Camino De La Luna - Compassion and Self Compassion (Without Pictures)

By Pearl Howie

The fourth in this series (or sixth including the self help manual "free Feeling Real Emotions Everyday" and prequel "Japan Is Very Wonderful") "Camino De La Luna – Compassion and Self Compassion" continues the journey.

What is compassion?

Something alive perhaps, that can only be understood in practice. So often confused with pity or the self-sacrificing impulse to take on another’s burden, to make things better, to fix. It takes strength and delicacy and it doesn’t mean giving away your life savings.

Self compassion is sometimes the place between pushing through and giving up, the moment we can recognize our true needs, not our desires even if they’re for further suffering. Sometimes the moment we find self compassion is the moment we stop and walk away.

I had found forgiveness in Switzerland and now I was heading to friends in Rome before taking the leap to South East Asia, to Sri Lanka, to a new understanding of compassion and self compassion.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Sep 15, 2018
• ISBN: 9780244115180

Book preview

Camino De La Luna - Compassion and Self Compassion (Without Pictures)

Camino De La Luna – Compassion

and Self Compassion

(Without Pictures)

By Pearl Howie

Copyright © Pearl Howie 2018

All rights reserved

ISBN: 978-0-244-11518-0

The moral right of the author has been asserted

Dedication

You can, it is said, get by with a little help from your friends. 

I found it very hard to make friends at school, I struggled really with the concept, the people who wanted to be friends with me were not cool enough and the people I wanted to be friends with didn’t really notice me unless they wanted help with their homework.  (Or perhaps it was that I was so skittish around them because I was so desperately in love with one of the boys that I found it impossible to be normal around them.)

Luckily (or really, really unluckily) my world unravelled and all that stuff became very unimportant, so that when I went to college I could be a little more myself and by the end of my time there I finally knew what it was to have true friends (and then I had to leave them).

But thanks to them I learned what friendship was, it’s not fitting in or doing stuff for your mates or even with your mates, I think it’s honestly a way of touching the universal truth that we are all connected, that we are all one, and our friends are the ones whose hearts call to us, maybe for a day, a month, a job placement or, luckily for me, decades, who are in our lives for a reason. 

When a friend says To us, you are family they speak a deep truth that only a very wise and compassionate soul could feel.

Also by the Author

Books in this Series

(available in eBook and paperback (without pictures) and with pictures in full colour paperback and in full colour pdf from Lulu)

Japan Is Very Wonderful (travel)

free Feeling Real Emotions Everyday (self help) also available as an audiobook

Camino de la Luna – Take What You Need (self help/travel)

Camino de la Luna – Unconditional Love (self help/travel)

Camino de la Luna – Forgiveness (self help/travel)

Camino de la Luna – Compassion and Self Compassion (self help/travel)

Camino de la Luna – Courage (self help/travel) coming soon to eBook, out now in full colour paperback and pdf

Camino de la Luna – Truth (self help/travel) coming soon to eBook, out now in full colour paperback and pdf

Camino de la Luna – Reconciliation (self help/travel) coming soon to eBook, out now in full colour paperback and pdf

Other Titles

The Guide to Spa Breaks and Escapes from Pearl Escapes

The Guide to Massage, Spa Treatments and Healing from Pearl Escapes

Meditation for Angry People

The Wee, The Wound And The Worries: My Experience Of Being A Kidney Donor

Love And The Perfect Wave (romantic novel)

Individual regional guides to spas and escapes, including:  Cozumel, Las Vegas, London Spas and Massage, Bath Spa, Swimming With Wild Manatees, Tuscany With Teenagers, The Lake District, Brockenhurst, Iceland, Florida, Key Largo, Orlando, Vero Beach, The Everglades, Clearwater, New York, Paris With Kids, Marrakech, China (Hong Kong, Yangshuo, Shanghai, Huangshan and Beijing), Zadar, Croatia and Barcelona

Video

Everything To Dance For

Previously on my Camino de la Luna

Every time I see a photo of a painting by Van Gogh I think of artistic passion, his integrity, staying true to what he believed even though no one understood, no one bought him.  It’s the epitome of Don’t Take Anything Personally, even if everyone hates your work, or it feels like they hate you, stay strong, stay true to what you believe in.

