As I crawl out of the Soul Canyon, I grieve.

The Soul Canyon is a like a big cauldron. Every time I look into it and taste the potion, a different emotional flavour comes to mind.

Last week I dug out my professional camera and took some images of a sound healer for her website. The whole photo-shoot lasted maybe 30 minutes. As I was editing the images a week later, without blowing my own trumpet, I realised how great the images were. And how easy (effortless) taking them was to me.

And then I had a little cry because I abandoned photography, not because it was hard or because I wasn’t good at it. I abandoned it because I felt I wasn’t good enough!

I abandoned so many things in my life, not because I was lazy or didn’t have the stamina – oh no, if you know me, I have a personality of a Jack Russell, if I set my mind onto something…

I abandoned them because I felt I wasn’t good enough. And when I don't think I'm good enough, I immediately feel ashamed. So much shame, I want to disappear. I cringe. And I abandon the project.

Ultimately what I abandon is myself. I abandoned myself so many times.

I disowned things that I loved and that brought me joy because I believed that joy was not a good enough reason to do any of them.

But no project can ever be successful if there is no passion, no joy. And so, the more I pushed into doing it for the commercial reasons, the less successful things were, creating a vicious circle, confirming my suspicion that I wasn’t good enough. A fulfilling prophecy, if you like.

So, I abandon photography and in fact started to hate it. For a long period of time I literally had a PTSD reaction to holding the camera in my hands. It was a tool of shame. A device of my failings. An object that broke my heart.

At heart I’m an artist. I love creating things. It brings me joy. It feeds my soul. It warms my heart.

But how do you live in a world that only rewards productivity? Because we’re told that unless something brings you money or recognition, what’s the point?

And as I crawl through the Soul Canyon, I start to recognise how hard my life was because I made it so. It was me all along.

People react to childhood trauma differently. For me being the doer, exceeding at everything I touched, was the only way forward. And in the process of being perfect, I burned everything along the way, like a superhero with a blow torch.

And as I look at the burned city at my feet, like in one of these apocalyptic movies where the heroine barely makes it alive; as I crawl out of the Soul Canyon, I grieve.

Depression is largely a restorative self-help manoeuvre, an expression of being, alternative to one that failed a normal course of growth. A form of mourning of part of the self that is spiritually and physically dying from repression. [1]

Yes, I am depressed. But as the emotional cauldron has many flavours, there is also a sense of loss in it too. And sorrow.

Sorrow for all that lost time, lost projects, hurt, stupid hardship for show. I was looking for joy in the wrong places. All this time.

Today I took my camera and went to the garden. I was photographing flowers. And the tomatoes in the greenhouse after the rain. The condensation of water on their cherry bottoms.

I felt like a naughty child. My joy is still fragile. A lifetime of needing to be productive doesn’t go away with just one thought.

But, like a naughty child, I’ll persevere.

I had a dream the other night. Standing on the age of a lake in winter. Waiting for the surface to freeze so that I can pass. It takes time for the lake to freeze. But I’m patient. I can see a little crust forming on top. Soon it will be thick enough for me to tread confidently through. Soon I’ll be able to go. And as I go, I’ll be taking photos. Because, you know, my camera is coming with me.

[1] Dragon Rises Red Bird Flies, Leon Hammer