Emerging from the Darkness
In May, I wrote something that described how it was the best I’d felt in a decade.
Looking back, I have been able to connect the dots and see the experience of depression that built with time. Getting deeper, thicker, and heavier over the years to come. It started in 2016 when I moved to NYC for a big promotion right after a breakup. On the surface, things were working. But underneath, something was building.
Even after starting this “work” on myself after an epiphany moment in 2020, I’d only had fleeting moments of feeling like “myself”. Which to me means living with ease, joy, wisdom, creativity, humor, and passion for life. For the most part, everything still felt so fucking hard.
I’d left corporate to start my own thing, carrying with me my same high-performer and achiever patterns and identity. Then as I found myself making progress and experiencing relief through mental health discoveries, I somehow ended up on a spiritual path. Seeking nothing other than Truth and Self-realization.
But it just became another thing for me to achieve. My patterns followed me there, too.
I started to see all these hidden rules and grading systems I had unconsciously created for myself. And if I wasn’t measuring up to those, I wasn’t doing it right. Lots of shame, guilt, self-criticism, and ever-bubbling self-doubt.
During my two-month trip to Costa Rica, I landed on the beach full of fear. Walking around frightened and close to terror at times. I felt like I was walking around scared for my life. Like an animal was going to jump out of the leaves and attack me. The fear was so palpable and sticky. It was clear it was trying to get my attention for a reason. But it was so overwhelming I couldn’t sit with it from a psychological perspective. I could sense trying to “get to know it” wasn’t the play for me. So I went even simpler, and just focused on my breath, hoping that would create enough space for me to work with it.
Every waking minute of my time in CR, I brought my awareness to my breath and my lower belly. And after about 2 weeks, I noticed a huge shift. My mental chatter quieted down, I stopped jumping at the sound of a crunching leaf next to me… and there I was. It was so profound that I committed to keep doing it for the rest of my trip. No examining the story, no sitting with the “wounded parts”, just breathing and letting go of every single thought (positive or negative) that came up.
Then as I entered my second month, I felt a blissful, loving energy coursing through my body. It only went away when I “forgot” or got distracted, but the moment I returned to my breathing, the sensation returned. I felt like I was walking on air, with ease, joy, light-ness, and even bliss at times. It lasted for the whole month of May, and there were times when I could hear the thought, “Don’t get too attached to it, you could be brought back down any minute”. And while I know all things are impermanent, this shift felt different than anything else I’ve experienced. There were a few other things that happened that I won’t get into here due to length, but this felt like a huge level-up.
I got back to Denver, and things remained for a couple weeks. And then it started to feel like it was slipping. I injured my back, and it forced me to lie on the ground for 4-5 days. Been out of lifting weights and jiu jitsu for 5+ weeks and counting. I felt a heavy, dark, apathetic pull return. Like I was cloaked in a steel blanket.
For 3 weeks straight, I felt like nothing would help. And I noticed old programs begin to resurface and take hold. Intensity that I haven’t experienced in a couple years. Thoughts were regularly firing at me of how I wish God would just take me already. Just get it over with. Remove me from this prison and free my soul. Why the fuck am I doing all this work for all these years if I still suffer this much? I clearly am missing the mark. If I still can’t get reprieve from this level of pain. How can this possibly be for anything? Am I just here to suffer and pay for shit from past lives? How am I supposed to help others if I can’t even help myself?
I got stoned each day, usually from noon until bedtime. Which was typically accompanied by eating junk food. I felt like a zombie walking around. I had no interest in trying any of the methods or resources I’d come to know over the years. I felt hopeless, helpless, and paralyzed at times. However, I was getting reprieve from cannabis. In that reprieve, I felt like myself - even if for just a few hours.
But then something shifted one evening. I had the thought:
“What if I just noticed this? What if I finally allowed myself to go through this? To feel like shit, to try to find relief, to suffer? What if I surrendered to this unfolding, even just a little bit. If I allowed myself to be right where I am at this point in time, without judgment, without shame, without guilt or self-criticism?”
I had never thought of allowing it to exist and to unfold. I wanted so badly to get through it and get rid of it. To stop the suffering and curb these deleterious habits. But something about those questions got my attention.
I told my business partner that it was such a unique experience. I was able to start resting in awareness, just witnessing it all unfold. Not identifying with the pain, the programs, the one reaching for weed gummies, or anything. Just be there watching, allowing it and accepting it as an experience unfolding. Like a tree swaying in the wind or the sun rising. I had never done that before and I began to see the uniqueness in this experience.
So I practiced that as much as I could. It didn’t change the external behavior right away, but I did feel a little bit lighter because I had removed the judgment and resistance to it. I somehow understood that this was burning off the remains of some karmic kindle. There were more logs to throw in the fire, and I was just sitting around the campsite watching it happen. I didn’t have to be so involved and identify with the one it was happening to. I could see that it was just phenomena arising and passing away.
Wow. This was so fascinating. The “Tim-ness” was experiencing a lot of pain, but there I was watching it. Then after a week of doing my best to rest in that space, the external behaviors started to change. I didn’t order takeout, I skipped dessert, I skipped a day of gummies, I laid in the sun for a couple hours, I went for a walk, I got to the gym. Huh, weird. Like it happened on its own. Like it was going to happen on its own anyway, whether I agreed to it or not. I had never been part of something from that place before.
And I find my own work incredibly simple again. Surrender everything.
All the thoughts, negative feelings, beliefs, expectations, judgments, rules, identities, etc that I notice arise in my awareness. Let them go. Don’t hang on to them. And in letting go, what has been revealed so far is clarity, peace, and compassion. Seeing that it’s always there, it’s the natural state of things. Once we let go of all that is not our true self, we get to experience the truth of who we really are.
I’ve even felt energy begin to return. A willingness to live, to help others.
Ever in the work with all of you.
PS If you’re in a season where life feels unsettled, your mind feels loud, or you’re struggling to feel grounded, I created a simple 7-day reset to help you slow down, quiet the inner critic, and feel like yourself again.
