Episode 8 - Frances from Ontario - Trusting the Camino When You Cannot See the Way

Danny

Hello, fellow pilgrims and members of the Camino family.

I must say I feel a little uncertain about recording a podcast again, because it has been months since the last one. But I think we can manage today.

I have a very interesting guest in this new podcast episode, and that is Frances from Canada.

We are actually meeting each other for the first time today, although we already had a little talk before we started recording.

I am very happy that you are here in the podcast, Frances. I think you have a very interesting story to share with your Camino family.

Can you tell us something about yourself?

Frances

Absolutely, Danny. Thank you so much for having me here today.

I am always filled with so much joy when I meet other people who speak the same language. I am not talking about English or any other spoken language, but about that deeper understanding.

There is such a deep understanding of what it means to connect. We are talking about the Camino, but it is really more about the connection between us as humans, as spirits, and as co-creators on this planet we call Earth.

My name is Frances Angelina. Some people may know me as Francesca, but I use both names.

I am from Ontario, Canada. At the moment, I am actually living as a nomad and as a part-time pilgrim, even here in Canada.

I am not necessarily walking from place to place, but I no longer have one physical location that I call home.

This has become an extension of my Camino.

The decision to walk the Camino began at the start of 2020, in the middle of the global pandemic.

I was sitting on the floor of my small apartment and meditating. I had been watching the movie The Way. I had seen it before, but I watched it again.

Then something told me, “This is what you will be doing when you turn sixty in 2025.”

The plans were set in motion at that moment.

In May 2025, I would leave my job, leave my apartment, pack everything up, and walk the Camino.

That is exactly what I did.

In a way, my Camino had started much earlier. I had already been doing inner work and healing work for myself.

The Camino became a time when I could celebrate, continue to meditate, and continue reflecting.

It has been quite a journey.

I walked in May 2025, and it took me fifty-five days to complete the Camino.

It was nice and slow. Some people might say, “Wow, that is a really long time.” And it was a long time.

I also spent a few extra weeks in Europe. I used the full ninety days that I was allowed to stay outside Canada without a visa.

I really took the time to enjoy everything that came along my path.

I am so grateful that I had that opportunity.

Now it is a matter of asking myself, “When am I going back?”

Danny

Do you already know?

Frances

I already know that I had a sense that my work here in Canada was somewhat finished, or at least limited to a certain degree.

I already felt that before arriving in Europe.

It was my first time in Europe, my first Camino, and my first time traveling alone.

I knew there was something else, but I did not know what it was.

Now that I am back in Canada, I know that my time here is limited. I simply do not know the time frame yet.

I think I will know when it happens.

Danny

It is interesting that you talk about the movie The Way.

In 2010, I was living in Germany. There was a Spanish man living there too, and he had a German wife, just like me.

He told me he was going to walk the Jakobsweg, which is the German word for the Camino.

I asked him what that was.

He said, “You walk to Santiago.”

I thought, “That is two and a half thousand kilometers.” I thought he was a complete nutcase.

I held that opinion for more than a year.

Then I saw the movie The Way, and it stung me like a wasp.

I needed to walk.

That is when everything started.

Now I am sitting here in Spain, interviewing you.

I always warn people, “Are you sure you want to walk the Camino?” Because you will become hooked, and it will change your life.

Frances

Yes, it will change your life.

For me, it became a healing journey physically, spiritually, and emotionally. It was the whole package: body, soul, and spirit.

I was not sure whether I would be able to walk those eight hundred kilometers.

People asked me, “Why do you not just do a shorter part?”

But I knew I needed to start in Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port. I did not know why. I simply knew that was where I needed to start.

My physical training had already started in 2020. I began by walking a little every day.

When your physical body has experienced a complete shutdown, it takes time to rebuild energy, stamina, and strength.

There was a time in my life, almost fifteen years ago, when I literally could not get out of bed.

There are moments when you have to say, “No, I am going to do this.”

You find that inner strength, and you have faith.

You trust that everything will eventually work out for your good.

Danny

What do you want to share with your Camino family?

Frances

What I want to share is that we should always remain present with whatever is around us.

You do not need to control everything.

You are here to be a human spirit in physical form, and to trust.

There is a saying that the Camino will provide.

Some people say that God will provide, or that the universe will provide.

There is a source. There is something much greater than everything we can see with the naked eye.

We can trust that there is a divine force flowing through our entire being.

You do not need to understand it through words.

You need to know it within your being.

Danny

Were there moments on the Camino when you became aware that this is really how it works?

Frances

There were many moments.

