You're at the Coaching Inn, 3D Coaching's virtual pub where we enjoy conversations with people who engage in the world of coaching. Hi, I'm Su, Managing Partner at 3D Coaching, and I'm delighted that this morning I'm going to be having a conversation with Claire Pedrick about her great adventures in the Camino. So, Claire, I wonder if we could just start off by you telling me what would be useful for you to know at the end of this conversation that you don't know now.
I'll answer that question in a minute, but I just want to acknowledge what you just said to our lovely listeners. I'm going to set a bit of context to what I do. I just like to affirm the context that you just set. This is Sue, who is the new managing partner of 3D coaching. Because one of the things about my Camino is that we moved everything around for good. So I'm still working for 3D and Sue is responsible for running the business, which is very exciting.
And I'm so excited that you said that. Thank you very much. So going back to your very good question about what would be useful. So I've been back 10 days, and I guess by the end of this conversation, I would love to have settled some of my learning and begun to work out what some of my insights are. Sounds good. And also I'd like to share with a lot of listeners who've gone to me, how was the Camino?
I'd like to share some of the stories because there's an ethical question, isn't there, in a coaching session or in a supervision session or in a training course when people say, I'd love to hear all about your Camino, that actually our time there is to do something else and not for me to endlessly say what happened. So this is a good place to share, right? Absolutely right. Okay, so great. We've got some really good things to think about. Ben, Claire, and what would you like from me?
I'd like you to poke and challenge me, actually, because I think I've thought about a few things, but I know that probably the learning from this thing is going to emerge over the next long time. And I think that with gentle prodding, a little bit more might emerge today. Cool. Okay, some gentle prodding. And it feels like the outcome is a little bit beyond here and now, right? But if you could see what it might look like at the end of this time.
Well, I've got a little in my Camino notebook, which weighs 60 grams, which I carried all the way there and all the way round and all the way back and didn't write in. Did you know? I've got, I've got. A few notes of some other things. And if I had a few more, if I started another page of things to kind of sit with, that would be just fabulous. Wonderful. So that's how you'll know you'll be able to see something perhaps on your notebook, which isn't there right now.
Yeah. Good. So a starting place. Where's best? Well, I think for the benefit of the listeners who are going, what are they talking about? It's probably worth me just setting a little bit of context about what I did and why I think I did it. Yeah. So I was 60 this year. I am 60. And 10 years ago, I wanted to walk the Camino, which is an ancient pilgrimage route across Spain. What I know now that I didn't know before is that there are many Caminos.
But I tried to do that in 2013 and started preparing in 2012 and then things happened and I wasn't able to train and therefore I wasn't able to go. So, four years ago, 25 years ago, 2017, this time of year, October, we drove the Camino with a friend of ours who was a Spanish Ophile and really loved the Camino and he had motor neurone disease and his wish was to have walked the Camino and because he couldn't, we agreed to drive it.
So we drove from Bilbao to Santiago and He made us promise that two things he made us promise. made us promise this is myself and his wife. He made us promise that we'd walk it. And whether he made us promise or whether it was a joke, I don't know, but we also agreed to have a tattoo. so that kind of emerged and then he died from motor neurone disease in 2019. We were going to do it in 2021, but because of Covid. we didn't even really get further than wandering. We didn't plan.
No. And then Margaret was also 60 this year. And so we decided first of September, got it in the diary, we were going to do it. And the plan was 600 kilometres. 600 kilometres. And so it was a pilgrimage. was a promise. It was a war. And it was a fundraiser because we've been doing a number of fundraising walks over the last five years for the Motor Neurone Disease Association, which is the disease that John had. And yeah, so it was a fundraiser as well.
So it was kind of all of the above and an adventure. which I don't think I'd thought about until we were actually doing it. Right, OK. So that's the context. OK, wonderful. Thank you for describing all of that context. And so I wonder what strikes you about the things, Claire, that you learnt, whether that was en route, whether it's since you've come back, what are the top things that come to mind? I don't know where to start really. Beginning. Well, I learned that I could do it.
