Why So Anxious?

Summary

Podcast Summary: Bewildered

Episode: "Why So Anxious?"

Hosts: Martha Beck & Rowan Mangan
Date: January 8, 2025

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Overview:

Main Theme:
This episode delves into the roots of anxiety, exploring why so many people today are anxious, the differences between fear and anxiety, and how modern culture—particularly through language and societal pressures—fuels a mass epidemic of anxious minds. Martha shares key insights from her new book, Beyond Anxiety, proposing that reconnecting to one's own nature and creative right-brain processes is the antidote to an anxious, control-obsessed world. The hosts maintain their trademark blend of idealism, sincerity, and playful humor throughout the conversation.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Personal Stories & Setting the Stage

• Martha’s Walking Story: Martha recounts a recent physical feat—walking 75 miles through the Cotswolds despite doubts and injuries—emphasizing the mysterious, “magical” side of human potential that emerges when we trust intuition over logic.

  • “When logic says no, but the thing in you says, ‘oh, go,’ go and see if magic picks you up. Honest to God, I’m kind of in amazement.” – Martha (05:14)

• Rowan’s Reflection: Rowan humorously contrasts her own story of intuition—dropping out of a PhD when her inner voice said to quit, leading to immense relief, and a playful discussion of doctor titles and “badger pants” (07:14).

Timestamp Highlights:

• [04:47] Martha’s “magic” walking story
• [07:14] Rowan on discovering her “gracious badger” style and a hairdresser’s comment on her “cute little train driver pants”

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2. Why Are We So Anxious?

• The Modern Epidemic:

  • Martha shares a staggering statistic: hundreds of millions, possibly a billion people, suffer from clinical-level anxiety disorders globally ([14:29]).
  • It’s not solely due to current events. Animals face dangers but are not anxious like humans. The key difference? Language.

• Language and Imagination:

  • Only humans imagine dangers, relive past traumas, and anticipate future threats using language, fueling a vicious “anxiety spiral” where fear stories feed back into the amygdala, perpetuating stress ([15:41]).

  “Most animals are not anxious most of the time… Humans have anxiety because of one thing. Language.”
  —Martha (15:02)

• Social & Media Environment:

  • Rowan highlights how technology and media are deliberately designed to grab our attention by triggering fear—the very thing our brains are wired to focus on for survival ([21:54]).
  • Media and social structures (e.g., capitalism) profit from keeping us anxious and engaged.

  "It's in the interests of the people making money off you that you stay scared."
  —Rowan (22:41)

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3. Fear vs. Anxiety: Key Differences

• Real Fear:

  • Immediate, situational response to danger; associated with clarity, action, and survival ([24:14]).
  • Example: A park ranger saving his girlfriend from a charging buffalo—instantaneous action, no overthinking.

• Anxiety:

  • Chronic, lingering; often based on imagined scenarios or stories, not present threats ([25:56]).
  • “It's like being haunted... there’s fear sort of lingering around and you don’t even really remember why you’re afraid.”

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4. Cultural and Neurological Insights

• Negativity Bias:

  • The left hemisphere of the brain is biased to scan for threats, amplifying negative or fear-inducing signals ([28:04]).

• Left vs. Right Brain:

  • Left Hemisphere: Exclusionary, logical, driven by control and storytelling (often anxiety-producing).
  • Right Hemisphere: Inclusionary, creative, relational, open to awe, compassion, and curiosity.
  • Overcivilization and socialization have made us hyper-left-brained, vastly increasing anxiety in the modern populace ([32:23]).

  "There’s something about the left hemisphere that makes it believe that it is correct no matter what... the left hemisphere is very into physical things and, above all, control."
  —Martha (30:25)

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5. The Way Out: From Anxiety to Curiosity, Creativity, and Connection

• The “Beyond Anxiety” Framework:

  • Anxiety thrives in left-brain, control-centric cycles.
  • The right hemisphere offers an antidote: move from anxiety → curiosity → creativity → connection ([34:42]).
  • Curiosity is Key: The first step out of anxiety isn’t calmness, but creative curiosity.

