Walking Home: A Pilgrimage from Humbled to Healed

I found this book Brave, Candid and Refreshing. I am a big fan of Sonia's work and have attended her workshops. Like many spiritual authors and teachers of our time, it's easy to look up to her and think she's a modern soothsayer that has it all figured out and is immune to the issues of her readers and clients. As she reveals in her book, this is not the case at all. She is guided to walk The Camino following a triple doozy of life events: death of her brother, followed by the death her father and her own impending divorce. Realizing she must face the music she gets very personal and pulls everything hidden in the basement of her psyche out into the light to be dissected as she places her perpetually sore feet on the Spanish trail. She takes to the Camino armed with 75 Power Bars, a small backpack she wears each day and a much larger one she hilariously names "Cheater" since she pays a shuttle service to transport it for her each day. Sonia is gifted with the archetype of Storyteller. The juicy parts of her books are always the stories and this makes Walking Home quite a captivating read since it's a long story containing many little stories or reflections within it. The book is written in a diary style logging both the daily mundane (but important to a pilgrim) events: breakfast, sleep and weather, along with the daily troubling thoughts, emotional ups and downs, provocative insights and moments of clarity. We've all been there in one way or another and that's why its so good. Sonia is funny and you feel the annoyance of having nothing but crappy toast and bad coffee for breakfast when you are walking miles a day, and you cheer with her when she finds an amazing spread or great company. More importantly you may also resonate with the struggle of acknowledging your so-called negative feelings towards loved ones marred with the shame that doing so brings. Unlike many of us who tuck away those feelings in a judgie file labeled "Not Spiritual Behavior," she actually GOES there. In order to get away from the darkness she has to walk through it and face her shadow. Calmly? No! While kicking, screaming and cursing. The physicality of walking so much along with the burdens she carries inside, including strong past-life memories of the Knights Templar, wear her down and it is this pairing aligned with the mystical energy of The Camino that give way to understanding, acceptance and forgiveness. Unlike every other book of hers, there is not a psychic prediction or reading to be had in these pages. Ironically it may be one that teaches the most and possibly my favorite! I know it will get re-read many times. For anyone that doesn't know Sonia or her work- if you liked "Wild" and "Eat, Pray, Love," You'll LOVE Walking Home.

I admire Sonia Choquette's fortitude to try new things with a reasoned approach. She expresses competence throughout her work and leads with admirable strength and courage. 'El Camino' is a personal journey that demands stamina and represents a lasting testament to the physical journeys we undertake with spiritual undertones. Sonia generously shares intimate details of her physical hardships as well as inspiring insights into the spiritual side of human nature, as well as a very personal spiritual message conveyed in rather miraculous and unexpected fashion along 'The Way'. Her journey, so generously and compellingly shared in these pages, is as remarkable as it is emboldening to the reader making one's own way in this fleeting, oft-troubled world. A most worthy read for learning about this challenging destination through the experiences of an accomplished, competent leader in character-building and self-development. This story will stand the test of time for its honesty, clarity of direction, and inspirational message of finding meaning and strength through personal challenge, exploration, and self-discovery.

I read Diary of a Psychic and absolutely loved it. I immediately looked for another book by Sonia Choquette and chose this because of the goals she had in walking The Camino. I assumed she would be bringing "inside info" from a psychic point of a view to the journey's narrative and was disappointed there was none of that. I'd hoped to get her spirit guides' take on anger and forgiveness. I think they can be hard nuts to crack (anger and forgiveness, not the spirit guides), especially if you come from a childhood trauma situation like I did. But since she did not advertise that in the book description, I cannot lower the star rating because I had these expectations. I loved her honesty, especially about having so much anger and feeling bad about that since she has been a spiritual healer all her life. She felt somehow she should have been able to transcend those kinds of feelings, but who among us can escape the human condition? Even Jesus became extremely angry on occasion. I liked what she said about often having good reasons to feel angry, but also having free will in the choice of reliving the situations. (Although I find that can be very difficult to do sometimes if you have PTSD like me and get flashbacks. The original situations stay involuntarily new.) I think if you like travel books, you would like this, although it gets repetitive -- but then again, how could the narrative not become repetitive? She's walking every day, staying in a hostel every night. But she's such a good writer, it works. I wonder if the gifts of walking The Camino stayed with her or if back in ordinary life, the old ways returned as strong as before. Maybe we simply have to forgive and let go again and again and again, until we are blessed with the gift of forgiveness.

This was an easy, engaging read that offered a new perspective on someone that I’ve liked and admired as an intuitive teacher and guide. It was interesting to see her struggles, willingness to unearth her own failings, hindrances, and burdens to find peace and forgiveness. Her adventures and insights gained during an arduous and painful (physically and emotionally) trek were well documented into a heartfelt story.