I learned that we hadn't really taken seriously what it was we were going to do, even though we had taken very seriously the training, the traveling light, the getting as little kit as we needed in order to be able to do it. And I don't think we really realized what we were doing until the last day when we were doing the last five kilometers. Wow. Because when you start walking 600 kilometres, you can't really think.
I think it's for us, and I can only say what it was like for me, but for us, I think standing at the first step and going, we're about to walk 600 kilometres is completely mind blowing and impossible to grasp. And we had a little Facebook page where we were sharing stories and somebody wrote the day before we left. She said, all you need to do is get up in the morning and take one step at a time. And that's what we did every morning. took one step at a time.
There'll be more about the story of the fact that I took five buses in the middle because I had an injury. But you every morning we got up, we did it. And then suddenly when we got to a hundred kilometers left, there started being way markers with the distance on. And they were ridiculously close to each other. So one of them would go 58.326 kilometers. And then the next one would go. 58.178 kilometers. And you want to go, well, I knew that because the last one was there.
But actually that counting down thing was really interesting. But the emotion started coming when we got to 2015. And there was, and when we got to five, that's when it was all a bit overwhelming. And three of the four of us were really very tearful. I think for many reasons, one is that we'd done it. Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's at that point that you realize the size of the thing that you've just done at the end. so that was amazing.
And, know, learning about goals, you know, in coaching, talk about goals, but actually sometimes they're just completely, we're heading for a destination, but we can't really grasp what it's going to be like. And you've just got to get up and do it every day. And the one of the things, another thing, No, no going back, because you're always heading in a forward direction. Yep. We met the most wonderful pilgrim several times on the route. Her name was April.
She came from Chicago and she was laughing with us one day and she said, no backsees. So we were staying in a hostel and there were two ways back to the trail to the way because the Camino Kamino means the way and everybody calls it the way or the Kamino. yeah, so no backsies. We could have either gone back to where we'd left it, but that would have meant revisiting some steps or we could move through the town and join it on the other side, which meant we missed a bit.
Yeah. She's going no backsies. Hmm. Actually, that's quite an interesting life lesson, isn't it? Because you can't go back. Yeah. So, yeah. Was there a sense that you might want to go back? Well, of course, I'm going to go forward. So I now have an injury and later today I'm hoping to have an x-ray to see whether I have a stress fracture on my foot. But as soon as I'm fit enough to walk again, I am planning to do the Camino Portuguese, which is a different way.
Yeah. from Portugal into Santiago and that's two weeks. But that will be different. And because I'll meet different people. So the walking bit will be the one step in front of the other with your backpack on will be similar, but the experience will be different. But you know, so many pilgrims get to Santiago and we heard an amazing story of a couple who'd walked from the Netherlands, a married couple. And they got to Santiago, it's took them three months.
And the first thing that he said to her when they got to the square was, I want us to walk back, to walk home. And she went, not on your life. Absolutely. So you might want to go back, but it would actually be a new experience, right? Yeah, totally. So I missed five days because I injured my foot and had to go on the bus, which is another story of learning all of its own. And I would like to return to do those five days.
But of course, the five days will be completely different because I will be with different people. The weather, the climate will be different. The way will be different. It will be different. But I kind of. I just want to do it because they saw some beautiful things and it was all along the North coast of Spain by the Picos de Europa, which are the peaks in the North of Spain. it just, I just love to. The annoying thing is that of course, as we arrived home last week, we were match fit. right.
You could have done it all again. Yeah, you could do it all again because you're completely well, I was match fit and a bit broken. But you could you could technically do it all again. Whereas of course, if you return in a year, you've got to get match fit again. Hard work. It's a lot of time. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That felt like a real challenge when you when you had the issue with your foot, the injury. I wonder What sort of learnings were there in that class?
