In April 2019, a two-year-long gripping anxiety finally made the shift into a full-on clinical depression. Usually when I had struggled with life in the past, I could always see the possibility of the end. This time, all I could see was darkness, and the biggest part of me at that time wanted nothing else. Every trauma from the past 10-15 years was resurfacing all at once and I had no idea why. It was grim.
A few short months later a friend suggested I read The Surrender Experiment by Michael A. Singer. I slowly began working my way through it. The book spoke of how every trigger and annoyance could be directly linked back to something within us that is tethered to that stimulant. So I started watching myself, waiting for the triggers and one by one freeing myself from them. He then went deeper as he shared the practice of watching your thoughts. I had no idea what he meant at the time but I was intrigued by the possibility of it. So, I kept trying to watch mine as I rode the bus, walked to work and even while I took a shower.
One morning on my way to work, I sat reclined in my seat attempting to observe my thoughts when suddenly I had sunken behind them. There they were passing in front of my awareness as I observed them, unattached, as though they were a part of me but not quite me at the same time. It was fascinating and propelled me to continue with my exploration.
As the book continued imparting gems, I’d pick them up and pin them to my practice. One practice that I had never attempted before was meditation. Micheal spoke of how he was suffering from his marriage ending at the time and meditation was the only thing that brought relief from the suffering. I related, so I began with a beginners guided 30-day challenge. I could feel the weight lifting each time I’d sit down for those 5 minutes every morning and every night. Sometimes I’d find a moment in my day to do a short practice. As it gave me relief even for just those few minutes, I began extending my practice. When the guided meditations would end, I would remain seated for as long as I needed to. Eventually I was meditating for an hour every night, a minimum of 10 minutes every morning, another 5-10 minutes on the bus, and a possible 3-30 minutes during my lunch breaks. Life was getting easier as I confronted and accepted the traumas from the past.
The turning point for me came when the same friend suggested a 5-day Ecstatic Breathwork course by Scott Shwenk on the One Commune site. Those 5-days were the most transformative days of my life. They introduced me to energy work; the power of the breath; an expansive, unending love that poured out of me; a vast, infinite black space of awareness beyond my individual experience of myself; and a light that shone from my forehead for which I knew somehow, was me.
The work got much deeper from that point onwards and I found myself regularly exploring the inner dimensions of the mind. It lead me to studying a Bachelor of Metaphysics and to completing a leadership course in Ayurveda Yoga. It lead to profound experiences of oneness, out of body experiences, physical and neurological shifts and an overall completely different experience of life, of who I am, and of how I connect to the world around me.
Today, I continue to do my practice as I step into guiding others through theirs. A year and a half ago, I couldn’t even imagine waking up to another day. Now, I embrace the periods of growth, expansion and adventure as I look forward to what lay around the next bend.