درسنامه اصلی

Camino de Santiago: Food – Coaching Lesson

Hi, this is AJ, welcome to this month’s coaching lesson.

So there I was in Spain, with Joe in fact, on our second day hiking the Camino De Santiago. On the first day we started in France and we walked up the Pyrenees Mountains and over the top and then down into Spain. And we were super excited to be starting this great adventure, this month long hike across northern Spain. And, we were quite surprised actually, we were a little nervous may, I know I was about starting this adventure. I was a little nervous that, what if we get blisters or what if it’s too tough. But actually the first day up and over the mountains was easier than we expected and, of course, that’s because Joe and I actually did a lot of training before the Camino, so we were ready.

So we woke up the next morning and we both felt fantastic. We were not tired. We felt really energetic.

We were still excited and enthusiastic about doing the Camino at this great height, and so we got up full of energy. We had our quick breakfast, boom and off we went, starting the second day and we had plans initially. The plan was we would go height, probably about five or so hours, about halfway to the next city.

The next city was Pamplona, really the first city on the Camino. So we planned to go about halfway to Pamplona and then on the next day, day three, to go and finish in Pamplona.

So we started walking, we’re walking and we’re both feeling really good and we start off in these trees, it’s this beautiful countryside landscape right, walking, trees on both sides, really beautiful. Making our way through the Spanish countryside through the trees, actually going downhill a little bit and then we would also occasionally walk through little, small Spanish villages. So, in each village we had kind of a habit, we would go into the village and each of these little villages would have at least one small café, sometimes one or two small cafes.

And at the café’s we would always see other pilgrims, other people who were walking the Camino. So we would see them and we would stop by usually, sit down, have a little coffee, water or a little snack and we would chat with the other pilgrims, so it was a very fun, kind of social meeting, very nice. And then we’d stay for, I don’t know, 20-30 minutes and pack up again and keep walking. This was a very enjoyable kind of process.

Well, as we got to the halfway point we realized that it was still mid-afternoon and I looked at Joe and Joe looked at me and we both had the same thought. We said, let’s just, let’s do the whole thing. Let’s walk all the way to Pamplona. Let’s just do it, let’s go all the way. So all the way, that would mean 42 kilometers in one day, so a very long day. We were planning to do about half that and we looked at each other and we both smiled and said, let’s do it. And we decided there that we were going to walk all the way to Pamplona on day two. We were going to do 42 kilometers about, in one day, which is almost a marathon.

So, we were excited and off we went again, boom, we were going, walking, feeling really good. After six or seven hours, however, we did start to feel tired. The legs started to get a little heavy and a little achy, and we started feeling little hot spots. They’re called hot spots on our feet. That’s where your shoes are rubbing against maybe one spot on your foot and it’s before you get a blister you usually will get a hot spot. The rubbing will make that spot on your foot hot and if you keep going for too long you’ll get a blister. That’s when the water comes in and it raises up and it can become quite painful.

Now blisters: that was our big fear for the Camino. We knew that our muscles were strong enough. We knew that we were excited, that our minds were strong enough, but we feared the blisters because if you get really bad blisters it can be very painful and it’s hard to train your feet not to get blisters, so we were a little worried about it. So we’re walking along and it’s getting longer and longer, getting later and later into the afternoon, both of us are getting these hot spots on our feet, we start worrying about blisters. We stop and it starts feeling very long. We’re getting more and more tired and kind of hungry, because we’d stopped for a few snacks but we really didn’t have a nice big meal. Because we were going through such small places we didn’t see any like, decent restaurants to eat at, so we both just decided, let’s just keep going.

So we keep going, keep going and the sun finally starts getting lower and lower and lower. The hours go by. We’re starting to get really tired. Legs getting sore. Getting hungrier and hungrier and hungrier until finally, just around sunset, just before sunset, we see Pamplona, which is this great medieval city, kind of up on this hill. You know, the stone wall, the old middle-ages medieval stone walls and then we both got excited again, yeah great. We walked up this big hill to get into the old city with our tired legs and then as we came into the town, came into the city… really it’s a town it’s not so big… we came into the town and it was kind of a shock, because there were people everywhere. The streets were filled with people and they were all drinking and loud. It’s like this huge street party through the whole town.

The reason it was a shock is because for two days previous, right, when we were walking from France through the mountains and in through all these tiny villages, we had a very quiet life. We were in very small places, kind of out in nature, no noise. We got away from all the noise and all the busyness of modern life and suddenly, walking into the town we were hit with all the noise and busyness. I think for Joe, it didn’t affect him so much because Joe’s a much more outgoing guy who loves that kind of thing, but for me it was a bit of a shock. Oh, my God! It was a little too much suddenly, I like the quiet. I loved being out in nature and that kind of quiet feeling. So anyway, it was a shock.

Then we had to find our hotel. We had booked a hotel already, so we went through the streets looking.

