Anxiety constantly? Martha Beck about the extent of calming creativity

The best -selling author, Martha Beck, tried many things over 62 years of her life to calm the anxiety that has been her companion since childhood.

The coach of the Harvard University sociologist tried the treatment, medicines, self -sympathy practices and many hours of meditation.

After that, collective anxiety increased during the Covid-19 pandemic, Beck dug in scientific research on anxiety because she was studying an online course on creativity, and led to an exciting discovery: anxiety and creativity have a passing relationship. Run one and the other turns off.

“It was really one of those moments” Aha “, as Beck, who is also an opera Winfrey coach, said in an interview. “I just wandered in my room,” I no longer feel anxious. I know how to close it. “

Even people who do not consider themselves creative can benefit from this inherent ability in the human brain to stay away from anxiety and live in more relationship and joy, Beck says in her new book, “Beyond anxiety: Curiosity and Creativity and find the purpose of your life” (Random Penguin House).

Beck spoke to the Times on how to determine the lies of anxiety, involve the creative side of our brain and why our fears are related to the structure of our economy.

This interview has been intensified and edited for clarity.

How did you come to realize the relationship between creativity and anxiety?

I started using a technique in the book that I call Kist (talking about the inner soul). It is a form of meditation in self -loving Tibetan. I started to repeat myself silently, “You might be happy. You may be fine. You might feel safe. You may be protected.” Like a drought with a little next water, she focused on this water from water as there was no concern.

Then I discovered that only by using gentle self -conversation, I can feel the customer feels calm within five minutes if they learn to focus on their minds on the best wishes. Then I added a piece of creativity. Gently start. Be kind with yourself, just as you know how to be for anyone. Return to kindness and your concern for calm will decrease. But then, since we live in a world that is basically an external structure of anxiety within our brains, the moment we communicate with the world in which we go to anxiety again, unless we have a truly difficult anchor in something else. The other thing is creativity.

So, kindness makes us peace, and then instead of saying, “What can I do now?” Ask yourself, “What can I do now?” This transformation takes you to curiosity and besides the brain that connects things together and resolves mystery – you are in creativity. This opens you, as anxiety closes and climbs you.

You say, “Anxiety always lies.” How can we know it is anxious?

Fear is a natural response to something threatening in the environment. If you see something frightening – someone pulled a gun on you or there is a bear – you will have a very high -energy tremor, you will say, “Do this”. It is very exciting, and we don’t need much.

But we are concerned all the time, because anxiety is not about what is here. It is about what we think can be somewhere, one day, perhaps. So there is no limit to that. There is no comfort from it, because it is not real. Anything we fear that this does not happen now is self -deception. She is an innocent lie, but she still says, “You should be afraid.” And if there is nothing to be afraid of you and you say to yourself, “I must be afraid”, then this is not the truth of your circumstances. This is not real. For this reason the anxiety always lies.

Your vision in this book has been informed through the work of the nervous legislation world, Jill Bolt Taylor, who says that the right hemisphere in the brain is a home to creativity, mercy and peace, while the linear, written, written, linear ball is the place where anxiety lives. The right hemisphere looks better, so why don’t we be there all the time?

One of the problems is that the right ball does not follow the time. We live in a world that requires scheduling and measuring time, where people feel anxious, as everything is ultimately critical. We are all involved in this critical chase, which is the essence of our society, and this is mainly anxious.

Is this the reason why you say we need a new economic system to support more right living? How can it look like that?

We look at the economy where familiar structures collapse. Our model is a rigid pyramid of wealth and strength, with the wealthy at the top, to the poor at the bottom. This is the culture. Culture left the brain very. An alternative to that is nature. Everything in nature is found in ecosystems. All organisms require space. Energy, like sunlight; Water, which is the basis of all life on this planet; Ecological systems will appear. If you doubt it, do not clean the refrigerator for a month and then look there and see what developed.

People can create economic ecosystems around themselves. Energy is actually desire: you have a natural desire to achieve your destiny. Water is your creativity: This is what is required to give a shape to your destiny, to take the next step forward, so you start making things. Then the space is our time. The idea is to give enough time to determine your true desires and create everything that happens, and I think it is not like cleaning the refrigerator for a few weeks: the value system begins to appear in your life and then begins to spread.

There was no more important time now to stop installing yourself in the collapse structures and start investigating your inherent curiosity. If you can give this space and kindness to be calm and start thinking, “What can I do?” It becomes very interesting.

What about people who insist that they are not creative?

When NASA tested adults to find out the number of creative geniuses they could find, they found that 2 % of adults reside as creative geniuses. Then one of them thought about testing children between the ages of 4 and 5 years and found that 98 % of them were creative geniuses. So somewhere along the way, our creative genius is suffocated. If you can be creative in a 4 or 5 -year -old way, it is pure pleasure. There is no judgment.

So you have to bring the kindness factor over and over again. I have a friend who combines Panorama puzzles and calms it. This is her way of doing art. If you cook, in particular, you do art. If you plant a garden, you are doing art. If you throw a dinner party, you are making something. You are making a sandwich, you are making. Each of us humans is incredible, constantly creative.

Many people are not creative because they are physically and emotionally exhausted. The recipe for your life should be: comfort in order to feel the desire to play, then play until you feel comfortable, then repeat it.

In the book, you write, “Choose the focus on what makes life enjoyable and meaningful.” It looks like irrational, but why is it difficult to do this?

Because the anxious brain says you will be safer if you are always afraid. Not embarrassed now, but there will be, so it is better to remain afraid. If you remain afraid, you will be more productive. But every test they do in solving creative problems indicates that when you are afraid, you cannot do this. It is just a lie of anxiety that speaks through the entire society, and we all agree, “Yes, we must be very concerned.” In a society in which everything should be liquefied and paid at a premium, someone will get the attention of someone.

Many people are concerned because their lives are full of demands: work, relationships and family. How do we promote a right -wing approach in this atmosphere?

When you are in a lot of anxiety, it becomes unbearable. This is how I found my way through all this meditation on the feast of diver. In the situations of disturbances, distress and chaos, there is more motivation to find this.

The thing that I love to talk about the gentle internal breath is that when you start bringing a little kindness in the equation, you then begin to become one of my favorite Persian poets. Part of this poem, which he wrote, goes: “Disputed? Then stay with me, because I am not.” Immediately, the kindness you give yourself begins going out to others. This makes every interaction between people quieter, which increases the affirmation mutual. It takes you to the cycle of creativity. It does not make it calm. It makes it creative. It makes it born. And if there is a practical problem that must be solved, you do not want to be in a state of panic. Any practical problem, any personal problem, and any personal problem that improves when we give up our anxiety, find our kindness and move to what we can do. Then we participate in this way to the extent that we are completely anxious, and we do not have to return.

Help Help is a wellness column where we meet researchers, thinkers and writers about their latest books – all with the aim of learning how to live a more complete life. Want to put us? Email Alyssa.bereznak@latimes.com.