Well, I think the first learning was that I had to be really sensible. I know people think maybe it wasn't sensible subsequently to limp 340 kilometres. But in the moment, so I'm walking along and I suddenly felt a kind of twin ping in my foot and it was just absolute agony and I could barely weight bear and it was just horrible. And we'd been looking for a cafe for ages. So although you can look on the map and see where there might be a cafe. When you get there, the cafe might not be there.
And if it's there, it might not be open. So it was another five miles, probably, to a cafe. So I'm hobbling along this five miles, which was probably a good thing, because by the time we got to the cafe, I just went, I can't carry on. Yeah. I mean, all sorts of amazing miracles had happened because there was a message from somebody who was a bit ahead of us on the on the way.
And she'd said, when you get to Comelas, especially if it's a weekend, because it's a Spanish seaside resort, was the beginning of September, it was hot. She said, you won't, the hostel is very full and accommodation is very difficult. I recommend that you book. And the only thing that we'd been able to book was a four star hotel, which was a bit annoying because we were really enjoying staying in dormitories for eight euros rather than a five, four star hotel.
that wasn't a very nice four-star hotel. But anyway, were on, so we were on the way to the four-star hotel. So we got to this cafe and I just knew that I had to be sensible. You know, we had four, more than four weeks walking ahead of us. And I knew that being brave was the most ridiculous thing to do. So Andrew, one of my companions, got the barman to ring a taxi. Nobody answered the phone. They're very used to broken pilgrims, I now know.
We were pretty confident that in the end the taxi driver would, the man in the bar would manage to get me a taxi. So I asked my friends to go on because they were, they had a long way to go. had a lot more kilometers to go under the, you know, over the next day. So they left me in the cafe. At which point two other pilgrims arrived. They just popped up who we'd met in previous days.
One of whom was April who... I think will be mentioned a thousand times in this podcast because she just kept popping up. But in April, if you're listening, hello. So it was about being really, really sensible. But of course, at that moment, I realized I don't speak Spanish. Because Andrew speaks Spanish, so I didn't need to speak Spanish. no. So now here I am in a cafe, not speaking Spanish, then in a taxi on the way to this hotel.
So I get to the hotel and I said to the, she checked me in because of course you can check into a hotel earlier than a hospital. So that was amazing. And I said, I need to see a doctor. Can you tell me where there's a doctor? So she wrote down the address of the medical center and I said, would you be able to ring them? tell them that I'm coming and I don't speak Spanish. So she rang them, told them I don't speak Spanish.
And then I'm thinking this is a complete adventure all of its own because Claire you've got to learn how to navigate now on your own and you've got no plan. You've just got to work it out. And fortunately there was an adventure in me from being in my twenties that I'd forgotten about because she's You know, that part of me has brought up two children, had a job, paid a mortgage. Yeah. And, you just don't do those adventury type things.
And as much as the whole Camino is an adventure, think being on my own, no plan. You've got to work it out as you go. I loved it. Did you? Absolutely loved it. Even though I'd get up in the morning and know that I had to get the bus. In Cantabria, which is where we were when it happened, there are no bus stops and bus timetables don't agree with each other.
So you'll look at the one on Google Maps and it'll say one thing and then you'll look up the bus company and it'll say something else and then you'll find one in a shop and that says something else. And then you're trying to find the bus stop, but the bus stop isn't marked and there's only one bus a day. So it's kind of high stakes. Yeah. Yeah. And you've kind of got to trust the process and work it out as you go and trust the goodwill of others who you meet on the way.
I learned very quickly that you ask five people and if two of them agree, it might be right. I learned how to say where's the bus stop. I wasn't so hot on understanding what they then said to me. But presumably they pointed in a direction. Yeah. So, you know, you have to, you have to really be living on your wits. The doctor said, she just looked at me, peregrino means pilgrim. And then she told me in very basic English, said, I don't speak much English, but I do understand.
So I said, so I'll speak. Ice can speak to you and you can speak to me through Google Translate, but actually she just took one look at my foot and just went, five days, ice, rest, no walking. And it was quite nice to have the decision taken out of my hands. Yeah, absolutely. What did that moment feel like for you? It was terrible. 10 years in the making. Yeah. And of course that first day I'm going to catastrophe. I'm going to have to go home. I'm going to slow the others down.
