Speaker 1: This is the Anxiety Bites podcast, and I am your host,
Speaker 1: Jen Kirkman. That's right, there is a brand new episode
Speaker 1: of this podcast, even during this holiday week. I know
Speaker 1: a lot of other podcasts throw up a best of
Speaker 1: episode or they just take the week off completely, not
Speaker 1: us over here at Anxiety Bites. Well, I mean technically
Speaker 1: this is being recorded the week before, and I will
Speaker 1: allow myself some time off as well the producers of
Speaker 1: this show, but we all felt it was really important
Speaker 1: to just keep the train going, have new episodes every week.
Speaker 1: Why take time off? So I hope that you appreciate
Speaker 1: and I hope you enjoy having something new to listen to.
Speaker 1: Hopefully you you got this when you really needed it.
Speaker 1: And speaking of recording in advance, my guest today is
Speaker 1: Sarah Wilson, and I will tell you more about her
Speaker 1: in a minute, but we recorded this interview I think
Speaker 1: the summer of about six months ago. And you know,
Speaker 1: we've recorded a lot of interviews in advance so that
Speaker 1: we could get ahead of things. But sometimes I don't
Speaker 1: air things right away, and I was saving Sarah's for
Speaker 1: I don't know, I just was trying to find the
Speaker 1: perfect place to put it and I think we've landed
Speaker 1: on the good place for this episode, which is that
Speaker 1: awkward week between Christmas and New Year's Even if you
Speaker 1: don't celebrate either one, there is just this kind of
Speaker 1: way to mark time. It's the last week of the year.
Speaker 1: Maybe you've just seen family, Maybe you skip seeing family
Speaker 1: due to this crazy wave of amicron that seems to
Speaker 1: be evading sometimes vaccines. I I don't even want to
Speaker 1: get into it because personally it is bringing me down,
Speaker 1: to put it mildly, and but that's okay. I'm letting
Speaker 1: myself be in that kind of melancholy place. You know. Um,
Speaker 1: I'm not five years old. I don't have to be
Speaker 1: overly excited at Christmas time. I will be fine. It'll
Speaker 1: just be a little bit a melancholy, but overall very
Speaker 1: grateful that my family and I are healthy. But I
Speaker 1: don't know. This week I always think is is interesting.
Speaker 1: I can see where it might bring up a lot
Speaker 1: of things for people. Maybe you've just seen your family
Speaker 1: and maybe that was upsetting. Maybe it was great, and
Speaker 1: you're sad to go back home because you missed them.
Speaker 1: Maybe you're looking at your credit card statement and thinking,
Speaker 1: oh boy, how did I spend all this money. Oh god.
Speaker 1: You know, maybe you're dreading New Year's Eve because you
Speaker 1: don't have plans, where because you do have plans, maybe
Speaker 1: you're looking forward to making resolutions, or maybe you're not.
Speaker 1: I think this week can bring up a lot of
Speaker 1: things for people. For me, I actually kind of like
Speaker 1: this week because it's a nice limbo. The world seems
Speaker 1: kind of asleep, kind of shut down. I don't like
Speaker 1: the first week of January. I feel bombarded with other
Speaker 1: people's goals and resolutions and challenges and energy coming at me.
Speaker 1: It's a lot. But I like this week because it's
Speaker 1: this sleepy kind of time where it's the last week
Speaker 1: of the year. People are tired, exhausted, had too much sugar.
Speaker 1: Maybe they have the week off work. It's just sort
Speaker 1: of eat leftovers where your pajamas. That's that's at least
Speaker 1: how it is for me because I happen to have
Speaker 1: the week off of work. So I kind of like
Speaker 1: this week. I kind of wish the whole year could
Speaker 1: feel like this week. Just kind of lazy. It's not
Speaker 1: time to take the lights down yet. I still have
Speaker 1: our Christmas lights up, and yeah, you can eat pie
Speaker 1: for breakfast. I mean come on, it's left over from Christmas.
Speaker 1: You know, there's something about this week. I like, yeah,
Speaker 1: throw on another movie. And I tend to get very
Speaker 1: sad when this week is over because I feel like
Speaker 1: it's never enough rest and relaxation. And so there's something
Speaker 1: about being in that middle and sitting in something that
Speaker 1: I feel is really appropriate for airing this episode this
Speaker 1: week with my guest Sarah Wilson. She is the author
Speaker 1: of many books, but the book that we focus on
Speaker 1: really in this interview as her book Abudding Sety called
Speaker 1: First We Make the Beast Beautiful, and a lot of
Speaker 1: her book is about sort of just living with it,
Speaker 1: living with anxiety, living with your feelings, you know, letting
Speaker 1: it just be a part of you, a companion in
Speaker 1: your life as you go about things. And yeah, sometimes
Speaker 1: we feel like we don't know what we're doing and
Speaker 1: we feel stuck. We feel in between. The way I feel,
Speaker 1: you know, during this week, we are in between two
Speaker 1: big important dates and I just kind of want to
Speaker 1: stay here and hide. And sometimes we feel like we're
Speaker 1: in between something in a bad way where we feel
Speaker 1: stuck and we want to get out. And a lot
Speaker 1: of it comes down to acceptance do we have to
Speaker 1: label everything? Do we have to figure everything out? And
Speaker 1: that's what I really loved about Sarah's memoir. It was
Speaker 1: just so first of all, just beautifully written, but I
Speaker 1: really related. I mean, she's every time I have a
Speaker 1: guest on or read their work, there's always something that
Speaker 1: is a totally new thought for me. And Sarah talks
Speaker 1: about traveling, and I always I am kind of curious
Speaker 1: about my own life where I travel a lot for
Speaker 1: someone with anxiety, and you know, I've gone on and
Speaker 1: on about my fear flying and how I'm overcame it,
Speaker 1: but it's still totally didn't used to line up to
Speaker 1: me that I loved traveling and traveling by myself so much,
Speaker 1: and and reading Sarah's book it put it into perspective
Speaker 1: that that's actually kind of a part of my anxiety
Speaker 1: is like keep moving, keep moving, keep moving, you know, um,
Speaker 1: that sort of restlessness with when I do sit still
Speaker 1: that especially this week, I think I love it. I
Speaker 1: think I love eating pipe for breakfast, watching movies on
Speaker 1: and I don't want to go back to Ork and
Speaker 1: I don't have to do anything. But I don't know
Speaker 1: if that's necessarily true. You know, I think. I think
Speaker 1: what I can do is appreciate this week for what
Speaker 1: it is and not worry about maybe I won't like
Speaker 1: it when this week is over. It's like, just be
Speaker 1: here now in this week and appreciate it for what
Speaker 1: it is, and don't try to I don't even know,
Speaker 1: don't even worry about what you might feel like next week.
