Ed O'Brien

this underlying depression had been going on for years.

And I sort of tried to address it with, you know, I went to see a healer in Brazil to sort of kick it all off.

But I also made things, everything from dietary changes, which were actually profound, you know, eliminating alcohol for a while, no drugs, food, the kind of food I was eating, because, you know, there's the link between the gut and the brain.

I thought, I'm dealing with this, I'm dealing with this, it's this.

you get to a certain point of that toolbox that you have in order to help.

It's like, that for me was that darkest moment.

It was like everything I was doing wasn't making a jot of difference.

It's hell, that's right.

And I think that thing of framing it within...

bit like an artist or a musician or something when they frame the work they do within the arc of their life.

It's the same thing with these moments of supreme challenge and darkness.

If you can frame it as this is my hero's journey, and I think that's why I definitely embraced this notion of the dark night of the soul, which I think comes from St.

John of the Cross.

and this idea and you know dante's inferno midway through life i lost myself in the woods when i was able to i was okay when i'm like i'm not a freak this is what people for thousands of years have been going through and this is part of the journey this is the part of the journey of existence and i think it's super important to have that

to be able to frame it almost like you frame your life as a film sometimes in, in, in the sense of trying to make sense of it, you know, because on the, you know, the cold face of it, it just seems so bleak and it seems, how do I get out of there?

And I think for me that that was the hardest bit.

It was like,

how long is this going to go on for?

Because after nine months, I didn't feel like I'd made any shifts.

But for instance, I guess if I'd had a, if I lived in a community, for instance, if we were in a proper community where you had your elders and your elders had been through that, they could go there.