Chasing Grace

By Alicia Marie

Thirteen days before her 50th birthday, Alicia Marie set out on foot as a solo traveler along the Portuguese Coastal Way, one of a network of trails that make up the ancient pilgrimage of the Camino de Santiago. In Chasing Grace, Alicia gives an insightful, hopeful, and often humorous account of her journey from Porto, Portugal to Santiago, Spain and shares the lessons she learned along the way that would transform the way she now approaches her business and personal life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Sep 14, 2018
• ISBN: 9781543947267

Book preview

Table of Contents

Take off!

Bom Caminho

I was Forewarned

Which Way?

Time to Pray

Crossing Over

Learning my Lesson (Again)

Rest & Reflection

New Friends

Spirit of the Camino

Time for a Cleanse

In the Flow

Beyond Words

I Am 50!

It’s Over?

Enjoy the journey

This birthday was significant. I knew why. I was leaving town for a cool vacation, unlike other birthdays, which had just been another excuse for celebration. It felt as if this marked my putting away of childish things. Somehow, it took turning 50 to accept that my time had come. This is it. It’s now or never. I don’t think I can pretend that I have any more time left. Time is passing and it’s passing fast. Now I know who I am. I have talents to share. I know what I am here for. Although my work has touched lives and made a difference, I think there’s a lot more for me to do, discover, and become.

Years ago, in my early 40’s, as a way of marking five decades on this earth, I had decided to walk The Camino De Santiago, also known as The Way of St. James. It is an ancient pilgrimage location that many people consider as a spiritual path or retreat to walk on. Back then, I am sure it had just appealed to my insatiable lust for travel and adventure, not to mention my evident love for Europe. At the age of 49, while inching closer to this birthday, several things started making me feel restless. I had spent the last 15 years of my life building my current business, a leadership development organization called People Biz, Inc. It was becoming increasingly clear that now was the time to reinvent not only myself but also the business. When I look at it now, I notice that the world of personal growth and development is fast changing. Extraordinary conversations, new thought and leadership are now taking center-stage, getting accepted as the new normal. People and organizations are becoming more open to the idea that academic learning alone doesn’t create sustainable change. I realized then that this was a huge business opportunity, given that every training I’ve ever written is experiential not exactly tell and sell. My work with people who want to create fulfilling lives and businesses is, at its core, about transforming the self before attempting to implement change within others. I felt as if I wasn’t quite leveraging the influence and connections I had to support individuals and companies, ultimately for making the world a better place to reside. I felt that I wasn’t fully utilizing my skills and talents for developing people. Now was the time to step up and play a bigger game. But exactly what, and how?

One thing that was bothering me at the time was my recently obtained single status. It had been three years since my divorce, and although I had experienced a couple of interesting romances, I remained confused on the how to find the right man front. I am, after all, an unconventional woman in my beliefs, clear in what I stand for, simple in daily life, extravagant on occasion and powerfully present when it counts. Naturally, finding the right man was a bit challenging since the men I’ve met in the last few years either seemed too young or too old, too fast or too slow, too conservative or too new age. Not only that, they seemed rather confused in my presence. Sometimes they looked intimidated or just plain uninterested. Some gazed at me in adoration and ambivalence or even anxiety. But none with unconditional love. Once, a male friend explained to me, Alicia, you are happy and successful. You don’t need a man to support you or make you happy. Men don’t know what to do with that.

I had no idea if this was true, and no idea what I could do about it in case it was. I did want romance, authentic conversation, fantastic sex, and relentless mutual and unconditional love and support. At this point, anything less than such a relationship would have been a silly waste of time. I felt as if time was slipping away, and that my age, on top of just being me, was narrowing down my odds for the kind of relationship I wanted.

Since the divorce, I’ve found that money has become quite important because I realized that I am, in no way, prepared for retirement. It was no consolation that my grown children still needed whatever help I could offer. Only recently, I had begun to realize that pushing ten hours a day at work wasn’t going to be sustainable. But the coming decade was perhaps going to be the most important one of my life in terms of earning and saving.

When I was 49, I also found myself immensely satisfied with my life on most days. But I was still afraid or sad on some nights, yet accomplished and increasingly peaceful beyond words on others, restless and clear about so much, yet confused about what comes next. My life was rich and enjoyable but there was a deep inexplicable yearning as well.

I have lived a hard life, and if you knew the whole story, you may agree that I’ve even lived a possibly interesting life. Had you known me in the last decade, you may say it was a charmed life, or as I like to call it, a full un-prescribed life. To be precise, I have struggled as a teen mom and a single parent. I am both self and formally educated. I raised my own children as well as those of others. I have explored multiple religions and tried countless spiritual practices in my quest to be a faithful servant and to get closer to God. I lost my parents over a decade ago. My siblings and I have gone our separate ways. I have had many jobs, vocations, passions, and developed countless unrelated and useful skills. I feel like I am truly in my calling now, which makes work blissfully rewarding. I have extraordinary friends and talented employees. I’ve traveled voraciously for almost two decades. I have been dirt poor and exceedingly blessed with abundance. I have been quite sick, both in mind and body, and I’m now a strong and healthy athlete. You could say that I am, as most of us are, a paradox.

The point is, as poignant and full my past has been in becoming who I am today, it was time to let it go. This is more obvious now after my pilgrimage than it was before. In the months leading up to my pilgrimage, I guess I had a lingering sense that something extraordinary was going to happen, but I chose to focus on the details of the trip and my training instead.

One of my colleagues did the Camino in 2014. She shared a beautiful