Speaker 1: And once once you feel a certain way next week,
Speaker 1: great feel it. Go about your life. And that's what
Speaker 1: I liked about Sarah's overall message, which is, you know,
Speaker 1: anxiety exists and we can live with it and we
Speaker 1: can also thrive because of it. So I will let
Speaker 1: you just hear my conversation with Sarah Um A little
Speaker 1: more about her. She's a multi New York Times and
Speaker 1: Amazon bestselling author. She's a podcaster, philanthropist, a climate adviser.
Speaker 1: She has written books uh like the New York Times
Speaker 1: bestsellers I Quit Sugar and First We Make the Beast Beautiful.
Speaker 1: She's an author of eleven cookbooks, and her recent book
Speaker 1: is called This One, Wild and Precious Life. It won
Speaker 1: a Gold not A List award and was seen in
Speaker 1: USA Today in Washington posts ten new books to spotlight
Speaker 1: in this book. Um this one, wild and precious life.
Speaker 1: She talks about climate change, mobilizing individuals, climate change anxiety.
Speaker 1: So maybe we'll have her back to talk about how
Speaker 1: we how we deal with the very real anxiety of
Speaker 1: climate change. But for today I talked to Sarah about
Speaker 1: her book First We Make the Beast Beautiful. I hope
Speaker 1: you enjoyed my conversation with Sarah Wilson. I won't catch
Speaker 1: you on the other side. Sarah Wilson, Welcome to Anxiety
Speaker 1: Bites the podcast. Thank you so much. It's a pleasure
Speaker 1: to be here. You're in Australia, which, um it's tomorrow
Speaker 1: for people with anxiety. Can you tell us anything you're
Speaker 1: one day ahead of us? How is the future? Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's right, I speak from the future. Well, listen, there's
Speaker 1: nothing to worry about, or at least nothing more to
Speaker 1: worry about than what you're worrying about right in this
Speaker 1: very instant So um, yeah, I love that. I love
Speaker 1: that kind of existential positioning that we're starting off with, because,
Speaker 1: of course, anxiety is a fretting forward right into the future,
Speaker 1: and depression is a sort of ruminating about the past.
Speaker 1: So yes, it's very fitting. So I wanted to start off,
Speaker 1: I was just reading your book. I know you have
Speaker 1: a more recent book out called This One Wild and
Speaker 1: Precious Life, UM, but I am referencing your other book
Speaker 1: called First We Make the Beast Beautiful, UM, A new
Speaker 1: conversation about anxiety, and I want to quote you to you.
Speaker 1: This was towards the end of the book, actually, but
Speaker 1: it seemed fitting to start the interview. You were talking about. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know you give you give such great advice in
Speaker 1: this book, and you also bring up a lot of research.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's so well researched it's crazy. But you
Speaker 1: say at one point also getting older does help. And
Speaker 1: you talk about a forum you held with younger people
Speaker 1: in their in their teens and twenties. UM, you and
Speaker 1: I are roughly the same age in our forties, and
Speaker 1: you said that they bristled around the idea of sitting
Speaker 1: in anxiety, accepting it and seeing the beauty and it.
Speaker 1: One girl blurted out, it makes me really angry. It's bullshit,
Speaker 1: and it makes me more anxious. And I thought that
Speaker 1: was so fitting because you and I are both Generation X,
Speaker 1: and our anxiety, from what I read about you and
Speaker 1: from what I know about being me started before there
Speaker 1: was an Internet. Yeah, there's a there's a bunch of
Speaker 1: things to unpack there. I think the generational divide is
Speaker 1: really worth worth talking about because I'm sure you've got
Speaker 1: listeners of different age groups who will relate to the
Speaker 1: various aspects of what we're talking about here. So on
Speaker 1: the one hand, we didn't have the stigmatization of having
Speaker 1: a name put over the top of stuff, and I
Speaker 1: think there is a problem in the sense that you
Speaker 1: put a name to something and then sometimes you can
Speaker 1: stop your mindful investigation. UM a lot of what we
Speaker 1: had to do, I maybe go to a library or
Speaker 1: come across something in a magazine, which then saw us
Speaker 1: go and have conversations three months later with somebody who
Speaker 1: might have heard of this thing called anxiety. It was
Speaker 1: actually a practice in in resilience, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: and which could also be seen as a practice in mindfulness.
Speaker 1: So the journ any of actually investigating your anxiety took
Speaker 1: you to a place where you had to harden up
Speaker 1: a bit around it, and you had to develop techniques.
