“I get knocked down, but I get up again.
You’re never going to keep me down.”
Ugh! I reach into the daypack draped across my chest, and rummage around for my MP3 player. It has slipped somewhere between one of my water bottles and the ripped baggie with toilet paper, hand sanitizer and sunscreen. I fumble over the fast-forward button and skip through a half dozen songs.
This a different kind of post from me. It’s a slightly edited email note I recently wrote to a group of friends in San Francisco asking about our walk. After re-reading it, I decided it could also work here. It’s very much what’s on my mind these days.
Our first week walking has been full of surprises. Every day we learn something new, and the practice of living in the moment has taken on new meaning.
We headed out of Bangkok uncertain of what lies ahead, but knowing that we had to stop thinking about the big overwhelming mission of crossing Asia and Europe. We had to shift our focus to the here and now. Out walking, the best we can do is have a weekly goal, a daily objective and an hourly status check to see where our bodies and heads are at. We measure progress step by step, minute to minute and one kilometer to the next.
This past week gave us many opportunities to test this “right now” game plan. What we’re learning most is how to manage our own expectations of what this trip will look like on a day-to-day basis and what our bodies can handle.
Click here for the English version.
There are things which a man is afraid to tell even to himself, and every decent man has a number of such things stored away in his mind. ~Fyodor Dostoevsky
En el nostre últim bloc, publicàvem les nostres grans pors. Algunes d’elles entren per la porta gran de la categoria d’esgarrifoses o molt preocupants, tot i que esperem que la probabilitat d’ocurrència de totes elles sigui ben minsa o nul·la. Per molt que pensem en elles, no hi ha gaire a fer des de casa mentre preparem el viatge. Bé, una cosa sí que podem fer, i és quedar-nos tancats a casa, paralitzats i sense arriscar-nos, però això no ho farem.
Respecte a les petites pors, aquestes també son fotudes per que la probabilitat d’ocurrència d’unes quantes d’elles no és que sigui petita, sinó que és totalment certa i real. Algunes de les situacions es donaran tard o d’hora i el problema és que ens agafin amb la guàrdia abaixada. Aquestes petites pors son les que son com un corcó que ronda inexorablement per dins els nostres caps i fàcilment ens pot treure el son.
Aquí tenim un exemple d’un temor que va afectar a Jenn durant la travessa de Catalunya, durant els 585 km del GR 92. És quelcom que Jenn està treballant i aprenent a gestionar i superar.
Aquí teniu el post en Català.
There are things which a man is afraid to tell even to himself, and every decent man has a number of such things stored away in his mind. ~Fyodor Dostoevsky
In our last post, we listed our biggest fears. While some fall into the “very scary” category, a good number of them are unlikely-to-happen, worst-case scenarios. They merit concern and forethought, but there’s not too much else that can be done about them.
Often , the tougher part is dealing with the “little fears” that show up out of the blue. These are the worries that worm their way into your head, and create a domino effect that can get the best of you and ruin a night’s sleep.
Here’s one of those little things that turned me upside down during our GR 92 walk last summer, and something I’m learning how to work through.
Continue reading Slaying Demons