Actually no, we had not booked a hotel but we knew where we wanted to stay, so after a long time walking through the busy streets and all these drinking people and craziness we finally found our hotel and got in there. I was so tired I just went up to my room. I ordered some quick room service and fell asleep and I slept very deeply and very well.

Next day, got up and I was starving, I was so hungry, because for two days we’d been walking and both of our first two days on the Camino were very, very, very long we walked a lot and we were eating, but probably not enough. So I’m starving and wanted food. I didn’t know where to go so I went down into the hotel and the hotel had a café. Sometimes in Spain they call them bars, but eh… In America a bar is a place where you just drink, but in Spain sometimes it’s more like, we would say a café.

So I went down there and I was wanting some breakfast. I was looking around on the counter and there was this little thing that looked like a cake made from eggs. And I asked the uh, I said oh what is this?

They said it’s a tortilla, tortilla, which confused me because in America a tortilla, we have the Mexican Spanish idea of a tortilla, which is like bread. But in Spain a tortilla is really more of an omelet, so it’s like an egg omelet, but it’s a different style. It’s actually really; it’s more like what we would say in America is a quiche. It’s like a very dense omelet and I got one with potatoes and cheese. And again I was starving so I sat down, this was my first Spanish tortilla, Spanish omelet and I ate it /ah/ it was fantastic!

They cooked it just perfectly. The cheese was just melted a little bit and had the little pieces of potato just right. I was like oh my God, and I scarfed it down, which means to eat something very fast. I was like oh that was fantastic! I went back to the bar and got another one; ate it again. And I think I got a third one that day, so I think I ate like three big pieces of Spanish tortilla and I also had, I can remember as well, café con leche, which means coffee with milk Spanish style. I had a couple of those as well.

What’s interesting to me is that I have such a strong and positive memory of that breakfast, and really it was quite simple, you know, it’s just an omelet with cheese and potatoes. Probably if I ate a cheese and potato omelet back in America in my normal life I wouldn’t remember it, wouldn’t even think anything about it. Would hardly even notice it, I’d probably just eat it quickly and not notice it, but that morning it tasted like the best thing I had ever eaten, right? I mean, and just all the little flavors and smells, I noticed all of them. That even the feeling, the texture of chewing the potato and the cheese in my mouth, it was all wonderful. I noticed all of those little subtleties. Same with the coffee with milk. I drink coffee with milk all the time, but I don’t know that one tasted better.

So the question is, was that meal really better? Were the cook’s just geniuses or something or was something different in my mind? I think that is actually what it is. Something was different in my mind. My senses, my sight, my hearing, my sense of taste and smell they were all heightened. We say heightened senses. It means they were sharper. It means I was noticing more things right. The colors seemed a little brighter. The taste seemed stronger. I was more in the present moment, noticing much more, heightened senses.

So that’s interesting, why is that, right? Why was it such a special experience that morning? I had many of these kinds of experiences during the Camino de Santiago, in fact. And I have such sharp memories of them, that’s the other thing is that even now, seven, eight months later, I still have such a sharp clear memory of that breakfast. It seems like it’s nothing special, but my memory is so clear.

Well, I think there are a few key points to this experience, a few key things that I learned from it and that maybe you can learn from it.

Number one is that in our normal life, over indulgence dulls our senses.

So we can say that in that Camino experience I had heightened senses or we can even say I had sharpened senses. My senses… taste, touch, hearing… they were sharper or heightened, right? They were more clear, more strong, more sensitive. Well the opposite is dulled senses, to dull your senses and in modern life in our day-to-day life, often we can have dull senses because we over-indulge. To overindulge means to do too much. For example, we eat too much or we eat rich heavy foods too much.

So, for example, if you eat an omelet every day, every day, every day, every day, maybe the first time you eat it you really notice it as something special, but after the 100th time, typically your senses are less sensitive. They’re dull, and you just don’t notice it as much, you don’t enjoy it as much. This is a common thing. It happens with all aspects of our life.

Another key point, the opposite of this is the tough challenges, especially physical challenges, tend to pull us back into the present moment. Right, because again in our normal daily lives we can get really distracted. I know with… many times for example, I’ll be eating breakfast but I’ll be thinking about the future, like what do I have to do today? I’ll be thinking about my business, Effortless English /Ouh/ what do I need to do? The thing like, I tend to think of the future more than the past, but some people will be thinking about the past. The point is though you’re not there in the moment right now. It’s easy to do in normal day-to-day life, especially with all the distractions, the phones and computers and TVs and all that stuff that we have to distract us and take us away from this moment, what’s happening right now.

What’s cool is though the tough challenges, especially physical, they kind of force us back into this moment right now. Right, because when I, for example, that day on the Camino because I was getting tired I started to notice my body, I noticed what was happening in the moment. I could feel the tiredness. I could feel the hot spots happening in my foot, in my feet. So I could feel all these things and they kind of pulled me back into right now, instead of thinking about the future, thinking about the past or being distracted. I was in the moment and that’s one of the key reasons I think the next morning, I was still in the moment so I was noticing everything much more and that was a happy experience, a very positive experience.

