Santiago de Compostela, Spain

“I no longer need to rely solely on others to provide my sense of worth.”

We took advantage of the oversized beds and blackout curtains in our first day without Camino Kilometers to walk. We allowed our bodies to rest overnight and late into the morning.

Once up, we rolled ourselves out of bed, had a beautifully casual breakfast at our hotel surrounded by butterflies in the garden, and then soaked in the city. The Cathedral of Santiago Apóstol was the obvious first choice, since yesterday’s introduction was a passing one. There was no way I could appreciate the facade amid my decomposition on the cobblestone after the journey. The sky was open and the breeze made our pack-free bodies feel light and unburdened.

Walking up the steps, we saw the hundreds of other tourists and pilgrims assembled to get inside for morning Mass. We chose to forgo the crowd and head to the museum. In retrospect, it would have been worth the wait and discomfort of busy-ness to complete a tour of the Cathedral and go down into the crypt, which contains the remains of the apostle James. I had hoped to revisit the next day to go up to the main altar, embrace the statue of Saint James, and get a full view of the Cathedral.

We found very minimal souvenirs on the streets of Rúa do Franco, Raíña, and Rúa do Villar in the historic quarter. I knew that the main souvenir would be amazing chocolates from a shop down a small alley for all of my parents who pitched in to watch my sons while I was on this adventure. The classic Camino Seashell logo was stamped on everything and anything you can imagine, and one or two small items made it into my pack for the journey home.

The one thing I had set my mind to as a reward for this journey was a large chocolate cake and a new sundress. I wanted to scrub the dirt out from under my toenails and the tortoise skin off my arms and legs, bask in the sunshine, surrounded by flowers and foliage, with a large cake to fill my belly with. I had in mind something like Aurora or Snow White, lying in a field, billowing fabric all around, but with a large chocolate cake to fill every vein with sugary joy. The perfect undoing of all the hard work my body had done. It really was the image that kept my feet moving through the blistering sun and blistering toes in the last few days.

Santiago had other plans, however. Instead of shopping for a sundress, the cloud cover and intermittent rain demanded that I shop for a sweatshirt. Given that it was July, this task was much harder than I thought. I didn’t want anything to be hard. I wanted simple. I wanted my Aurora vision. At the end of the afternoon, with the rain coming in, I found a cozy, overpriced sweatshirt and accepted the pivot with as much grace as I could muster. We stood in line for gigantic burgers and French Fries at a nearby pub bustling with locals and tourists, then took our loot back to the hotel. The wine that D bought helped to make the night feel marked with magic.

Some kind of sporting event was on TV in Spanish, so we rested our bodies, and I took the time to meditate on today’s CoDA Promise #10:

“I no longer need to rely solely on others to provide my sense of worth.”

I was in denial about where I got my self-worth, even up until now. It was unfathomable that I needed it from an outsider, however, I was mostly praised when I was achieving good grades… while balancing a part-time job…. while being involved with friends, church, and family…. while anticipating the emotional needs of everyone around me. I was just a teenager when I knew that the best way to be heard and seen in my family was to be the Good Girl that no one had to worry about. Classic Middle Child. But the word “soley” in this day’s Promise gives me a little bit of an out.

While it is unnatural to think that I will ever get to the point that I simply won’t care what others have to say about who I am in the world, it is a reminder that their feedback should only play a small role. Ideally, I will become healthy enough to find the majority of my identity in God’s creation of who I am – what I am naturally good at, what I am draw to, how I like to express myself for myself and others, how I like to express love and care, and how I find strength and grounding in life’s turns. By being proud of who I am, I would need to descontrust the lie that pride of self is a sin.

Pride isn’t boastful, but rather, it is respecting & appreciating how God made you. You have self-worth because you are a son or daughter of God. Beautifully and wonderfully made. Your sticky points aren’t flaws, but rather, avenues to seek His mercy, guidance, patience, and grace every time they come to light. There is no shame allowed when you are living in the light of who you were created to be. Shame doesn’t come from God. It comes from the world, from comparison, from expectations imposed by self and others, and from the struggle that is caused by trying to escape the inevitable flaws we are all born with. Your Humanness, my humanness, it’s what makes self-worth so elusive – we are taught to fight our humanness, or at least, hide it the best we can with curated social media posts, highlight reels told at dinner parties, and manicured spouses and children for others to see, & minimized needs as to not burden other people.

This Promise reminds me to stay focused on the healing journey. Do the Next Right Thing. I will continue to curate my environment, which COVID already taught me, to only include those people, places, and things that speak to who I am becoming on this healing journey, not who I used to be as my old self. So, I can acknowledge that I have been on a journey to withdraw my need for approval from outside sources, all while knowing that some part of that will never go away. And that’s ok.