Addiction, Depression And Miracles, Part One

As an empath, I talk of my personal journey through addiction, depression, and the miracles that happened along the way. Not knowing I was an empath and not knowing that I could do something with my mind other than autopilot I stepped out on many solo long-distance walks. Not only did I discover my mind, and the kindness of humanity (and the miracles), but through realizing I needed to work on my inner self I was able to walk away from addiction.

This is part one of two talks.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to this talk on addiction,

Depression and miracles,

As I,

David Atkinson,

Take you on my personal journey in part one of a live talk recorded and edited for your listening pleasure.

So I'm going to take you on a bit of a journey.

I've had some amazing things happen in my life and it's all been mixed up with addiction and depression,

The rollercoaster of depression.

What's interesting about this for me is I quite often come in contact with people and tell them little bits about my life,

But for you guys,

What I'm actually going to do is tell it in a bit of a chronological order.

So it's going to be quite cool for me as well and exciting for me to be able to share that with you and to take you on a journey with me and to just share some of the ups and the downs of my life and how I've managed to get to the place that I've reached now.

So one of the things that has taken me a long time to realize is that I've always been a sensitive self.

I've always been very sensitive to energies and of course,

When I was growing up,

I'm 44 now,

And when I was growing up,

Nobody around me really was talking about energies or engaging with energies in any sort of way that I knew of anyway.

And my mum always recalls this story of about when I was about four years old and she said that she dropped me off at a friend's birthday party and when she came back to pick me up,

I was in exactly the same spot as where she had dropped me off and hadn't taken my coat off,

Hadn't moved,

Hadn't budged,

Hadn't joined in.

And actually that sounds quite a strange thing to do and it doesn't really make sense why a child would do that.

But jumping forward now to 40 years,

Now I work with people's energies,

I work with earth energies,

I work a lot with ghosts and clearing ghosts,

So it makes perfect sense that there was probably either a very angry ghost in there or there was something wrong with the earth energies in there or somebody's energy wasn't right and I could feel the blockages within their energy so it makes sense now why I would have done that.

But at the time it just seems very odd.

So yeah,

I think going along the path later on,

This is perhaps why I ended up being addicted to various things.

I grew up with a brother and a sister,

I was the middle child and I grew up in North Devon.

I was very blessed to grow up in the countryside surrounded by woods and fields and I went to a very small high school and went to college which for Americans and Canadians isn't university,

College is I guess high school,

I'm not quite sure how it works.

But yes,

And from there I decided to join the army and I joined the army as a mechanic.

I was extremely lucky in the military that I never went anywhere dangerous and never did anything too crazy.

And so as a sensitive being I kind of look back at that life,

That part of my life and think how did I make it through that?

But somehow I think there was some guidance from above or something that helped me get through that.

And then I left the army and kind of felt very,

Very lost and I just went from job to job to job to job.

And whilst my addiction changed slightly,

I was still an addict on the quiet and managed to function and keep jobs.

And I,

Between 30 and 31 I ended a long term relationship.

Yeah,

It's had a profound effect on me and I just had this massive impulse.

I was already doing a lot of dowsing and looking at a lot of energies and I dowsed a lot of earth energies and I was really drawn to walking ley lines.

So I split up from that long term relationship and I was like,

Right,

I'm just going to do it.

I'm going to walk the Michael Mary ley line which stretches from the most easterly point in England to the most westerly point in England.

And it's about a distance in a straight line,

About 480 miles,

But as a walk it's about 550 miles,

About 800 kilometres,

Something like that.

And so I decided that I was going to give that a go and just go out for a week to start off with.

And I managed a couple of nights and I really struggled with being by myself.

And so I gave up at that time.

And then a month or so later I tried again.

And this time I managed to go a bit longer.

And there seemed to be this three day period,

You know,

That first three days always seemed to be full of being a bit anxious and being a bit unsettled and getting used to being by myself and being in nature.

So I was walking in Devon and Cornwall.

I had dropped down into a place called Lost Wythion and I walked up this steep hill and I turned off the main road and I got to this little church.

And it was a hot day,

It was a hot morning.

And I was sweaty and I was sat just drinking some water in the church yard on the bench and having a snack.

And this guy came past and he said,

Oh,

There's going to be a wedding soon.

You know,

You can watch them walk past you if you like.

I just thought,

Well,

Maybe not,

Maybe not.

I don't really feel like it's my place.

I don't look like I'm dressed for a wedding,

So I'm just going to move on.

And just as I left the churchyard,

There was a phone box and I really wanted at that point to call my ex.

But there was something that there was that internal fight between should I do it or shouldn't I?

And something just clicked in my mind and I was just like,

I'm going to walk.

I can't I can't handle this.

I just need to walk.

So I started walking and just walked and walked and walked and walked.

And I think I walked close to about 35 miles that day carrying all my camping gear.

And I got to a place called Bodmin,

The park,

Which is outside of Bodmin town on top of a hill.

And it was starting to become dusk.

And I got there and I just sat in a heap and I got a notebook out and I got a pen out and I just started writing.

And just it just all started to flood out of me,

Just all the emotions about the world,

How I felt the world was against me,

How I felt that a lot of things were against me.

And I sat and I cried.

And whilst I wrote in the middle of this park,

It was it was an incredible release.

And it was it was also quite a difficult thing to to endure at that moment in time as well.

