Sometimes our most trusted strategies fail miserably in the face of reality

 

There are a couple of ways to walk a camino depending on the amount of time one has in advance to plan the experience. Because our decision to was fairly spontaneous we opted for what I would call a “supported” experience. We hired a company to do the planning for us; They booked our lodging, and transported our bags. Because the route was often sparsely marked they also provided us with extensive and detailed written directions and maps. The directions were originally written in Portuguese and later translated into English by a person working in the tour company's home office in Ireland . The translations were charming. We learned to look for “unkept and unmade footpaths that might tend to be sodden in the rain” “farmhouses living in isolation”, and “tarmac (paved) roads". We quickly realised that the written instructions were so detailed (often telling us when to turn as often as every two hundred meters in a twenty mile day), and the maps so vague (with no clear landmarks at all) that they were completely useless. We ended up confused or lost and sometimes missed a turn, or a beautiful view because we had been glued to our bundle of papers instead of the path itself. 

 

On our second day we walked from Pavoa de Varzim to Esposende, Portugal. We began by the beach but quickly turned inland and spent the majority of the day walking through agricultural land in the countryside. We were walking in the right direction but had clearly missed a turn as we read that we were supposed to be beside the ocean that day. We came to the small town of Fao early that afternoon; back on track we nevertheless made a fair amount of wrong turns as we negotiated our way around the town’s cathedral, cemetery, and central park.  Fed up with our instructions we stopped for a glass of port, our “go-to” strategy when lost and frustrated. Refreshed, we eventually found our way to a large bridge that led us out of town. We laughed when we read our directions and they instructed us to “enjoy the view to our left”. As usual our directions were detailed in all the wrong ways! 

 

By the time we reached our hotel on the outskirts of Esposende we were hot and tired. Lumpy, red bumps had shown up on our legs; we called it our “camino rash” and it was to come and go frequently over the next two weeks. We began what would become a daily ritual: grab a cold beer on the way to our room, take a cool shower, and put on our “cozies” to read and nap until dinner was available at 9:00 pm.

 

I remember that afternoon as particularly pleasant. The windows were open and the sun was shining across my bed. Anne was next to me, on her bed, organizing our directions for the next day. As I dozed I could hear her separating pages and jotting notes. Every time I woke up I could hear the scratching of her pen. After what seemed like a really long time I woke up for good. Anne was still making notes. 

 

“Oh my gosh! Are you still working on tomorrow?” 

 

The look of self-satisfaction on her face was memorable! “Yes. I’ve finally got the directions in a way that make sense. There’s no way we’ll get lost!”

 

I took them from her to see what she’d done. And then I started laughing, I mean, really laughing, laughing until I was crying. I love and admire my friend, but in that moment I wasn’t laughing with her, I was definitely laughing at her! She had taken an hour to underline and number every bit of four pages of single spaced directions. She had annotated our entire day! She had a strategy and by God she was going to use it! 

 

She grabbed her notes away from me, but not before I snapped a picture of one of the pages. It remains my favorite photo of the entire trip.

 

“So, you think this is going to help?” I asked when I finally caught my breath.

 

“Yes, I’m a visual thinker!” 

 

In the morning off we went, rested and strong. My friend confident in her plan to lead us straight to Viano de Castelo, eighteen miles ahead. 

 

It’s easy for me to make fun of Anne because I recognize so much of myself in her. So often it’s me who is frustrated by the particulars of life. I get anxious or sad or mad. I want to feel comfortable again. I focus on what seems to be the problem and I think: “If I could just get this under control, my life will be under control!” I try my best to conquer the source of my agitation. For me, especially in the past, I've had one technique, one tool in the tool box, to solve most every challenge: The power of reason. Somewhere deep inside I have believed that if I can just get him, or her, or even life to just understand my rational point of view then surely he, or she, or life itself will cooperate! 

 

I’ve had two husbands in my life who have both mentioned that I should have been a lawyer. I used to think that was a coincidence until my son grew up, skipped that suggestion, and told me straight out that I "should have been God". I don't think it was a compliment! Clearly my strategy of "rationality"hasn’t worked well relationally; In truth, it has brought me less of the respect I crave, not more. I’ve even tried, and failed, at using reason on myself.  All of those times I’ve tried to reason away my feelings have never brought me the relief I sought, only damage to my spirit and psyche. You'd think I would learn, but alas, having been of some use in navigating a childhood where I was raised by two parents who met on a debate team, inflicting "reasoning" on others has been a strategy that is challenging to give up. 

 

While it’s never appropriate to tell the particulars of another’s story, I know enough about Anne’s background to understand that her effort to formulate a detailed, numbered plan when overwhelmed, makes perfect sense. Intuitively it is a strategy she still trusted until The Camino taught us both that Sometimes our most trusted strategies fail miserably in the face of reality. 

 

I watched with humor as Anne’s trusted strategy did indeed fail miserably the very next morning. 

 

We hadn’t been walking an hour before I watched as she became confused as to where we were in relation to her numbered instructions. I smiled as I watched her frustration grow. Her solution wasn’t working. We kept stopping. She kept studying. She became more glued to the papers in her hand, not less. Soon, and this is one of the things that I love and admire about my friend, she recognized her failure, cried “Uncle”,  and laughed at herself. “F this. Let’s just walk!” 

 

Only a few minutes later I noticed Anne’s steps becoming more deliberate; she had a new strategy, and this one turned out to be a winner given the challenges of our route. “I say we keep the ocean on our right, and the highway on our left and just walk forward. We’re bound to get there eventually.” A new plan, a new purpose; it sounded good to me.

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Reflection:

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We all have our own personal strategies for managing our agitation and bringing us what we think we need. Usually we developed them as tools to cope with less than perfect child-hoods. When we continue to use these coping strategies as adults, and find they do more damage than good, we call them "character defects". While we can honor our patterns for having helped us navigate as children, it is good to grow weary of them when they become counterproductive to forming healthy adult relationships. Maybe it's anger, or aggression, extreme fragility or guilt, hiding, isolation, numbing, sarcasm, denial,  or even perfectionism;  The list is as endless as the number of kids grown into self-protecting grown-ups. The problem is that what was once a solution has now become a problem, not only for us but for those who choose to be in relationship with us. As with so much, awareness is the first step towards change.

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     1.  What were some of the emotional, or behavioral coping strategies that you learned to use as a child to get what you wanted and needed?

     2.  Which of these strategies have you used in your adult relationships to get your needs met? Did they help? Did they leave you still wanting?

     3.  Are there some self-defeating strategies that you still struggle to surrender? Can identifying them help you to identify areas where you might be experiencing current important, and unmet needs? 

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                                        Today, awareness is enough.