Imagine Your Life, WITHOUT Anxiety.

Is it even possible?

In my STUDY, SAVOR, & SUPPORT Each Other CHAT☕️🍵, we’re doing a deep-dive into our newest Book Club selection! This week is our Introduction to BEYOND ANXIETY: Curiosity, Creativity, and Finding Your Life’s Purpose by Martha Beck.

In the Intro, MB sets the stage by reminding us of the reality we live in: a post-Covid world inundated with so much change and upheaval that it’s given anxiety a new name — “the inner pandemic.”

According to the Journal of Psychiatric Research, the exponential rise of anxiety is due to “exposure to anxiety-provoking world events.” That was true when it was published in 2018 and, in true Martha Beck fashion, one can only laugh “Hahahahaha!” at how much better it was back in 2018, compared to our levels of stress and anxiety today.

Yet, hope is not lost.

We’re in good company.

Even as our fears about the pandemic have eased off, the number of people suffering from anxiety disorders is in the hundreds of millions. Yup, it’s “the most common mental illness in the world.”

MB gets it. Since childhood, MB has had the dubious distinction of suffering from debilitatingly high levels of anxiety. But, she persisted and succeeded despite it, by studying the social sciences to understand the mind and alleviate her constant and severe sense of unease.

This is quite the accomplishment, because when she first began her studies, academia taught her the prevailing theory at the time: that our brains were “fully-formed by the age of five.”

Lucky for us, that turned out to be false. Many years later, new technology allowed neurologists to prove otherwise: that our brains are malleable and can rewire themselves throughout our lives, via neuroplasticity.

In fact, MB’s favorite Tibetan monk study proved that long-time meditators have “unusually dense tissue in the brain regions associated with happiness, compassion, and calm.”

You can almost see MB crying tears of joy, as she screams, “YES!”, she’s so excited to have found one monk in particular who “spent his whole childhood battling crippling anxiety and panic attacks.” MB simply can’t contain her excitement, she’s so happy to have hope that, as she put it, “…I could fix my brain…. I believed the way to peace was already inside me. I just had to find it.”

What I love about this approach is it doesn’t depend on external factors that we can’t control.

The locus of control is INSIDE of us.

What better way to heal ourselves & break out of our anxiety cage?

And I love how she calls this practice “the Art of Calm.” It’s not some rigid protocol, but a creative process that enlivens us, awakens our artistic spirit, and automatically strengthens the calming areas of our brains.

My favorite part?

The Toggle Effect: we can stand up to our anxiety, after all.

Contrary to the belief that it’s hard to escape our anxious minds, there’s scientific “evidence that shows a kind of toggle effect between anxiety and creativity: when one is up and running, the other seems to go silent…. [It’s] all about using creativity to calm… anxiety.”

You mean, we don’t have to beat ourselves with sticks to get our mean Inner Critic and anxious Monkey Minds to calm down?!

We can feast on sweet artsy carrots and enjoy a state of inner peace?

Yes, MB says we can, if we remember the 3 Important Things that changed her life:

1. Our society teaches us to unconsciously activate, spin, and accelerate the “Anxiety Spiral” in our brains.
2. As society makes us more anxious, we make it more anxious, in a never-ending vortex of suffering.
3. Anxiety can’t be ended; it must be replaced.

She’ll show us how to practice the Art of Calm in the next 3 sections of the book: The Creature, the Creative, and the Creation. Personally, I can’t wait!

Now, take a Mindful Minute to reflect on your life:

⭐️ Does this resonate with you?

⭐️ For our Journaling, let’s begin by rating our anxiety on a scale of 1 to 10 (being highest), and see how our rating changes as we go through the book.

⭐️ Have you heard of the toggle switch before? Or noticed it in your own experience?

⭐️ Do you feel calmer when doing something creative?

👭 Do you want to enlist the help of a Fellow Creative, to help keep you accountable so you can commit to applying the lessons in this book, or to accomplish another Creative task?

👭 If so, in the Comments or in the CHAT, tell us what you’d like to accomplish this upcoming week so we can all support & cheer you on.

Are you ready to conquer your Anxiety, by being CREATIVE with me?

Then,

Let’s TRUST in our CREATIVITY!

The Peaceful Creative in me honors & respects the Peaceful Creative in each of you,

Marisa

⭐️ Remember, we don’t have to figure everything out, all alone. ⭐️

We can find solutions, together!

Please join us in my

This is a special group for Writers, Artists, & Creatives like us, to have deep conversations about the Books that we choose, so we can implement what we learn, and unearth our truest, most Authentic Selves.

It’s the perfect way to

Share Our Recipes for Happiness:

🔮 Have fun together;

🔮 Share our triumphs;

🔮 Vent from time to time — we’re human after all!

🔮 Take a lighthearted approach to private journaling & Artist’s Dates; and,

🔮 Grow the CREATIVE GENIUS inside all of us! 💐🌺🌷🌸🌹🌻🌼

Share Our Work (allow our True Self to be Seen):

🚀 With Notes Boost Challenges (NBC), we can share our favorite Notes of the week.

🚀 And, when we’d like, we can share our Works In Progress (WIP) and/or Final Posts, Music, & Art…whatever we’re proud of!

🚀 So we can Like, Comment, and/or Restack each others’ work to…

Share Our Joy (experience Connection with a kind & supportive Creative Community):

🙌 This is how we can come together, to grow through our own individual efforts, and feel the support of a kind & supportive Creative Community, too.

🤗 If that sounds good to you, then join us & say hello!

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