But it was necessary.

But I got to a point where I knew I needed to go camp for the night.

And I had a quick look on the map and could see there was a valley and decided that I would walk into that valley and there was a footpath leading up beside the river,

The river camel.

And so I dropped down into the into the valley and I got into this forest.

And it was just as though everything that had just happened,

The tension from that day just just drained away,

Just was just was absorbed by nature.

And it was just the last light of the day by the time I'd managed to get down there having walked nearly 40 miles that day.

And I just managed to throw out my my sleeping mat and my sleeping bag on the floor and I just slept on the forest floor.

And it was it was just such an amazing release that day.

And just to have released that energy just to have written that down.

Everything that had kind of stored up and was carrying all that tension in that day and I woke up the next day and it just felt like I was in almost in a different life.

You know,

I was sat down by the river,

The sun was just coming through the trees,

The cool water of the river is having a wash and just just really enjoying the the coolness of the morning,

Having had such a hot,

Sweaty walk the day before.

And so whilst I was on these walks,

I would I would manage to leave my addictions at home,

If you like,

And take a break from them.

And with this particular walk,

I started to head around to the north.

And it took me a couple of days,

I think,

To to head up.

And I got to the Devon and Cornwall border and crossed over into a place called Bridgerall.

And I walked into the village and I just it'd been raining all day,

It would it was just one of those days where the weather is just like,

And I got I got to the village shop and just asked them whether the local pub was open for a cup of tea and they said,

Oh,

Not until two o'clock.

And I didn't even have a mobile phone or a watch on me at that point.

I just decided to just go without everything.

This was in 2009.

So mobile phones,

Kind of not well,

I suppose,

Pretty,

Pretty useful.

But yeah,

So I asked what time it was.

It was about midday and I just know I don't want to stop.

I'm a little bit cold.

I'm better off.

Just keep walking.

So I walked out of the town.

And it might have been a bit later than midday,

Actually,

Might have been,

I can't,

I can't recall the time but I walked up this hill to,

There was this wall and some trees and I just stood there for a moment and could see that there was a sign saying residential people's home.

And at the time I played a didgeridoo and I had a collapsible plastic didgeridoo in my bag.

And I stood there and I thought,

Maybe maybe if I knock on the door and ask whether I play my didgeridoo for the residents,

Whether they would give me a cup of tea and a slice of cake.

And I kind of contemplated it for a minute and I was,

I didn't know what to do.

So I got a coin out of my pocket.

I thought,

Right,

Heads,

I'm going to do it,

Tails I'm not,

Tails I'm just going to walk on.

So I tossed the coin and let it land on the floor and it landed with tails face up.

And I thought,

I don't want that.

I want to go and try.

So I just picked up the coin,

Put it back in my pocket and walked straight up to the door,

Knocked on the door and explained myself.

And this rather confused woman was like,

I'm just going to get the manager.

And so the manager then came and I explained to the manager and she invited me and she said,

Look,

I don't think we can do this,

But I'm just really intrigued.

How have you got didgeridoo in your bag?

So I got the didgeridoo out and showed her and played a little bit.

And she said,

Yeah,

All right,

I'm going to gather everybody in the social room and yeah,

You can come and play for the residents.

I was like,

Great.

She said,

Would you like a cup of tea or coffee and some biscuits?

I said,

Yeah,

That sounds amazing.

So there was lots of shuffling of Zimmer frames and wheelchairs as all the residents kind of gathered.

I think there was about 10 or 15 of them and some were more kind of with it and more talkative than others.

And I just went in and had a little chat with them and started playing the didgeridoo.

And I think I was there for about half an hour and had a cup of tea and some biscuits.

And the manager said,

Yeah,

I think that's probably enough.

They've had enough excitement for one day.

And so I left them and I was in the hall just sorting myself out before I left.

And the manager just said to me,

That was absolutely amazing.

This is something that they are going to talk about for a long time,

Just because everything's the same here.

Nothing really happens.

And so I left there and just the positivity and joy that I had was just so immense and amazing.

And by the time I came to leave,

The sun was shining.

And by the time I got to the road,

I was crying.

It was just such an incredible journey to have made,

You know,

The start,

This outpouring of negative emotion and then this beautiful positive thing with playing the didgeridoo for these old people.

And when I got to the road,

I went round a sharp corner.

I came around the corner and there was a bird of prey,

A buzzard on the gate,

Just cleaning itself as,

Trying to dry itself off,

I think,

From all the rain.

And that was just kind of finished the moment off.

And yeah,

That night I was looking for somewhere to camp.

I was walking down a small main road and I knocked on this guy's door just on the off chance.

And he was like,

Yeah,

Sure,

I've got a field.

You can camp down there.

And he let me camp in his field.

And the next day I went to leave and just knocked on his door and thanked him.

He said,

Well,

Come in,

Have a cup of tea and a slice of cake.

Okay.

It's early in the morning,

But I'm not going to complain.

And three woodpeckers came and landed on the feeders in his garden.

He said,

This never happens.

So yeah,

It was,

That was a really amazing,

Amazing moment.

Just going to give you a quote quickly from Einstein.

So Einstein said there were two ways to look at life.

He said,

One is as though nothing is a miracle.

The other is to see everything as a miracle.

And you know,

My life has had many ups and downs actually in retrospect,

I've always managed to see it as a miracle.

