It was just days before I was to leave, and I found myself becoming increasingly nervous about going. I had planned to start at Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, a town in the foothills of the Pyrenees in southwestern France that was a historical starting point for pilgrims walking the Camino route. I didn’t know much beyond that, and I chastised myself for not learning more. At the last minute, I decided to buy a few books to see if I could glean some useful information that would ease my anxiety and help me feel more grounded before I set off.
The first book I read was The Pilgrimage by Paulo Coelho. It was mystical and mesmerizing, and I couldn’t put it down. He endured many spiritual tests on the long journey from France across Spain, but he had one thing going for him that I didn’t: a guide.
At one point Coelho was attacked by a demonic dog, which sent chills up my spine. I had never considered the possibility of being attacked by wild dogs, and I became sick with anxiety thinking about it.
The next book I read was The Camino by Shirley MacLaine. She, too, had her fair share of out-of-this-world challenges, including nearly freezing to death, and to my horror was also met by demon dogs along the way. Crap, I thought. Now I don’t want to go.
The idea of getting attacked by wild dogs was enough to stop me dead in my tracks.
I think it’s because when I was six years old, I was attacked by a rabid dog while walking home alone from school. I was minding my own business, only three blocks from my house, when this insane animal, foaming at the mouth, lurched at me from out of nowhere. He cornered me with his vicious growling, barking and repeatedly lunging at me as I screamed for my life. I was trapped for what seemed like an eternity as I wildly fought back, swinging my schoolbag at him and screaming my head off every time he got too close, keeping him far enough away to not bite me.
Miraculously, my older sister Cuky happened to walk by on her way home from high school and saw me cornered by this crazy beast. Dropping her schoolbag, she ran across the street and started screaming and lunging back at the dog with all of her might. As soon as he backed down a bit, she yelled at me to run for my life, which I did.
Home less than two minutes later and thoroughly traumatized, I sat shaking with relief on the front porch, my sister right behind me, equally shaken, saying, “It’s okay now. We’re safe.” We both shuddered in disbelief that we had made it home alive.
That episode burned into my bones a fear of wild dogs. Reading about the likelihood that I would experience one or more of them on the Camino sent me into a tailspin.
Shit! I thought. Now what? How am I going to protect myself from wild attacking dogs? And of course, knowing full well from my metaphysical training that we attract what we focus on, and especially what we fear, I was elevating my chances of this happening by the minute.
I needed protection. That was all there was to it. I wasn’t about to be caught off guard by a rabid beast as I had been years before. No fucking way!
I was looking online for ways to protect myself when my dog-loving friend Debra, who was staying with me at the time, came in and asked if there was anything she could do to help me prepare, as she knew the hours were counting down before I was to leave and she could sense my rising tension.
“I need pepper spray to ward off wild dogs,” I said. “Apparently this pilgrimage is going to be a series of spiritual lessons and tests, and wild dogs will be a part of that because they scare me so much. So can you get me some pepper spray to ward them off?”
“Pepper spray?” she asked. “Are you sure? I don’t think that will do you any good.”
“It probably won’t,” I answered, not hiding my irritation, as I was certain that attacking dogs were going to get me no matter what. I knew pepper spray was a pathetic attempt at believing I had a fighting chance against them. But it didn’t matter. I wanted it anyway.
“That will only make them mad,” Debra continued. “You just have to avoid eye contact and carry a big stick.”
“I don’t plan on looking them in the eye,” I snapped, agitated with her dog-attack prevention lesson. “And I won’t have a big stick. Only my walking poles.”
“Well, that will work, too,” she answered, missing my agitation entirely.
“I need pepper spray! If you don’t want to get it, then don’t offer,” I shot back. She was clearly missing the inevitable bloodbath I was facing ahead.
“Okay,” she said, sensing it was time to back off. I had worked myself into such a state of anxiety over the upcoming dog ambush that I was in no frame of mind to hear her out. She wasn’t going on the walk, so how dare she tell me how to handle wild dogs, anyway?
My Higher Self was watching me as I found myself tumbling headfirst into the lowest possible vibration I could sink into: fear. It was sucking me in like quicksand, and I struggled to stay afloat.
“Why are you suddenly so afraid?” I chastised myself. “People all over the world have walked this pilgrimage for centuries,” I reasoned. “And I haven’t read any recent accounts of unsuspecting pilgrims in Spain getting ravaged by dogs.” I checked the Internet.
And yet, because my fear of meeting up with wild dogs was so intense, I was convinced that it would be one of the first tests I would have to face while on the path. Coelho and MacLaine were spiritual students, and they both met up with vicious dogs. I’m a spiritual student, so why wouldn’t I meet dogs as well? Maybe it was part of the Camino curriculum. Of course, none of this made any real sense. I tried to get grounded and took a breath.
All my life I have prided myself on being a fearless warrior. It wasn’t that I didn’t feel fear. It was just that I didn’t pay attention to it. Feeling fear was a luxury I couldn’t afford to indulge in because if I did, I would relinquish my ability to take care of myself and meet my responsibilities. I felt fear standing in front of large audiences when I spoke in public. I felt fear before meeting new clients for the first time. I felt fear whenever I gave interviews. And I certainly felt fear over my upcoming divorce. But, in true warrior style, I ignored my fear. I trusted my spirit, my own wits, my Higher Self, and all my guiding helpers in the subtle realms to watch over and help me, and so I knew I’d be protected. Because of that, I managed to either deny my fear or bury it so deep I could pretend it wasn’t there at all.
As a result, the only thing I overtly feared was, well, wild dogs.