  “The opposite of anxiety for a human is not calm. It’s creativity. It’s making things... art in the broadest sense of the word.”
  —Martha (34:42)

• Concrete Practices:

  • Start with curiosity (even the simple “hmm” trick from psychiatrist Judson Brewer, which quickly shifts a group’s mood—[38:00])
  • Engage in artistic or inventive activities—making, building, storytelling, even jokes or poems.
  • Participate in communal, right-hemisphere activities: group art, shared creative rituals, genuine social connection (Wilder Community is referenced as just such a space—[47:00]).

• Neuroscience of Flow:

  • Creativity and connection shift brain chemistry: from adrenaline/cortisol-fueled anxiety to dopamine/serotonin-rich flow states ([43:28]).

  “When the right hemisphere starts to create, it builds things that cause... all anxiety falls away. And we get wrapped up in flow.”
  —Martha (44:04)

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6. From Individual to Collective Healing

• Art as Connection:

  • Art is fundamentally about representing inner experience to others—“I am a dog, you are a dog; we’re both dogs”—which builds communal empathy and understanding ([46:27]).

  “We just create something... which says, ‘I’m a dog,’ on some level. In a more complex way than that, right?”
  —Rowan (46:28)

• Resisting Cultural Conditioning:

  • Bewildered isn’t just about individual transformation, but creating “countercultural” spaces for collective healing, support, and joy ([47:35]).
  • Wilder Community is highlighted as a real-life example where members move intentionally into connection and creativity.

  “We wanted some place where people could be countercultural in a way that would take them out of anxiety and into connection, out of fear and into love.”
  —Martha (47:57)

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Notable Quotes

• On the root of anxiety:

  “Humans have anxiety because of one thing. Language... The left hemisphere of our brain takes this little spurt of fear and pops it into storytelling.”
  —Martha ([15:02], [15:43])

• On contemporary media and power:

  “It’s in the interests of the people making money off you that you stay scared.”
  —Rowan (22:41)

• On creativity as the cure:

  “The opposite of anxiety for a human is not calm. It’s creativity. It’s making things.”
  —Martha (34:42)

• On curiosity as a practice:

  “The first step away from anxiety is actually curiosity.”
  —Martha (35:51)

• On building community:

  “We wanted some place where people could be countercultural in a way that would take them out of anxiety and into connection, out of fear and into love.”
  —Martha (47:57)

• On art as self-recognition and connection:

  “All art is… making these things that are there to stay. Say, ‘this is what it’s like to be a me.’”
  —Rowan (45:56)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

| Timestamp | Topic / Quote | |------------|--------------| | 04:47 | Martha on “magical” physical feats and following intuition | | 07:14 | Rowan and the “gracious badger”/train driver pants anecdote | | 13:19-14:29| Why so much anxiety? Global scale, statistics | | 15:41 | “Humans have anxiety because of one thing: language" | | 21:54 | Media, engagement, and the profit of stoking fear | | 25:56 | Fear vs. anxiety—how they feel and operate differently | | 28:04 | Left hemisphere negativity bias and the rise of control | | 34:42 | “The opposite of anxiety… is creativity” | | 38:00 | The “hmm” curiosity trick to shift group mood | | 43:28 | The science of flow, right brain chemistry | | 46:27-46:28| Dogs on both sides of a fence—a metaphor for creative connection | | 47:35 | Wilder Community as a creative, countercultural anxiety antidote |

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Takeaways

• Humans are uniquely susceptible to chronic anxiety, due to our capacity—and cultural training—to create and believe stressful stories.
• Modern media and economic systems exploit and amplify this cycle for profit, making anxious engagement the norm.
• The path “beyond anxiety” is not to strive for calm, but to cultivate curiosity, creativity, and genuine connection—especially through art and community.
• Rebalancing brain activity from left-hemisphere anxiety loops to right-hemisphere creativity and love is both a personal and societal healing practice.
• True well-being comes from living authentically, playing, expressing ourselves, and connecting even (and especially) when that's countercultural.

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Final Note:
If you crave more connection, curiosity, laughter, and right-brain living, explore the Wilder Community (wildercommunity.com) with like-minded “Kahoots.” And remember: “Curiosity, connection, love, and self-expression will help us solve the problems that make us so anxious everywhere.” (Martha, 49:06)

Stay wild.

Transcript

[A]

We've got a good episode coming up for the Kahoot today, Marty.

[B]

I hope so. I like to think so. I spent a few years on it.