So moving on to 2010.

So when I finished that walk,

I then went to earn some money and to be able to afford my next walk and the next walk I really wanted to do.

And so I actually,

I set off in 2010 on a smaller walk just to test some gear.

And I got down to a place called Crederton in Mid-Devon.

And there was this young guy,

He was attempting to walk from Land's End in Cornwall up to John O'Groats in Scotland,

Which is about 850 miles.

I think he was about 18 and he had no experience in walking.

He had borrowed most of his gear.

He didn't even have a stove and I was just chatting to him and I just thought,

Wow,

This guy with all my walking experiences really inspired me to just get out there and do this longer walk.

And I had a spare stove and saucepans and everything at home.

So I just said to him,

Do you want to borrow my stove?

Here's my address,

Just send it back when you're finished.

And he said yes and I knew I could be back in North Devon in a day's walk.

So I left him to go on his walk and I walked to North.

At the time I was living in North Devon and I walked back there and decided that when I got back I was going to book my train across the east of England,

Most easterly point to then walk along the Michael Mary ley lines across England.

And when I was home on that week,

I decided I wanted to take a book,

Illusions of Ventures of a Reluctant Messiah by Richard Back.

And if you've ever read that book,

It's an amazing book and it's about how your mind creates your consciousness.

Sorry,

Your mind creates your reality.

And it's a fable really.

It's a story,

It's a fiction,

A fictional story.

And it's just,

I read it after leaving the army in about 2002 and I borrowed it from somebody and had given it back.

And it just really,

It just really blew me away.

So I decided that I would buy a second hand copy of this book.

So I went onto the internet and had a look and the first one was the cheapest but it just didn't feel right.

So I didn't buy it.

The second one didn't feel right either.

The third one,

I was like,

Yes,

That's the book for me.

I'm going to buy that book.

So I bought that book and it arrived a couple of days later.

And when I opened it up,

There was an inscription and it said,

To David,

Good luck on your adventures from Uno.

And it was dated about the time that I originally read the book.

And it just,

With the content of the book just really blew me away.

And what was even stranger was in the back of the book,

Stuck into the seam was a flight stub from London Stansted to Salzburg in Austria.

And we'll come back to that at a later point in the story.

And so I then took the train across and started to walk across England.

Now,

So far,

It probably sounds like my walks went fairly smoothly.

They didn't always.

And in this particular walk,

I was halfway across the country and I put my bank card in the cash point to withdraw some money.

And the bank machine said,

Thank you very much.

I'm going to take that.

And it was a bank holiday weekend.

The bank wasn't going to be open for another couple of days.

It was a Sunday and it was bank holiday weekend.

So I was a bit stuck for money.

So I then walked on to the next town and I had my didgeridoo with me.

So I then tried busking.

And I think I managed to get 40 pence,

Which isn't a great deal.

And I wasn't very well at the moment.

At that time,

I had had a really bad cold and it was kind of with all the dampness and camping.

It was kind of getting into my throat and maybe into my lungs a bit as well.

And I wasn't wasn't feeling very well.

And I ended up phoning my dad.

And it just so happened that my dad was going to Glastonbury,

Which was on my route,

And that he was going to be there,

I think,

In two days.

So we managed to kind of meet there about the time when I ran out of food.

So it was perfect timing.

And I managed to get something to help me with my cold and I carried on.

And he gave me some money,

Obviously.

And that enabled me to get down to Crederton again,

Which is where the Michael Mary layline passes.

And I caught a bus up to North Devon.

I took a couple of days off just to get better.

And then I carried on with my walk.

And it was a great walk.

And on that walk,

When I got to St.

Michael's Mount in Cornwall,

Very beautiful place if you've never been there,

I learned about another layline called the Apollo,

An Athena layline that went through St.

Michael's Mount in Cornwall,

Then went across to France through Le Mans-sur-Michel,

And then went across through France,

I think just clipped through the corner of Switzerland,

And then into Italy,

And across.

You can keep following a layline right the way around the world if you like.

But yeah,

So at that point,

I thought,

You know what,

Why don't I just next year save a bit of money and go on that walk.

So in 2011,

I decided to go for it.

And I caught the ferry across to St.

Marlin,

In France,

And then walked to Le Mans-sur-Michel on the coast.

And then I started to head out across France.

Now,

I was meant to go southeast.

And somehow I managed to go south.

And well,

It was the perfect route for me to take.

And I just kept on heading south and heading south and heading south.

And I went through a place called Piriguilleux,

And yeah,

Ended up being invited.

It was somebody's birthday party.

It was early in the morning,

And I was just there to get some advice on a campsite.

And I came out the tourist information office and this woman said,

Ah,

You must come and join us.

It's my birthday.

We're going to the restaurant at the lake.

And it was an illegal restaurant out in the French countryside.

Yeah,

It was an amazing meal and very,

Very funny experience.

And then from there,

I carried on heading south.

And I did something called woofing,

Worldwide working on organic farms.

And I stopped at a farm near Bergerac.

And I helped a young couple on a farm called René and Sandrine.

And they had a little son called Ismael.

And I stopped for two weeks and helped them out.

And it was really nice break from walking.

And then I carried on and I went and helped a friend who lived near Toulouse.

And he was building a house.

So he was building a straw bale house.

So I helped him build another couple of weeks building this house.

