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This woman knows anxiety, wow. Some brilliant insights are in here, but the book could definitely be whittled down and edited a bit more.
Quotes:
- "When I can't sleep now, I remind myself that it might just be about a need to re-acquaint myself with myself."
- "meditation is like a little forum for airing grievances..... just meditate."
- "the thing about anxiety is that it's all head. So the thing that gets us out of our head is all good."
- "roll a sponge around your skull. Imagine a sponge gentle working it's way around the inside of your head, absorbing or mopping up little anxious pockets."
- "how do I know what I think until I see what I say?"
- theres this story about giving animals gifts to survive, but running out when they come to humans: "humans will have to survive by being the inventors of their own nature... they'll have to remain restless."
- "passionate people feel particularly and inherently compelled to complete themselves."
- "Real disasters are a cinch compared to the shit we make up in our heads. Actually they're a relief. When the future does arrive were always okay and I think my tendency to seek our risky experiences is wanting to be reminded of this."
- "Cruel irony number nine: we cope with strangers better than our own mates when were anxious. I think this is because around loved ones we feel so bloody responsible and guilty and hyper aware of our inconsistencies and neurotic needs. It's exhausting being that apologetic. In contrast being polite and attentive with the old lady at the bus stop is like a job we can attend to..."
- "Choose discomfort over resentment."
- "Happy is fun for sure, but rich and deep light my fire so much more."
- "There would be no anxiety without possibility."
- "Happy, successful entrepreneurs ritualized everything in their lives, except their creative work.....dropping 'certainty anchors.'"
- "Yes, it's time that she books out, but it becomes space when its kept empty."
- "We have to create the boundaries ourselves...in the past, success was gauged by how well you could hunt down information... now successes must be gauged by how much information you can shut out via your own boundaries.... build your own boundaries...creating boundaries for himself meant training those around him to not expect him to be always on."
- "I remember....that the decades of gripping at perfection I was so used to seemed, well, boring, and kind of comical. And when something is a bit boring and kind of comical it's not longer very potent. It's the same with recovering from a breakup. One day your clinging to your ex becomes suddenly and overwhelmingly boring. You hit saturation point on your obsessing and whining to friends...of course, you only get to this point by sitting in the grimness.... you mean that's all I have to do? Yup, just sit in the grim."
- "The most important thing...is to connect with what our anxiety is trying to tell us, it's to go through anxiety to the joy of what just is.... willing to engage with the moral struggle against yourself."
- "Ruts are best broken with small moments in whimsy. Not seismic changes in behavior."
- 'we defer to others notions of fun, probably because we struggle with choice.'
- "the love and mercy given to us by life because life desires us to have it, not by anything we have done to earn it....anxiety spiral is a descent towards grace...let or unfurl and express...the end point of the anxious journey is the acquiring of character...many people dont come out healed, they come out different.'
- "I beg you to have patience with eveything unresolved in your heart. And to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers which couldn't be given to you now because you would not be able to live them."
Other Notes:
- Society rewards anxiety in many forms, while shaming depression. "The more anxious we are, the more high-functioning we will make ourselves appear, which just encourages the world to lean on us more."
- "positive neurotic behavior." Hiking (nature), walking, swimming. Taming the head.
- what makes someone good is taste, the hard part is the first few years where you have good taste, but your work sucks.
- distinguish panicky attacks (acute) vs anxiety spirals (progressive overload, can take hours or weeks - hard to stop before having a breakdown).
- anxious people often have a fear of not being able to fall asleep.
Quotes:
- "When I can't sleep now, I remind myself that it might just be about a need to re-acquaint myself with myself."
- "meditation is like a little forum for airing grievances..... just meditate."
- "the thing about anxiety is that it's all head. So the thing that gets us out of our head is all good."
- "roll a sponge around your skull. Imagine a sponge gentle working it's way around the inside of your head, absorbing or mopping up little anxious pockets."
- "how do I know what I think until I see what I say?"
- theres this story about giving animals gifts to survive, but running out when they come to humans: "humans will have to survive by being the inventors of their own nature... they'll have to remain restless."
- "passionate people feel particularly and inherently compelled to complete themselves."
- "Real disasters are a cinch compared to the shit we make up in our heads. Actually they're a relief. When the future does arrive were always okay and I think my tendency to seek our risky experiences is wanting to be reminded of this."