[A]

We are talking today about Marty's new book, Beyond Anxiety, that I believe you can get at the time that this podcast is being released. So if you suffer from the odd bit of anxiety, we would have no idea what that's like.

[B]

Why in the world would you feel anxious these days?

[A]

I can't think of a single reason. But if you can, and if you do, I hope you'll stay with us and listen to this episode of Bewildered.

[B]

So, as some of you listeners may know, a few months ago, Ro and I started something called the Wilder Community, which is kind of an online village where people like us who want to find our true nature, even if it peels us away from culture, can get together, commune, make friends, and do things.

[A]

We have all kinds of regular events in there that are just so fun. We have a weekly hang where we get together and we have conversation and we make art in our own little rooms, in our own little places. But all together, there are group meditations that Martha leads that are crazy powerful, and there are just all kinds of, like, monthly themes and, like, personal development stuff that we work through together, and just a hive of activities and connection among really wonderful people.

[B]

Yeah. So if you're feeling drawn to belong to a community in these troubled times, give Wilder a try. It'[e-mail] all one word. And we hope we'll see you there. Hi, I'm Martha Beck.

[A]

And I'm Rowan Mangan. And this is another episode of Bewildered, the podcast for people trying to figure it out. Like us.

[B]

Everything out. Yes.

[A]

Yeah. So I know. I'm trying to figure stuff out, Marty.

[B]

Yes. And I am, too. You know what I'm trying to figure out right now?

[A]

What?

[B]

Why I can weirdly do things by magic sometimes that I can't do by logic.

[A]

Oh, yes.

[B]

Yes. Because I was invited, like, months ago, I was invited to participate in something called a transportation. A baggage transport. A transporn. Yeah, a baggage. I would be honored.

[A]

But it sounds to me like porn that you would do in a trance. So it would be like. I think we are really sort of skirting.

[B]

I think we're skirting with some delicate language here.

[A]

I disagree. I don't think we've ever been on more stable ground.

[B]

I love using the word skirting, anyway. Oh, God. It's just going all these wrong directions. Anyway, I got. I went on a walk. I went on A walk through the woods. No, there weren't. Well, there were some woods through the Cotswolds of England on something called a baggage transport walk, which I'm now obsessed with. They, they, you go to a place like Europe, where they have villages that are basically 10 to 15 miles apart, and you have lodging in each of these little villages. And every day they lug most of your baggage from village to village, and you walk between the villages with a day pack on your back. And I was going with nine other people, only two of whom I knew. And most of them were really fit, buff young men who didn't think twice about it. And I'm going, all right. I haven't walked much since my foot surgery or before it. And as you know, I started training diligently, but I developed all kinds of, like, knee problems. And I was like, I so nearly wrote to them on a number of occasions and said, sorry, I simply can't do it. But I had this thing in my head that says, oh, you go. And when that thing says you go, I go, and it works. And I went, and I met the other people, and there was one other woman, and she was in my age range, and we sort of stood there looking at the long limbs of these young and these young and very appealing men, I must say. And I say that as a lesbian, but super appealing. Then they were super appealing. And I took one day off because Adam had a problem and was in the hospital for a day, as you know. But in six days, according to my little step counter on my watch, I walked 75 miles, and it got easier as I went, and all the knee problems and everything were still there, but as I went, they got better, not worse.

[A]

So either it just proved to make.

[B]

Of this, I either make that I'm a huge hypochondriac who's been faking things my whole life and not knowing it or that something. There are times when I'm able to do things I cannot do, and that honestly feels like the truer answer. And it's happened over and over and over again. I remember saying, I do not. I cannot get this PhD. No way. I've got three little kids, can't do it. I'm sick all the time. I don't know how it happened. It just did. So my whole takeaway is when logic says no, but the thing in you says, oh, go. Go and see if the magic picks you up. I know that sounds a little earnest, but honest to God, I'm kind of in amazement.

[A]

I had the same thing happen with my PhD.

[B]

You walked 75 miles.

[A]

I. No. Although, you know, probably if you added it all up. No. I was doing my PhD, and I was like, listen, I can't do this. And all of a sudden, this knowing rose up in me that said, no, you really can't do this. Drop out. And I went, yes, I will. Thank you, universe, for this blessed guidance. And I dropped out. And I. I'm so happy.