And then I headed up into the Pyrenees.

Now,

I've been in mountains in the UK a few times,

Quite a few times,

Sorry.

I'd spent a lot of time going on Dartmoor,

Which is where I learned how to map breed.

And at that point,

I'd never really done a lot of mountain work by myself.

So I'd sat with a guide book.

I had planned my route.

I had planned where I was going to pick up food.

And,

You know,

I could see from the map that I could pick up food in three days.

So I could walk for three days with three days worth of food and then pick up food on the way.

Yeah,

So I headed out into the Pyrenees with my three days food,

With all my tents,

My stove,

And off I went into the mountains and I climbed up this valley in the beautiful sunshine and I stopped by this mountain hut and had lunch.

And I took my boots off and my socks off and aired my feet.

It was just so beautiful.

And by the time I put my socks on,

The cloud just came right down.

And all of a sudden I was in cloud.

And it was at that point I remembered that I didn't have a compass.

But I thought,

I'll be alright.

I'm pretty good at map breeding.

I'll be alright.

So I set off and I,

The footpath went into a forest and the footpath just before the forest disappeared,

It just went into a bog.

And so I knew that actually if I could find a handrail by walking up to the peak and walking into the forest on the ridge,

That I'd be able to find the track and I wouldn't get lost.

So that's what I did.

The Pyrenees are really steep because they're non-glaciated mountains.

So it was an effort getting to that ridge line and walking into the ridge line.

And I remember walking into this forest and still not being able to find the track.

And at that point I just took my rucksack off.

I sat on my rucksack and it was the quietest I've ever heard it.

There wasn't bird sound.

There wasn't water dropping off leaves,

Nothing.

And at that point I started to panic a little bit and I kind of had to calm myself down and just say,

Okay,

Let's have a look around and just see and just keep my rucksack in sight and just see whether I can go off in different directions and find the path.

And it was actually about four meters away.

I just hadn't gone that far enough.

So I got onto the path and headed up into the mountains.

And that night I planned to stay in a mountain hut.

I just had this dream idea that it was going to be amazing.

That,

You know,

I didn't really know what to expect.

So I just thought it was going to be amazing.

So I headed to this hut and I got there and there was this French couple there and they said,

Well,

Look,

We're not going to stay here tonight.

We were just going to wait until kind of early evening and then head back to our car down in the valley.

So we cooked some food together and shared some food and they just said,

Look,

We don't want to take this food with us.

So we'll leave you this food.

Okay.

So I then had a little bit more food than I anticipated.

I slept the night and it was beautiful.

It was really nice.

There was a little fire and a little bed that you could,

You could call it a bed.

It was a wooden platform.

And stayed there the night.

I think the,

I think I remember the mice helped themselves to summon my muesli,

But you know,

I'd like to share.

So I set off the next couple of days,

Really.

It was walking through the mountains,

Beautiful mountains,

The Pyrenees,

Hard work.

And I got to the town where I was meant to pick up food to find that it was a ski village where nothing was open apart from one restaurant.

So I just thought,

Well,

I'm just going to eat at the restaurant and see what happens.

So I went into the restaurant and by this point I had already decided that I was going to go to Santiago de Compostela in Northwest Spain.

And so I was chatting to the owners,

Just telling them that I was going to Santiago.

And at the end of the meal,

I just,

When I came to pay,

I just said to them,

Is there any chance that I could buy some bread from you?

And they said,

Look,

Here's half a baguette.

It's frozen.

Just,

Just take it for nothing.

So I'm like,

Great.

Okay.

I've got a bit more food than I anticipated at this point.

It's maybe not enough to make it three days,

But you know what?

I'm just going to chance it and see what happens.

I'm just going to let it go and just see what happens.

So I start heading up to this lake at 2000 meters and halfway there,

I meet a group of 10 French day walkers and I got chatting to them.

At this point,

I had a slightly different didgeridoo.

It was in two pieces.

I just had a piece each side and they just said,

Oh,

Have you got fishing rods in there?

And I was like,

No,

No,

It's actually a didgeridoo.

So I showed them the didgeridoo,

Played them the didgeridoo on the side of this mountain and also showed them how to douse.

And I didn't tell them about what was going on in my life right at that moment with the food and just an underlying bit of panic there.

But when they decided to move off,

One of the women in the group just said,

Look,

You must need some food.

And everybody reached into the rucksack and gave me something out of the rucksack.

I had chocolate,

I had biscuits,

I had bread,

I had all sorts,

Fruit,

Muesli bars,

A bit of everything.

And all of a sudden,

I had enough food to see me through the next three days.

And it was incredible to have experienced that and to be in a place where you just kind of really out on a limb in the middle of nowhere,

No real phone reception.

And just say,

You know what,

I'm just going to chance it.

I'm just going to go with it and see what happens.

And that's what happened.

And it was absolutely incredible.

So yeah,

That felt like it was a very definite miracle,

If you like.

One of the things that happened on this walk that I was really becoming aware of was my mind and where my mind was.

A lot of the time I found that my mind was in negative cycles,

And it was just going round and round in circles on negative things that happened in the past.

And I didn't know how to get past that.

I didn't know how to go beyond that cycle of thoughts.

And I really don't know how these little miracles happen along the way.

But considering my mind,

My mindset was maybe not in the best place a lot of the time.

