The Power of Collective Efficacy: What the Camino Taught Me About Community

“You have MS, but this isn’t a life sentence,” the neurologist reassured me.

I was thirty-three. I had three boys under three, and his words felt half reassurance, half mollifer.

So when I landed on the steps of the Cathedral in Santiago de Compostela, Spain, it was more than just 100 plus miles for me.

It was proof.

For nearly sixteen years I have lived with Multiple Sclerosis. It has become part of my life much like doing the laundry or driving the kids to school. Doctors appointments, treatments, hospital stays, stretches of good health. It is woven into the tapestry of my daily life. While the condition can be extremely pervasive, I refused to let it define me.

Though some days, it is a bit like a shadow figure looming in the corner.

When I was thirty-three, I often wondered if I would be in a wheelchair by this point in my journey, so when my friend and former colleague, Wendy Wadsworth, agreed to trek over 100 miles through Spain and Portugal with me last spring, I had one option- put one foot in front of the other.

Wendy walked the Camino some ten years prior. Covering weeks on the French route, Wendy was no native to the literal and figurative highs and lows of the Camino. We spent the weeks ahead of our trip lengthening our training walks and carrying ten percent of our body weight in a rucksack. Each walk was a reminder, a validation that I was not just defeating odds, I was crafting self-efficacy.

The walk itself was one of the most rewarding and personally challenging experiences of my life. I ran the Marine Corps Marathon two times in my twenties prior to my diagnosis, and in many ways I tapped into the same reservoir on those long days in the mountains and cities of Portugal and then Spain.

About half way through, I fought major inflammation. My body struggled to get down simple foods, but it was Wendy’s reassurance and presence that allowed me to strap on my shoes each day and take just one more step.

We met countless pilgrims whose words and accents are forever emblazoned into my mind. Their stories, their journeys riddled with their own battles, their own hurdles, their own goals.

It was a reminder that we are often on the same path, but our journeys are so vastly different. It was also further proof that self-efficacy is valuable, but collective efficacy moves mountains.

It is not uncommon for pilgrims to walk miles upon miles together on the Camino. Time moves at record speed on these stretches as you become entrenched in the lived experiences of others. We met people from across the globe, yet our commonalities far out numbered our differences.

The communal nature of the Camino is one I have yet to experience or recreate since I walked into the Cathedral last May in the midst of a nationwide blackout across Spain. However, the lessons of the Camino drive much of my daily work; they are the guiding light. Through my role as an educator and through the community we are fostering with Women in Change, collective efficacy serves as the compass.

It's hard to believe it has been one year since we completed our Camino. I realize now more than ever that having personal goals is amazing, yet walking towards the finish line as a group- that’s something even a blackout cannot dim.