FIRST, WE MAKE THE BEAST BEAUTIFUL:
A NEW CONVERSATION ABOUT ANXIETY

By Sarah Wilson

“I believe with all my heart that just understanding the metapurpose of the anxious struggle helps to make it beautiful. Purposeful, creative, bold, rich, deep things are always beautiful.”

This is a book about anxiety…

I read this book shortly after having my first daughter, when my anxiety levels had become astronomically high (and just before we were plunged into lockdown, so it came at the right time!) It’s a really brilliant book about anxiety that draws on Sarah Wilson’s personal (and very real) experiences. Alongside her own revelations about anxiety, the book is punctuated with a wealth of scientific research, philosophical references, conversations with fellow anxiety sufferers, funny anecdotes, and interviews with a range of experts (from the Dalai Lama to Oprah’s life coach and everyone in between). From how to meditate to the importance of gut health, Thai massage to hiking, Ayurveda to minimalism, Wilson weaves a range of fascinating topics into an easy to follow manual for those of us suffering from anxiety - with the overarching assertion that it is not only possible to live with anxiety, but indeed to thrive.

What I love about ‘First, we make the beast beautiful’, and what the title points to, is that anxiety is not necessarily something to ‘get rid of’ but to reframe. Because within the pain and the struggle, there is beauty and blessing. The ‘beast’ can become beautiful, if we can only embrace the truths that it can reveal to us. And for Wilson, the ultimate thing that anxiety can give us is a compass that leads us back towards our true selves, back to who we were born to be, back home. Something that modern society has become so scarily adept at distracting us from:

‘Anxiety makes us come in closer and eventually we arrive at something particularly and unspectacularly un-woo-woo. Ourselves. Phew, hey. Phew. The exhausting outward chase can stop. It’s all here. Right here. No need to run, anymore. We let go; we join the flow of life. It makes sense; we belong. Because that’s all there is. That’s what anxiety does for us. It guides us home.’

There were so many times during this book that I felt ‘how is she so in my head?!’ She writes in such an accessible, honest and entertaining way and I truly think that if you do - or have ever - suffered from anxiety, this book is well worth the read.

“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. Thing is, we all put a lot of effort into looking like we did get the guide, that of course we know how to do this caper called life. We put on a smile rather than tell friends we are desperately lonely. And we make loud, verbose claims at dinner parties to make everyone certain of our certainty. We're funny like that.”