It's never going to get better. How am I going to know? And I just had to kind of put all those fears to one side and think, well, I need to get back the 800 meters to the hotel. I need to do what she told me, which is to get ice. And the receptionist just kept bringing me ice. She was amazing. And I was able to watch telly in the... in the hotel room, which we hadn't and I started Spanish lessons on my phone and was reading a book and catching up on the arches and doing all those good things.
And then the next day, when I got up and managed to find a bus, which was a whole tale in itself, because it was like 90 minutes between getting it to the bus stop at the time, it said there would be a bus and a bus arriving. But somebody in a bus uniform who had a bus of his own, who told me it wasn't his bus, no, no, no, was sat in the bus stop in his bus for like an hour.
And when another bus went past, he's going no, no, no, no, which kind of gave me some confidence that if that was no, no, no, no, there was a yes, yes behind a CC coming. And he did. So, so, you know, it's a kind of act of faith, isn't it, that you're standing. You've been told not to walk at all. You've probably walked a mile to the bus stop because it was the only way to get to the bus stop. And you just, yeah, you just have to act on your wits.
But actually the only thing I had to do was to get from A to B. And if it took all day to get from A to B, then it took all day to get from A to B. And I never thought once I'm not going to get there. I always thought, well, I wonder if hitchhiking is legal in Spain. On that first day, there were very few English people in the north of Spain while we were there. And this English couple who were clearly on holiday, they weren't pilgrims, they were on holiday, they walked past me.
And I said, Do you know how to get to San Vicente de Barqueta? And they said, yes, it's up that way. And what they were meant to say was, we've got a higher car. Would you like us to take you? Because of course the distance is quite short in a car, even though it takes you all day to walk there. But they didn't. But the bus came in the end. Yeah. There's a huge amount there, isn't there, about it not being the plan.
Yeah. And you've used words of adventurer and bravery and navigating on my own with no plan. And I wonder how, yeah, what you now know about all of that that you didn't know before. I know that that adventurer part of me needs nurturing, which is why I want to go back. Okay. Because that wasn't something that I am choosing now to have left in my 20s. Right. And I met other broken people. When you're walking, you don't see the broken people.
But there was when I got to San Vicente de Bar, whatever it was called that day and got off the bus. A bus came in to Santander, which has got an airport. And as the bus came in, all these people appeared from from benches and behind the bus station and they were they were on crutches and they were bandaged up. I mean, it was it was it was deeply sad and also a little bit funny. Because they had also had broken dreams. Yeah. And it's such a big thing preparing and getting ready to go.
That having a broken dream is tough. And in fact, three or four days in, we'd met somebody in a hostel from Holland and she was a young woman and she'd injured both feet and she'd had to make the really difficult decision to to stop. And she said, I've walked 270 kilometers and I'm so proud of myself. And I will come back and I will do it. But enough is enough. So I think knowing when to stop and knowing when to when actually enough is enough is a useful thing to know.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you've got to be flexible. subsequently met a paramedic on a bus. who said, do you want me to look at your foot? And then she looked at my foot and said, it's not your foot, it's your leg. And strapped me up with kinesiology tape. And then I met some massage therapists from Ireland at a bus station. They said you need a compression sock. And that was how I was able to start walking again, because I had my five days rest.
And by then my body was supported enough by other resources. Margaret is an expert at kinesiology tape. next to very nice tape and YouTube. Margaret was a fellow walker with you. Margaret was my, yeah, there were four of us and one of them was Margaret and she was very good at feet and legs by the end. So a skill she's learned along the way that she didn't know that she was going to pick it up. We had foot clinic daily, foot and leg clinic, so she'd be strapping up and.
Then Anne, one of my other, the third of the four of us, she then had the same issue that I had. So then Margaret had to strap her up and Andrew had terrible blisters for the first time ever in his life. All of us are experienced walkers. All of us had done all the training that we were told that we understood was the right, and we'd done the right training and we'd done the right thing and we still broke. which is interesting about control. Isn't it just?