Danny

Can you share one?

Frances

The first moment was when I arrived in Roncesvalles without a reservation and without a bed.

I had already walked for ten hours from Orisson.

We had faced all kinds of weather on the mountain: rain, sleet, hail, and everything else.

It took us a long time to cross the mountain and reach Roncesvalles.

When I arrived, there was no bed available anywhere.

I continued to the next village, but there was no bed there either.

I had to trust that somehow, in some way, something would appear.

And it did.

Several trail angels helped me reach Zubiri on the second day.

I then had a forced rest day there on day three.

That was exactly one year ago today.

On May 11, 2025, I arrived in Zubiri.

Danny

You describe trusting that you would be taken care of.

But it is difficult to trust when the situation becomes critical and you do not know where you will sleep.

How were you able to remain in that trust when you did not know how the day would end?

Frances

I know my body well enough to understand that if I do not practice being at peace and allowing things to be, I can literally make myself sick.

At that moment, it becomes a choice.

Do I frantically lose control and start trying to solve everything while panicking?

Or do I close my eyes, place my hand on my heart, take a deep breath, and perhaps say a silent prayer?

I can call on angels, the universe, or whatever name feels right and simply say, “I am here. You know that I am here, and you know the situation.”

I need to surrender and trust that I will be taken care of.

Even if I had not reached Zubiri, and even if I had needed to sleep on a bench or beneath a tree, I was okay with that.

Sometimes things do not work out in the way we want them to.

But I was at peace with the possibility of sleeping in nature.

Being at peace inside my physical body is ultimately the most important thing for me.

When that peace is absent, everything can spiral out of control.

Danny

I would like to go a little deeper, if you do not mind.

You have described the process you use, but I imagine there must have been a moment in your life when you first discovered that if you respond in this way, something takes care of you.

For example, when I walked last year, I injured my knee during the very steep descent after the Iron Cross.

I could not continue anymore.

I thought my Camino was over.

I was sitting in the village at the bottom of the valley, and then, out of nowhere, a Chinese woman from Hong Kong appeared.

She used an ancient medical treatment on my knee.

Within half an hour, I could walk without pain.

Before that, I had only been able to walk with pain.

It took me a long time in life to learn that I could rest in the space of being taken care of.

Fifteen years earlier, I would have gone completely bananas.

Very slowly, I began to learn that I could relax because something, whatever name you give it, really does take care of us.

For me, this is no longer a belief. I know it.

What was the moment for you when you began to understand and experience that?

That must have happened long before you walked the Camino.

Frances

It probably began when I was a small girl.

I grew up in a Catholic Italian tradition.

I was the first child in my family to be born in Canada. My parents were immigrants, so that gave me a unique life experience.

The first moment when I knew that something greater existed outside our human form happened when I was very young.

Without going into too much detail, I heard a voice telling me what I needed to do in a situation where a family member needed outside help.

We were in an isolated location, and that person was experiencing a mental health crisis.

I do not remember exactly how old I was, but I was probably younger than ten.

My younger brother and sister were with me.

The voice I heard was audible to me, although nobody else heard it.

It told me that I needed to say something and that I needed to do it immediately.

In my own mind, I answered the voice, “But I already tried that. It will not work.”

The voice replied, “No. You need to do it. You need to ask now.”

I then told the family member that I needed to go to the bathroom and that I needed to go immediately.

At that moment, the answer was yes.

That allowed me to get the outside help that was needed.

There is something much greater than us.

There is a divine interconnection that can happen silently between people.

Sometimes people may think that hearing a voice means something is wrong with us.

But sometimes we may be hearing something angelic, something greater than ourselves, guiding us and taking care of us.

We need to trust and listen.

We also need discernment.

We need to ask whether what we hear could harm us physically, mentally, emotionally, or spiritually.

If it does not harm us, then perhaps we can say, “Yes. I will listen to this.”

Danny

So this awareness has been with you for a long time?

Frances

It has been with me for a very long time.

I turned sixty-one this year.

I do not dismiss these experiences anymore.

Sometimes I still doubt them, but I am quickly pulled back.

I smile and laugh, because sometimes you think it is a joke, but it is not.

It is life.

It is the way the universe communicates with all of us when we are open to listening.

Danny

That explains why you were able to remain in trust during that situation almost one year ago.

You also mentioned, before we started recording, that after the Camino, the Camino actually continued.

Can you say something about that?

Frances

My Camino continued.

I walked for fifty-five days, and then I spent some time by the Atlantic Ocean in Finisterre and Muxía.