But still,

I continued on and I went all the way to Santiago de Compostela.

That walk was about 1800 miles,

About 3000 kilometres.

And it took me four months without the months work.

So with the work,

It was five months of trekking.

So yeah,

It was pretty,

Pretty hard to go,

I think.

And yeah,

My body suffered a little bit,

But not too bad.

Finishing that walk and then I flew back to England was really hard.

Having spent all that time in nature,

All that time,

The majority of the time alone and without a lot of conversation to then start to be around people was quite hard and quite difficult to reintegrate a little bit.

And I just didn't really know where my place was in the world at that time.

I didn't know where I should be or what I should be doing.

And I ended up just taking volunteer jobs here,

There and everywhere.

And I was volunteering up in Scotland.

And my friends,

Renee and Sandrine from the farm in France that I met on the previous year,

Sent me an email just saying,

Look,

Sandrine's pregnant and we need somebody to give us a hand for a couple of months for maternity cover.

Would you be interested?

And I said,

Yeah,

Of course.

So I then went out to France.

And I went to work there for a couple of months,

But stayed almost two years.

And in that time,

I did disappear off for the old month,

Returned back to England.

And occasionally,

I went on another walk.

But before that,

Actually,

Try and keep myself in chronological order.

Sorry,

I'm just checking my notes.

I went to stay at my friend,

Sandrine,

Told me about a monastery,

A Zen monastery called Plum Village.

And that is near Bordeaux,

Bergerac.

So it was only a couple of hours drive away from the farm.

So I just thought,

Well,

You know,

I might give it a go,

See what it's all about,

Having never experienced a monastery before.

So I booked myself in for a week's retreat.

And there's two main places in Plum Village.

And there's the main kind of international centre.

And then there's the women's centre.

And then there is a place down the bottom,

A little farm by itself,

Where there's a small group of monks.

And for some reason,

I got put with this small group of monks.

And there was some lay people there as well,

It wasn't just myself.

And it was a really interesting experience.

And they spoke a lot about mindfulness.

And I went and listened to this monk talk about mindfulness and this monk's name was Thich Nhat Hanh.

I listened to him talk.

And I will be perfectly honest,

It didn't,

It made no sense to me,

I couldn't get my head around what this thing mindfulness was about.

I just couldn't understand it.

And one of the things that I noticed about this little part of the monastery,

This farm,

Was that there were lots of little unfinished jobs that I could see around the place.

And it didn't really make sense.

Okay,

It's a bit strange.

I don't know how this fits in with mindfulness.

Yeah,

I stuck it out for the week.

And I kind of then went back to the farm.

And again,

I knew there was change coming.

I guess a lot of people who are listening to this have suffered with depression themselves.

And for me,

It just seemed to always be this gentle roller coaster going on of,

You know,

My mood and where my mood was.

And with addiction,

It kind of,

It kind of can be expanded almost that that mood.

And it makes the waves kind of even deeper.

And I just found that when I was living on this farm in France,

That I some days I really struggle.

I'm a very inward person.

So I wasn't the sort of person that would go and ask for help.

And yeah,

Just kind of kept very inward with what was going on with myself.

And in 2014,

I decided that I would try and walk to Italy on a slightly different route.

And I still had a bit of an injury from my walk in 2011,

Had a little bit of a strain on my Achilles tendon.

So I had this amazing idea that I was going to build a bamboo trailer with two mountain bike wheels,

And a little brake on it,

And put my rucksack on that and then just push it like a wheelbarrow.

And that's what I did.

So I then went back to England,

I prepared all my stuff,

I stuffed it onto this bamboo trailer and set off.

And I was walking through the Devon countryside,

Heading down to Plymouth to catch the ferry.

And this lovely old woman stopped me.

And there was a little village not far away called Idtersley,

Probably three or four miles away.

And this little old woman wound down her window on this little road.

And she just said to me,

Can I give you a lift anywhere?

And her car was tiny,

There wasn't enough room to fit this bamboo trailer and this rucksack in.

But she said to me,

Yeah,

Can I give you a lift anywhere?

I said,

No,

Not really.

I'm heading to Italy.

And she said,

Oh,

My dear,

I can drop you in Idtersley if you like.

I just laughed and said,

No,

No,

Italy.

So that was a really funny but beautiful moment of,

And one of the things I really found with walking,

It just really made me aware of how beautiful people can be towards somebody when they're by themselves and going out there and do something a little bit different,

And how welcoming people can be as well.

Yeah,

So I set off across England and then got the ferry to France.

And I set off across France.

And I did about 1000 kilometres,

About seven,

Eight hundred miles to the centre of France.

And I was in the middle of this massive oak forest.

It was hammering it down with rain and I was pushing,

Pushing this trailer through the mud.

And I just,

I didn't feel great about what was going on.

And I spent two hours walking around in a massive circle and I got back to a road that had crossed two hours before and I just thought,

I'm lost.

I haven't got a compass.

I can't see the sun,

So I can't orientate myself on the sun.

I'm just going to put up my tent.

I've got food.

I've got a water filter.

It's raining,

So there's plenty of water.

I'm just going to sit in my tent.

It was about eleven o'clock in the morning.

And I sat in my tent and I just thought,

What am I doing this for?

Why am I still walking?

What is this bringing to me?

I don't feel like I'm getting what I need from doing this walk.