And I'm noticing something about control and I'm also noticing about how the people, the resources along the way weren't ones that you had planned for, but they arrived. They did and they sort of arrived before I knew what the resources on the way were that I needed. So to start with, Karen, the paramedic, was just tremendously good company and a great person to have a coffee with. And then we ended up having a real deep and meaningful conversation about some stuff that I'd been thinking about.
And it kind of connected with what she'd been thinking about. So we went our separate ways and she said she was having a rest day, so she was checking into an apartment. I was waiting to check into the hostel, so she went off and checked into her apartment and I found myself on the, I thought, I'm not going to waste this opportunity. I know I can't walk very far, but given that I've got to walk to the hostel, let me see if there's somewhere beautiful to go. So I looked on Google Maps.
I mean, I have to say some pilgrims walk without phones. My phone was a lifeline for important and useful information and connecting with others. So she gave me her WhatsApp number. She went off. She said, I'll meet you and have a look at your foot later if you want me to. So I found a church. near the hostel where we were going to be staying that night. And it was in a medieval square in this beautiful town, seaside town. There was nobody there.
So I sat, so I went into the church and I got my pilgrim credential stamped to prove that I was a pilgrim, because you had to get two stamps a day to prove that you were on the way. So that when you got to Santiago, you can get your Compostela that says your sins are forgiven. Now that's not exactly my belief, but it was, it was in... It was important. We were pilgrims. We wanted to do that.
So I've now got this whole set of stamps of everywhere I've been, which is amazing, because it's a really amazing memory. I'm on the stairs of this medieval church, in this beautiful medieval square. And I'm looking around it and wondering who's sat on those balconies and what's been the stories of things that have been seen in this square. And I just sat there on my own for an hour or so. And then I... Then I messaged Karen and I said, I'm in this beautiful square.
Come join me if you're not doing anything. And she came, we've sat on the steps for hours talking and listening to each other. And then we moved to a bar and had a glass of wine. Well, and then the others rocked up and then we moved. But I only met her for one day. And that day. of connection in one day is deeper than the connection I have with many people. And on the last day, we arrived in the square in Santiago and this guy came running over.
And my daughter who had come to meet us said, she said, how long have you known him? And I said, two days, but we didn't see him yesterday. So there's something about the depth of relationships that are built and the depth of connection I think that's built when you're doing the same thing. the same thing as someone else. But of course you're doing it in your way and they're doing it in their way. But we had a common identity that was shared.
Yeah. And that's very deep, very quickly, if that's what you both want. Yes. And not everybody wants that. No. But if you want it, if you want to give and receive it and they want to give and receive it, it's a very beautiful thing. Lots of important people along the way. As you were talking, Claire, I'm wondering what else is emerging. I'm wondering what you're hearing yourself say about learnings. Anything else that's coming up for you?
Well, it's always good to talk it out because I don't know what I think until I speak. I think what I'm noticing is a deep sense of gratitude for the people that I met on the way. And also, I think the enormity of what we did is only just beginning to emerge. So in the same way that it was only clear that we'd walked all that distance right at the end. I think that I'm now acknowledging, recognising. That was crazy. Yeah. It was crazy. It was.
If you look at it through one lens, it was crazy, it was irresponsible, it was all kinds of things. But if you look at it through another lens, it was beautiful, it was simple, it was an adventure, it was an experience, it was all sorts of things. So it depends how you look at it. And other pilgrims were standing around me going... we really want you to be able to walk this. And then I was getting other mixed messages from people at home who were saying, are you sure you should do this?
And they were both right. But it depends where you are as to how high the volume is on what you hear. So I guess Brene Brown would say I was in the arena. Yeah. And in the arena, things look and feel different. Yeah. And you deal with what you deal with in the way that you have to deal with them. So it's a kind of make, do and mend. stuff. Yeah. The enormity is the word you used. Just wondered if there was anything else you wanted to say about that. What is that enormity?