Speaker 1: Plus you you had things like delaying gratification because you
Speaker 1: didn't get the answers straightaway. And in that space there
Speaker 1: was a lot of um sort of stuff that you
Speaker 1: worked out for yourself. So there's definitely that. But going
Speaker 1: back to that quote from my book, you know, from
Speaker 1: That's a discussion group, you know, that young person was
Speaker 1: just like the idea of having to sit in it
Speaker 1: and kind of wrestle it out. You wrestle with your
Speaker 1: demons for a bit. Um. Honestly, as every spiritualist and
Speaker 1: I don't know Youngian psychotherapist throughout history has said, we
Speaker 1: have to sit in the discomfort. The definition of anxiety
Speaker 1: is very much an inability to sit with uncertainty and discomfort.
Speaker 1: And at least we were probably rendered choiceless pre Internet
Speaker 1: because we had to We had to sit through listlessness, autumn,
Speaker 1: not being able to fix things automatically, not having an
Speaker 1: answer straightaway, um, not having a name and a drug
Speaker 1: that we could turn to. And so I think there
Speaker 1: was a lot to be said for that. At the
Speaker 1: flip side, as you say, is we got a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff wrong and we had to go through a
Speaker 1: very long journey of ups and downs to arrive at
Speaker 1: something resembling a sweet spot. And as you said, I
Speaker 1: think I said to these young people sometimes the fixed
Speaker 1: to anxiety is shear years on the planet. And it's
Speaker 1: because you've you've gone through these trials and tribulations and
Speaker 1: you've worked out your own, your own sort of formula.
Speaker 1: But it's also, as I say in the book, it's
Speaker 1: kind of the whole gist of the book, sorry to
Speaker 1: give it away to anyone who's not read it, is
Speaker 1: that this very wrestling is the meaning that we're searching for.
Speaker 1: Anxiety is that kind of desperate like grasping for something else,
Speaker 1: and that something else is the meaning of life And
Speaker 1: ironic clear it's through the grasping, through the journey of
Speaker 1: getting it all wrong with anxiety, that we end up
Speaker 1: arriving at the best, best place for understanding that meaning
Speaker 1: within ourselves. I think that that can be tough for people.
Speaker 1: Now for me, honestly, I feel like it's kind of
Speaker 1: a relief. And I don't know if that's the inherent
Speaker 1: laziness that I have, but really truly finding out and
Speaker 1: honestly believing it that the answer is there is no
Speaker 1: answer was such a relief. I don't think that's lazy,
Speaker 1: that's not lazy. Gosh, it's a huge gangean um. I
Speaker 1: mean it means then it's it's this, it's an acknowledgement
Speaker 1: of the ultimate freedom right that we have then to
Speaker 1: determine our own path. And as you recall, actually set
Speaker 1: off the journey by realizing there is no guide book
Speaker 1: to life and no one knows what they're doing, which,
Speaker 1: of course another thing you realize when you reach a
Speaker 1: certain age, don't you look around and go, oh my god,
Speaker 1: no one actually knows what they're doing. And that is
Speaker 1: a relief because then you've got the possibility. It opens
Speaker 1: up the possibility to the fact that you can reposition
Speaker 1: something like anxiety. You can choose how to frame it.
Speaker 1: And as I say, a lesson that I got from
Speaker 1: his holiness, the Dalai Lama's never a part. I know
Speaker 1: exactly what you're gonna say, I said, doing my I
Speaker 1: got an interview with him. I was the ambassador, the
Speaker 1: Australian Bassador, the Dalai Lama. Don't you love it? Um?
Speaker 1: Great title, um, And I just had to mention it
Speaker 1: here because if you get a title like that, you've
Speaker 1: got to share it with therefore on right, So um,
Speaker 1: I got to do an interview for a publication and
Speaker 1: they suggested I ask one question and one question only,
Speaker 1: so it turned out to be how do I stop
Speaker 1: my mind from chattering so frenetically? How do I shut
Speaker 1: my mind up? And his answer was don't bother. He said,
Speaker 1: there's better things to do. You Like if you went
Speaker 1: and sat in a cave on a mountain, you know,
Speaker 1: for two years and meditated, perhaps you could do it.
Speaker 1: And he said that of time, waste of time. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, I love his I love his like casual,
Speaker 1: just sense of humor almost and just sort of like whatever,
Speaker 1: like silly, silly, like we're not doing that, you know.
Speaker 1: And he said, I don't do that because my focus
Speaker 1: is living a life of service. And his word for
Speaker 1: that is altruism. He thinks we should be focusing on altruism.
Speaker 1: And what I took from that is that you can actually,
Speaker 1: like why wait to be less anxious, to live a purposeful,
Speaker 1: beautiful life. You can be both. So that was kind
Speaker 1: of the revelation, the realization that I got from that
Speaker 1: opening of realizing recast things as I need to. It's
Speaker 1: not like, um, for for anyone who's hoping that someday
Speaker 1: they'll cure their anxiety, and of course you can. I mean,
Speaker 1: I've I really don't suffer anxiety. Every day like I
Speaker 1: used to, Um, But it's part of me, and it exists.
Speaker 1: It's always there, whether or not it's being loud or
Speaker 1: quiet one day. But I have a great life. There
Speaker 1: was not this Oh my life got good when the
Speaker 1: anxiety went. It was like when I started fading it,
Speaker 1: you know. And and again I do think that that
Speaker 1: can be really scary. I don't know if someone had
Speaker 1: said that to me a long time ago, would I
Speaker 1: have liked that answer, you know, because they didn't realize
Speaker 1: how good I could feel, just feeling even a little
Speaker 1: bit better. Well, yeah, And I think what I tried
Speaker 1: to do in that book is to show that once
Speaker 1: I stopped trying to fight it and make it better,
Speaker 1: so that I could then get onto this wonderful other life. Right.
