First, We Make the Beast Beautiful: A new story about anxiety

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Sarah Wilson first came across this Chinese proverb in psychiatrist Kay Redfield Jamison's memoir An Unquiet Mind, and it became the key to understanding her own lifelong struggle with anxiety. Wilson, bestselling author, journalist, and entrepreneur has helped over 1.5 million people worldwide to live better, healthier lives through her I Quit Sugar books and program. And all along, she has been managing chronic anxiety. Sarah Wilson: ‘Anxiety is a very lonely condition but I feel like there’s a yearning out there to connect over it.’ Photograph: Pan Macmillan I have read many many books on related subjects the last ten years, and I find most have a tiresome "do these 10 simple things and your anxiety will be gone!!! :D :D :D" tone. That tone pisses me off. Nothing is easy with anxiety; nothing is straightforward or simple. I was worried this book would be more of that.

First, We Make the Beast Beautiful: A New Journey Through First, We Make the Beast Beautiful: A New Journey Through

To be honest, this book made me irritated because it made me feel like I was failing because I can’t manage my life in similar ways to her. This reaction isn’t all me and it was heavily influenced by the way she chose to structure and write this book. She made it seem that if you couldn’t follow her easy to manage suggestions then you aren’t trying hard enough to manage anxiety and you almost deserve your situation. I think the key takeaways from the book are that Wilson learnt that meditation, exercise and ‘sitting with her discomfort’ were her invaluable tools for healing, moving away from impulsivity and the desire to flee when things got difficult. And I get that. Mindfulness and understanding helps, that isn’t ground-breaking news but Wilson’s story sure does highlight that very well. I was very honest about detailing self-harm,” Wilson says. “Nobody talks about the really ugly stuff.” Sarah blogs in an intimate fashion - on philosophy, anxiety, minimalism and anti-consumerism - at sarahwilson.com, lives in Sydney, Australia, rides a bike everywhere, is a compulsive hiker and is eternally curious. It’s written in a very conversational style, the structure is a tad chaotic and repeatedly jumps around to different things but that does appeal to me - as my brain is very much like this! It means that I never got bored. She covers triggers and treatments, as well as her own personal anecdotes and little quotes and tidbits from fellow anxiety sufferers.This was free through my library and listened by Bolinda Borrow Box, my libraries recommended listening app. One of the dear, dear things about getting older, is that it does eventually dawn on you that there is no guidebook. One day it suddenly emerges: No one bloody gets it! None of us knows what we're doing. pg 5, ebook Anxiety is a disconnection with this Something Else. As I say, the doctors and scientists can call it all kinds of things, but I believe it all comes down to this disconnect." pg 44, ebook I’ve written a full list of science and source endnotes from my book that you might enjoy nerding up on, you can find them here. There’s a book club guide

First, We Make the Beast Beautiful: A New Journey Through First, We Make the Beast Beautiful: A New Journey Through

An amazing book for people who struggle with anxiety, confusion, and existential curiosity (and pretty much as an inevitable consequence, existential angst). An affecting memoir of coping with anxiety over a busy lifetime. […] Those who endure anxiety will find Wilson’s thoughtful, often funny self-analysis to be just the right companion and affirmation.”— Kirkus I went into this book with a strong affinity for the title and the concept of turning anxiety from an ugly beast into something beautiful, without completely obliterating the beast itself. And I did get that message from Wilson ~ that anxiety can be embraced and is a part of our unique personhood. I appreciate a lot of her thoughts about FOMO/social media/technology/social situations, and can relate so closely with so much of what she writes about isolating oneself in a time of anxiety. The unique style of this book is perfectly matched with the struggles that are described within the book, and the author tells us at the outset that it's not linear or organized. I read it much more as a memoir with some recommendations for things that MIGHT help others than as a self-help book. It is meandering and philosophical and disjointed - much like my brain, in all honesty - and I really enjoyed that it wasn't laid out like a workbook with "here's how to fix yourself". Because that's the whole point - Wilson doesn't think anxiety IS something to be fixed! Her thoughts on meditation and it not needing to be pure or perfect are much appreciated as well. The author describes the positive effects that meditation, hiking, decluttering, and quitting sugar (among other changes) have had in her life. We’ve heard about these steps from other sources about a thousand times, but when Sarah describes it she does it in a sincere and candid voice which I found compelling. In her new book, she directs her intense focus and fierce investigatory skills onto this lifetime companion of hers, looking at the triggers and treatments, the fashions and fads. She reads widely and interviews fellow sufferers, mental health experts, philosophers, and even the Dalai Lama, processing all she learns through the prism her own experiences.Sarah Wilson—bestselling author and entrepreneur, intrepid solver of problems and investigator of how to live a better life—has helped over 1.2 million people across the world to quit sugar. She has also been an anxiety sufferer her whole life. Her most recent book, This One Wild and Precious Life , won the US Gold Nautilus Prize, and she has ranked in the top 200 most influential authors in the world (two years in a row). Readers, particularly those who only knew the beaming, sugar-free Wilson from her cookbooks, might feel quite concerned for her.