First, We Make the Beast Beautiful: A New Journey Through Anxiety—A Personal Journey Through Anxiety and Self-Discovery

by Sarah Wilson

Every man rushes elsewhere into the future because no man has arrived at himself. — Michel de Montaigne

We rush to escape what makes us anxious, which makes us anxious, and so we rush some more. —cruel irony #5

Jodi Picoult says it pointedly: “Anxiety’s like a rocking chair. It gives you something to do, but it doesn’t get you very far.” True, that.

Sturdy anything helps. It says to me that someone, something, has this one, babe.

don’t confuse our need to control our environment with a need to control you.

Tiger Woods once declared, “The day I’m not nervous is the day I quit. To me, nerves are great. That means you care.” Right on!

“Anyone who thinks they can heal without doing the work is missing the point,”

Foremost for her is “just showing up.”

Besides, we don’t want to feel we have to do it all on our own. I want to know that life “has this one.” That I’m held and can chill out on top deck for a bit with a drink with an umbrella in it.

Do the journey. Do the work. Do the little right moves. The treasure comes.

Grace doesn’t bring a party to town. It’s not happiness. It’s not a fleeting high. It’s a delicate, yet whole, gift that whispers in our ear, “Life has this one covered.” It tells us that things fit. That you fit. You can’t try to get it, you can’t earn it or deserve it. It just is. Just as a flower doesn’t try to bloom. It just does.