Speaker 1: I thought it was all run up, Right, All the
Speaker 1: run up was about me, um, sorting myself out, you know,
Speaker 1: being like everybody else, finally finding that guide book to life,
Speaker 1: this mythical guide to life. I think, I say, at
Speaker 1: the beginning of that book, I think I was on
Speaker 1: the toilet or putting the hanging the washing out for
Speaker 1: mom the day that God handed out the guide Book
Speaker 1: to life. You know, Um, I sort of just missed
Speaker 1: it somewhere along the line. So I think that what
Speaker 1: I what I try to do is explain that not
Speaker 1: only can you live with anxiety, but I switched it
Speaker 1: up a gear even further and say you can actually
Speaker 1: thrive because of anxiety. And that's where the title comes
Speaker 1: into play. First we make the best beautiful, which comes
Speaker 1: from a Chinese proverb, and it's this idea that if
Speaker 1: we can reframe anxiety and stand back from it and
Speaker 1: see what it's truly about, Like, why does anxiety exists
Speaker 1: as an emotion in the human experience, Well, it exists
Speaker 1: because it keeps us safe and it has also progressed
Speaker 1: the human experience. It was the neurotic um O c
Speaker 1: D bipolar person who probably walked over the hill and
Speaker 1: saw people with these things called a wheel and came
Speaker 1: back and went, hey, guys, they've invented a wheel and
Speaker 1: we should get onto that kind of thing. So it
Speaker 1: was the anxious person that pushed boundaries, that was particularly
Speaker 1: cautious and would keep a clan safe, but also push boundaries,
Speaker 1: as I say, and the statistics bear out. Um seven
Speaker 1: percent of poets have anxiety, seven percent of scientists have anxiety,
Speaker 1: almost ad of world leaders who led during a time
Speaker 1: of high intensity crisis like a war, were anxious and
Speaker 1: in fact, in most cases were bipolar. If you think
Speaker 1: of Winston churchill Um and so forth, Artists, philosophers all
Speaker 1: had um what in many ways where crip was crippling anxiety.
Speaker 1: Their contribution and their art form, their inventions came about
Speaker 1: via their struggle with that that that inattention. So once
Speaker 1: you start to see it through that lens, you go, Okay,
Speaker 1: this probably isn't something I should fight, how but I
Speaker 1: harness it and actually make it into my superpower. And
Speaker 1: that's the artful, more joyous way to do the dance.
Speaker 1: And that's what I'm interested in, yeh. And I love
Speaker 1: that because it's different than the other. Um. The thing
Speaker 1: that sometimes people can get stuck in is if I
Speaker 1: get help for my depression or anxiety, then I'll lose
Speaker 1: my spark and I won't be a great author. I
Speaker 1: have to be tortured to be great. And that's not
Speaker 1: what you're saying there. It's it's saying that you don't
Speaker 1: you can be um suffering with something like an anxiety
Speaker 1: and use it to your benefit or just let it
Speaker 1: sit with you, you know, let it ride in the
Speaker 1: car with you while you're I mean, like you were
Speaker 1: saying in your book, Darwin had panic attacks, which I
Speaker 1: just love. Yeah, that's right, I mean, and I'd say
Speaker 1: that he was able to come up with these theories
Speaker 1: and these contributions because of the panic attacks. Now that's
Speaker 1: not to say that you should just let out the
Speaker 1: string on that wild cut of your anxiety, um, because
Speaker 1: you can get very, very wobbly. And really, again, if
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about the artfulness of this, the
Speaker 1: beauty of this, it is about finding that sweet spot
Speaker 1: where you can modulate it so that it serves you,
Speaker 1: and then that becomes that becomes your journey. And I
Speaker 1: describe it. You might remember the bit in the book
Speaker 1: where I talk about how having the mental illness is
Speaker 1: like carrying a shallow bowl of water around for the
Speaker 1: rest of your life, and that usual works for me.
Speaker 1: You've got to stay steady, so um, and if you don't,
Speaker 1: then you start to get a bit unbalanced and the
Speaker 1: water starts to slosh and it's flying all over everybody else,
Speaker 1: annoying loved ones um, and you have to keep going
Speaker 1: back to the source to refill. I love taking analogy
Speaker 1: too far. No, I keep going. So and so you
Speaker 1: spend your life doing that, you know, crushing burning, crushing burning,
Speaker 1: rather than getting on with what you really want to
Speaker 1: be getting on with. So it is, Um, it's not
Speaker 1: about just going, oh, don't take your medication, don't see
Speaker 1: a therapist, just let that anxiety go at the full throttle. No,
Speaker 1: you do need to find this nice balanced place. And
Speaker 1: part of the balanced place comes about from having compassionate
Speaker 1: understanding of the place that anxiety plays in history but
Speaker 1: also in your own life. So it's this kind of
Speaker 1: lovely gentle wrestle with all of these factors. Um. But mostly,
Speaker 1: mostly it's about understanding things through a different framework. I
Speaker 1: mean a lot of people get blown away when they
Speaker 1: find out that anxiety only became an official mental disorder
Speaker 1: and entered the d s M, which is the diagnostic
Speaker 1: tool using the States and in Australia. Um in and
Speaker 1: what do you know, it was one year after the
Speaker 1: first anti anxiety drug was invented. I don't know if
Speaker 1: anyone finds out an odd coincidence. I found that fascinating
Speaker 1: in your book because I thought, well, my god, you
Speaker 1: know it was only five years after that that I
Speaker 1: had my first panic attack. I mean, you know, it
Speaker 1: wasn't even defined into what you're saying it was. It's
Speaker 1: kind of odd that it was defined right when the
Speaker 1: drug was invented. And it's not to say anxiety isn't real,
Speaker 1: but it made me think reading that part. God, what
Speaker 1: if anxiety is sort of just the human condition, you know,
Speaker 1: and it's not this disorder in the everyday sense. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: but the thing is it is the human condition. To
Speaker 1: be anxious is to be human. To go back to
Speaker 1: that thread that I was that I lost temporarily, it
Speaker 1: probably as a result of my age and my varying
Speaker 1: closer to to that existential end point. Um is that. Yes,
Speaker 1: So in nineteen pre night anxiety was seeing as part
Speaker 1: of the human existence, right, it was. It was what
Speaker 1: we did, We got anxious and so on. Now, Um,
Speaker 1: the thing is is when we actually pathologize anxiety, when
Speaker 1: we put it into the d s M, when we
Speaker 1: invent drugs for it that dampen anxiety. What that does
Speaker 1: is two things. First of all, it actually stigmatizes anxiety
Speaker 1: as a problem, as a bigger problem than it is.