[B]

I am. I heard one of your calls. It was on audio, the speakerphone. And I literally just hearing them converse with you almost congealed all my blood into one huge clot. And I became afraid that you would have to keep dealing with them. So when you said, I don't feel like I should do this, I was like, you stop.

[A]

I just didn't want to be the only one in our house who didn't have Dr. As an option when we booked our flights.

[B]

You know, we could legally change your name to doctor.

[A]

My first name could become doctor.

[B]

Yeah, that'd be cool.

[A]

That's brilliant. Solved. See, there's always an option.

[B]

And all y' all out there who are using that hint. Yeah. Just. Just tell the people at the. At the office there where you change your name that you got it from us. Doctor.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So what are you trying to figure out? For reals?

[A]

I. Well, first of all, I'm very impressed with you.

[B]

Thank you.

[A]

And you're walking. Second of all, who said you'd be able to do it from day one?

[B]

You.

[A]

Thank you. Third of all, here's what I'm trying to figure out. I am a middle aged lesbian.

[B]

You just figured that out?

[A]

Yeah, no, I'm still trying. No, it's not the lesbian I'm trying to figure out. Middle aged, honestly. But no. So I'm just giving context for the listeners. I. I don't know. Like, I've got a certain look to me. I've got a certain gracious badger. Yeah, I've got the gracious badger. And I've been looking for, like, the pants that were kind of the gracious badger pants. And I. What pants would a gracious badger wear? You know, and anyway, I. I found these pants and I really liked them.

[B]

You found badger pants?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I mean, in a manner of speaking.

[B]

Show us.

[A]

No.

[B]

Are you wearing the badger pants?

[A]

No, I'm not. And this is a word picture. Okay. So I was really. I was pleased with it. Like, I felt like they're. Okay, I'll just tell you the kind of pants they are. They're the kind of pants that you wouldn't expect to see being worn by a lesbian who works behind a desk. It kind of looks. They're the kind of pants that should have a hammer hanging from them and actually are equipped badger pants pants. Yeah, they're equipped for your tools.

[B]

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

[A]

And I really like that. And I like. I walk around feeling like, yeah, don't with me, because I am, like, I, like, know how to wield a hammer, and I do, because I hung a painting recently.

[B]

Oh, my God.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So butch.

[A]

Yeah, I know, right?

[B]

I am so attracted to you right now.

[A]

You should be. You've done the painting. So I. I was walking through life loving myself in my really butch pants. Like, they were styling, they rocked, and they had a bit of a pinstripe. I'm not ashamed to say it, but yeah. So whenever I was wearing them, I was always thinking, yeah, people see that and they think she's tough. Like, she knows how to do stuff. She might have had a painting or two in her time. And then I went to the hairdresser and my wonderful hairdresser. Bianca's come up before in our conversations because she's one of the few people I see in my life, and she said to me, I like your pants. And I was like, oh, my God, thank you so much. I love them. And she said, and this is very painful for me to recount, so please give me a moment trigger warning to hold it as I tell you that what she said was, yeah, I really like them. They look like cute little train driver pants. Oh, right. And I mean, I'm so sorry. I can't even. And I feel like the words were, like, seared into my brain. Cute little train driver pants. And so was I. Like, all that time I thought I was so legit, and I. And I was like, I don't know, the Fat Controller or, you know, from Thomas the Tank Engine.

[B]

Are you sure that you didn't accidentally get Lila's pants? Because she often looks like and dresses like a cute little train driver.

[A]

Oh, my God, you're right. She went through a really strong phase when she was a baby where we were convinced that she spoke in a Cockney accent. She didn't speak at all, but if she did, she would speak in a Cockney accent. And mostly what she'd say is, all right, Governor.

[B]

Good morning, Governor. Because that's just how she looked when we get her up in the morning. She just kind of, like, she had this funny little face, and she'd put her arms down by her sides and Wiggle around and say, we just couldn't tell. Hello, Governor.

[A]

Hello, Governor. Top of the morning to you.

[B]

We gotta teach her to talk like that.

[A]

Yeah, there's so much to do.

[B]

And then not let her talk any other way.

