When you’re focused on crushing the path, you miss the point of walking it. A stretch of the Camino taught me the difference.
The Mistake I Made in Spain
In 2022, Bill and I walked one leg, a 17-mile stretch, of the Camino de Santiago in Spain. I showed up the way I show up to most things — ready to conquer it.
My husband and I were fit. We trained. We had good boots and a great attitude and absolutely no intention of being passed by anyone. When we hit the hills, we powered up them. We moved fast and felt strong and quietly — if I’m honest — wondered why so many of the other pilgrims were walking so slowly.
They were taking their time. Stopping to talk to strangers. Pausing to look at the view. Some had been walking for weeks, carrying questions only the road could answer. And from where I stood, moving fast and feeling righteous about it, I thought: we’re making good time. I couldn’t see what I was walking past.
Then I woke up the next morning. Surprisingly, achingly sore. My legs had a lot to say — and none of it was flattering. I’d treated a pilgrimage like a workout. And my body knew the difference, even if my ego didn’t.
What the Slow Walkers Knew
Here’s what hit me the next morning, in the soreness: those pilgrims weren’t slow. They were wise. They weren’t behind. They were exactly where they meant to be.
They weren’t walking the Camino to prove something. They were walking it to experience something. The villages. The people. The conversations that happen when you’re not rushing past them. The internal shifts that only come when you stop performing and start being present.
The traditional greeting on the Camino is Buen Camino — “good journey.” Not good pace. Not good time. Not good finish. Good journey.
I’d been so focused on conquering the path that I’d missed the point of walking it.
Returning to Portugal Differently
Bill and I are just back from Lisbon — legs still remembering the cobblestones, the hills, the way every corner asks something of you. Lisbon is where the Portuguese route to Santiago begins; its first stages follow the old Caminho do Tejo, the Tagus Way, north along the river toward Santarém. But here’s what the guidebooks gloss over: almost no one actually starts here. Most pilgrims begin farther north, in Porto. So Lisbon doesn’t exactly swarm with backpacks and scallop shells — which made meeting Kristina feel like a small gift.
Kristina, a lawyer from Los Angeles, had just come off a stretch of the Portuguese Camino. We clicked immediately — I told her she reminded me of my daughter. She’d set out to walk it as a personal challenge, and it had handed her far more than that: long conversations with people from all over the world, and one full day spent walking alongside a retired couple in their seventies that she counted among the highlights of the whole trip.
When I asked what the trail had taught her, she didn’t mention mileage or elevation or how many days it took. She talked about slowing down — about how the people and the moments she’d have walked right past became the whole point. I sat there nodding, because she was naming a lesson I already knew by heart: the one the Camino drove home in 2022, when my sore legs finally said what my ego wouldn’t. We’d already had the reframe. But meeting Kristina — our first night in Lisbon, on a group city tour, of all places — brought it home all over again. The Camino had sent me a teacher, and this go-round I welcomed the reframe with open arms.
In 2026, Bill and I arrived in this corner of the world with a different perspective. We didn’t try to see everything. We didn’t make a list at all. We woke up without an agenda and let the day unfold. We sat in cafés longer than necessary. We got lost on purpose. We talked to locals and fellow travelers who shared their stories over shared tables. We followed what felt interesting instead of what felt productive.
The result wasn’t a vacation we’d documented. It was an experience we’d actually lived. Not force. Flow.
What This Has to Do With Your Body
Here’s where I’ll bring this home: so many of us are doing to our bodies exactly what I did on the Camino, treating every workout like something to conquer. Head down, same pace, same weights, eyes on the finish line — regardless of what the day actually brought us.
But your body isn’t the same every day. Some days you walk in ready to grab heavier weights and surprise yourself. Other days you’re dragging — jet lagged, emotionally spent, running on empty after a full weekend or working through something hard. The pilgrims who’d been walking for weeks weren’t slow because they were less fit. They were walking at the pace that day required. Some days, your metaphorical Camino gives you energy. Other days it humbles you. The wisdom is knowing which day it is — and responding to what your body is actually asking for instead of what your ego demands.
And here’s the uncomfortable truth the Camino taught me: the goal was never to conquer the path. The goal was always to be present on it.
That’s not weakness. That’s wisdom. And it’s exactly what your body has been trying to tell you all along.
Name, Claim and Reframe® the Rush
- NAME: “What am I walking past in the name of progress?”
- CLAIM: “My body is not a path to conquer. It is the journey I am already on.”
- REFRAME: “I don’t have to force my way forward. I can match my pace to the day, stay present to the moment, and trust that presence is more powerful than performance.”
Your Buen Camino Practice
1. Read the Day. Before your next workout, pause and honestly ask: what does my body actually need today — to push or to restore?
2. Match Your Movement. Honor the answer. Grab the heavier weights if you’ve got it today. Choose the walk if you don’t. Both are the right choice.
3. Choose Flow Over Force. Notice one place this week where you’re demanding the same performance regardless of the day. What would it look like to respond to today instead?
Buen Camino
I’m home from Portugal, and my legs are still talking to me — this time in the best possible way—the cobblestones, the hills, the long lunches that turned into longer conversations. I didn’t conquer anything. I didn’t need to.
I showed up. I stayed present. I let the journey be what it was instead of what I’d planned.
That’s available to you too — maybe not in Lisbon, but in the next workout, the next walk, the next moment you catch yourself missing what’s right in front of you.
You don’t have to conquer the path. Slow down and savor the moments along the way — they are what life is all about. Buen Camino.
Andrea Mein DeWitt, M.Ed., PCC, CPCC, is the Global Authority on Cognitive Reframing and author of Name, Claim & Reframe: Your Path to a Well-Lived Life, recognized by NBC’s TODAY Show as 2023’s best motivational read (now available as an audiobook), and the companion Name, Claim & Reframe Workbook, that provides practical exercises for applying these principles. Through her coaching, workshops, and writing, she helps ambitious professionals transform their perspectives to unlock their full power and potential. Learn more at andreadewittadvisors.com.