Speaker 1: And so what we do then is it then creates
Speaker 1: imperative to not be anxious, So then we get anxious
Speaker 1: about being anxious. And as we know, the worst thing
Speaker 1: about anxiety is that horrible death spiral of being anxious
Speaker 1: about being anxious, than being anxious that you're anxious about
Speaker 1: being anxious, and so on and so forth. And that's
Speaker 1: how anxiety gets out of control and ruins ruins your life.
Speaker 1: Because whileever we we dampen or hired from, or run from,
Speaker 1: or pathologize anxiety, we stop ourselves from going into the
Speaker 1: very place we need to go into to resolve and
Speaker 1: naturally quieten our anxiety. So we have an fear and
Speaker 1: existential fear of our death. But by talking it through
Speaker 1: and going into well what matters, okay, and creating a
Speaker 1: meaningful life, we are actually able to resolve our anxiety.
Speaker 1: But by pathologizing anxiety, we never get to close that loop.
Speaker 1: We never get to resolve the thing that anxiety is
Speaker 1: telling us to do. Yeah, it's like look at me,
Speaker 1: look at me, I'm I'm you know, I'm here, I'm
Speaker 1: here to show you something. But yeah, it's like putting
Speaker 1: a It's like there's a there's a doorbell that's going
Speaker 1: it's telling us. We've got to show up and and
Speaker 1: ask these wonderful questions, right, and there's a silence up
Speaker 1: put on the doorbell. So that is one of the
Speaker 1: problems with um up and temporary understanding of anxiety. It
Speaker 1: prevents us from going to the actual point of I
Speaker 1: don't know, sharpness and edging nous, right, which is scary
Speaker 1: and it's uncomfortable, but ultimately it's that place and then
Speaker 1: that then kind of leads us to a less anxious life.
Speaker 1: And yeah, I try to try to encourage people to
Speaker 1: not stop taking medication, don't stop going to your therapist,
Speaker 1: but start to see from this other perspective, and the
Speaker 1: whole package can start to modulate things into a softer
Speaker 1: place where over time, your anxiety does become your superpower.
Speaker 1: It becomes the very thing that resolves all that internal
Speaker 1: angst that many of us have from a very young age,
Speaker 1: like what's my life about? And what happens when we die?
Speaker 1: And you know, what is love about? What matters? I mean,
Speaker 1: the question that I'm asking myself at the moment, Jen,
Speaker 1: is if we lose everything? And I'm a climate activist,
Speaker 1: I'm very engaged in these kinds of questions, but if
Speaker 1: we were to lose it all, then then what is left?
Speaker 1: And to me, it's through years of being anxious and
Speaker 1: delving into this space and read its soul, murding my
Speaker 1: way through the great writers who are anxious, right Virginia
Speaker 1: Wolf Um nature, you know, the various artists and so on,
Speaker 1: that I've been able to find beautiful answers to these
Speaker 1: kinds of questions. And for me, Um, it's really love
Speaker 1: and work is what my life is reduced to now.
Speaker 1: It's a practice, a vigilant practice in love and work
Speaker 1: for the rest of my life. Yeah, an anxiety enabled
Speaker 1: me to arrive at that definition of a meaningful life.
Speaker 1: I'm here today living the most wildly exciting, wonderful, rich
Speaker 1: life only because I've gone down into that ship. You know,
Speaker 1: I've seen it. I've wrestled, I've done the dark wrestle.
Speaker 1: And Um, I feel that the trigger, I mean, anxieties
Speaker 1: are little um warning mechanism, you know, the door also
Speaker 1: to speak basically, what the planet and the state of
Speaker 1: politics and the climate and a global pandemic, what is
Speaker 1: trying to tell us? It's the warning system that's telling
Speaker 1: us things aren't right. Pay attention, UM, get mobilized and
Speaker 1: and be of service step up. So I took the
Speaker 1: inward journey outwards, which I actually think ultimately is probably
Speaker 1: one of the best cures for anxiety. We'll be right back.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of silly, what I call it, offbeat
Speaker 1: solutions in your other book. Um, First, we Make the
Speaker 1: Beast Beautiful. And I loved this part where you were
Speaker 1: talking about how you were feeling a little as you said,
Speaker 1: I think it was wobbly, little anxious in a mall,
Speaker 1: and you just knew that you needed human contact right then,
Speaker 1: just the touch of someone, and you went to get um,
Speaker 1: you went to the shoe shoeshine person. No, it was
Speaker 1: a shoe store running a running shoe store. Yeah, because um,
Speaker 1: I just was all over the place and I didn't
Speaker 1: know what to do. And I'm not a very tactile person,
Speaker 1: but I just knew I needed to be grounded. So
Speaker 1: I went in there, and I think, like this twenty
Speaker 1: one year old kid, Um, I basically said to him,
Speaker 1: I don't know what size my feet are. And I
Speaker 1: said that because I knew we'd pull out one of
Speaker 1: those little metal things that measure. That's right, yes, to measure? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and all, I mean, that's all I did, and and
Speaker 1: my whole motivation was I just need someone to touch me. Oh,
Speaker 1: I know there's a shoe shop. I'll pretend I don't know, watch,
Speaker 1: you know. And so he got out of his little
Speaker 1: measuring thing, he measured my foot. I tried on his shoes.
