First, We Make the Beast Beautiful

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, a raw and honest memoir about anxiety, 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 with conditions like bipolar disorder and OCD.

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, this powerful book on living with anxiety, 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.