness. Pain nourishes your courage. We cannot be more sensitive to pleasure without being more sensitive to pain.

Thought: There is a saying in Tibetan: tragedy should be utilized as a source of strength. No matter what sort of difficulties, how painful experience is, if we lose our hope, that’s our real disaster.

 

@ Villamayor de Monjardín – Viana