Speaker 1: Then I felt really terrible, so I bought a pair
Speaker 1: of socks. But I think that is so great, you know.
Speaker 1: It's these little things, you know, when we're talking about
Speaker 1: the world has anxiety, and sometimes people need therapy or medication.
Speaker 1: And yes, we know about meditation and we know about
Speaker 1: this and that, but what does someone do you know
Speaker 1: when they're starting to have a panic attack and the
Speaker 1: mall And I really think it's it's just like you said,
Speaker 1: run to the nearest person. And if you're if you're
Speaker 1: not going to literally go I'm having a panic attack,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I don't know you just like you said,
Speaker 1: you know, um, get a manicure, have the shoe attendant
Speaker 1: measure your foot. We've all had that experience, haven't we,
Speaker 1: where we felt really anxious and then somebody might just
Speaker 1: stop you in the street and ask for the time
Speaker 1: and start talking to you. Yeah, and you're fixed, right.
Speaker 1: I used to have a real only just I mean,
Speaker 1: the terror I used to have, the phobia of flying
Speaker 1: I had was so insane I can't even describe it.
Speaker 1: And I remember my psychiatristying, well, why don't you just
Speaker 1: see that the flight attendant, I'm anxious, And I went
Speaker 1: on and on there's anything they can do, and blah
Speaker 1: blah blah, and he's like, I get it, but just
Speaker 1: saying it out loud will take its power away. And
Speaker 1: then you realize, oh, I guess I'm kind of ashamed
Speaker 1: to say that to someone. It's a primal need, it's
Speaker 1: it's beyond our rational mind. And if we work out
Speaker 1: that we can just attend to that with a couple
Speaker 1: of things like that. The other thing is, of course,
Speaker 1: is um, you know, I'm just thinking of some of
Speaker 1: the other really dorky things that I do. I will
Speaker 1: go and choose the wobblist table of the cafe. You
Speaker 1: probably remember that chapter where I will have a day off.
Speaker 1: I'll suddenly have this incredible opportunity to go and sit
Speaker 1: in a cafe and do what I see all these
Speaker 1: other people do. When I you know, I'm running late
Speaker 1: from meeting I'm like, who are these people that see
Speaker 1: at cafes on a weekday, you know? And so I'd
Speaker 1: finally go and do that, and then then the experience,
Speaker 1: the overwhelming kind of desire to make it as perfect
Speaker 1: as possible would see me have a panic attack in
Speaker 1: the middle of the street. So what I worked out
Speaker 1: was that I would on purpose choose the grimace looking
Speaker 1: cafe on the strip. I would then go and choose
Speaker 1: the wobblist table at the cafe under the spinker that's crackling,
Speaker 1: and then I just choose whatever coffee I wouldn't like,
Speaker 1: um and are. I just choose whatever came to me.
Speaker 1: And I would use it as a practice in grim
Speaker 1: in sitting in the ship, you know, and just seeing
Speaker 1: how bad it can be. And every time I did
Speaker 1: it and I ran it as an experiment, and I
Speaker 1: have a little phrase in my head, let's see as
Speaker 1: in let you me the universe whole kind of lovely
Speaker 1: flow of life, see what happens next, right, And I
Speaker 1: would sit there and I remember the chef came out
Speaker 1: and he had made an extra muffin that it's sort
Speaker 1: of crumbled, and he said, oh, would you like this?
Speaker 1: You And then Um, somebody who I hadn't seen any
Speaker 1: ages happened to walk past and they sat down with
Speaker 1: me for a bit at my wobbly table, and um,
Speaker 1: it was a really it's been a really great way
Speaker 1: for me to conquer my perfectionism, which is often goes
Speaker 1: hand in hand with anxiety. And um, so yeah, in
Speaker 1: many ways, being playful, being experimental and curious around it
Speaker 1: is another fix curious, that's right. Yeah, you meant you've
Speaker 1: talked about that where there really is a connection, you know,
Speaker 1: between anxiety and curiosity in terms of turning it into
Speaker 1: Oh you know, it's funny we talk about getting in
Speaker 1: our bodies, but sometimes we have to kind of disconnect
Speaker 1: with our anxious thoughts rates start looking at them. That's right,
Speaker 1: and that process then becomes a mindfulness process or a practice.
