My Misogi: On Hard Things, Humbling Yourself, and Walking Anyway
There's a Japanese concept called misogi — the practice of taking on one brutally hard challenge per year. Something so outside your comfort zone that just finishing it changes you. Not a goal you're pretty sure you can hit. A real one. The kind that makes you question your life choices somewhere around kilometre 18.
I'm all in.
How It Started (As Most Good Things Do: Slightly Unhinged)
Last year, I decided I wanted to walk the Camino de Santiago. Simple enough, right? Except I'm a functioning adult with a business, clients, and a calendar that doesn't exactly have a "disappear to Spain for a month" slot built in.
So I sat down to plan it, and the planning did what planning always does — it humbled me immediately.
A month wasn't realistic. So what was? After some creative calendar gymnastics, my husband and I landed on something better than I'd expected: skip our usual Mexico escape this winter and do a European getaway instead. Together first, then he heads home and I start the Camino solo.
What began as 2–3 weeks of walking is now just over a week. The warmer weather I'd imagined? A little optimistic — though honestly, cooler temperatures are better for walking anyway. And instead of setting out from León, I'll be doing the classic final stretch: 120 km from Sarria to Santiago de Compostela. The rest of the route? I'll walk it in sections, over time. Different years, different legs of the same long journey.
I'm writing this from Spain, my husband still beside me — for now. In a few days, I'll be on my own two feet, alone on a centuries-old path, carrying everything I need on my back.
Honestly? I can't wait.
The Road Itself: A Little Context for the Uninitiated
If you've heard of the Camino de Santiago but aren't quite sure what it is, you're not alone. It gets a mention in movies, on bucket lists, and in hushed tones from people who've done it and come back looking like they know something the rest of us don't. So here's the short version.
El Camino de Santiago — "The Way of Saint James" — is one of the oldest and most famous pilgrimage routes in the world. It's a network of trails across Europe that all lead to one destination: the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Spain, believed to be the burial site of Saint James the Apostle. People have been walking it for over a thousand years.
There are many routes. The most popular is the Camino Francés, which begins in the French Pyrenees and covers about 800 km. I'll be walking the final 120 km stretch from Sarria — which is the minimum distance required to earn the Compostela, the official certificate of completion.
Historically, the Camino was a religious pilgrimage. Today, people walk it for every reason imaginable — spiritual seeking, grief, recovery, adventure, midlife reckoning, a desire to slow down, or simply because something in them said go. What strikes me most is how little it has changed in its essence: people from all over the world, walking the same ancient path, carrying what they need and leaving behind what they don't.
There's something quietly radical about that.
What I'm Already Learning (And I Haven't Even Started Walking Yet)
You have to try to know. I had an idea in my head of what this would look like. Reality laughed warmly and offered me something different — and arguably better. You don't get to know if something is right for you from the comfort of your couch. You have to show up and find out.
It's okay to start small and adapt. 120 km is not "settling." 120 km is 120 kilometres on foot through the Spanish countryside. Starting with the most iconic stretch of the Camino and building from there isn't a compromise — it's a strategy. Progress over perfection, always.
Mentally and physically challenging yourself is essential for growth. We talk a lot about self-care in the wellness world, and I'm a big fan — but somewhere along the way, self-care started getting confused with comfort. Real growth lives at the edge of your capacity, not inside it. The body needs to be pushed. So does the mind. That's not punishment — that's how we find out what we're actually made of.
Age is just a bullshit concept. (Said with full affection and zero apologies.) There is a persistent, deeply patriarchal narrative that at a certain point — a certain age, a certain stage of life — women in particular should be slowing down, scaling back, choosing sensible footwear and sensible ambitions. Hard pass. The Camino will be full of people of all ages walking for all kinds of reasons. I intend to be one of them, blisters and all.
Arriving on Good Friday: When the Timing Isn't a Coincidence
I'll be walking into Santiago de Compostela on Good Friday — and I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel the weight of that timing.
Good Friday is, of course, the Christian commemoration of the crucifixion of Jesus — a day of suffering, surrender, and what appears, in the moment, to be an ending. And yet it sits just before Easter Sunday, which carries the whole point: that what looks like an ending is sometimes the necessary passage to something new.
I'm not here to preach. But I am someone who works with people navigating some of the hardest chapters of their lives — grief, transition, burnout, the quiet losses that don't always have a name. And I know that the symbolism of arriving at the end of a long, hard road on that particular day is not lost on me.
The Camino itself is often described as a metaphor for life — you set out with a plan, the terrain changes it, you keep walking anyway. Some days are gorgeous. Some days your feet hurt and the path seems endless and you wonder why you thought this was a good idea. And then you round a corner and there it is: the cathedral spires of Santiago rising above the rooftops, and hundreds of years of footsteps beneath your feet, and the very specific joy of having done a hard thing.
Walking in on Good Friday feels like arriving at the threshold. Whatever I'm releasing, whatever I'm beginning — I'll be doing it on a day that has held that exact energy for centuries.
There's something in that for all of us, I think. The reminder that endings and beginnings are often the same moment. That the hard stretch is part of the arrival. That the path — however long, however unexpected — was always taking you exactly where you needed to go.
What I'm Hoping to Find Out There
I hope to disconnect from the noise — the notifications, the news cycle, the mental load of running a business and a life — and reconnect with something quieter.
I hope to remind myself that I can do hard things. Not just survive them, but enjoy the process of them. The discomfort, the uncertainty, the one foot in front of the other when you're not sure how many kilometres are left — that's not the obstacle. That's the whole point.
I have three half marathons and a full one this year. Each year, a new misogi. Each year, proof that I am capable of more than I thought.
The Camino has a saying pilgrims share with one another along the way:
Buen Camino.
Good path.
Here's to finding yours — whatever it looks like, whatever distance it covers, whatever pace you need to walk it.
Ready to Choose Your Hard Thing?
The Camino taught me something before I even laced up my shoes: the hardest part isn't the walking. It's the deciding.
Deciding that you're worth the effort. Deciding that you still have something to prove — to yourself, not anyone else. Deciding that this year is the year you stop collecting inspiration and start creating evidence.
If any part of this post stirred something in you — a flicker of what if, a quiet voice saying I could do something like that — I want you to pay attention to that. That's not wishful thinking. That's your next chapter knocking.
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You'll leave with your Misogi chosen, your plan mapped out, and the kind of clarity that comes from finally putting a stake in the ground and saying this — I'm doing THIS.
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Because here's the truth: you don't need more inspiration. You don't need another saved Instagram post or a quote on your vision board. You need proof. Proof that you can still do hard things. Proof that the woman you're becoming is stronger than the roles you've been playing.
The Camino gave me mine. Let's find yours.
