Happiness

Day 3 of Project 2015

An interesting morning for both of us as we both awoke to rather vivid dreams. Le dreaming about crowds and queues and buses heading in wrong directions. David dreaming about villains chasing him into water and then him fighting back.

We are by no means experts in dream interpretation but could our dreams be a sign that we need to start shaking any negativity away from us?

For Le – is there an element of moving on and feeling confused about where she is going? There is a lot of chaos and people around that are hindering what she needs to do?!

For David – is he trying to run away from something toxic in his life? He needs to face and fight rather than run?

How it would be wonderful to be able to know what our dreams mean? One of our goals also for this year is to try and practice lucid dreaming – all as part of our spiritual discovery.

Summary of January 3

Newbies

We woke up earlier than usual and went for a 7km walk this morning. We felt so refreshed and energised the entire day.

Brighter/Different Perspective

As the sun started to shine it’s fiery rays down, we began to get weary but came across this Indigenous Sculpture: “The Serpent”. The way we also see this, is an arrow up. That there is always an “up” to every down 🙂 No matter what we dream, as long as our conscious stays happy and uplifted, we can continue achieving anything.

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Putting our words to practice…

Where do we go post-Camino to have a break and relax? We go to Paris, where else? And moreover, we are hoping that the lessons we have learnt on the Camino have stuck, and where else to practice than a city with 2.2 million people and where 27 million tourists come to visit a year.

Yes, culture shock straight away but this time, we see this city in a completely different light to what we did pre-Camino! Our biggest thrill was getting to eat something that wasn’t “Menu del dia” (i.e. Menu of the Day). We had lots of choice now gastronomically 🙂

We took a day trip to Versailles & you could describe it as a day riddled with challenges that normally we would’ve acted differently. But with only less than a week since completing our Camino, maybe we have faced our first chance to practice what we learnt!

Today we got rained upon, we got blown away, we had to line up for over 2 hours, we were surrounded by hundreds of people squeezing through tiny doorways and we had our train cancelled and needed to find another way back to the hotel.

Not once did we lose our cool and not once did we utter a negative comment and not once did we resent the situation we were in. Hopefully, we are beginning to realise that the negative reactions creates nothing else but pain for ourselves. And why would we choose to do that?

All the while, we accepted the situation we were in and carried on. We saw lots of other emotions in our fellow travellers and we just knew which ones we wanted to be – the happy and carefree ones that don’t let these type of things spoil their experience. Because until we can learn that this is part of the experience, we will never really be happy.

Day 40 – Portomarin to Palas de Rei

The weather was glorious today and we felt so fortunate to have the blue skies. But even when it rains we feel fortunate. We cannot stop smiling and being happy.

We walked with a wonderful friend that we met back in Belorado and we have constantly been running into her since. We have become Facebook friends with her and some people you just click with and she is one of those people we were meant to meet on the Camino (at least that is the way we see it).

We saw more cows on the road and have seen the scenery change so much since when we started. There were teenage school students on the trail today and as noisy as teenage students are, it didn’t both us one teeny tiny bit. We chatted with some and we just enjoyed the hectic-ness. We were once kids so why get grumpy or annoyed at them. They were there like we were – to walk the Camino.

And slowly this walk has shown us so much already and over the 40 days…. We know what makes us happy!! We have found the font of happiness. It is within us. It is within appreciating every moment of the now. It is up to us. We choose whether we are happy or not with our situation. It is not our situation that makes us happy. It is not our travels that makes us happy. It is not the things we own that makes us happy. It is not the sun that makes us happy. It is US that makes us happy.

All those things that we enjoy and might contribute to our decision to be happy but ultimately, seeking happiness doesn’t need to be too far from home. There are things that we love that adds to our choice of being happy such as our families, our friends, our travels, our humble home, our life experiences, our hobbies and interests and so when we are back home or away from the Camino and we feel a little down… we know what it is that we need to reflect on, to help us turn our frowns upside down!

Walking this Camino has made us both so happy and as we said a few posts ago, we feel so free! We want this feeling forever so we will work to achieve it as it is up to us. It may be as simple as just living in the now! This opportunity to slow down and hit the refresh button has really given us a new perspective on the way we need to live our lives. We can make it happen and be happy while working full-time jobs or not. The choice is ours and always has been but until we were ready to see it, it was never going to be found!

 

 

 

Day 24 –Terradillos de los Templarios to Bercianos del Real Camino

(yesterday’s post that we couldn’t get online)

When we left this morning – it was still pitch black despite it being almost 8 am. The dark clouds were looming but we managed to escape any rain – thank goodness!

We could be hitting the wall right about now. Although we manage to do the 26-odd km on back-to-back days, we are finding that today was really hard on the body. Tomorrow is 26 km again, so it will be interesting to see how we hold up.

Each step seems to be taking slower and the body seems to not want to cooperate. But at the end of the day- we get here just like any other day so far.

It’s been a couple of interesting days on the road. Seems like the hordes of pilgrims are dispersing into their own rhythms now as we are seeing fewer and fewer. And once again as we have had a rest day, we are walking amongst the next lot of pilgrims so are not recognizing anyone… back to making new friends! 🙂

Today we reflected whether this walk would bring us even closer together. We only had our 6-year wedding anniversary a week ago and so are still very early days into being veterans at marriage but we have lots that we are proud of. We are no experts nor are we saying our marriage is perfect but we talked about the strengths of our relationship and what we were happy about it.

What is it that we think we do good?

  • We are more than just husband and wife, we are best friends, we are a team!
  • We work through things together and we talk about everything. There is literally no topic that is considered taboo between us.
  • We are open about our feelings, we call a spade a spade to one another – there is no tippy-toeing and there is no right or wrong when it comes to opinions!
  • Every night, whether we are on holidays or at home, we make sure that we climb into bed together. And we greet and farewell each other with a kiss and a cuddle.
  • We appreciate one another. We are married and we consider ourselves as our own “family”, so we place US first when we make any decisions.
  • We do things together because it makes us both happy.

Yes, we disagree/argue/fight or whatever you want to call it. But we never go to bed angry, we never walk away from a fight and we never argue on the phone. Our arguments are always face-to-face. We make sure there is a clear end or resolution to the disagreement and then move on. We don’t revisit those discussions or dwell on them.

The other thing that irritates us so much is when marriages are described as “give-and-take” or “happy wife, happy life”! We know these phrases are used in good humor but not only are they inaccurate, it is so overused and BORING!

A marriage is not about compromising or negotiating. We don’t give and we don’t take from one another. We don’t need to buy one another gifts. We haven’t celebrated Valentine’s Day since the first few when we started dating. We don’t buy birthday presents or Christmas presents for one another as we would rather experience something together to mark those important dates (i.e. a musical, a nice dinner etc). And as for our wedding anniversary – it is probably the most lavish gift we give to one another and that is to always spoil ourselves with a trip away! It’s become a tradition for us 🙂

Everything belongs to us so we decide together what we do, what we want, what we need, what is best for us. It isn’t about a trade-off… it’s not about bargaining…. It’s about knowing and understanding what is important to the other person and being supportive and happy for them if they are happy!

Bottom line, it is about doing what makes us both happy and constantly showing our love for one another.

The Camino has definitely brought us even closer together. Although, we are having tough and draining days, we are having so much fun and can still smile knowing that we are doing this together. We wouldn’t have it any other way! As we walk; when the going gets tough, we stop, have a sip of water then cuddle! A big cuddle is the best re-charge ever 🙂