- It’s hard for me to love a weak character Existentialist Hannah Arendt famously coined the phrase “the banality of evil”. She used it to describe what she felt was the most extreme failures of personal moral awareness – not thinking and not responding adequestly when the times demand it. You know, sitting back and doing nothing even though the world is falling apart. And more
- I’m doing “cool loneliness” I’ve had cause to think about loneliness again lately. A journalist acquaintance brought it up over breakfast – she was surprised to read in first, we make the beast beautiful that loneliness is such a theme in my life. “But you come across as someone who doesn’t need other people.” Which is a lonely person’s more
- The Anti-Anxiety Diet ebook! So my US publisher asked if I’d write a program that taught us all how to eat for anxiety, to accompany the launch of first, we make the beast beautiful in the US and UK in April. So I did. Because I have a habit of saying, yes. * I’m afraid it’s only available in more
- A note from a 16-year-old that blew my mind Do you mind if I share this lovely note with you? Sarah L. reached out to me with the letter below. I get hundreds of letters and messages daily in response to first, we make the beast beautiful. I’ve had to employ someone two days a week to help me answer the questions and provide more
- As you make 2018 resolutions, remember this my anxious friends… …we’re not all that bad to have around. And we might not have to turn ourselves completely inside out to become better people. We come with a swag of good points. You know? It occurred to me as I sit here writing my next book that we need to remind ourselves that we don’t have more
- The #1 thing to share with loved ones (if you have anxiety) This is a quick little tip from first, we make the beast beautiful. I’ve found it to be one of the most popular and follows on from the post “Three ways loved ones can actually help us when we’re anxious as f*ck”. I followed a thread on an anxiety site one day that discussed the more
- Three ways loved ones can actually help us when we’re anxious as f*ck In this post last week I follow up on an edited extract from first, we make the beast beautiful in which I outline all the contradictions inherent in why we need people, but push them away, when we’re anxious. Today’s share is the antidote, geared at at our loved ones; you might want to tag them in the more
- Don’t be nervous, work joyously. I came across Henry Miller’s “11 Commandments of Writing” in a review of a book of his essays. The book was written around the time he wrote Tropic of Cancer. The commandments seem to be a bunch of Edicts To Self to remind the writer to not lose sight of what life is meant to more
- Why we need people, but push them away, when we’re anxious This is an edited extract from my book first, we make the beast beautiful that picks up after an anxiety attack in the presence of my ex-partner “The Life Natural”. I tried to sum up the weird contradictions and paradoxes and baffling inconsistencies inherent in our need for/inability to cope with people when our heads more
- I’m clear about what I’m hungry for. You? I ate at Gabrielle Hamilton’s Prune in New York about six years ago. I didn’t realise the story behind the woman. I do now and have been watching her “Mind of A Chef” series on Netflix recently. She shares in this interview her bold thinking about everything. She sticks it up complacency. Me, I’m very more
