I’m not sure why now, but I feel like I want to share this.

Mid way through 2015 while living in Bhutan, depression hit me like a bullet to the head. Three years later,  I let it go.

The past 3 years have been the kind of experience I wouldn’t wish on anyone, but I’m also grateful for at the same time. It seriously affected my creativity, my personal and work relationships, my photography ‘business’.  If it weren’t for my friend Ana and Megan who I’m eternally grateful for,  and a book I found in a coffee shop while cycling in Nicaragua, I don’t know what would have happened.

It was during the 3 month cycle I did last year when I really let go of it. It was the experience of swimming up-stream for so long, that I had nothing left but to let go. Total collapse. Completely exhausted, I had nothing left but to to fully let go. Fear was no longer there. And neither was anything else. It was the feeling of lying on my back looking up at the sky.  Just looking. Peace and liberation is how I would describe it. Complete surrender.  It’s funny how that experience of letting go, of no longer trying to be happy, of no longer trying to be ok, of accepting what felt like was ‘giving up’, was what was so freeing.

This experience of having nothing left in me,  I’m so grateful for. It’s almost been like a ‘hard reset’. Everything was uninstalled. Looking at things with fresh eyes and losing identification to what I thought was ‘me’ has been very freeing.  From that clear space, I feel I’ve been able to see things in such a different way than before. There is something about experiencing a different perspective that is transformative. Once you have seen something you can’t un-see it,  isn’t it.

The face that once tried to smile, struggled.  Now, without trying, a new smile is forming of it’s own.

Dylan

Written in July 2018 while in Quang Ngai, Vietnam