The Other Side of Depression
Six Years Since Inward Ride Began
It’s been six years today. On August 15, 2019, I set out on a three-month open-road motorcycle sabbatical, determined to transform my life-long depression. I called the journey Inward Ride. Over time, it became far more than a trip.
For three months I rode through California, Oregon, Idaho, and Utah—camping, staying in people’s homes, writing, and reflecting. I shared blog posts then, and when the pandemic began in 2020 I stopped publishing. Still, I continued writing privately and working quietly to transform the legacy of depression.
In 2019, I experienced a watershed moment in my life. After forty years of treatment-resistant, chronic depression, I had reached rock bottom. What once kept me afloat no longer held me. But what would?
The answer, surprisingly, was the thing I knew least about: how to be myself. Not as an idea, but as the truth beneath every attempt to impress, to be accepted, to belong. From that raw place, I began a practical journey—slowly, steadily—of living more honestly, letting go of who I wasn’t, and slowly uncovering who I was. Rock bottom had stripped away posturing and pretense. From there, even the smallest steps—provided they were rooted in personal integrity—counted as progress.
To create perspective, I asked myself a simple question: What would I do if I had been diagnosed with a terminal illness? The answer was immediate: I would go on an open-road, motorcycle journey.
So I did.
Now, in 2025—six years to the day— I stand in new territory. I am an Internal Family Systems Institute trained IFS Practitioner and a Certified Life Coach, successfully guiding others through transformations of their own. And I now resume the public telling of a life shaken and transformed.
What has happened since 2019? How do I live now? Is depression still present? How did those three months of open road shape the years that followed? How successful was the experiment of living as myself? And how does the work I now do with others connect to my own process of overcoming chronic depression?
Over the coming weeks, I’ll share that story—the journey from then to now—with you, along with the practical steps that helped me change my life.
Your presence meant a great deal during Inward Ride in 2019. I look forward to your company once again.
Ciro Coelho in Lisbon, Portugal. March 2025. ©Ciro Coelho/InwardRide.com