Tag: depression

Symbols of Walking the Camino de Santiago for Mental Health on BackaBuddy

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As I plan the next Pilgrimage, I reflect on how I got to this point and how my embarking on this journey to raise awareness for Mental Health has both negatively and positively impacted those in my circle, my community and my life in general … and the corresponding impact others’ attitudes, words and actions have had on me.

Depression has become that kind of familiar place that I am now able to visit—albeit unintentionally—and, despite the mostly unbearable discomfort and burning desperation to either just die or get out, I can sit in the stench of it and allow it to show me the neon signs of my next destination.

Sometimes I simply want the signs to say, JUMP! or TAKE A VERY LONG WALK INTO THE OCEAN! Sometimes I don’t want to notice the EXIT sign because life outside of this black hole can seem too scary compared to this familiar discomfort. Most times, as in this current case, the signs are so glaringly powerful that they kick my ass out of there with no choice but to follow the trajectory they are pointing me to.

When I stopped anaesthetising the discomfort of my dysfunctional marriage with alcohol and sugar 15 years ago, I took to running … and running … and running some more. And when I again chose an abusive relationship that ended in verbal and sexual violation, I walked 450km in Portugal on two separate and consecutive Camino de Santiago routes. 

Sitting in the trenches of this most recent depression, I was booted out only on reaching the point of knowing the only thing that could literally save me was to walk … far … long … intensely and intentionally … and in collaboration with my most pronounced character trait and, consequent greatest value: showing up in service to individuals, communities and to the environment in a manner that allows whatever it is that life is wanting to live through me.

I can inordinately deliberate over choices. Reaching the decision to walk 1,000km across Spain, and subsequently coming to the realisation that I wanted to do it in an altruistic manner, however, happened in less than 24 hours. It took another 24 hours to reach the decision to turn it into a community collaboration by launching a BackaBuddy fundraising campaign to ask for support in order to support.
https://backabuddy.co.za/campaign/walking-for-mental-health

With full transparency and gut-wrenching vulnerability, I have revealed truths about the foundations of my innate need to walk and my motivation around raising awareness for Mental Health whilst guiding others on their own unique walks to wellness. And I have revealed my desire to do this through my existing social media channels, a new YouTube channel and on a crowdfunding platform so that others can ride the karmic wave of altruism and awareness. 
https://linktr.ee/Walking_for_Mental_Health

Asking for help is the most difficult thing for me—it exposes me to the vulnerability of growing up with no support. I may as well be standing stark naked in front of the cathedral for how open my heart is in the asking. This led me to writing about the Symbols of the Camino de Santiago and back to the beginning paragraph which I will elaborate on in another post that will detail each of the most significant (to me) of the symbols and how they have highlighted so rapidly the support, direction and purpose that have come from somewhat unexpected places.

These astounding growth moments in life shake up my prior beliefs, hopes and accidental expectations and fully recalibrate my mind, my heart, my soul and the entirety of my very being into a new stronger holding pattern that weaves a new narrative around the thread … that single piece of fibre … I am left holding, when all else has unravelled.

This is the end. And what I choose to weave—and with whom—is where I begin.

Walking for Mental Health

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I have been a quiet activist for most of my life, starting as far back as pre-teen when I thought donating my pocket money would end world hunger.

I have also been a not to quiet activist, getting hate mail when I was feeding hundreds of people made homeless in the settlement in Hout Bay.

I’m not so naive that I expect this campaign or even the work I do to change the world; what I do know though is that if I die a pauper having helped just one person survive the darkest moments of their life then that is a rich life indeed.

What it means to live well means different things to different people. For some it is accumulating money, status and possessions and for others it’s about relinquishing such things. Some people require luxury and some need simplicity and there is no right or wrong. The key is integrity, authenticity and self-reflection on the meaning that is being lived through you and how that motivates you to purposeful living.

For many years I accumulated as much as possible feeling my prior years life as a sensitive activist was washed away by the perception of a waste of time.

My years in investment banking and consulting was like putting a metal cast on a grazed knee—it was the ultimate burden that almost killed me by first breaking the spirit of who I was meant to be in the world.