So, of course, they would be there to greet me. More and more I could see that this pilgrimage was going to be about facing and feeling all the emotions I had run from all my life. Clear back to when I was six years old. Or even younger.
Fortunately, I had too many other things to focus on to continue to indulge this fearful narrative any longer.
I had to get health insurance in case something went physically wrong (like being attacked by demon dogs), and I had to get trip insurance in case, for some reason, I couldn’t make it all the way to Santiago and had to change my flight back home.
These were obtained easily enough, with the help of the Internet and my American Express card. “Wow,” I exclaimed as I clicked on the purchase button again and again. “This is becoming one hell of an expensive pilgrimage!”
Another $1,000 later, both travel and medical insurance secured, I sat back and took a breath.
“I need to get on my way. The longer I’m here, building this whole thing up, the more difficult and costly it’s becoming. I just need to stop thinking about it, pick up my bags, and get going!”
I didn’t like all this precaution and preparation. I was turning into Patrick, preparing for the worst. This was so unlike me. I needed to get back to my spontaneous and trusting self.
“Screw Paulo and Shirley. I don’t need demon dogs to teach me lessons either. That was their experience. It won’t be mine. I’ve already had my dog lesson, when I was six. My Camino will be a much more peaceful and healing experience,” I insisted to the Universe. “I don’t need the drama!”
It felt good to shake off the cobwebs of other people’s experiences, I thought as I began to cram the mountain of stuff into my backpack. By the time I was finished, I had the equivalent of a dead body in weight in the backpack sitting across from me, with more supplies still on the floor, and no more room.
“I’ll never be able to carry this across the street,” I thought aloud, “let alone across the Pyrenees. How the heck am I going to do this with my fragile knee?”
As my assistant, Ryan, had reminded me, I’d recently had surgery to repair a cracked kneecap (which I sustained while kickboxing out my frustrations with my life), and I was still on the mend. I was able to walk well enough, but going up and down stairs was still painful some of the time. Suddenly, I worried that my knee wouldn’t be able to handle the load.
“You’re right,” it chimed in with a sudden sharp pain stabbing me out of nowhere, as if refusing the challenge. “This is too much for me.”
What to do? I knew there were companies that would transport your bag from town to town if you didn’t want to carry it on your back, and I had considered hiring one to carry my stuff for weeks but had not yet committed.
“Is that cheating?” I had asked myself more than once. “Is a true pilgrim only one who schleps her belongings on her back, suffering the journey as she goes?”
“But what if the weight is too much for my knee?” I countered. “Should I power ahead and hope I’ll gain strength as I go, or should I wimp out and have someone carry this 50-pound deadweight of a backpack for me?”
I lifted it up and strapped it on, deciding to give it a test run before I made up my mind. The first few steps around the house were easy enough, especially with my poles.
“I can do this, no problem,” I said to myself, feeling like Xena, the Warrior Princess. “Now let’s tackle the stairs.”
Going down was fine. But when I turned and took a step to go up, my knee buckled in pain and I let out a scream. “Ouch!”
I was on my knees. And it only took three minutes to get me there.
“Now what?” I asked myself. “Is this pilgrimage a bust before I even begin? Am I going to be a fake pilgrim? A designer pilgrim, instead of the real backpack-suffering deal?”
But, then again, I wondered, who I was trying to impress?
“It’s my pilgrimage,” I said out loud to the scoffing, judgmental voices in my head. “Who cares whether or not I carry the backpack myself and break my knee again. Who’s judging me anyway?”
I knew God didn’t care if I carried my backpack or not. Nor did my Higher Self and my guides. Only my approval-seeking ego did, the part of me who feared being judged. She was coming out of hiding along with my inner child like they were best friends or something, and I could see them more and more in plain sight. I thought about something Patrick had said to me before we had yet another one of our “I hate you” arguments recently.
I told him I was going to do the Camino, and he casually said, “Oh yeah? My good friend Tyson and his 81-year-old mother are going to walk it at the same time as you. And she’s carrying her own backpack the entire way! Are you?”
Are you? He knows I cracked my knee trying to kick the energetic crap out of him. What a jerk for asking me if I could keep up with an 81-year-old woman.
I slung the backpack back on and tried again. I walked around the house for a few minutes, my shoulders killing me, and then attempted the stairs once again. Two steps up, and I was down for the count.
“Screw Patrick’s insensitive comments,” I snarled, throwing my pack on the floor. “I don’t care if he or anybody else judges me. I’m not walking to impress a soul, so I’m not going to worry about it if I happen to ask for help. Maybe I need to learn to ask for help. I certainly heard that enough from my daughters and even Patrick over the years. I don’t like to ask for help, but I just may have to.
“That settles it,” I continued speaking aloud to my inner guilt-tripper. “I’m not going to waste any more time worrying about what other people think. No one cares about this but me. The only voice I need to listen to is that of my body. Ask it to decide. Not my vanity and fear.”
“Good advice,” I answered, talking back to myself. (Yes, I do that quite a bit, actually.) “What is good for my body?”
I sat with that question for all of 30 seconds and then came up with a great compromise.
“I’ll carry two bags,” I decided, a backpack and another bag. “I’ll carry the backpack on my back every day, with some stuff in it, but not enough to hurt my knee, and I’ll send the heavier bag ahead with a transport service. I’ll put enough in the smaller one to have it be somewhat heavy, and thus have the true pilgrim backpack experience, but not so much that it trashes my knee and I can’t make it.”
I was quite satisfied with this solution.
“Perfect,” I said to my body, out loud. “Only now I have to go out and buy a second backpack.”