[A]

Let's. Let's take this one offline. Marty Mae, if you are enjoying Bewildered, there are a few ways you can explore, express your support for us. You can subscribe to the pod or follow it, depending on your app. It's a great way to get us in front of more people. And as always, we love a little rate and review action, especially when the reviews are kind and the ratings are high, strangely. And finally, if you really want to go to the next level with Bewildered, check out our online community, Wilder Community. We'll see you there.

[B]

Hello, the lovely peoples. This is Marty Martha, inviting you to a free masterclass that I have made called five paths to your purpose. Probably the most common question I get from people is, how do I find my purpose? Why don't I feel that I'm on purpose? Well, it turns out there are certain things you have to do to find your purpose, and I broke them down into five, and I made a little masterclass about it. So if you'd like to see it, just go to marthaveck.compurpose and you will be able to watch it without any charge at all.

[A]

Today, dear Kahoot, we are going to talk to you about anxiety.

[B]

Wait a second. Do they know who the Kahoot is?

[A]

Yes, they do. That's them. You are the Kahoot, and the Kahoot is you.

[B]

We do everything in kahoots.

[A]

Yes, yes. We move as a kahoot.

[B]

We move as a kahoot at dawn. And you just said we're going to talk about what?

[A]

Anxiety.

[B]

Anxiety. I just wrote a book about it. Oh, no way.

[A]

No way. Well, you are uniquely qualified to talk to me about it today, apparently so. Yes, yes, it's going to go very well. Mari, why am I so anxious? Please. Why is everyone so anxious? Why? What is going on? Why is it getting worse? Well, help me. For the love of God, help me. Over to you.

[B]

Okay, then. First of all, you are anxious because we live in a world of slings and arrows and outrageous misfortunes, and then we die. So that just is a basic baseline. It makes everybody anxious all the time. And then through history, things have happened to make people even more anxious. There have been plagues even worse than the pandemic. There have been, you know, tyrannies and famines and all kinds of things. Bad things happen, bad things happen. So a lot of people will just look around them, at the environment and say it would be insane not to be anxious right now. But actually we need to look at that because anxiety is very debilitating. It is now the leading mental health problem for people worldwide. Hundreds of millions of people have diagnosed anxiety disorders and that is gonna way outnumber the people who aren't getting diagnosed.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Like who have high anxiety.

[A]

Gonna be outnumbered by the people who aren't getting diagnosed.

[B]

Yeah. So like 374 million was the last number I saw, I think. And you triple that and you probably have. There are like a billion people who have clinical level anxiety disorder.

[A]

Why?

[B]

Because it's not because of the environment. You'd think it would be, but it's not. And here is why I put it to you. Most animals are not anxious most of the time. We. I said this in my speech in Toronto. I. We always anthropomorphize animals into having our qualities. And there's a Disney movie called Bears which features some incredible photography. And they have spun this story of a bear, a mother bear named Sky. And sky comes out of hibernation with two cubs, and it's the springtime, and she comes out and she eats a bunch of berries and the cubs are out, and she lies down on a sunny bank and she sunbathes while the kids, the cubs, that is, suckle away, which we both know causes oxytocin to flow through your bloodstream and makes you feel like you're like on huge amounts of ecstasy or something. And the narrator says things are fine for now, but sky is worried about her milk supply. No, no, no, probably not, you nickel plated idiot. Sorry. She is not worrying about her damn milk supply because bears can't think that way. Bears can. And wildebeest and turtles all live in a world where they should be anxious about things, but they aren't because they don't have the imagination to think about anything but what's actually around them. Humans have anxiety because of one thing. Language. We take language, we encounter things that frighten us. There's a little spurt of fear at the very center of our brain, in this incredibly ancient part of the brain that all animals have. And most animals, it just makes them like, go to a different part of the river or whatever, you know, go eat a trout. Your milk supply will be fine.

[A]

But if I had a dollar for every time you said that to me when I was worried about my milk supply.

[B]

Have you checked the fridge? I'm worried about our milk supply. Anyway, we, the left hemisphere of, of our brain takes this little spurt of fear that comes from this ancient, ancient structure that all animals have and pops it into storytelling. And with the upper levels of our brains, we humans say things like, I am afraid because the temperature is rising steadily and the planet's climate is under serious deconstruction. Or I am anxious because I got my heart broken once and it could happen again. Or I'm anxious because I just, I hear a dog barking downstairs and I'm afraid people can hear him on the podcast. Can you hear him?