I should just give up.

And I sat in this tent and I just went through this massive range of emotions again.

You know,

One minute I just thought,

No,

No,

I must carry on.

I must do this.

I must walk to Italy.

You know,

I tried before and I didn't make it.

I must do it.

And then there's another part of me saying,

No,

Actually,

It's time to just stop.

If you're not enjoying what you're doing,

Just stop and do something different.

And I decided that at that point I was going to stop.

I was going to wait for the rain to stop and I was going to find my way out of here and I was going to catch a train to Salzburg.

Now,

Those of you that were listening before and heard about the book that had the flight stub in the back that went to Salzburg,

I'd kind of been holding off going to Salzburg because I didn't know what was there and I didn't know what was going to happen.

So at that point I thought,

No,

It's time to go to Salzburg.

It's time to find out if there is anything there for me.

It took me a couple of days to walk to the train station.

The next day the rain cleared and the sun came out and I was able to orientate my map properly and work out which way I needed to go.

I then headed to the train station and caught an overnight train to Salzburg,

Arriving at 4am in the morning with nothing planned.

And I didn't have a hotel,

No shops were open,

So I just stayed in the train station and waited for things to start opening up.

I came into Salzburg and there's this big hill above the city and I just think,

You know what,

I'm just going to walk up there and I'm just going to get an overview of the city and just see where I need to go.

And so I started heading up there and at this point I still had addiction in my life.

And so I headed up this hill and I got to this hill and I can't remember the name of it but there was this beautiful little hostel up there and it said it opens up at 8am.

So I thought,

You know what,

Let's just go to the viewpoint,

Enjoy the view and then go back to this hostel and book myself in for the night.

I went off and explored the city.

And of course I expected something to happen in Salzburg.

I spent three days there.

I had to actually change hostels after the first night because they were fully booked.

So I then headed into the city and chose one in the city.

And on the second,

I can't remember whether it was the second or third day,

I started to just feel really lonely and just feel out of place in the city.

Just didn't really know what to do with myself and just decided that it was time to move on.

And I really expected that something was meant to happen in Salzburg.

And I walked back to the hostel and I walked down to the room and I'd walked past this big billboard before and it said,

Verona,

Sister city of Salzburg.

So I thought,

You know what,

I'm going to book a train and I'm going to go there tomorrow.

So the next day I jumped on the train.

I was catching an overnight train and I was in this cabin with two other people.

And I just,

As we got into the Italian mountains,

It just,

Something dawned on me that I'd spent all this time looking outside of myself for the answers and not looking within.

Most of the time on these walking journeys,

I was looking at earth energies and ley lines and trying to uncover the mysteries and looking at the symbolism in churches and trying to really understand what that was saying and what those mysteries meant.

But what I neglected was I had a mystery in here and I needed to look at that mystery and I needed to uncover that mystery that was going on within me.

At that point I went to Verona and I spent three days in Verona and then I headed back to the farm in France.

I went back to work and I started to ask a lot of questions of myself,

Of my family,

Just trying to make sense of what was going on with me and why I just felt like I wasn't in equilibrium with myself.

You know,

As I said before,

At this point I was still quite deeply in addiction.

I could give it up for a certain amount of time but then I would go straight back into it.

And with the wave of depression as well,

Coming and going,

I was there looking after my friend's farm and they went away for a couple of weeks and I was there by myself.

And it was at that point I had what you might call a spiritual awakening or a nervous breakdown.

And I didn't know what to do with myself.

I was beside myself.

I didn't know whether I wanted to cry,

I didn't know whether I wanted to laugh,

I didn't know what I wanted to do.

I just really didn't know what to do with myself.

And I really struggled for about 10 days with what was going on with me,

What was going on inside of me and what was going on in my head.

And even though I'd spent a week at the monastery in France,

I still didn't really know what mindfulness was.

I still didn't really know how to meditate.

I didn't really feel like I had the tools to meditate properly.

And I didn't feel like I knew how to progress beyond what was going on in my mind and the cycles that were going on in my mind.

So after my friends returned,

I knew that I needed to go back to England.

I didn't really know how,

Why I was going to do,

But I just knew I needed to go back to England.

So this is 2014 and it was about the end of October that I went back to England.

And it was a really difficult time.

I ended up falling out with my dad and I have since made up him.

We didn't fall out for a long time,

But yeah,

It was really difficult.

It was a misunderstanding,

But I was trying to give up my addictions and just a lot of stuff was coming up for me and it was really difficult for me to kind of hold myself together.

Really.

I can't tell you how I did it.

I honestly cannot tell you how I did it,

But I managed over a couple of months to kind of get myself away from my addictions.

And by the new year of 2014,

2015,

I left all those addictions behind.

And I started 2015 afresh.

And at the time I was working on a building site,

I was doing some labouring job.

It was actually,

I was working with my brother.

I ended up falling out with my brother and this was after three or four months of working together.

And it was a lot to do with where I was and what was going on with me.

And again,

I've made up with my brother since.

But yeah,

Just a lot was coming up.

A lot was.

I just needed to let go of a lot of stuff and it didn't always come out in the right way.

And so by about the June of 2015,

I then knew I needed to go for another walk.

I knew I was starting to get into meditation a bit more.

I was starting to do some guided meditations and I'd had a couple of spiritual healing experiences where people had given me healing.

