{"id":1922,"date":"2015-09-22T09:53:51","date_gmt":"2015-09-21T23:53:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/robscamino.com\/?p=1922"},"modified":"2018-04-17T10:38:06","modified_gmt":"2018-04-17T00:38:06","slug":"the-post-camino-blues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/robscamino.com\/2015\/the-post-camino-blues\/","title":{"rendered":"The Post Camino Blues"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Post Camino Blues are real <\/strong>for many people.\u00a0\u00a0 So it makes sense to be ready for it……<\/h1>\n

I had read a lot about Pilgrims arriving in Santiago and going through a sense of loss.\u00a0 A ‘let down’ that their journey was over.<\/p>\n

As you will have read in my Blog I was ready for that, but didn’t experience it.\u00a0 Largely because Santiago was never my real destination.\u00a0 It was the point at which I would go home, sure.\u00a0 But the journey itself was always my destination.<\/p>\n

But many certainly wander about Santiago with a\u00a0sense of sadness and loss, mixed of course with their joy of having completed their journey.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But what when you get home from your Camino?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

I talked a little about the transition stage on the Blog here: 19th of June – Post Camino Progress<\/a><\/p>\n

But it’s\u00a0now 3 months down the track.\u00a0 I recently made contact with some of the Pilgrims I met along the way and was surprised to find they were suffering the Post Camino Blues.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Thinking about it, I realised that I probably was a bit too.<\/p>\n

So what is it?\u00a0 And how do you cope with it?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What are the Post Camino Blues?<\/h2>\n

It seems to revolve around two things.<\/p>\n

Firstly, a sense of loss or lack of purpose<\/strong>.\u00a0You’ve got used to a new routine on your Camino.\u00a0A Rhythm of Life that is vastly different to the one you have back home.<\/p>\n

You rise early.\u00a0 You get lots of physical exercise, you eat heartily. You may have socialised more than you normally would.\u00a0You have lots of time to yourself and time to reflect.\u00a0 Lots…….\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And you are not rushed.<\/p>\n

And all of this took place in an environment that was focussed on a goal; a goal\u00a0that was common amongst your whole ‘community’.\u00a0You were walking to Santiago de Compostella.<\/p>\n

So once your Camino is over, not only have you lost that sense of overall purpose that kept you going through the good times as well as the bad.\u00a0 But the community you shared that experience with has gone too.\u00a0 And by community I don’t just mean the Camino ‘family’ you may have spent time with and come to know so well.\u00a0 But everyone around you…..was sharing that common purpose in some way or another.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

And secondly<\/strong>, you might find it hard to ‘fit in’ at home.\u00a0 Part of it could be that lack of purpose and drive.\u00a0 It’s also I think, that you feel a bit like a fish out of water.\u00a0 You have changed, perhaps a lot.\u00a0 But everyone at home has probably remained the same.<\/p>\n

They may not understand what you have been through.\u00a0 They will certainly begin to tire of your endless Camino stories!\u00a0 (You had to be there to get it)<\/p>\n

And perhaps you are questioning your sense of purpose, rather like you may have during your Camino?\u00a0 Your priorities may have changed.\u00a0 Maybe you have a very different sense of what is important to you?<\/p>\n

Instead of all the time in the World to get things done, with no immediate hurry, there seems to be a mountain of things to be done.\u00a0 Many of them you may think are trivial,\u00a0meaningless and not that important.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Good News and the Bad News<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Good News.<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0 I’m told by many of the ‘old hands’ that all of this is quite normal.\u00a0 It just takes time to adjust to life back home.<\/p>\n

The Bad News<\/em><\/strong>.\u00a0\u00a0 Well not that bad really!\u00a0\u00a0 But those same ‘old hands’ suggest that another Camino is really the only way to tackling those Post Camino Blues………<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Post Camino Blues Treatment?<\/h2>\n

Well’ I’m certainly no expert and definitely not a psychologist.<\/span>\u00a0 But the common advice seems to be this:<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Talk to other Pilgrims<\/span> about what you are feeling.\u00a0 This Forum is a great place to do that: Camino de Santiago Community<\/a>.\u00a0Lots of very caring and helpful members who have ‘seen it all before’.<\/li>\n
  2. Give yourself a new<\/span> purpose.\u00a0 Replace that Camino goal with something else that will fill the void.<\/li>\n
  3. Don’t bore your family and friends to death!\u00a0 Read #1 again \ud83d\ude42<\/li>\n
  4. Try to reflect on the lessons you learnt on your Camino, and maybe start to put some of them into practice?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Someone even suggested to me that the hard work really starts when you get home from your Camino……<\/p>\n

    That might just be true….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    The Post Camino Blues are real for many people. So it makes sense to be ready for it…… I had read a lot about Pilgrims arriving in Santiago and going through a sense of loss. A ‘let down’ that their journey was over. As you will have read in my Blog I was ready for that, but didn’t experience it. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1933,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,10,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","category-emotional","category-reflections"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/robscamino.com\/2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/robscamino.com\/2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/robscamino.com\/2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robscamino.com\/2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robscamino.com\/2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1922"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/robscamino.com\/2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1922\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2611,"href":"https:\/\/robscamino.com\/2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1922\/revisions\/2611"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robscamino.com\/2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/robscamino.com\/2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robscamino.com\/2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robscamino.com\/2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}