95 - John Brierley - Ch 4 - "The Camino: A Path of Transformation" - The Docuseries

Ever wonder about the transformative power of pilgrimage? Discover the awakening process of the Camino as John shares his inspiring thoughts on how the Camino can be a path of transformation. This walk stirs both physical and mental shifts and invites Camino Pilgrims to embrace transformation and shedding identities.

John emphasizes the importance of listening, a skill he admits was a personal struggle but one he honed during his many Camino journeys. This isn't just about hearing— it's deep, judgment-free listening that allows others to feel truly heard. More importantly, it's about tuning into our own inner wisdom and higher consciousness. Join us for this episode and you might just find yourself embarking on your own inner pilgrimage, listening more attentively to the world around you, and to your own profound depths as you recall a past Camino Walk or prepare to walk your first or next one.

Watch the video versions of Chapters 1-4 of this docuseries, filmed on location in Santiago de Compostela, Spain, on our YouTube page.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6VN9ze3z61n6tRLtDXWuQw 

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:05

I'm John Riley. The Camino has a path of awakening to fear for love.

Speaker 2: 0:21

So, john, as we begin to wake up as you call it right, we're awakening. At that point the Camino begins to kind of weave into a path of possible transformation. Let's talk a little bit about what that means to you.

Speaker 1: 0:36

Well, you know, we, again, we have to accept that there's something within ourselves that we want to transform, otherwise there's nowhere to go on it. But you know, the pilgrimage to me, built into that, is a sense of transformation. We're trying to change something within ourselves, we're trying to change an old conceptual model that perhaps doesn't work for us anymore in our lives, either in general or personally, and we want to transform that into something else. So, again, the Caminos give us that vehicle, that time away out of the familiar in order to bring the transformation process into being. We're walking, finding ourselves walking, partly letting aside, letting go our old identity, but we're also walking with people who, in a sense, we have no identity. For us there's no history. We're walking with strangers who then become, of course, not only we're leaving behind the strangers, they become family, but we're walking with like-minded people Along the Camino.

Speaker 1: 1:40

If we people are walking as a pilgrimage, everybody is on some journey, some seeking some journey of change, and so, therefore, when we sit in a cafe, when we come together as our little Camino family, the discussion is all about those deep issues. What does transformation mean? What are we trying to change? What is it about our old life that doesn't work anymore. So we suddenly find ourselves in this wonderful sort of mix of ideas and suddenly this support network begins, because often if we're at home when we start talking like this, you know they begin to think, gosh, we need the folk in the white coats or something like that. But on the Camino that all changes and there's a sort of an openness to this discussion, to the big question, to the deep questions of life and the conundrums that come up for all of us.

Speaker 2: 2:39

Yeah, and you talked about the gift of being heard, but also the responsibility as a program, as being a listener.

Speaker 1: 2:49

Yes, I think that's a really important point. I mean, certainly in my life I have not been a good listener, but along the Caminos I have become a better listener. Listening happens also on two levels. So we need to listen to each other and be able to respond as appropriate. But listening means you know we're not making a judgment on what somebody is saying, we're listening, we're taking it in so the other person feels heard.

Speaker 1: 3:19

But the other crucial listening is we have to start listening to the wise voice that is part of us and we're not familiar with it. We're not used to either listening to each other and we're certainly not listening to whatever we want to call that wise being, that higher consciousness, the angels, whatever words resonate with you. But we know when we're actually going deep in and really listening beyond, if you like, ourselves, beyond the sort of persona, beyond the drama, the dream that we've created for our identity, our egoic identity, and we're now listening to a deeper place and that's crucial. Also on the pilgrimage, we have to start listening to our hearts, however you want to describe it. We know when we're listening at that deep level. The listening happens on two levels, just as the pilgrimage happens on two. Parts is the outer part, the physical part, and there's the inner part. That's what's needed to be there, thank you.