Steph was suffering from PTSD as a result of her work as an paramedic.

She tried a few different things to help herself recover – “I tried lots of different things. I went to a different station to work for a while, I took up a business course and decided to learn about starting a business, and started swimming, but I’d also written a bucket list which I had taken out again to look at. I decided that I was going to pick the biggest, most meaningful thing off my bucket list and and do it”

What Steph picked was walking the 800km Camino Trail. It runs from the just before the border of France right across the north of Spain and is a mountainous pilgrim trail.

Steph was not particularly fit at the time, had severe knee arthritis and anxiety from the ptsd, but she had a year to prepare.

Preparation included sharing her story via Facebook (a public commitment!) and a book she has written, and also raining money for PTSD – specifically the Black Dog Institute.

Eventually the time came to start the walk “As I sat on the bus as it drove across the Alps towards my starting point, I was completely and utterly petrified. Everything in me just wanted to go home. I thought I cannot walk those mountains, I’m alone and I’m not fit enough. There was lots and lots of self talk – you didn’t train enough and that was your own fault, you’re gonna die on those mountains just trying to walk up them, what were you thinking doing this alone.”

Steph then looked up and saw the shepherds bringing their herds down the mountain and had a moment of thought “I can just start where I am. Start with the fitness I’ve got and build it up, be sensible about it, do as much as I can without injuring myself or hurting myself, and in that moment I  remembered why I was doing it and wanted to succeed, I wanted to make it to Santiago de Compostela and enjoy the journey along the way that I had read so much about. I had an image in my head of what it would be like on that final day to walk into the square and see the big Cathedral and know that I’d finished this.

“That became my driving force. I had a couple of nights there in the little town where you start the walk.  I spent the first day exploring and getting my mind in the right space to start the walk the next day. I was terrified to walk on my own, I didn’t know whether it was fully safe, so I rationalized that there are many people who do this walk every year and finish it and they are all different types of people with their own unique reasons for being there. I knew in that moment it was a mind thing more so than my fitness and it had been a long held passion for too long. It was time to make the dream a reality.”

The next day Steph began her 6 week walk. You average about 20km per day and the walk is often metaphorically divided into 3 phases – physical, mental and spiritual.

The first two weeks were the hardest physically. “It was so hard on my body every day. The pain in my knees and feet and trying to breathe walking up the mountains challenged every bit of my will.” Yet Steph persisted and slowly her fitness and endurance built up more and more.

The next 2 weeks were the hardest mentally “My mind kicked in. I started thinking about what I was doing here, about my home, my family and my life and about the PTSD, how long I could keep doing my job and what else could I do. I had been a paramedic so long that I didn’t have any other skills.” Steph describes lots of conflicted thinking and the war of thoughts inside her mind.

Steph was a much slower walker than most of the others on the trail and this meant she walked alone for 95% of the time. This provided a LOT of time to think.

By the end of about 4 weeks of walking she remembers standing on the top of a hill one day, looking back in amazement that she had already walked from as far in the distance as she could see and when she turned around, ahead as far as she could see was the distance still to walk that day. She had 29 days behind her that she had done and was already two thirds of the way through this journey.

A couple of days later was Steph’s nemesis mountain, the one she feared she would not be able to climb. A 9km walk up the highest mountain on the trail, and after 4 weeks of beautiful weather it started to rain and get cold. 3kms into the days walk Steph stopped for a cup of tea at a café, where it would have been so easy to call a taxi to complete the rest of the ascent to the top. She made the decision to continue walking despite the wet and cold, and after a further 3kms at the next town, over a hot chocolate she made that choice again. No taxis required! Steph conquered her nemesis that day.

After that Steph started noticing more of the beauty around her and kept walking every day and after the next 10 rain (and snow!) filled days the sun came back out. The walk had now become a routine and a joy as she found acceptance and awe in what she was able to do. No longer focussed on the things she couldn’t do, the possibility of what lay ahead for her life became exciting and carried her strongly though the remainder of the walk.

On the final day Steph reflected “Walking into that square at the end of an 800 kilometre walk was phenomenal. It was a once in a lifetime thing that you just never imagine a 55 year old female who, as a shift worker has never lived with routine, could do something day after day for 42 days, that was so physically and mentally demanding. I was there and I had done it!

“The beautiful part about it is I came back a completely different person. I came back with a different view of the world and at the lessons I learned in that journey still guide me now.”

I asked Steph what made her keep going on those hard days “I’ve done lots of things in my life where you start and then give up. I did it because I wanted to inspire myself and prove that despite any odds, anything is possible. Through challenging the things that I shouldn’t, wouldn’t or couldn’t do, I want to inspire others to go out into the world and do those things that spark a fire in their minds, even when they think it is impossible.”

Steph still has PTSD but is using her experiences to help others to create and succeed in their own 1 Big Goal.  I have every faith that someone as determined as she is will work it out!