Speaker 1: And of course you've mentioned before that the deep breath
Speaker 1: in the meditation it can be a bridge too far
Speaker 1: when you're anxious, Like that's a great way to put it. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: when you're in the middle of an anxious spell. It's
Speaker 1: kind of like, don't tell me to drink rammermal tea
Speaker 1: and deep breathe because it can and it can actually
Speaker 1: make things worse. So what I do is these other things,
Speaker 1: and curiosity is a really great thing. So optimally you
Speaker 1: choose a habit that's going to be more charming, because
Speaker 1: you'll choose it now, curiosity. If you switch out ruminating
Speaker 1: and fretting with curiosity, curiosity is a very charming alternative,
Speaker 1: and it becomes the habit you go into. And what
Speaker 1: do you know, it's a mindfulness technique, so it amps
Speaker 1: up its powerfulness, you know, exponentially. So that's a technique
Speaker 1: that I use is let's see, let's run the experiment,
Speaker 1: and my meditation teachers, somewhat ironically says to me, he
Speaker 1: says this phrase all the time. Keep the camera rolling,
Speaker 1: the cameras still rolling. You know what if you mean
Speaker 1: by that? I think I know what you mean. But
Speaker 1: tell me what is that? Well, we don't know where
Speaker 1: this great film of yours is going to end up,
Speaker 1: so you know you might have a story in your head.
Speaker 1: Oh that's not gonna work, or probably table is gonna
Speaker 1: lead to a horrible experience. I'm just gonna get piste
Speaker 1: off with everyone. Um No, just keep the camera rolling,
Speaker 1: and what do you know, the muffin comes out. Oh
Speaker 1: that's great. Yeah, you just keep the camera rolling and
Speaker 1: and and I find that that's curiosity. Oh well, I
Speaker 1: can probably keep it rolling for another ten seconds, longer,
Speaker 1: another thirty seconds. I'll just keep it And what do
Speaker 1: you know, that becomes it becomes your way of living.
Speaker 1: That is a great and it's funny too. I love
Speaker 1: the way that you called curiosity charming. You must picture
Speaker 1: on a date, you know, with a charming person who
Speaker 1: is asking you about you instead of blah blah blah
Speaker 1: about themselves. You know, it's like it's it's such a
Speaker 1: great way to think about it, Like be a fun
Speaker 1: date with yourself, you know, ask yourself questions. Don't just
Speaker 1: tell yourself the same old story over and over. You know,
Speaker 1: if you're anxious, I love I love that. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: it's open as opposed to close. It goes in the
Speaker 1: opposite direction to anxiety. Anxiety is close and rigid, whereas
Speaker 1: curiosity is open and fluid. And this is what we're
Speaker 1: doing with anxiety when you're in that rut and we're
Speaker 1: trying to modulate it so we get to that nice
Speaker 1: sweet spot where we're doing anxiety once, you know, it
Speaker 1: really is about stopping that being anxious about being anxious
Speaker 1: and going down that loop. And you do that by
Speaker 1: opening up, softening around it, allowing yourself to be anxious
Speaker 1: for a moment, sitting at that table, but you don't try,
Speaker 1: you know, the wobbly table, but you don't try to
Speaker 1: shut it down. You just remain curious and open, and
Speaker 1: then you just do the anxiety once it gives you
Speaker 1: the permission to let the anxiety do its thing um,
Speaker 1: and then you move on. Because anxiety lasts maximum minutes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's such a good feeling when it ends, and
Speaker 1: you go, oh my god, that's it, that was it.
Speaker 1: But we prevent ourselves from seeing it end because we
Speaker 1: get anxious about not being anxious. We've already been done.
Speaker 1: The next anxiously anxiety bites will be right back. After
Speaker 1: a quick little message from one of our sponsors. What
Speaker 1: I was reading about. You had mentioned that you felt
Speaker 1: it was easier for you and I don't know where
Speaker 1: you're at today with this to be not in a relationship,
Speaker 1: and you talked about anxiety in romantic relationships where sometimes
Speaker 1: the anxious person can be, you know, acting anxious but
Speaker 1: has nothing to do with the partner. You know, it
Speaker 1: is not that you're anxious at them, is that you
Speaker 1: are trying to control the world and they just have
Speaker 1: to be in the way. You know, that's not what
Speaker 1: you said. I'm just paraphrasing. There's two things you can
Speaker 1: say to that. I think another human holds a mirror
Speaker 1: up to your your weaknesses, your dark side, and and
Speaker 1: that's a wonderful thing. And so we should always seek
Speaker 1: out those people that hold a mirror up to us.
Speaker 1: So i' I think we should run from relationships. But
Speaker 1: I would also say that we need to foster meaningful
Speaker 1: relationships with ourselves and to be able to sit alone.
Speaker 1: And that might be while you've got a husband and kids,
Speaker 1: or it might be while you know you're you're a
Speaker 1: single person who's feeling loneliness. Um. So, really having a
Speaker 1: relationship with yourself in all kinds of circumstances out with
Speaker 1: people in an intimate relationship, when you're seen at home
Speaker 1: feeling a bit fretful that you've got nothing on for
Speaker 1: the weekend, um and there you are on the couch
Speaker 1: with your cats, Developing a relationship with yourself is really
Speaker 1: really important. There was one part in your book where
Speaker 1: you said it was just a little thing that I
Speaker 1: really keyed into you. You just said quote, I got
Speaker 1: pulled up on something too personal to mention here, sorry,
Speaker 1: And you just mentioned like you had a little personal
Speaker 1: as you worked it out. And I thought that was
Speaker 1: so interesting because I'm sure people see this to you,
Speaker 1: they see it to me. Um, I've written books and
Speaker 1: I do comedy for a living and and I talk
Speaker 1: about my life, but it's they say, you're very revealing
Speaker 1: and honest, and you know, is there anything you don't
Speaker 1: talk about? And I'm like, of my life I don't
Speaker 1: talk about. You know, as an artist who has a
Speaker 1: relationship to anxieties, had anxiety, has anxiety, did you have
Speaker 1: to learn at some point the difference between revealing what
Speaker 1: needed to be revealed in your work and oversharing Because
Speaker 1: I think oversharing right is a big anxiety thing. It's
Speaker 1: a big symptom. I think, Um, it was that something
Speaker 1: that was hard. Um, yes, and no. For me, I
Speaker 1: write to ensure that to be of service in the
Speaker 1: best way I can. And so the lens that I
Speaker 1: put it through is will this help people? If it will,
Speaker 1: then absolutely I go there. And I have no problem
Speaker 1: going there. I mean, as you know, I talk about
Speaker 1: suicide and my suicide attempt in quite some detail. And
Speaker 1: my publisher, when she was about to publish the book, went,
Speaker 1: do you know, are you sure about this? And I
Speaker 1: went yes, because I had time to. I mean, the
Speaker 1: great thing about writing a book is it's not like
Speaker 1: social media. You reflect on it, you go through several
Speaker 1: copy EBITs. Um, you have to lie awake at night ruminating,
Speaker 1: and then you get up in the morning go, I'm
Speaker 1: going to modify that. But with my latest book, I
Speaker 1: actually talk about miscarriage and I talk about abortion, and um,
Speaker 1: I went through that whole thing again. Is this something
Speaker 1: that I'm trying to get sympathy from people for? Or
Speaker 1: is it because I feel like and I really did.