I don't know that I know that yet. But I've written it down. I think it was a big, I think it will turn out to have been a big influence on my next five, 10, 15 years. And I don't think I know what, how or why. I think it's an enormous thing to feel seen every day. And by that I mean... particularly in the more rural areas. So you've got your backpack on, seven to eight kilos and water.
You've got your shell of St James because that's what pilgrims wear on their backpacks and that means you can identify a pilgrim. So then... This isn't true in the cities. It is true a bit in the cities, but it's very true in the small towns and the villages. Everybody knows you're a pilgrim. And in the same way that the ancient pilgrims would have been recognized by what they looked like, we were recognized as pilgrims by what we looked like. And you'd be called Peregrino.
People didn't know your name. But Peregrino pilgrim is your name. Because for now, what you're doing and how you're being and who you're being is pilgrim. Yep. So being called Peregrino is a beautifully honouring word that I'm happy to accept. So people would go, hola peregrino, buen camino. Hello pilgrim. Buen camino, which somebody said to us, how do you say buen camino in English? And we went buen camino. Yeah. Because it's not something you can really translate.
we were spoke, people said that to us five, 10, 20, 30 times a day. And that makes you feel deeply seen. Because they're not only seeing you as a person, but they're also seeing you in the entirety of what they understand you're doing. And everyone does the Camino in their own way. And that's being acknowledged, observed, affirmed, encouraged. And that's really special.
I tried walking the other day, which was a mistake, but I was walking home here in Melbourne from town and as people were walking up the hill and they were all really friendly, they all said hello. Everybody said hello. I'm going, that's a really inside, I'm going, that's a really friendly thing to do because we live in a friendly place where people say hello. And I love that. But I was also thinking that's really shallow because I don't feel seen when someone says hello.
That isn't the same level of feeling seen as when somebody goes, hola peregrino, buen camino. So that sense of belonging and being and connecting was huge and beautiful. And you didn't really know anything else about people. You might say, where did you come from today? You might say, where are you going today? You might say, what country are you from? But those first three, four weeks, no idea what anybody did. No status. All walking in the same direction in our own different ways.
You know, some people would get up at four o'clock in the morning and go very quickly. Some people would go very slowly, but you could only. You can only do what your body could do. So it didn't really matter what kind of kit people had, whether it was very expensive or whether it was very cheap or very basic. In the end, it's your body that's got to do the thing. Yeah. And your body will support you or it will not. And it's your body that decides, not the kit.
And that's about control, isn't it? A lot of it's about control, isn't it? And you're looking at control from different places, whether that's the physical thing or the identity thing or the plan or... Yeah. Yeah, yeah, because I've got no control about how people say hello to me. You don't. And I liked the way people said hello. when I was demonstrably a pilgrim. Yeah. But I'm now still a pilgrim. And now I'm not so happy about the way people say hello, because before hello felt amazing.
And now hello feels a bit. I'm not sure. I feel hallowed, but I don't feel seen. Yeah. How interesting. So you're carrying on being Pellegrino. Pellegrino, yes. That's my best effort. I am not a brand of lightly sparkling drink. Yes, I am. I really feel, really, there's something about the pilgrim's soul. So, so 10 years ago, when I was preparing and I wasn't able to, I heard David White, the poet, speak about his book Pilgrim.
And I bought a copy and in it he said, to Claire Buencamino, to your spirit of the Pilgrim soul. And, you know, I didn't really know what that meant. I don't want to spoil anybody's stuff because that isn't the most brilliant poetry, but he actually hasn't walked the Camino. But he has talked to lots of people who do and the poetry is absolutely beautiful. In fact, I read one of the poems from that book at John's funeral. So where was I going with that? am I a pilgrim?
Yeah, and I want to always be a pilgrim. And that comes back to coaching because I thought a lot about the coach's pilgrim. Say more. You know, I talk to lots of people who aspire to be even better at their craft that we have as coaches. And for me, I've always thought there isn't an ultimate destination because we're all learning all the time and simplifying or developing or doing whatever we're doing. But it really nailed that for me. So mastering coaching is about being a pilgrim.