I know relatively little about Sonia Choquette, but I stumbled upon a youtube video featuring her a year ago, and I enjoyed the video so much I decided to follow her on Facebook. When I started following her, she was posting breath-taking video clips from her walk along the Camino, and that was my sole reason for buying this book. Frankly, I wasn't sure if I should because of the scathing reviews, but after reading it, I can honestly say I truly enjoyed this book. The book is the author's description of her personal journey along the El Camino de Santiago (The Way of St. James) done in a travelogue style. The 490 mile journey starts in the foothills of the French Pyrenees and ends at the tomb of St. James in Santiago de Compostela in Spain. From what I can gather, The Way of St. James was an important Christian pilgrimage during the middle ages. After the unexpected deaths of her father and her mentally ill brother, Sonia's marriage of thirty years began to crumble, and the author felt guided to travel the Camino for spiritual healing. She shared a very personal, vulnerable part of her life with her readers. I enjoyed this book because pain is something we all understand. After all, who among us gets through life without some pretty deep wounds, and healing is something we all need universally. I felt like I made the journey with the author in many ways, except I'm sure I'd never be brave enough to walk it on my own. I got a bit lost with a past life experience that the author brought up, but other than that, I thoroughly enjoyed this book and plan to read it again.

I completed the 500 (it is really 480) Camino at age 58. I was really looking forward to this book because it looked like it was going to have a profound spiritual aspect seeing that the author makes her living as an intuitive. I originally gave the book 2 stars because the beginning is very self indulgent, whiny and annoying. You can barely believe the author makes her living as an intuitive guiding others as many of her her relationships are so messed up. I am a fan of strong woman personalities and she was definitely not one. I was dismayed to see that right at the get go she made the decision to stay in B and B's which she refers to as hostels but are not the typical pilgrim lodging. Anyone thinking of going on this journey should know that the typical pilgrim stays in an alburgue which is dorm style and does not serve breakfast. But they are clean and free or cheap. They do include dinner quite often which was always wonderful. Too bad she was always sleeping at dinner time because the food is really wonderful. Also most pilgrims carry their own pack and keep it down to 10% of their body weight. The pack transpo service is there if you need it but most just try to live frugally. So her Camino was a bit more luxurious that most. And she still whined constantly! The body issues are part of it- it is rare to escape that. But I did find that even if you keep waking with intense pain your body still gravitates toward wellness. $1000 worth of insurance! That never even occurred to me. The Camino invites you to let go and leave things up to the universe. The little towns are 5- 10 km apart the whole way so I don't understand how she was running out of food and water. and BTW the books that she read about wild dogs were written quite some time ago. There are no wild dogs. The govt. sees to that as well as making sure the path is safe and well marked. They are very proud of their Camino. I hung in there and kept reading because I was enjoying reliving my own Camino in her descriptions but by p. 241 she was still going on about her "needs" but starting to get a grip. Finally on p. 266 the Camino lessons kicked in and she started thinking like someone who has worked on herself a bit, appreciating the good things in her life, of which there were many. I found myself wishing she had started her journey there; it would have meant so much more to me. I enjoyed the last 70 pages quite a bit, they were actually quite moving once she cut the complaining. So I am giving it one more star.

The Author is very open and honest, very detailed and complete. For me, her story is a journey into the soul. I found that I resonated with her account partially because we share similar backgrounds, especially when it comes to loss-I’ve known for some time that, like her, I need a long walk, and maybe, just maybe, this story made me realize that it needs to happen sooner rather than later. Her story demonstrated many examples of blind faith and how to navigate thru the darkest of times, and for just those lessons, I will be forever grateful for her words.

I really love this book, especially since I also will be walking the Camino de Santiago this May & June, which is the same time of year that Sonia walked it. I sure hope that the weather is better for me though - she really ran into some tough going. A couple of things she did - that I am doing differently (thanks to reading her book I might add). She pre-booked all of her hostels in advance (mostly to fit her tight time schedule) - and had some of her hiking gear transported ahead of her, but while this was convenient - I just kept wishing she would just throw away her schedule - and just enjoy the journey a little more - instead of "dogging it out". There were days that she was sick or in severe pain that I think she just should have hung in at the hostel and allowed her body to heal a little, but every day she had to get up - and get on the trail no matter what. In the end though, she emerged a different person - which is what the Camino is all about, so the ending was great. Meanwhile, it seemed like every other day that a happening on her trail had me going back to Amazon to get a few more things for my walk, like blister kits, and waterproof gloves... which I see as a good thing (helping a fellow pilgrim as it were) so from that perspective - her experience was also invaluable.