People respect, resent or fear for me in equal measure on this journey I am taking, living out of a rucksack, not knowing where I’ll end up most days.  I don’t even know myself why I’m doing it, except that it’s a different life and I keep ending up in the right place at the right time.  I left London in November 2016, walked the Camino de Santiago, came back to England, travelled to Mexico City for a retreat in the ancient pyramids and then wandered around before ending up in Washington State and Hawai’i, where I felt the urge to go back to England, and then to fly again, down to Dubrovnik to explore Eastern Europe, before heading up around Italy and finally to Switzerland where I had a powerful experience of forgiveness in Cademario.  (It’s all in my previous books.)  So the morning after I finished writing about Forgiveness I jumped on a train to Genova or Genoa in Italy.

Thanks for coming with me, Pearl.

P.S. The Staylist of all the hotels etc. is at the back of the book.

My destination is Rome

I want to see my friend and her family, but I need to take my time as I’ve just had a terrible stomach bug and I don’t want to pass it on, so I’ll wait five days. 

Genoa or Genova

is not my bag (baby).  It’s full of people hawking stuff and the harbour bits seem to be the worst.  I find an artisanal coffee shop where they make me a really posh coffee (they’re so kind) but I really don’t like it.  I smile and nod anyway, I don’t have the heart to tell the truth.  (Does this make me a liar?)

This is more my speed.

Camogli

According to the locals this is actually the beginning of the Cinque Terre, the five earths (I guess that would make it the sixth earth?) the towns in Italy which stand tall on the rocks jutting out into the sea, connected by winding roads and sometimes only trains, where they farm in tiny stacked terraces because the land is so steep.

I find an apartment for the night just a few minutes walk from the train station and the harbour.

There is something magical about this place, especially the huge trees which are lit up in red and green at night like a wonderland.

I wander the rocks, where there are a few dubious characters, so I decide to walk back up through the town, not too late.

I walk along the old harbour walls, up through the winding steps of what was once perhaps a citadel and then around to the lighthouse.

I find a tiny pasta restaurant that makes a vegan pasta, and then lose all control and instead order a carbonara. 

My apartment is really just a room with a posh coffee machine and some plastic cakes for breakfast.  I manage to mess up the coffee machine and overflow coffee all over the floor – I am so not Italian.

I’m not that Buddhist either - I try to go to sleep early but I am staying right above a car park and right below people who never sleep and seem to walk around with clogs on.  I bet the Dalai Lama doesn’t have to put up with this. I rail at about 11pm… (and midnight and 1am, 2am and 3am).

Corniglia

is officially one of the five earths. 

I find a B&B, but when I get there, Beppe, a traditional old Italian gentleman leads me away from the entrance and across town to a room which is more of an apartment than my apartment from the night before, complete with fridge and spectacular view. 

There simply is no point for me to go out and pay the prices of the cliff-side cafes when I can make a tea or coffee here and look out over this.

Unfortunately I still have a few important lessons to learn here.  I’m not feeling good, it feels like a cold or chest infection so when I curl up in bed after a brief wander around the town I’m worried there’s no heat.  I call Beppe, who doesn’t speak English and then get a call back from his daughter who explains that the heat doesn’t come on until a certain time in the afternoon in this town.

I meet her later when she pops by to bring me extra supplies for my bathroom and sort out my bill.  She explains that in the morning I can just head off and leave the keys or call her if I want to stay another night.

In the morning my coughing is so bad I’m convinced it’s something in the apartment I’m reacting to, so I do my usual of heading out before the dawn and walk all the way round the cliffs, halfway to the next town of Vernazza to get some fresh air. 

It doesn’t help.

I’m still coughing so hard that I think I may knock myself over.