So it's about never arriving at the destination, always being on the journey. It's about traveling light. Yep. Because you can, you might have a lot of possessions and you might have a lot of stuff and knowledge, but you can only carry what you can carry. Yeah. And, and you've got to be flexible and able to change your mind and drop some of it. Because actually when you have a catastrophe, you need to enlist the resources that are around you, not the stuff that's in your backpack.
Also, you can't carry stuff for somebody else because you can't, because that will break you. So, lots of stuff about coaches pilgrim. And then I then I started to think, just the pilgrims make great thinkers are great thinkers, also pilgrims who are willing to grow and to learn and to develop. And On the very first day that we started, I realized I had been so fixated, Sue, with shoes and backpacks and being able to walk 12 miles or 15 miles two or three days in a row and not be broken.
But I don't think I'd given much thought to what it was actually going to be like. as soon as we, so we left Santander and leaving the cities is never a beautiful thing because walking through industrial areas has got its limit on loveliness.
But once you get out in, once you get out of the city and the pilgrims are more obvious because there are more of them, or maybe it's because there's less of everybody else, I suddenly realized that I was going to be in conversation with lots of people that I didn't know.
some of whom were thinking deeply about life because many people go on, some people go as a walking challenge, some people go because it's a pilgrimage, a spiritual pilgrimage, some people go to process loss, people go for lots of different reasons but I suddenly realised that I would be in conversation with lots of people and then I'm thinking, no, this could feel like work. And really quickly, I'm thinking, no, you're not at work.
This is an opportunity for you to do what you need to do in this space. So I thought to myself, I am not going to coach. And I really didn't. Now, of course, in conversations, people ask me questions about my stuff and I ask them questions about theirs. And you could technically say, maybe Claire, some of the things that you ask people were about that work like coaching questions. it made me realize that I that that.
If I had coached which of course is without consent because you just kind of fall into it. Yep. It would have felt like absence because it on one level, it would have felt beautifully as though I was making it all about them. But also I would be absent because I was keeping so out of it that we weren't connecting as pilgrims together. So I'm left with this thought about consented coaching can feel deeply present.
But unconsented coaching can make it feel as though the person who's decided to facilitate the conversation without talking about it, that feels like absence. So, so much to learn, so much to learn. Fascinating that bit about how important the contract is. Yeah, yeah. That makes a difference between is this coaching? or not. Yeah. And I'm so chuffed. that I really held to that. because it created an equality in relationships that I really like.
And you'd meet people a few days later and of course they've done it themselves. because there's nothing else to do. Yeah. You know, there's one thing to do wholeheartedly, which is to walk. And if you've chosen that day to walk on your own, you've got all day to process it, which may be good and may not be, you know, maybe a bit too much. Yeah. So really your identity as Pilgrim? Yeah. Rather than your identity as coach?
Yeah. Yeah, and I think it's the Pilgrim that I'm going to take into the future. You know, I'm not going to stop coaching and I'm loving what I'm doing writing and I'm doing supervision and everything else. But, know, John, either either we picked it up or he said it or whatever he he wanted to stop tattoos or we think he wanted to stop to do so. We decided that he wants to stop to stop to. So I've now got a tattoo of the shell.
And that's really important for me, because that room is very small. It reminds me that I'm a pilgrim and pilgrim, you know, we could do another 10 podcasts around what that means in terms, not in terms of walking, but in terms of being as a human being in the world. yeah, so I am. You are? I am. And it's not about what I do. And so often, don't we, in the world of work, we get caught up in what we do. But actually, it's about how we are as humans.
And I could talk endlessly about the joy of meeting humans. We slept in dormitories. We shared rooms. We worked out. There were four of us. I shared rooms with the three of them a lot, almost all the time. And then often, we shared rooms with five, 10, 15 other people, they're all in one room in bunk beds, two toilets, two showers. And we functioned as humans, as a community, so brilliantly together.
