Hi friends,

I’m writing to you today from Brooklyn, where I’ve been for a month. I’m here taking a six-week public speaking workshop in the hopes of creating a straight-ish shot to a career that can be supported by speaking on antidepressant withdrawal and depression recovery. Like most endeavors, there’s a way to have a small impact and there’s a way to go big. I want to go big, so I’m taking the time to dedicate focus and level up.

(Now would be a good time to mention that I am available for booking for 2024. I’d love to speak at your business, conference, or university event. Please reach out to me at brooke@brookesiem.com.)

Spending an extended period of time in another environment illuminates cracks in the world I’ve built for myself. I first discovered this in the depths of antidepressant withdrawal, when I boarded a one way ticked to Malaysia six months after getting off of Effexor. I’d committed to a year of international travel before I took my last antidepressant, thinking that I had plenty of time to get off the cocktail of prescriptions I’d been on as a teenager. I figured I’d feel like I had the flu for a week or two, start taking a new antidepressant that would surely work wonders, and flit off around the world in an Eat, Pray, Love fantasy.

Instead, I had a withdrawal experience so horrific, I would eventually sell a book about it. LOLz.

As difficult as it was to travel while in antidepressant withdrawal, it accelerated my healing. I was changing countries every five weeks, which meant I had enough time to settle into a new place, but not enough time to create a home. This forced me into a minimalist lifestyle. If it didn’t fit in one suitcase and a backpack, it couldn’t come with me.

This exercise in pairing down spotlighted what was actually important and what was a story I was telling myself. Prior to leaving the United States, for example, I made room in my suitcase for a travel steamer to keep my clothes crisp. After three weeks in Malaysia, both the steamer and most of the clothes I brought with me were given to goodwill. The steamer was useless in the oppressive humidity, as were clothes that required steaming. It wasn’t just about lightening up the suitcase. It was about changing the focus from how I thought I needed to present myself to what I actually needed to feel good. In Malaysia, I wasn’t surrounded by folks who looked like me or thought like me, so I didn’t have a chance to be influence by their choices. It was about what I needed and how I wanted to feel. But it took being in a completely different physical location for me to start understanding that.

Emotionally, I went through the same process. For years, I’d created a story for myself that blamed my problems on outside influences. I was depressed because of my business partner, my finances, or a lack of romance. But in choosing to leave my life, I stripped myself of all those external factors. I couldn’t blame my misery on my business partner when I was no longer part of the business.

Unlike the practicalities of luggage, unpacking my emotional baggage took longer than three weeks. I needed to move around a few times to notice what triggers came with me and what didn’t. It was only after I noticed that I had the same problem in Malaysia as I did in Cambodia that I was able to come to the conclusion that maybe the problem was me.

This was terrible news. And great news! It meant I had the power to do something about it but I also had to do something about it, which is always unpleasant and involves a lot of ugly crying. But as I practiced the muscle of identifying the issues inside me, I got better at clearing them up without all the drama.

Over and over again, with each new country, I evaluated the contents of my suitcase in relation to where I was in the world. By the end of the experience, I was traveling only with a carry on, the contents of which could sustain me on chilly Argentinian nights or warm Mexican days. And I’d stripped myself off all the emotional bullshit too.

Over the years, I’ve continued this practice (save for that pesky pandemic which complicated matters.) Here and there I seem to spend a couple of months in another place and see what it has to teach me. It slows down time, puts what matters into focus, and shows me what to clear out. A few months in Vancouver, Canada ultimately led to an important relationship and semi-permanent relocation to the Great White North. A summer in Seattle produced MAY CAUSE SIDE EFFECTS. This time in Brooklyn is showing me how much I’ve healed since I left New York City seven years ago, while also highlighting the need for me to leave the comfortable but anemic existence I fell into during covid. Honing, honing, honing.

I realize that I’m in a unique position to do this. I don’t have kids and my work is relatively flexible. But the lesson can be learned without getting on a plane. All it takes is an honest assessment of what’s not working in your life and forcing yourself to experiment with different choices around that issue. Few things in life are irreversible. Commit for two months and see what happens. Maybe you cut out coffee, stop watching the news, or finally see a therapist or counselor. Whatever it is, it’s got to be long enough to settle into, but short enough to know you can handle the inevitable unease that comes with it. Two months, I think, is the sweet spot.

What comes of this practice is the ability to question what you believe about the world. This intellectual flexibility makes for interesting and resilient people who are thoughtful, adaptable, and unlikely to be manipulated. It also has the beautiful side effect of slowing down time, because when you’re consciously paying attention to the reverberations of new choices, you can’t act on autopilot. With a world moving at an ever increasing speed, any chance to slow it down is a welcome gift.