[A]

I can, but not through my headphones, thank God. Yeah, he's a very, he's, he's an exception to the rule of animals don't get anxious.

[B]

Well, he's around a lot, actually. It's interesting, Eckhart Tolle, who is not a specialist in zoology or anything, or anything, but well known zoologist, being super not anxious. He's a, he's a genius at that. He's a genius in a lot of ways. And he talks about how dogs have been bred by humans to actually depend on human society and human company and because that they're extremely sensitive to our emotions. And so when we get anxious, they get anxious. So there are a lot of anxious dogs. I know a very anxious person who adopted this dog who is so sweet and so mellow and within a week of starting to live with her, he became a very anxious animal. So, yeah, there are exceptions, but sky the grizzly bear is not out there having anxiety attacks.

[A]

But isn't it true that like, so we've had, humans have had language for a long time. Right. But today our capacity to be anxious is kind of stoked by our circumstances. Right. Like, I mean, I feel like it's sped up. At the very least it has.

[B]

And here's the thing, the thing that's interesting is your amygdala, that ancient thing, is always responsive. Responsive to things that look threatening in the environment.

[A]

Right.

[B]

But the stories told by the other part of the left hemisphere read back to the amygdala as if they are the environment. So if I sit here, say that.

[A]

Say that more clearly. Yeah. All right.

[B]

So if I'm sitting here, you know, warm and dry, and I'm thinking, I have a terrible fear of water, I could drown someday my brain actually starts picturing me being trapped underwater and my lungs filling with water and all the things I've read about drowning, and I can actually go into quite a panic. I don't have this particular fear. But if I start to Think, think about it vividly what it would be like to drown. I can actually, I can feel myself getting anxious thinking about that. And the weird thing is my brain can see and hear and feel what I think it would be like to drown. And it's coming across to my amygdala as a real and present threat, as if I'm trapped in a car that's sinking or something. Right.

[A]

So, and so if I was, and so by the same token, if I was happily scrolling away meme to meme and I came across a video of a flood, I wouldn't even have to go to the effort. Like the labor that you just went to to think up the drowning scenario, right?

[B]

Yeah. So we're constantly repeating fears about what might happen based on what may have happened to us in the past or what happened to somebody else in the past, or what may at some point happen to somebod. And what it does is it forms this feedback loop in the left hemisphere of our brains where the amygdala is feeding fear to the neocortex, and the neocortex is turning the fear into stories and insisting that it needs to control the environment, which reads to the amygdala as an increased need to project fear. So what you get is fear feeding stories that feed fear feeding stories. And it just spins up in this unregulated feedback cycle is the scientific term for it. I call it the anxiety spiral. People sometimes call it a thinking loop or something, but we get stuck in that and we are stuck in that as a society. So I'm not a brain scientist, I was trained as a social scientist. And what we've created as a population is a massive all terrain version of the fear cycle, the anxiety spiral that spins in our left hemispheres. So you don't, you don't go through the day without seeing horrible things that are happening to people all over the world or being told to worry.

[A]

Well, that's, and that's what I was going to get at is that it's not accidental. Right? It's not like that you innocently happen to see. It's that the, the technological media environment, I include social media, is engagement driven. And what gets our attention is things that like, you know, if, if it's, if something sparks our amygdala, it's got our attention. And so I feel like it's not just that we happen to have this situation, it's that without, like too early in the podcast, jumping into the capitalism, call me, but it, you can, you can see it Right. Like I'm not, I'm not drawing too.

[B]

Oh, they're directly linked.

[A]

Yeah. And so it's, it's in the interests of the people making money off you that you stay scared. And, and given that what you're describing in the anxiety cycle is something that always revs up.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

I think that goes some way to explain the, the billion people.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

In pretty serious strife right now. But tell me, just like what. How do you describe, you mentioned like the small kernel of fear. What. How do you differentiate anxiety from fear?