I had a beautiful friend who had walked the Portuguese Camino.

It just happened that we arrived in Santiago on the same day.

We traveled together for two weeks along the coast, and then we went down to Portugal, where I spent another two weeks.

I took time to reflect on everything that had happened and also to rest physically.

My body had more or less told me that I had done enough and that I needed to rest and come back within myself.

There was a lot of reflection during that time in Portugal.

When I returned to Canada, I did not really have a home.

I still do not have one physical place that I call home.

I have family whom I visit and stay with from time to time.

I also do part-time house sitting and pet sitting for people who are traveling.

But the Camino continues.

For me, I am a part-time nomad, but a full-time pilgrim.

It is about continuing to learn, being of service in the community, and helping people with their own inner healing journeys.

That is where I am now.

Danny

So the moment you received that insight while meditating in your apartment, the moment you knew you would walk the Camino, changed your whole life.

Frances

That moment changed my entire life.

Everything changed.

Danny

I had a similar experience.

I walked my first Camino in 2013, after I divorced my German wife.

I walked with my youngest son, who was thirteen at the time.

If somebody had told me then that, because I started walking the Camino, I would one day live in Spain and open an Inner Camino House, I would have said they were completely out of their mind.

That is why I sometimes warn people: are you sure you want to walk the Camino?

It will change your life, whether you want it to or not.

Frances

I believe everyone should walk the Camino.

Danny

Me too.

Frances

I think everyone should experience it.

It does not have to be the entire Camino.

People can walk it in parts if they do not have the time to commit to the whole route.

But I think everyone needs to make that kind of commitment to themselves and go and walk it.

Something happens when people walk and move their bodies.

I see that every week with some of the beautiful people I work with.

We do heart-to-heart energy work, and something happens to their whole being when they begin to move.

Danny

Last year, we were still living in Sweden.

At the beginning of the year, somewhere around February or March, I made the decision to walk from Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port and complete the eight hundred kilometers.

Many of my Swedish friends asked me, “Why do you walk in Spain? We have so many beautiful hiking trails here.”

I looked at them and said, “I am not hiking. I am going on a pilgrimage.”

They looked back at me with eyes as big as car wheels.

You could see that they did not really understand the difference.

I told them, “There is a real difference. I am going on a pilgrimage. The walking is only the tool.”

I had walked shorter Caminos before.

In 2013, I only had ten days available, so I walked about one hundred and sixty kilometers from O Cebreiro with my son.

In 2014, I walked around one hundred and thirty kilometers with Carola.

We got married, and then we walked part of the Camino as our honeymoon.

In 2018, I walked the same section from O Cebreiro with my daughter.

Looking back, I experienced many Camino provides moments, magical moments, and extraordinary encounters with locals and pilgrims on those shorter Caminos.

But when I walked the full route last year, especially after Logroño toward León, something different happened.

That long, empty part where there is often nothing except you and the road brings something up every day.

It can be something from your past, an insight, pain, anger, or something you once did to another person.

It comes up in the morning, and you walk with it.

I sometimes call it EMDR on steroids.

You walk for two hours while the emotion is present.

Then you reach the first café, have a coffee or a bocadillo, and continue walking.

Suddenly the emotional charge is gone.

The memory is still there, but the emotion has become disconnected from it.

That is also what EMDR tries to do.

I did not experience that same dynamic on the shorter Caminos.

Walking for a longer period, and especially walking alone in the morning, seemed to create a different process.

That does not mean that people on shorter Caminos cannot have those moments.

I can only describe what I experienced. It is not an absolute truth.

Frances

I think the land itself carries something because it is so ancient.

When you walk on it, there is an energetic imprint in the soil from the many pilgrims who have walked there over the centuries.

We are human, but we are also spiritual and energetic beings.

We absorb things, whether we believe in them or not.

Our bodies are like sponges.

Even on a shorter Camino of two weeks, I think people can sense that if they are open to it.

If someone is not open and is only looking for a hiking experience, they may still have an encounter, but they may dismiss it.

This is what I try to share with people, even here in Canada.

Stop dismissing it.

Listen.

Take a moment and ask: what is this showing me?

What is it revealing?

What might it be trying to teach me?

Do not brush it away, because something may be trying to get your attention.

Danny

Exactly.

I also say to the pilgrims here that when they return home, they return to daily life.

On the Camino, many pilgrims live with less judgment than they do in normal life.

At home, there is so much activity around you and within you that it becomes difficult to hear that inner voice.

That is one of the reasons I thought this podcast could help pilgrims.

