Finding Growth in the Darkness
Anxiety a difficult thing to explain to someone who hasn’t experienced it – how can you be overcome with fear without knowing what you’re afraid of? But that’s exactly what it’s like.
I’ve suffered with anxiety for as long as I can remember; being worried without knowing why, and dreaded things I haven’t even thought of. Before going to meet up friends on a Friday night, my stomach would twist itself into knots so intensely that I’d physically gag from the sheer nerves.
Living in a constant state of fight-or-flight is exhausting. Everything feels urgent. Everything feels like life or death.
Then, I lost my dad.
He wasn’t just a parent – he was my best mate, my big brother. The one blasting Led Zeppelin at 3AM while I begged him to turn it down because I had an ‘important’ meeting in the morning.
It made me realise that so much of my anxiety, my fear, my stress – it all stemmed from my desperate need for control. Control over situations, over outcomes, over the unknown. So I did something that terrified me, and something my dad and I had always been intrigued by but never pursued.
I booked a flight to Peru, deep into the Amazon rainforest, to try the psychedelic ayahuasca brew. No outside world, no distractions, no escape – just me, the medicine and whatever it wanted to show me.
Surrendering to the Unknown
One ceremony for changing everything – I lived out my own death.
I saw myself contract HIV in the jungle and return to London. I watched my body deteriorate – growing weaker and withering away until I eventually faded into nothing. I fought it hard, trying to find ways to survive and change my fate – but the more I resisted, the worse it got.
My body burned with fever, I felt sicker than I’ve ever felt. I tried to walk to my accommodation, desperate for a cold shower to cool down, but I was so delirious that I collapsed on the way back and was swallowed by the darkness.
The world kept spinning and life went on – my existence was just a tiny blip in an endless timeline, in one of infinite universes.
The moment I accepted my fate, I vomited up a thick, black sludge – taking with it some dark and heavy energy. A calmness settled over me and I felt lighter than I ever have before.
The Other Side of Fear
I’ve always felt a weight on me, like something tethering me down. It’s hard to explain – especially for someone who’s very sceptical about the intangible – but since that night in the jungle, a weight has been lifted.
I haven’t been consumed by anxiety and the fear of the unknown no longer controls me – because I now see that’s the beauty of it all.
There’s no quick fix for healing, no overnight cure or magic pill. It isn’t easy – but I’ve learned that stepping into the unknown, the spaces we fear the most – is where real growth happens.
True transformation doesn’t happen in your comfort zone. It occurs in the darkness.