Coming Home to Yourself: A Journey of Reclaiming What Matters

May 30, 2025

Elizabeth Sabet

Coming Home to Yourself: A Journey of Reclaiming What Matters

At almost sixty, I found myself standing at the start of the Camino Inglés in Ferrol, Spain, carrying more than just the weight of my backpack. Seven days and 117 kilometers stretched ahead of me—a pilgrimage I’d chosen to mark this milestone birthday, hoping to clear out the old and open my heart to whatever the next twenty years might hold.

Nineteen years earlier, I had walked the full 500-mile Camino Francés alone, a different woman on a different journey. This time, I wasn’t seeking solitude but celebration, not silence but integration. I could sense a big change coming in my life—that intuitive knowing that sits just beyond the edge of conscious understanding—and I wanted to surrender to it with faith and joy rather than resistance.

What unfolded on those Spanish hillsides revealed possibilities I hadn’t imagined—and showed me that it’s never too late to step fully into who you’re meant to be.

When Your Body Becomes Your Greatest Ally

Three bouts with COVID had left my lungs compromised, and those first three days climbing hills became an honest conversation with my current reality. Each steep incline required frequent stops, each labored step revealing how I’d been moving through life without fully inhabiting it.

But here’s what I discovered: our bodies aren’t obstacles to overcome—they’re wise teachers offering us exactly the information we need. That moment when familiar routines no longer work? It’s not a failure. It’s an invitation to find a better way.

For the past seven years, I’d been navigating major life changes, sometimes defaulting to old patterns: the automatic yes, the assumption that flexibility and forgiveness meant adapting to others, and the belief that I could push through anything with enough determination. But what if those patterns were simply outdated software, ready for an upgrade?

The Magic of Finding Your True Rhythm

Around day four, something beautiful happened. I found my rhythm—not by fighting the hills, but by learning to breathe with them. My body and spirit moved in harmony, and I remembered what it feels like to be fully alive in my own skin.

This is your birthright too: that sense of flow when you stop forcing and start trusting yourself. When you listen to your inner wisdom instead of shouldering expectations that were never yours to carry.

Recognizing Patterns as Doorways to Freedom

The final day brought an unexpected gift disguised as a challenge. Plans changed and it was decided not to break up the last kilometers into two days, moving forward to reach Santiago a day earlier than planned.

This day nearly broke me. What I was anticipating being a victorious entry into Santiago became a test of endurance. I hit what’s called a hiking wall and my body didn’t want to move. As I struggled up those last hills, feeling my body betray me again, I realized I was carrying the weight of more than physical exhaustion. I was carrying the weight of old worn out adaptation behaviors.

Halfway through that emotionally painful and physically exhausting final day, when my daughter walked back on the trail to check on me, I nearly surrendered to defeat. But something deeper than stubbornness kept me moving forward—perhaps the understanding that this physical challenge was teaching me something essential about myself and detoxing stored emergency emotions stored in my body. And that would be my victory.

Instead of judgment, I felt clarity. This wasn’t a character flaw or a failure—it was simply information. A pattern that had served me once but was ready to evolve. And in that recognition, I discovered something powerful: every pattern we outgrow is a doorway to more authentic living.

The Moment Everything Comes Together

When we reached the cathedral square in Santiago, I felt waves of gratitude—not just for completing the walk, but for the 95% of the journey that had been pure gift. The natural beauty that lifted my spirit, the kindness of strangers, the care of my daughter and encouragement from my companions, the simple joy of putting one foot in front of the other while my heart opened wider with each step.

The next day, as I stood in that same cathedral square, something extraordinary happened. Whatever “I” am—that essential self that had been scattered and fragmented for so long—physically dropped down into my chest, settling into what I believe is the soul’s home in the body. I felt it as a literal, visceral sensation, a profound sense of completion and peace washing over me as all the pieces of myself finally came together.

In that moment, I understood that the Camino had given me exactly what I’d asked for: not a roadmap for the future, but the strength to trust the journey ahead. I had walked myself back into my own body, back into my own life, back into the understanding that taking care of myself isn’t selfish—it’s essential.

The path forward became clear, not in its destination but in its foundation, built with dignity and compassion.

This is what’s possible when you stop performing your life and start living it. When you trust that you already have everything you need within you—you just need to remember how to access it.