First, We Make the Beast Beautiful

A New Journey Through Anxiety

By: Sarah Wilson

Narrated by: Sarah Wilson

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.

Will go back to it regularly

This is a very helpful book for anyone suffering from anxiety as well as their loved ones so that they can have a better understanding of what it is and mostly how it feels.

The production is not very good, the volume is lower than normal and the chapter numbers don't coincide with what audible shows you. However, those are minor things that didn't impede me from enjoying the book.

There's a lot of information (at the beginning I felt it was kind of allover the place) and I wish I was able to have a notepad to write it all down, so that is why I think I will be going back to this regularly.

I cannot tell you if there's an order or a storyline, but somehow it still works because of all the useful quotes and information she gives.

Amazing!!!! Very helpful.

Amazing book. Can’t recommend it enough. The way she describes anxiety and what to do about it is like I have never heard it before.

Great Listen!

Thank you Sarah for sharing your story! A perfect book to listen to on my walks home. Your story encouraged me to see my mental illness in a whole new way 🙏

A raw, honest and holistic view on anxiety…wonderfully written

Highly recommend the read for anyone looking to get more in tune with their own anxious or intrusive thoughts

Insightful

I picked this book up in the midst of a personal crisis with my own anxiety. Its a broad topic, and not everything Sarah encounters in her story and research fully applied to my situation. However, I found a lot of solace in what she had to say, and found answers to a lot of the questions that we're bouncing around my head. All in all, it made facing my Beast a little easier, which is exactly what I needed.

I continue to listen to it now and then, sometimes specific chapters, when I need a reminder that I'm not alone with my anxiety, or a refresher on a better tactic in facing it.