- "Cruel irony number nine: we cope with strangers better than our own mates when were anxious. I think this is because around loved ones we feel so bloody responsible and guilty and hyper aware of our inconsistencies and neurotic needs. It's exhausting being that apologetic. In contrast being polite and attentive with the old lady at the bus stop is like a job we can attend to..."
- "Choose discomfort over resentment."
- "Happy is fun for sure, but rich and deep light my fire so much more."
- "There would be no anxiety without possibility."
- "Happy, successful entrepreneurs ritualized everything in their lives, except their creative work.....dropping 'certainty anchors.'"
- "Yes, it's time that she books out, but it becomes space when its kept empty."
- "We have to create the boundaries ourselves...in the past, success was gauged by how well you could hunt down information... now successes must be gauged by how much information you can shut out via your own boundaries.... build your own boundaries...creating boundaries for himself meant training those around him to not expect him to be always on."
- "I remember....that the decades of gripping at perfection I was so used to seemed, well, boring, and kind of comical. And when something is a bit boring and kind of comical it's not longer very potent. It's the same with recovering from a breakup. One day your clinging to your ex becomes suddenly and overwhelmingly boring. You hit saturation point on your obsessing and whining to friends...of course, you only get to this point by sitting in the grimness.... you mean that's all I have to do? Yup, just sit in the grim."
- "The most important thing...is to connect with what our anxiety is trying to tell us, it's to go through anxiety to the joy of what just is.... willing to engage with the moral struggle against yourself."
- "Ruts are best broken with small moments in whimsy. Not seismic changes in behavior."
- 'we defer to others notions of fun, probably because we struggle with choice.'
- "the love and mercy given to us by life because life desires us to have it, not by anything we have done to earn it....anxiety spiral is a descent towards grace...let or unfurl and express...the end point of the anxious journey is the acquiring of character...many people dont come out healed, they come out different.'
- "I beg you to have patience with eveything unresolved in your heart. And to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers which couldn't be given to you now because you would not be able to live them."
Other Notes:
- Society rewards anxiety in many forms, while shaming depression. "The more anxious we are, the more high-functioning we will make ourselves appear, which just encourages the world to lean on us more."
- "positive neurotic behavior." Hiking (nature), walking, swimming. Taming the head.
- what makes someone good is taste, the hard part is the first few years where you have good taste, but your work sucks.
- distinguish panicky attacks (acute) vs anxiety spirals (progressive overload, can take hours or weeks - hard to stop before having a breakdown).
- anxious people often have a fear of not being able to fall asleep.
hopeful
informative
reflective
medium-paced
This really wasn’t for me. I found this book to be full of pseudoscience, vague mentions of questionable “studies”, and condescension. On a petty note, I hated how everything was described as a “salve”.
challenging
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
sad
medium-paced
I listened to the audio book, which is read by herself (I love when the audio book is read by the author!). While I have some doubts about her approach to certain things, I loved to hear about her story, she has had a pretty interesting full-on life.
Fascinating book? Definitely a winding journey and I don’t really know how I feel about it. Going in, I didn’t know who the author was so it was kind of wild to find out her role in Australian media. She cited research and other things mentioned in The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck (which I didn’t like and couldn’t finish) and interviews from Louis ck so that wasn’t great. I also don’t love that the book title is a Chinese proverb when seemingly her only connection to Chinese culture is that she sees a Chinese medicine doctor. I know there’s a quick mention of a Chinese proverb in the book summary but I was hoping for a deeper connection and more consistent through line of Chinese culture. There are anecdotes where her privilege really shows ie when she gets stuck in France. Also, she kind of threw in a mention of a miscarriage at the end but never really expanded on how that impacts mental health? I think finishing the book, I’m overall a little confused about what I just read but I feel like that’s because the end felt jarring
challenging
slow-paced
It’s like having a friend who really gets you and can help you out of the darkness. I learned a lot about myself and about dealing with and even appreciating anxiety. I want my friends and family to read this, so they can understand me better, too.
There is a lot about this book that I appreciated and found incredibly potent, mostly the candid approach to mental health and attempting to be open and honest. HOWEVER, peppering statements of 'it's only my approach' gets belied by the (sometimes quite possibly damaging) phrases of 'medication doesn't work', 'anxiety makes you fat'. This book itself doesn't pretend to be the font of all knowledge, and for that I could forgive the anecdotal evidence if not for the editor's choice of quotes on the cover of this edition where the reviewers purport it to be scientific. Close but no cigar.