Speaker 1: I've heard on the side of I do need to
Speaker 1: say something here because we're always talking about how women
Speaker 1: need to talk about this, and here I am with
Speaker 1: a public forum, three hundred odd pages in a book
Speaker 1: that will get published around the world. And my book
Speaker 1: is about getting radically, wildly intimate about this one, wild
Speaker 1: and precious life we have, and about radical connection in
Speaker 1: a in a time where we're all scared, we're all
Speaker 1: standing around the edges, and we need people to go
Speaker 1: first so it's no heroic thing. And in fact, what
Speaker 1: I love is that the story just becomes something that
Speaker 1: people take on board for themselves. I never have people
Speaker 1: coming up to me and going, you poor thing, are
Speaker 1: you okay? Which is great. That means my message has
Speaker 1: been all about other people drawing their message in via
Speaker 1: via the weft and the weave of mine. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: means you really did a great job as an artist
Speaker 1: like you. You actually communicated it exactly how you wanted it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I don't want people sympathing. I don't want people sympathy.
Speaker 1: So when people come up to me in the supermarket
Speaker 1: they tell me their story, I can tell you now
Speaker 1: that we have are you okay? Day here? I think
Speaker 1: it's international now. But it's so funny. You know, I
Speaker 1: was ambassador the first year and I don't think I've
Speaker 1: ever been rung by anyone ever. You know. The whole
Speaker 1: premise is you ring somebody, or you contact somebody and
Speaker 1: ask them are you okay? And it's so funny everybody.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's several hundred thousand people around the world
Speaker 1: that no, I have anxiety, right, and yet I've never
Speaker 1: I've never been wrong on you okay? Day. That's because
Speaker 1: I don't think people see me as that person that
Speaker 1: you need to do that for and so, and I
Speaker 1: am super glad. All I am is a vehicle through
Speaker 1: which you know I'm a conduit. All I do is
Speaker 1: I stay with the problem long enough, partly because I
Speaker 1: don't have a relationship, and my relationship is with my writing.
Speaker 1: And so I stay with a problem longer because I
Speaker 1: have that luxury and I can put it onto paper
Speaker 1: and other people go, That's exactly what I was thinking.
Speaker 1: I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Sarah Wilson. And again,
Speaker 1: if you enjoyed this podcast, please leave me a five
Speaker 1: star review on Apple Podcasts. I only want for Christmas,
Speaker 1: and I know that Christmas has already come and gone,
Speaker 1: but that's okay. You can get me a belated gift
Speaker 1: five star review on Apple podcast What that does is
Speaker 1: it doesn't fancy and magic to the algorithm. It makes
Speaker 1: more people find the podcast, and the more people to
Speaker 1: find the part cast, the less people we have freaking
Speaker 1: out on airplanes who need to be duct taped to
Speaker 1: their seat. So it's a win win. You're helping me,
Speaker 1: you're helping society. So please go do your part when
Speaker 1: you have a second, or you can find me on
Speaker 1: Twitter at Jen Kirkman and tell me how much you
Speaker 1: love the show. And let's get into some of the
Speaker 1: takeaways we learned from speaking with Sarah Wilson today. My
Speaker 1: favorite takeaway is that even the Dolli Lama cannot stop
Speaker 1: the noise in his head, and that the Dolli Lama
Speaker 1: things that we should all be focusing on all truism
Speaker 1: and of being of service to others. Sarah believes you
Speaker 1: can be anxious and live a purposeful, beautiful life at
Speaker 1: the same time. Sarah believes that not only can you
Speaker 1: live with anxiety, but you can thrive because of it.
Speaker 1: Think of our friend Darwin who had panic attacks. We
Speaker 1: make the beast beautiful is from a Chinese proverb. Sarah
Speaker 1: believes that for herself, being playful, experimental, and curious or
Speaker 1: end anxiety can help us in a moment of great anxiety.
Speaker 1: And as Sarah's mentor taught her with the analogy keep
Speaker 1: the camera rolling, we can prevent ourselves from seeing an
Speaker 1: end to our anxiety because we are busy getting anxious
Speaker 1: about being anxious. We need to try to have a
Speaker 1: compassionate understanding of the role that anxiety plays in our lives.
Speaker 1: And that's all I got for you today. So I
Speaker 1: hope you again. I hope you enjoyed this episode. I
Speaker 1: hope you're loving the show. New episode next week, and
Speaker 1: just remember, yes, anxiety bites, but you're in control. For
Speaker 1: more podcasts from My heart Radio, visit the I heart
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your
Speaker 1: favorite shows.