I had always,

I am a reiki master and I've worked with energies for quite some time,

Especially earth energies.

So this had had a profound effect on me and I decided to go walking and I had this 21 day week and I'd managed to download it onto my phone and go off on this walk.

And I decided that I was just going to go for a week.

And I set off and I did a week and I just thought,

You know what?

I'm good for another week.

Let's just carry on going.

So I carried on going and I set off for a third week and just thought,

Yeah,

This is great.

This is exactly what I need.

So I carried on going and I got to the beginning of the fourth week.

So I'd camped wild the whole time and spent a lot of time again by myself.

And at that point at the beginning of the fourth week,

I had run out of money.

I just didn't have any funds left.

And I just thought,

You know what?

I'm in England.

What's the worst that can happen?

I'm just going to keep going and just see what happens.

So I kept going.

And then a couple of days later,

I ran out of food and just thought,

Well,

What's the worst that can happen?

Just going to keep going and just see what happens.

And after about a day and a half of no food and continually walking,

I spent the night,

Camped and just woke up and I was really depressed.

And I just thought to myself,

No,

You can't think like this.

You need to get a grip of your mind.

You need to bring yourself into a positive mind space and just keep walking and just see what happens.

So I was heading to a place called Eastbourne.

I was on the South Downs,

The South Downs Way.

And I set off that morning and it was about an hour or so into my walk that I just had this idea that I should go to a Buddhist monastery and that there's always food at a Buddhist monastery.

They'll give me a cup of tea and some food.

So that's what I should do.

So I had this thought and then I went through a gateway into this open bit of ground going up this hill.

And there were some scouts at the very top of the hill and they were singing,

Always look on the bright side of life.

I just thought,

Well,

That's pretty cool.

I'm going to accept that.

I'm just going to try and look on the bright side of life.

And we were walking towards each other and they stopped and they were doing something in their rucksacks.

And then they carried on going and we passed each other and said hello.

And then I carried on and I got to where they had stopped.

And on this water trough where they had stopped,

They'd left a bag of milk chocolate magic,

Lucky stars,

I think they were called,

Or magic stars,

One or the other.

And I was like,

Wow,

This is so amazing.

So yeah,

All of a sudden I had this,

These lucky stars.

I thought,

Wow,

Okay,

This is going to give me a bit more energy to carry on.

And I'm just going to head into Eastbourne and I'm going to go to the library and find out where the nearest Buddhist monastery was.

At that point,

I had a mobile phone,

But I didn't want to have a SIM card in it.

So I didn't have any internet data or anything like that.

So I went,

Got to the library later on that day and I then looked up for the closest monastery.

And it was a place called Chithurst Monastery in West Sussex,

Which was the other side of the county,

Which is probably about a day and a half walk away.

And I thought,

I don't know,

That's quite a long way away,

But I scrolled down through their website and right at the bottom of their website in the footer,

It said,

We're looking for a maintenance man to come and stay with us for a year.

Apply here.

I thought,

Well,

You know what?

Why not?

I've got nothing else to lose.

Let's apply for that.

So I applied for this job as a maintenance man in this Buddhist monastery.

And having never visited this particular monastery,

I just thought,

Well,

I really have nothing to lose.

So at that point,

I then headed out of the city and I did ask a guy whether he would give me a pound to go and buy some bread.

And he kind of looked at me a bit weirdly and just told me to go away.

So I carried on and I went and camped up in the hills.

I was there very,

Very vividly.

That night I really didn't sleep well because I could hear music blowing in on the wind.

And all I could think of was people having barbecues and just chucking food on the floor.

And I was just,

I was there just walking around picking up this food off the floor and eating this food.

And it was a really surreal night's sleep.

And I woke up the next day again,

Just feeling really depressed,

Having only eaten a bag of milk chocolate magic stars,

As delicious as they were,

Just wasn't fulfilling enough to carry on walking.

And it was a Sunday morning and I looked at my map and I just thought,

You know what?

There's a church in the next village.

I need to change my mind,

Bring myself into a more positive state of mind and head to that church and go and get myself a cup of tea and some biscuits.

I headed along the trail to the,

Towards the village.

And on the way I bumped into this lady who was walking to the village shop.

And she started telling me about how she had just had a blood transfusion and it was the best thing that had ever happened to her.

She had had a problem with her kidneys and she'd been feeling really weak and she just had this blood transfusion and it just gave her a new lease of life.

And we were chatting as we were walking down the road and I just said,

Well,

I'm heading this way.

New haven.

And I just looked at her and I said,

Is there any chance you could give me a pound so I can buy some bread later on?

And she looked at me and just kind of shrugged her shoulders and I went,

Yeah,

Why not?

So she gave me a pound and then told me that the shop closed at 2pm.

So I needed to get there before then.

Okay,

Great.

Thank you very much.

So she went her way and I went to the church and they had just begun the service.

So I came into the church,

Took off my rucksack and just put it at the back and just sat quietly at the back of the church.

Now,

At this point,

I must have been close to 30 days on the road walking,

Having only washed in streams and the odd wet wipe wash.

And I probably didn't smell the best at that point.

But yeah,

I sat through the service and at the end of the service,

They said,

Okay,

We would like to invite everybody for tea and biscuits.

So I just got chatting to people telling them about my journey and was telling them about my finding the Buddhist monastery and how excited I was to the potential of having this job as a maintenance man.

