Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.61 AVERAGE
3.61 AVERAGE
This book is thoughtful and meandering, while also being practical and applicable. I think that Sarah's analysis would have been stronger with a better awareness of structural privilege. Sarah is haunted by this guilt-inducing "starving children in Africa" image throughout the text, which as a symptom of anxiety is quite understandable for a privileged and empathetic Westerner, but it reeks of the colonial gaze. Overall, I found it helpful and comforting and has given me a new perspective on my own struggle with mental health.
very, very, very helpful insights into anxiety and different methods of coping with it. even if you don’t have anxiety, please still read this book, or at least passages of it. it has amazing tips on how to help friends with anxiety. i cried multiple times while reading because i felt so seen and loved, and i now understand myself more deeply than i ever did before :)
emotional
hopeful
informative
reflective
slow-paced
This book validated a lot of my experiences and encouraged me to embrace (rather than explicitly try to fix) anxiety. It’s a messy book with meandering writing, but it’s perfectly matched to its content, which to me makes this narrative form effective. Where the author lost me was with some of the cringy generalizations (e.g. anxiety makes you fat) and attempts at playing devil’s advocate, especially in relation to medication. Though framed as well-intentioned concern, it simply adds to the insidious stigma that exists against medication for mental illness.
It was really great to get a picture of what anxiety can be like to live with; how it feels, and how easy it can be to misunderstand an anxious person. I found that element of this book fascinating and helpful. Otherwise, I found it confused and confusing, contradictory and scattered. There are many more questions in the book, than answers, but perhaps the journey will be helpful to other travellers.
challenging
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
slow-paced
challenging
reflective
I used to stand clear off self-help books, with their empty promises and quick cash-grab mentality. But sometimes, a rare one appears on the local bookstore's shelves: a well-sourced self-help book written by someone who actually lives with the subject of their publication. Sure, Wilson doesn't include her bibliography in the book itself, but the link provided proves that she's done her research and isn't pulling tricks out of her hat. In fact, she doesn't talk about any magical trick for everyone, nor does she pretend to have the solution. She simply explores her own struggles with a sharp but compassionate eye, tells us about what works for her, and tries her best to follow her book's title. The beast here isn't just anxiety itself, but life, ourselves, our environment. And Wilson succeeds in showing off its beauty without ever pretending it isn't still a beast. Contrary to other self-help authors, she does advocate against trying to tame it, though. Instead, the entire book showcases how treating anxiety as if it were the Fox and we were the Little Prince, with a genuine will to exist alongside it and not against it, to learn about it and respect it instead of containing it, is the surest road to a better life with anxiety.
Still, this is an opinion/self experience piece. It has strong references and the author clearly worked hard on it, but some of the comments prove that some people really ought to search for scientific essays rather than expect what this book isn't pretending it's gonna offer.
Still, this is an opinion/self experience piece. It has strong references and the author clearly worked hard on it, but some of the comments prove that some people really ought to search for scientific essays rather than expect what this book isn't pretending it's gonna offer.
I didn't agree with a fair amount of the authors views, and yet there were some helpful tidbits. However I feel I need to provide warnings for those seeking these tidbits.
Primarily, this book, although outwardly expressing against it, in my opinion romanticizes stopping mental health medication which can be extremely dangerous, and for many an unnecessary burden on their function. She at one point establishes growing anxiety rates and suggests that it's possible that anxiety just wasn't diagnosed until pharmaceutically convenient. Although I can believe this is part of the story the degree she is painting it to be felt like cherry picking due to her already existing medication bias.
More broadly, many of the 'research' points are pseudoscientific. Although she does warn that she's not an expert. She pushes a no sugar diet comparing sugar to cocaine while demonstrating a poor understanding of nutritional science. Also at one point she includes speaking with someone who allegedly self healed their cancer which is a very dangerous story to promote that reminds me of the woman who died after not treating her cancer because of a book introducing her too manifestation.
She writes this book in a lot of generalizing statements that didn't resonate with me. An overarching theme of the book being that anxiety originates from a lack of spiritual connection to the universe.
I felt like this left me, and I imagine some others, feeling disconnected from the book. One of the big drivers behind my anxiety is a tangible risk to my safety and well being (finding housing after a house fire, affording critical medical care, being a minority under oppressive/dangerous government/climate change disaster's). I can feel connected to the universe and still fear suffering.
In the end two things felt clear to me. This book is not for anxiety. Sarah has bipolar disorder, and the symptoms of her condition make this book difficult to relate to/anxiety producing for those with pure anxiety. I would count the marketing of the book as being self help for anxiety almost false advertisement.
Two, Sarah very clearly lives a life with more privilege than she is aware of and it makes this book hard to relate to and out of touch with most everyday people's experience with anxiety.
Primarily, this book, although outwardly expressing against it, in my opinion romanticizes stopping mental health medication which can be extremely dangerous, and for many an unnecessary burden on their function. She at one point establishes growing anxiety rates and suggests that it's possible that anxiety just wasn't diagnosed until pharmaceutically convenient. Although I can believe this is part of the story the degree she is painting it to be felt like cherry picking due to her already existing medication bias.
More broadly, many of the 'research' points are pseudoscientific. Although she does warn that she's not an expert. She pushes a no sugar diet comparing sugar to cocaine while demonstrating a poor understanding of nutritional science. Also at one point she includes speaking with someone who allegedly self healed their cancer which is a very dangerous story to promote that reminds me of the woman who died after not treating her cancer because of a book introducing her too manifestation.
She writes this book in a lot of generalizing statements that didn't resonate with me. An overarching theme of the book being that anxiety originates from a lack of spiritual connection to the universe.
I felt like this left me, and I imagine some others, feeling disconnected from the book. One of the big drivers behind my anxiety is a tangible risk to my safety and well being (finding housing after a house fire, affording critical medical care, being a minority under oppressive/dangerous government/climate change disaster's). I can feel connected to the universe and still fear suffering.
In the end two things felt clear to me. This book is not for anxiety. Sarah has bipolar disorder, and the symptoms of her condition make this book difficult to relate to/anxiety producing for those with pure anxiety. I would count the marketing of the book as being self help for anxiety almost false advertisement.
Two, Sarah very clearly lives a life with more privilege than she is aware of and it makes this book hard to relate to and out of touch with most everyday people's experience with anxiety.