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

Sarah Wilson

Apr 2018 · Sold by HarperCollins

About this ebook

New York Times Bestseller

"Probably the best book on living with anxiety that I’ve ever read.” – Mark Manson, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck

The Chinese believe that before you can conquer a beast, you must first make it beautiful.

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.

In First, We Make the Beast Beautiful, Wilson directs her intense focus and fierce investigating skills onto her lifetime companion, 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 of her own experiences.

Wilson offers readers comfort, humor, companionship, and practical tips for living with the Beast:

• Cultivate a "gratitude ritual." You can't be grateful and anxious at the same time.
• Eat to curb anxiety. Real food is your best friend.
• Just breathe. Embrace the healing power of meditation.
• Make your bed. Every day. Simple outer order creates inner calm.
• Study fellow fretters to know thyself. Emily Dickinson, Charles Darwin, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. all struggled with anxiety.
• Actively practice missing out. Forget FOMO, curl up on the couch, and order takeout.

Practical and poetic, wise and funny, First, We Make the Beast Beautiful is a small book with a big heart. It will encourage the myriad souls who dance with this condition to embrace it as a part of who they are, and to explore the possibilities it offers for a richer, fuller life.

Ratings and reviews

Deleted within 2 hours of purchase. Not even worth the 3.99 USD. I was hopeful for a book that discussed possible causes and influences for anxiety. Instead I found a simplistic view of "well we don't really know how meds work". The approach of just going off her meds and rolling with the chaotic results does NOT lend confidence to trusting her judgement or advice to readers. After deleting the book, I googled the author's other books and career. An industry based on bad science.

Cheap, good intro, and cool cover, but I couldn't read beyond the first chapter because she seems eager too expound on all the effort she's put into fixing her problems while not mentioning a variety of things, which I know from my own research that she should have been doing. Makes me wonder if she is one of those "I just do what ever the professional says" people who never does research, takes notes, or charts progress. She never mentioned EMDR, ART, The Rewind Technique, The Movie Theater technique, or any catalogue of literature. She did talk a good bit about extremely ineffective, poorly studied, fringe therapies and drugs though. She also explained that she was determined to undertake psychologicaly unhealthy practices such as rampant fornication and playing it by ear. She strikes me as a skilled writer, but not a good guide for those who struggle.

I think what struck me the most about this book was not that the author gave a lot of advice I hadn't heard, but that her experiences and the way her brain works is so similar to my own story. I bought a physical copy, I enjoyed it that much.

About the author

Sarah Wilson is the author of the New York Times bestsellers First, We Make the Beast Beautiful: A New Journey Through Anxiety, which redefined the mental health genre, and I Quit Sugar, along with eleven cookbooks that have been published in fifty-two countries. Previously, she was editor of Cosmopolitan Australia, host of MasterChef Australia and founder of iquitsugar.com, an 8-week program that has seen millions worldwide break their sugar addiction. In May 2018, Sarah committed to giving all proceeds from the business to charity. She now builds and enables charity projects that engage humans with one another, and campaigns on mental health, consumerism, and climate issues. Sarah lives in Sydney, Australia, is an obsessive hiker and spent eight years travelling the world with one bag.