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

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I highly recommend you listen to the audiobook of this, or book for that matter, its extremely interesting, facinating, entertaining and it kept me captivated for hours. If you are vulnerable to messages such as this, and would be negatively impacted by mention of fat-phobia, I would avoid this book.

First, We Make the Beast Beautiful by Sarah Wilson - Waterstones

The author describes the positive effects that meditation, hiking, decluttering, and quitting sugar (among other changes) have had in her life. I am a big fan of the divisive act that is known as the “hate read”: going into a book knowing you’re probably going to hate it, and reading it anyway. Well author, Sarah Wilson has techniques that helps us with certain anxiety, how to cope with it, how to "sit with it". 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.She leads the discussion via her keynote addresses and in conversations with the world’s leading philosophers, scientists and creatives on her podcast, Wild with Sarah Wilson and over at her Substack with her community of 50,000 subscribers. I won't get into my backstory here, but suffice to say that I don't agree with her on this and chose to completely ignore all references to it throughout the book. This is the author’s honest and vibrant account of her struggle with anxiety and what she has done to cope or manage it throughout her life.

first, we make the beast beautiful: A New Story About Anxiety first, we make the beast beautiful: A New Story About Anxiety

As a public personality who has lived an interesting life on her own terms, I wanted to like Wilson's book. I have a huge problem with the cutting out of an entire food group, and THEN using it as an example of self-compassion. Truth, honesty and complexity shine through every page of what has been a lifelong struggle powered by a formidable energy.Sarah also has extensive experience working with brands, universities and corporate organisations to develop values-led communications and to facilitate events. The passages about how evil anti depressants are were traumatizing to me and I’m sure to many other people.

Sarah Wilson Home - Sarah Wilson

Sarah's latest book This One Wild and Precious Life is a soul's journey through the complexities of climate change, our disconnection, political fragmentation. I felt consistently that Wilson did not understand that, in regards to a phrase like "get rid of your car," as a means of promoting walking, limits the ability for some people to be able to earn money, to transport themselves safely and effectively. Her most common piece of advice to “give up eating sugar” was the most frustrating because that’s what she has built her career on. The biggest struggle that I found in reading this was that Wilson appears to come from a significantly different life to me. 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.

Unfortunately, whilst we share a first name, Sarah and I do not share a large portion of our anxiety and how we manage it. It feels like falling into a beanbag and receiving a big bear hug from a friend to finally hear someone who gets it, and who can honestly, without shame, say “I know. Sarah blogs in an intimate fashion - on philosophy, anxiety, minimalism and anti-consumerism - at sarahwilson. Perhaps like you, she grew tired of seeing anxiety as a disease that must be medicated into submission.

First, We Make the Beast Beautiful: A New Story About Anxiety First, We Make the Beast Beautiful: A New Story About Anxiety

But not too many, because: "I don't plan on filling this book with too many exercises that people like me skim over to get to the meaty theory. There’s also a full list of my recipesthat I’ve shared on my blog for meals that help modulate anxiety. It reads much like an anxious persons mind - some facts may not add up, backtracking, random side notes popped in. I read it much more as a memoir with some recommendations for things that MIGHT help others than as a self-help book.However, given I'm in a pretty bad slump, it hasn't brought me out of it, nor has it submerged me further, I think I need to respect that sometimes things just "are. She even notes, almost casually, that during the time she wrote the book, she attempted suicide twice. An exploration of the chasm between the public persona of a high-functioning media personality and her private struggle with ever-lurking, crippling anxiety. Today has been a number 2 kind of day where I managed to read almost all of Wilson's First, We Make the Beast Beautiful (FWMtBB).