[B]

Okay, so fear. I, I heard a story about Londolozi where we like to go, where I go every year. And you come too, so we can run seminars there. It's a game preserve in northern South Africa. And I was just thinking about a story about how I game ranger and his girlfriend were walking after they were walking at night, which you're not supposed to do and guests aren't allowed to do, and they got charged by a cape buffalo. Cape buffaloes are huge, gigantic muscle cubes with massive horns on them. I mean the things are. And they're very, very dangerous. They're not as fancy looking as a lion, but they're actually more dangerous. So this park ranger grabbed his girlfriend under one arm like a sack of wheat or something. And with his other arm he, as the buffalo charged, he planted his hand in the center of the horns as they came together as the buffalo is trying to gore him. And he started screaming curse words at it.

[A]

No, you don't.

[B]

You son of. You know, he was. And he just, he got pushed backward because the thing weighs like 2,000 pounds. They got pushed backward right into a building actually. And I think they had somebody come running out and help scare the buffalo away. What he did was very brave, you might say, but it was also probably completely unplanned. Real fear immediately says there is danger. Here's what you do. Do it. And that's why mothers can lift cars off their children and stuff. Maybe that's how I walked 75 miles. I was terrified. But yeah, there's. So that's fear. And I always say it's like being shot out of a cannon. It says do this now, but actually if you talk to people who've been in these really high volatility, dangerous situations, they often say that things got very clear for them and very sort of weirdly calm. And yet they were moving at the speed of light and their bodies knew what to do. That's real fear. Anxiety is not like being shot from a cannon. It's like being haunted. So always, always, always there's fear sort of lingering around and you don't even really remember why you're afraid. And then you remember, oh, why am I so afraid? Oh, and then you'll think, you'll think of a story about something you haven't done that you should do something you did do that you shouldn't have done. And maybe things that will happen and you'll think, oh, that's why I'm afraid. And then you'll have a whole inner environment of torment again and you'll go right into another spiral, another turn of the anxiety spiral. And it's very unlike actual fear which all animals have and which keeps us alive. Anxiety actually kills us. But I'm right, diseases.

[A]

Am I right in saying that it's like a weird flaw or feature, unfortunate feature of our brain that it is reading as fear, something that is not shouldn't be read as fear.

[B]

Yeah, it's a thought form. There's a thought form in your brain. Be very afraid. Well, there are all kinds of thought forms in my brain. Look, I can change them around at will. No, no, focus on this one thought form and be literally physically afraid. Turn your whole fight or flight system on, bake yourself in stress hormones and cause those degenerative diseases because you're afraid of things that will probably never happen.

[A]

So I think that for bewildered listeners, like the correlation between how we talk about culture and these sort of anxiety producing circumstances, you know, and outer that we encounter, you know, has a lot to do with culture, with how we talk about culture, with the cultural forces. So that, that I think is quite clear. What I want to get you to talk about now is. So. Got it. Anxiety. Yep. Bad. So what can we do about it? Like we still have to live in this society. Tell me, you've written this book that's called Beyond Anxiety. Is there something beyond anxiety, please?

[B]

Yes. And I first started thinking about it when I was talking to Jill Bolte Taylor, who famously had a left hemisphere stroke when she was 37 and she was a neuroanatomist at Harvard. Our time there crisscrossed. Go ahead and drink water. But I got to know her and she would talk about the time without her left hemisphere as being completely non verbal. She had to relearn language and numbers and all of that. And it was horribly hard. But she was in an emotional and psychological and even spiritual state of awe and compassion and incredible gratitude. And she believes that that is how the right side of the brain functions in the real world without the left side. She rebuilt the left side of her brain, knowing that it was now going to teach her stories that would cause her to freak out potentially, but that she'd had this experience of that there was another way to see the world. So when I met her, she was living what some might consider a very unusual life. She was living on a boat in a lake somewhere in the Midwest in the middle of a beautiful forest. And she would jet ski to shore with her, her pet dog and they would buy groceries and art supplies because she is constantly interacting with nature and making different kinds of art because it keeps the right side of her brain really, really active. And that balances what's going on in the left side, which helps, it keeps her from becoming anxious because. Let me just backtrack a tiny bit. There are two features of that anxiety thing in your left hemisphere that make it really, really demonic. The first one is you've got a built in bias to see things that are scary to you because it helps you avoid dangers. That's legit. But you're going to notice dangerous things or even potentially dangerous things much faster than you will. Safe things. I call it 15 puppies and a cobra. Which one are you going to spend most of your focus on? So that's the first thing, the negativity bias. And then there's this weird thing that I do think is just an evolutionary glitch. I don't understand why it's there. But if somebody loses the right side of their brain and they're stuck in just the left hemisphere, they actually don't believe that anything to their left is real, including like their own arms, legs and the left side of their faces. It's called hemispatial neglect. And it happens when people have a right hemisphere stroke. But it also happens when people get stuck in stories of fear. There's something about the left hemisphere that makes it believe that it is correct no matter what. And nothing. It doesn't observe or decide or adjudicate. None of that matters. None of it is real. The left hemisphere is very into physical things and above all, control. So you mentioned capitalism a minute ago, when people got really into the sort of left hemisphere thinking that dominated the scientific method in Europe during the 17th century and after that, those were the people who went out all over the globe and just imposed their way of living on everybody else and did it in the name of science and the queen or whatever. And it never occurred to them. It seems to say, maybe other people are correct, maybe we aren't the only correct. This isn't the only correct way to think.

