Hello, you are listening to the Quiet Superpowers
podcast. In this episode, I want to do something
very different. You might have noticed the title
of this episode is very different to usual, and
that's because this episode will just be a few
thoughts of mine on things that have happened
to me recently, some realizations I've had. I'll
keep it short and sweet. So now last week I planned
to walk the Camino de Santiago. this is a walk
through Spain and Portugal and I just planned
a short segment of it, about 100km the whole
thing is huge, would take a long long time more
time than I had, so I can only do this little
bit and what I didn't realise is that the weather
across Spain and Portugal was so so bad I'm talking
the worst floods and rain they've seen in years
and years and years, possibly to date now I hadn't
realised this until obviously planning everything
and then it came to a few days before leaving
and I had to pivot I had to completely shift
the way that this holiday was happening and what
I was going to do on this trip which I will briefly
talk about after the break but it gave me a huge
realisation whilst walking in a park in Madrid.
So without further ado let's get into it. I hadn't
realized how much I needed a break and just a
change from everything. I hadn't realized how
overwhelmed and burned out I was before going
away on holiday. I know it sounds a bit cliche
to have overwhelm and have that feeling of such
relief going away and doing something different
but I can't tell you a time in my life where
I needed it more than I needed it last week and
it was because everything was so crazy, there
was so much noise in my everyday life that I
just didn't give myself the headspace that I
really needed to think about things, to process
what was happening, I was kind of on autopilot
if you've ever felt like that before, so essentially
of course we couldn't do this trip, the walk
that we planned, so instead we went to Porto,
we went to Madrid, we went to a northern part
of Madrid to do some hiking with the the walking
spirit in mind, the whole holiday was was lots
of walking, a lot of the time it was in the city
but it was still at the heart of it had the spirit
of walking and it led me to realize that sometimes
the unexpected plans are the best ones because
I had to pivot the plan of walking the Camino
and I had all these preconceived ideas about
what I would gain from the walk, the potential
spiritual experience I'd have and the I had to
kind of let that go but actually doing so helped
me gain other realizations that I don't think
I would have gained had I been so set on these
so -called spiritual experiences and I kind of
thought of it like a meditation, instead of trying
to achieve something, trying to work towards
something, I just allowed the experience of being
in a new country in a new city to take me Quite
literally wherever it would go We ended up going
on random walks whilst they're not using Google
Maps just strolling the city and the streets
of Porto and Seeing where we ended up seeing
if we could find our way back Which the streets
were very confusing there to find a way back
to the apartment. We're staying up if you ever
feel Overwhelmed and a lack of headspace Sometimes
what you need is a refresh a way to completely
change your atmosphere and your surroundings
your environment to get yourself out of the autopilot
mode so i'd really recommend even just going
for a walk in a local park but putting in more
walks i realized i just hadn't been in in nature
literally enough and it i think caused a lot
of this feeling of burnout and overwhelm because
i hadn't had a chance to escape from a lot of
things. Now the second realization I had, which
I hinted at at the start, was when I was walking
in a park in Madrid on my own. I was walking
and I was journaling with a voice note, which
I often do. I didn't want to write things down
because my hands were quite cold, it was a little
bit cold that day. So I decided to take a walk
through the park and just talk into my phone
on my own and try and lock look too strange and
whilst I was talking I had this epiphany I'd
been having this feeling of wanting to run away
in personal relationships and I'm talking both
with friends even family and intimate relationships
where I would sometimes get this feeling that
I just wanted to escape I just wanted to completely
get away from everything and for the longest
time up until that point I had assumed that there
was something wrong with me I'd assumed that
this was something I was trying to fix that that
was a wrong feeling I shouldn't be feeling that
way and there was some kind of psychological
problem with me that I needed to work out and
fix what I hadn't realized is that this was actually
a need of mine to recharge and when I thought
about it every time I had given myself that time
to recharge, the feeling would go away. I hadn't
appreciated how much I can get drained and how
much it can impact things like personal relationships,
and this feeling of wanting to run away also
explained to me a lot of my own behavior and
difficult feelings in previous relationships,
because I I'd really struggled with feeling that
way and feeling guilty for feeling that way because
I'd assumed that it meant that something was
wrong, something was confusing me and something
just didn't sit right and I didn't know what
to do about it because in my mind it wasn't related
to introversion, extroversion, it was just it
was like I wasn't cut out for a relationship
it was like I was I was destined to just be on
my own it's like when i finally felt a little
bit comfortable after a little bit too much time
then it just dissipated and it felt almost unnatural
but i hadn't realized that it was just me needing
to recharge of course some people give you energy
and some people take it away and it i actually
think this was something else and that's why
it confused me so much i think this was about
the fact that even though I can get energy from
some people I can't get as much as other things
I might do when I'm on my own sometimes all I
need to do is just sit down for 30 minutes an
hour even just play some piano do some writing,
read a book and I can be back back at it but
without that I really struggle and I can make
decisions that are a bit rash at the time because
of this feeling of wanting to run away from everything
so that was an essential thing that I learned
about during this trip and I actually think it
really helped that I wasn't expecting it so again
I really want to drive home that I think it's
so important to have a break and a method of
stepping back from things especially when they're
busy so the thing I want to change now in my
life because I do worry about becoming more overwhelmed
and busy again is that I want to make sure that
I do walks and and go into nature, the outdoors
more often, at least every day, because I think
walking, especially something in nature, is so
helpful for gaining that headspace that you might
need when you just can't think clearly so I'll
keep this episode very short and sweet, there
will be another episode coming out this week
hopefully, so stay tuned for that and as always
I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day
and I will catch you next time, thanks!