Openness on a pilgrimage: what it changes along the way

When you go on a pilgrimage, you give up control for a while. Your bed for the night isn't always settled, the weather certainly isn't, and in the evening you sit at a table with people you hadn't met that morning. Openness on the road mainly means allowing this to happen. You need neither a firm faith nor any special temperament.

Why openness is worthwhile on a pilgrimage

Conversations start almost by themselves. You walk beside someone for hours and talk about blisters, then about work, and at some point about faith or life at home. Many people rarely have such conversations in everyday life. If you join in, you hear points of view that don't come up in your own circle.

Then there is the quiet. On the old paths of the Way of St James and elsewhere you often spend hours in nature, with no appointments and no screen. During this time, thoughts surface that have no room at home.

How to leave your comfort zone

Start small. Speak to someone in the albergue, stay at the table a little longer one evening, accept an invitation to walk together. Plan a day without a fixed destination now and then. You don't have to become someone else. Leaving a few habits behind for the length of the trip is enough.

If faith matters to you, pilgrim masses, churches along the way and conversations with other pilgrims give it space. Many use the time to deepen it. Others arrive with no religious intention and still end up sitting in an open church.

What this can change

Nobody can promise that. Some people come back and see their lives differently, while others are simply content and tired. What many report is that they know better afterwards what they need and what they don't, and that they are calmer about the unknown. The encounters with pilgrims and people along the way often stay in the memory longest.

Keeping something of it

Write down what is on your mind as you go, and take some time after you return before everyday life starts up again in full. Stay in touch with the people you met on the way. If you set off with an open mind, you don't have to bring back great insights. A few good conversations and the knowledge that you can cope with less of a plan already count for a lot.