Final point about this experience is that we need contrast in our lives and sometimes we don’t realize this, sometimes we’re always wishing for the good and what we think is the positive and we think oh, if I could just have that all the time I would be so happy and life would be perfect, but it’s actually not true. So, for example, if you love food. It’s actually not true that if you could just eat, eat, eat, eat, eat all the foods you love all the time that that would make you happier. It won’t! It won’t! That’s the truth that’s just the way our brains work. The truth is, if you constantly eat what you love all the time you’ll stop loving it, because it’s too much, you’re over-indulging.

If you can imagine this experiment you can even try it if you want. Imagine your favorite food whatever it is. Maybe it’s chocolate or whatever, some pizza or whatever it is, it doesn’t matter what it is. But imagine if you ate that food every single meal, breakfast, lunch and dinner and you did that for one year or more.

Let’s say pizza, let’s say you love pizza for an example. So you eat pizza for breakfast, you eat pizza for lunch, pizza for dinner, pizza for snacks, pizza, pizza, pizza for one month, two months, three months; and on and on and on what would happen? Would you become happier? Would it be, oh this is the best thing in the world because I’m getting this pleasure that I love all the time? I think you know what would happen.

Eventually, you would get sick of pizza. After a while you wouldn’t really enjoy it anymore. It wouldn’t be pleasurable. And there’s a good chance that after enough time, you might even grow to hate it, right?

Have you ever had this experience? I have, where you work in a place like a restaurant or a place that has food. I remember I delivered these kind of sandwiches onetime and because I was an employee I could eat there for free. So every day I was eating those sandwiches, well you know, it seemed like a cool thing wow! Free food this is great and I like this place and I like their sandwiches. It seemed really cool but guess what? After about four, five, six months I grew to hate their sandwiches, I just got sick of it. It’s because our senses get dulled and eventually what was pleasurable becomes unpleasurable, if you do it too much.

So we need the contrast. We need to be full, for example, with food, to feel full and satisfied, but we also sometimes need to feel empty. We can only enjoy the fullness if sometimes we feel empty. Sometimes you’re hungry. You only enjoy eating, truly enjoy it, if you also experience hunger. I was hungry on the Camino, especially in the beginning. And so, I enjoyed the food so much more; I’ve had the same experience sometimes camping where I’ll go out and camp and get really hungry from hiking all day and then I’ll eat and it’s just the simplest food, just basic food, from a box even like, but it’ll taste so good that night because I had been so hungry before.

So we need is contrast. The key thing is that, even though we think if we just get pleasure all the time that we’ll be happier. The truth is we won’t. Some of the things, many of the things that we think are negative, actually can make us happier, that we need those things, we need to be deprived sometimes. We need to do without. We need tough challenges and difficulties, because they help us appreciate the easier times, the fun times when we get everything we want. Getting everything you want all the time is not a recipe for happiness it’s actually, usually a recipe for misery.

And if we can really understand that we can actually even train ourselves to sometimes, at least, to enjoy the tough times, to enjoy the challenges. I enjoyed that hike even though it was sort of tough physically, I felt very alive while doing it. And so, you also can teach yourself to /fi/ and to notice things more and to really learn to enjoy those difficulties, whether they’re physical difficulties or mental difficulties.

Okay. So, in our modern world usually the problem is over-indulgence, we have so much, it’s so easy, there’s so much food. In the United States, for example, even poor people are big and fat because there’s so much cheap food everywhere. So our problem tends to be, in modern life, too much. Too much food.

Too much laying around. Too much ease. And so, in modern life, for most people, not all, I know there are people who don’t have that experience but for many of us the problem is too much, and so it’s actually very useful to, by choice, to choose to have less, to choose to do without something that’s enjoyable or pleasurable.

By doing that you’ll help yourself appreciate it more again.

So, here’s your homework for this month. Choose one favorite pleasure in your life, something you love, love, love, love and that you like to do a lot. It might be a favorite food that you just love, love, love, love, love or it could even be some kind of favorite activity that gives you a lot of pleasure. Choose one thing that is very, very, very pleasurable that you get a lot of. You do it a lot or you get it a lot and for four weeks, just for four weeks this month, don’t do it at all do without. Foods an easy one, so choose your favorite food or maybe your favorite drink even and this month or four weeks, not at all, zero. Do without it. It might be tough I don’t know. Do without it.

And then, here’s the good part, the fun part, at the end of the four weeks have a little celebration and enjoy that pleasure again. Notice how much more you enjoy it and how much more you appreciate it and how much more you notice. This is a big thing, you don’t want to just be feeding yourself pleasure, pleasure, pleasure all the time you have to take a break from that sometimes so you can come back to it and appreciate it again.

So that’s your job this month. To do without something you love and then come back to it at the end.

I look forward to hearing about it. I think this’ll be a very interesting experience for all of us, so I look forward to hearing more about it on our social site or you can contact me on Twitter too and tell me your experience.

All right. See you next time. Bye.