It can also help soften the pain of PCS, the Post Camino Syndrome.

At some point, it is no longer just Camino blues. It really begins to hurt.

Some people suffer deeply after returning home because they no longer feel at home in their old life.

A door has opened that they cannot close again.

They may feel unable to change their situation, and they often have many reasons why change is impossible.

I understand that.

That is why I thought the podcast could offer support, insight, and a feeling of connection.

That is also why I call this place the Inner Camino House and why the podcast is called the Your Inner Camino Podcast.

It is about the inner work that begins when you enter the pilgrimage.

And that inner work can change your life forever.

Frances

One of the first chapters in the reflections I wrote after returning home is about what a pilgrimage actually is.

I ask the reader: are we not all on a pilgrimage, even when we are at home living our daily lives?

How you choose to live that pilgrimage is up to you.

We have entered this idea that we must make a living, pay bills, go to school, buy a house, and take on a mortgage.

There is nothing wrong with any of those things.

But how do we live that life without losing ourselves?

How do we remain connected with our inner and authentic self?

How do we do it with happiness, rather than experiencing life only as a chore or an obligation?

Danny

Frances, this conversation resonates deeply with me because I am living more and more in that space myself.

Thank you for that.

Is there something you would like to say at the end of this podcast to your fellow pilgrims?

Frances

You spoke about non-judgment and how the Camino can be a place where people experience less judgment.

I agree with you, and I would like to offer another perspective.

It is about living in the frequency of love.

Pure, divine love.

I may become emotional because I feel this very deeply.

I felt it deeply on the Camino, both when I started and when I finished.

You can meet another pilgrim, another person, and connect with them very quickly.

Some people might call them strangers, but they are not really strangers.

You are meeting a fellow brother, sister, or family member.

We are all interconnected.

In a way, we are meeting ourselves.

Even without exchanging words, you can feel it.

For me, this is the essence of the Camino.

It is also the essence of my life’s work, wherever life and the Camino lead me.

The message is that love is always the answer.

How can we share that love in a way that is nonjudgmental, while honoring and accepting everyone?

Danny

I fully agree.

I also came to understand that when we truly do not judge someone, something changes.

Even positive judgment can imprison a person.

If you say, “You did that very well,” the person may begin doing more of it to receive your approval.

If you say, “I do not like what you did,” the person may begin avoiding it.

In both cases, the person can become trapped by your judgment.

But when you can truly see why someone does what they do, the judgment about their intention begins to disappear.

You can still question what they do, but not necessarily why they do it.

In my experience, that space is perceived as unconditional love.

For me, love and true non-judgment are deeply interconnected.

Frances

May I share something?

These words came to me when I stayed in Grañón at the donativo albergue.

We gathered together, and each person held a candle.

We were invited to share something if we felt called to.

Just as you were inspired to create the Inner Camino House and this podcast, these words flowed through me in that moment.

I would like to share them with the pilgrims listening to this podcast, if I may.

Danny

Of course.

Frances

As I held the candle and looked at its flame, these words came through me:

May the peace and love of this divine light multiply within each heart sharing this space tonight.

May it guide your steps and illuminate the path for those whose paths cross yours.

Danny

Beautiful.

Frances, thank you very much for this inspiring conversation.

It was a pleasure to meet you.

I am grateful that we had the opportunity to speak with each other.

I am sure that our Camino family and fellow pilgrims will be touched by what we talked about and by what you shared from your own life.

Thank you very, very much.

Frances

Thank you, Danny.

Whether you are walking the Camino right now, or preparing for it, or perhaps you are back home, and maybe even suffering from PCS, the Post Camino Syndrome.

I hope that this podcast inspires you. And if so, do NOT keep it to yourself.

SHARE IT!

When you share this podcast, you ACTIVELY help spread the skill of Self-Reflection.

Every person who learns the skill of Self-Reflection begins to see people differently.

You may still question WHAT someone DOES.

But the judgment about their INTENTION starts to disappear. And you enter the realm of non-judgement.

And non-judgment is experienced as unconditional love.

That is how REAL change begins.

With you.
Then the people around you.
Your city.
Your province.
Your country.
Your continent.
And eventually,
the world.

That is why ACTIVELY spreading the skill of Self-Reflection, like an unstoppable virus, is SO important.

So please, do NOT just listen, but ACT on this call, and share it with as MANY people and on as MANY platforms as you can, TODAY.

For new episodes, go to https://www.innercaminohouse.com

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You will ALSO find the link in the show notes.

Thank you for listening, and Buen Camino.