The Life Quake Series: How Sophie Managed to Survive her dreadful Divorce, one of her Toughest Life Challenges
Sophie stood at the edge of the forest, the cool morning air kissing her tear-stained cheeks.
She hesitated.
The trail ahead was bathed in soft, golden light that filtered through the leaves of the ancient oak trees. It was her first morning on the Camino de Santiago, a journey she had been both dreading and desperately longing for.
The past year had been a blur of arguments, court appearances, and endless nights spent staring tearfully at the ceiling. Her marriage of twenty years had unravelled, leaving her raw, vulnerable, overwhelmed and lost.
Disbelief. Frustration. Hurt. Loneliness. Heartbreak. Anger. On a scale of 1 to 10, the intensity of each of these emotions was a convincing 20. There were times when she wondered if she was going insane.
Friends had suggested therapy, coaching, a getaway, anything to escape the emotional rollercoaster that she found herself on.
It wasn’t until she came across an article online about a retreat that includes walking sections of the Camino de Santiago de Compostela, created especially to help women cope with major life changes, that something within her stirred, and then crystallised.
Sophie wasn’t looking for a miracle, she just temporarily wanted to escape the relentless and ever-increasing noise of her life. She desperately wanted to reconnect with nature, while walking this mythical pilgrims’ route, with only her thoughts and her feelings, and maybe a journal.
Taking the first real breath of fresh air she’d taken in months, Sophie took her first step onto the trail, feeling the crunch of gravel underfoot, smelling the perfume of a thousand wildflowers on the breeze and relishing the weight of her small backpack anchoring her. As she walked, with only the rustling leaves and exuberant bird chorus for company, she felt a flicker of something she hadn’t felt in a long time: hope.
The path wound through woods, round quiet lakes, along lush vineyards and joyous sunflower fields, opening occasionally to reveal breathtaking views of the majestic Pyrenées mountain range and ancient stone villages perched on hilltops. Sophie paused often, turning her face to the sun, not because she was tired, but to take it all in. The world seemed so much bigger here, her problems so much smaller. She pulled out her journal during one of these stops, the pages still crisp and white. Slowly, hesitantly, she began to write.
At first, the words wouldn’t come, as if she was unable to break free from the prison of her mind. She wrote about the betrayal, the loss, the endless days spent arguing over things that now seemed trivial. But as the miles stretched behind her, words tumbled onto the pages, lightening the burden she’d carried for so long. She wrote about the first time she met her husband, how they used to laugh until their sides hurt, how she’d once believed they’d grow old together. Teardrops blurred the ink, but she kept on walking and writing, one step at a time.
The retreat host offered quiet support and gentle encouragement when she needed it. They spoke about how the Camino had healed countless souls before her, and how it would continue to do so long after her journey ended.
One afternoon, after a particularly gruelling day’s walk, Sophie found herself locked in a standoff with a particularly stubborn goat, loudly objecting that she was trespassing on his terrain. She eyed his fearsome horns, took a deep breath, looked him in the eye and shouted, “B***** off, you nasty old goat, I have a right to be on this path too!“ He must have decided that he had confronted enough crazy walkers for that day, because he flipped his backside in her direction and swaggered away, in search of greener pastures.
Sophie started laughing. She laughed until the tears were running down her cheeks.
She couldn’t remember the last time she had laughed like that—at something so silly, yet so unexpectedly empowering. She had stood her ground! Slowly, the weight she carried since the start of the divorce started to lift, and was replaced by a lightness she hadn’t felt in years. The anger, the fear, the bitterness—was still there, but no longer had the power to drag her down.
Instead, Sophie found herself rediscovering the simple joys she had long forgotten: the smell of fresh earth after the rain, the sound of leaves crunching underfoot, the thrill of not knowing what lay around the next bend in the trail. She even started talking to herself (and sometimes to the trees), cracking jokes about her progress. “Well, Soph, today you’ve officially out-walked a relationship that was threatening to suffocate you. Go you!”
She sat down by a small stream, dipping her toes in the cool water, and again pulled out her journal. But instead of writing about her past, she started sketching her future. She didn’t know exactly what she wanted next, but she did want more laughter, more adventure, more time in nature and definitely less time in courtrooms. Maybe she’d take up painting again, maybe she’d run a 10km or perhaps she’d finally learn to play the piano, something she’d always wanted to do but never had time for.
She even jotted down a few ideas for starting a blog, chronicling her Camino de Santiago journey for other women going through tough times. “Blisters and Divorce: How to Rediscover and Retain Your Sense of Humour)”—she chuckled at the thought.
As Sophie approached Nogaro, the end of her personal Camino in sight, she felt a mix of relief and anticipation. The divorce was still there, waiting for her back home, but it no longer felt like a dark cloud hanging over her. It was just another chapter in her life—speedily coming to an end.
And as she walked into the last town, Sophie knew one thing for sure: she wasn’t Sophie, the insecure woman going through a dreadful divorce anymore. She was Sophie, the woman who had found her way back to herself, with a laugh, a blister or two, and heaps of enthusiasm for whatever might come next.
“Look out, world,” she murmured to herself with a grin, “Sophie 2.0 is on her way.”
And for the first time in a long time, she felt ready for the next chapter in her life.
Are you going through a messy divorce? Come and walk part of the Camino de Santiago de Compostela in the sun-blessed south of France. Click here to find out more.
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