And they said,

Well,

We want to give you some books on Jesus.

And I said,

Well,

Can I take only one book because I've got to carry it and I'm reading my rucksacks quite heavy.

And it was really kind of them.

And so I accepted the book.

And just as I was about to leave,

The woman looked at me and again,

I hadn't told them that I hadn't really eaten in a couple of days at that point,

About two and a half days at that point.

And she just looked at me and said,

You know what,

These biscuits are going to go stale if they stay here until a couple of weeks time.

Do you want to take them with you?

Yeah.

So she gave me this half a pack of biscuits and I was really,

Really grateful and thankful for those biscuits.

And off I went.

I then walked to New Haven.

I had half a pack of biscuits.

I had a pound in my pocket and I got to the shop in New Haven and I walked around this mini supermarket twice to see what I could get for a pound.

And I picked up half a kilo of carrots and a packet of oat biscuits.

So that cost me 98 pence.

So I paid for them.

I thought,

Wow,

This is amazing.

All of a sudden I've had some biscuits during the day.

Yesterday I had some chocolate.

Today I've got a whole packet of biscuits,

Oat biscuits and this pack of carrots.

So I then headed up along the river,

Along a salt marsh.

And I saw these people doing something down in the salt marsh and I thought,

What are they picking?

And I stopped and had a chat with them and they said,

Oh,

We're picking sand fire.

I thought,

No way.

It's amazing.

It's a salt marsh plant.

So it has a salty flavour and you can cook it or you can eat it raw.

So all of a sudden I had sand fire to add to what I had already picked up in this little supermarket.

So I camped that night and I was at that point,

I was kind of struggling with,

Do I try and make it across a day and a half's walk to this monastery or do I try and hitchhike to the closest family that I have,

Which was my sister who lived up in Buckinghamshire.

I didn't make that decision that night.

But in the morning I woke up and I thought,

Actually,

Yeah,

A day and a half's walk is a long way when I don't have much resources.

So I decided that I was going to hitch and hitchhike north.

Yeah,

It took a little while to hitchhike north.

It took me almost 24 hours.

Actually,

It was more than 24 hours.

It's something like 28 hours to actually walk and hitchhike.

And sometimes I'd be walking,

Sometimes I'd be hitchhiking.

And I managed to make it back to my sister's 28 hours later with,

Again,

A couple of days or 28 hours with very little food,

Considering how much I was expending in energy.

So at that point,

I then got invited down to the monastery.

And it was very strange.

When I finished that walk,

Money started to flow back to me.

Just lots of little things started to happen.

And it was very odd.

But yeah,

There was obviously a necessity to have gone through what I had experienced with a lack of food.

And at no point was I in any real danger.

I always had water.

I always could have found a way of phoning family and getting out that way.

So yeah,

I managed to then go get back to my sister's,

Kind of recharge,

Really energize,

Have a shower,

Which I was so grateful for,

And then actually head down to the monastery to go and visit for a couple of days to meet the monks and for them to meet me and for us to have a bit of discussion.

And I left there and I went away thinking,

Yeah,

This is what I want to do for the next year of my life.

I want to look after the buildings and be the onsite maintenance man.

As I mentioned before,

This was Chithir's Buddhist monastery,

Which is a Theravadin Buddhist monastery,

Thai forest tradition.

So it was very different from the Plum Village monastery that I'd visited in France.

And so I went there and I actually got ill in the first couple of weeks because they started one of the retreats and I can't honestly remember which retreat it was.

But they started a retreat and I was just like,

I'm just going to do everything.

I'm going to get up every morning,

Half past four in the morning.

I was super excited to be there and to be meditating with monks.

And if you've never been to that monastery and if you get the chance,

It's a really beautiful monastery.

It's set in beautiful grounds.

It has an amazing forest that was donated to them as well.

And yeah,

It was absolutely incredible.

So yeah,

That first couple of weeks I actually got ill just because I was trying too hard.

And I spent a whole year there and it was amazing to get up at half past four every morning,

To spend an hour meditating with the monks,

To join in with the work for the monks,

But also to spend time working off by myself.

And also there were lay people there,

But this particular monastery was more about the monks going there and being able to do their own private practice and being able to be monks and not have to worry about teaching lay people.

Yeah,

It was a really amazing experience.

But still when I left there,

I still didn't really feel like I was very mindful.

Thank you for joining me on part one.

I hope you've enjoyed this part of my journey.

And now you can join me in part two,

Where the journey continues.

Wherever you are in your journey,

Remember to step back and appreciate the miracles that are happening in your life.

I am David Atkinson,

And you have been wonderful.

Thank you.

Reviews

Thank you so much. I found yr talk uplifting. I also struggle with depression & addiction. Looking forward to part2🙏🏽🌸

Thank you for sharing your story - courageous, inspiring, and heartwarming ❤️

David! I loved coming along on this journey. I, too, walk a lot and it's a true healing practice. You went to Plum Village! Also resonated with the kindness many show to travelers 🙏
Thank you for sharing more of who you are 😁

Beautiful journey really have enjoyed it. Thanks for sharing this with us🤗 love the Einstein quote about the 2 ways to see life…… I appreciate my miracles that happen every day.
In gratitude 🙏🏻
Be Blessed 😇🥰🤗✌🏻