Until the age of 30, author and spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle lived in a constant state anxiety, mixed in with periodic episodes of suicidal depression, until he had a spiritual awakening. One day when he was 29, he woke up with one of the most intense feelings of dread that he had ever felt. Everything in the world seemed meaningless and he disliked his own existence. His desire for non-existence became stronger than his want to live.