As I stripped away the layers and left myself exposed to those who couldn’t understand my giving up my feathered nest, I recognised that behind the criticism of many was that longing to also find meaning … and the intense and debilitating fear that often prevents it.

I have shadow boxed with depression and addiction my entire life. A recent confrontation with depression, addiction and dysfunction has helped me address the relationship these have with connection, childhood trauma and hyper vigilance around personal safety, boundary violations and feeling the need to give myself away in order to be accepted … to exist even.

Depression and addiction have deep roots and, although I have done decades of work on my childhood traumas (neglect, abuse, violations, hyper-vigilance and a lack of safety), as well as adult traumas (rape, relational and familial abuse, breakdowns, grief and self harm), I have to be vigilant. Sometimes my only saviour is feet in running shoes on mountain trails. Some call that an escape, others call it an addiction. I call it survival, serenity, self care. Running and hiking have always been my medicine; my means to process and progress on an ever-deepening spiritual path. Writing and story telling are my other elixirs. So, when looking for a passage through this mental health crisis, I recognised the Camino de Santiago as that tool that could save my life.

Grief is not always about losing someone you love, it can also be about losing aspects of self; it can also be mourning the loss of a person still alive and grieving the person you could have been if things had only been different.

My immediate aspiration is to walk 850 to 1,000kms across Spain from 17 Sep to 4 Nov ’25 whilst advocating for Mental Health with the sharing of tools & techniques with fellow pilgrims, to create a new narrative through coaching and story telling. I will also offer craniosacral therapy along the way.
My long term goal is to use the unique combination of my qualifications, wisdom and experience to initiate teenagers from disadvantaged communities into nature therapy (using my years of experience and studies in social development) as well as corporates (using my long history in Investment Banking and Consulting).

“My ugliest parts, when met with mercy, can become my greatest assets.” ~ Frank Ostaseski

My work is not to help people live the kind if life I have chosen to live; it’s to show them that they have their own way and to help them uncover and/or develop the tools that will enable them to find the path that will appear only when they take that very first step. It can be overwhelming deciding (in the head) which of the myriad paths to take until a felt (in the heart) sense is realised.

To support me to support others whilst walking the Camino de Santiago, please click on the link to pledge your support:
https://backabuddy.co.za/campaign/walking-for-mental-health
I offer donor incentives in the form of vouchers for specific minimum donations.

The amount you donate will contribute to my pilgrimage to giving the topic of mental health the bandwidth it needs and supporting me to support others as they too walk to wellness. Together we can remove the stigmas attached to the topic of Mental Health and support people in their times of crisis and healing.

We begin so we can end and we end in order to begin again.
Let’s get people walking their talk to better mental health.

Scan this QR code for my LinkTree,
which contains all the relevant links for you to follow, support and share the campaign
as well as the work I do both here and abroad.

PRESENT Traumatic Stress Disorder

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#PTSD currently is more PRESENT Traumatic Stress Disorder but even though it is anchored in past events and how they have been stored in your somatic nervous system and the cells of your body.

We are navigating a collective trauma that encompasses all of our individual traumas and this is being compounded by polarisation over differing beliefs and opinions rather that finding connections through commonality; compounded by judgemental othering rather than holding onto our humanity, and compounded by sinking into fear rather than rising into faith. You see, fear and faith are the same thing — both require a belief in something intangible and unseen.

Unfortunately we are living through a time of overwhelming #fear for most people and, because almost everyone has some form of mild to major trauma embedded in the cells of their body, it has become difficult to focus on faith. Added to this, being confronted with masked faces and/or people turning away when you pass them in public, it is impossible to orientate to feelings of safety and any latent trauma gets compounded and then either internalised through depression, fatigue and anxiety or externalised through rage, anger and aggression.

Research around the vagus nerve and the subsequent model by Stephen Porges called the Social Engagement System speaks directly to this. For more information: https://www.polyvagalinstitute.org

Healthy Vagal Tone plays a crucial role in emotional and physical wellbeing by regulating the balance of your parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous systems, reducing inflammation and balancing your breath and heart rate variability. Any tools and practices that stimulate the vagus nerve will calm the body and better equip you for resilience through better homeostasis of your system.

General Vagus Nerve health can be optimised through regular Craniosacral Therapy sessions.