And, you know, silly things that I hadn't thought about and then was really surprised by, and that nobody over-shares their body, but also nobody undershares. their body and by being self-conscious, everybody's just really normal about everything. And, you know, there's an equality when you're all lying in the same bed, not in the same bed, in the same bed. Claire, I didn't realise it was like that.
When you're all lying in a, you know, when you're all lying in the dormitory, it's just beautiful. It's really, really beautiful. And we all come from different places and some people snore more than others. Although that wasn't so much of an issue as I had. Earplugs are very good thing.
But there's something about the shared humanity and the shared humanity of arriving somewhere and not knowing where you're going to stay and not knowing where you're going to eat and having to work that out and trusting yourself, trusting the process, trusting the people around you and trusting that, you know, all shall be well. it was. And that comes back to control again, doesn't it?
Because I have a gluten allergy and so eating is quite a challenge, but it became not a challenge and I couldn't carry Plan B with me because Plan B would have been too heavy. You've just got to go with it. I had emergency snacks and then I had emergency emergency snacks. But I didn't have enough to make a meal. I had enough that if I needed the energy, I could eat these emergency emergency snacks. Yeah. If there was absolutely nothing else I could eat. And it was great.
Wow. So. Last couple of moments, Claire. What else would be useful to say? I am really pleased to have embarked in a six week embodied learning experiment. I am so grateful to have been able to inhabit the learning in a really simple way. And I have no idea what that's going to mean. Like moving forwards and my deepest desire is to be able to do it again. And I'm aware that my body might say no. Mm. And that's okay. but it was just lovely to spend all that time, not in your head.
I'm not one who spends a huge amount time in my head, but it was really, it was just beautiful. And I know that it's a luxury to be able to take that much time out. And I know that people had to. back me up, you you back me up, like my husband back, you know, there were people there to support me to be able to do that. But I guess my question for our listeners is, you know, what can you do to deepen your learning, which might not be about more knowledge.
It might be about a different kind of experience. You know, that's not legitimate CPD. It's also a very cheap holiday, just FYI, if anyone wants to know, and you don't have to do the whole thing. I thought, it's funny, isn't it? Cause I think you often then try and make something into a solution. So I thought, wouldn't it be amazing to do a kind of coaching retreat and do some of the Camino? And I thought, then it wouldn't be, it? Because what you'd be doing is you'd be in a group of people.
And if you were in a group of people, there's a whole lot of that that you would miss. So it would be great, but it would be different because there's something about the small number of people. And for us, four was big enough. If we'd been five, we wouldn't have had the same experience. And if we'd been one, we would have had a different experience. Great question to leave us all thinking about. Well, I think I'm leaving myself thinking too. Yeah. And you've got some bits in your notebook.
I noticed you writing. I have, I have. I've got some more lines in my notebook to think about. Next time I go, I'm not taking a notebook because it weighed. It was unnecessary. It's tiny. It is tiny. was unnecessary weight. Extra snacks. So are we done? Yes, thank you. Thank you for listening and poking. Thank you, Claire, for sharing that. It's really wonderful to hear the learnings and to watch you explore that and think it all through. So thank you very much. Well, thank you.
And just a heads up to our listeners, that was a beautifully structured coaching conversation. Sue, thank you very much. Thank you. Good. Are you saying goodbye or am I? You're the OK, I'll say goodbye then. So thank you, everyone, for listening in. Hope that you can go away and think more about those questions too. And there'll be things, I'm sure, that have pinged up as Claire's been talking. So please do keep in contact with us. Come back to us, ask us more questions and get involved.
And there we are. Thank you, everyone. Goodbye. Bye bye. Thank you for listening. Bye. If you've enjoyed what you've heard today, we'd love you to share the podcast with a friend or leave a comment on social media. And if you'd like to become a regular at The Coaching In, you can subscribe on Podbean and all major podcast channels. We look forward to welcoming you next time. You've been listening to The Coaching In, 3D Coaching's virtual pub. For more information, check out 3dcoaching.com.