[A]

And so we can see the left hemisphere's kind of dominance in our society going back.

[B]

Oh, all over the. All over the planet. All over the planet. So you asked what to do about it?

[A]

Yeah. Can I. Can I completely eradicate my own anxiety ever? Like, is there a pill I can take? I mean, obviously there's pills, but, like.

[B]

There'S so many pills.

[A]

Can you eradicate anxiety forever in yourself?

[B]

Eradicate's a strong word. I've met people who I believe are never anxious, and I think that they do it. They create this reality by continuously operating their entire brains.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

So when you don't move out of the left hemisphere thinking and into right hemisphere thinking, because they're different. Left hemisphere thinking is exclusionary. It locks out everything else. Right hemisphere thinking is inclusionary. It includes everything. So you cannot move into pure right brain thinking without also accepting the left side of your brain. So it's a self acceptance that happens when you get into more of a balanced state. That said, most of us are so left hemisphere dominant that some social anthropologists have said our brains are literally different from our ancestors, not because of evolution, there's not been time for that, but because of continuous socialization into the kinds of thinking that cause anxiety. So here we are, and there's a way out.

[A]

So in the same way that we're constantly getting the negative cultural messages that keep us in anxiety, we have to, with the same consistency and ritual and regularity, be working on the things that will bring us out right as a way of life. And so what does that look like for me, for you, for our listeners?

[B]

I first encountered it in a zooming conversations with Jill from her boat on the lake as she showed me her artwork and is still a scientist. So I was like, oh, this is a different way of living. And it's more like the way we evolved to live than the way most of us actually experience the world. We live, most of us in isolation from nature. We live with artificial lighting. We go to sleep and wake up based on the clock rather than the sunlight or fatigue in our bodies. We are actually not living normal lives. And we have to then actively, you said, give it equal time. I think we're given constant reinforcement to our anxiety from everything around us. So I would say that a near continuous effort to move more activity into the right sides of our brains is the only way to really conquer anxiety. And I believe our brains can actually. They actually mold themselves to be different when we do that. And the way out of it surprised me.

[A]

Go on. I was just gonna say, like, so give us some examples of moving into the right brain day to day.

[B]

I thought, you know, how do you get to calm? How do you get to soothing? How do you get to the opposite of anxiety? But it turns out that the opposite of anxiety for a human is not calm. It's creativity. It's making things wow. It's art in the broadest sense of the word. Art and artifice. It's about building things, it's about inventing things, it's about sharing things. It's about our ability to use everything that's pouring into the left hemisphere as part of an ongoing effort to experience and communicate more love, essentially compassion. And so instead of control, the stronger drive there in the right side of the brain, similar structures, but a different effect where the deep part of the amygdala in the left hemisphere goes, ah. And it sends it off to make scary stories and try to control the world. On the right side, it's going, whoa, what's that? But then it gets curious.

[A]

Hmm.

[B]

So the first step away from anxiety is actually curiosity. And the way. Here's the way. A good way to sort of check that with yourself. Have you ever rubbernecked at an accident? Have you ever driven past something, and I'm asking our listeners, too, have you driven past something that looked really horrible and slowed your car down or craned your neck to try to see what the heck happened? I have. I have to. And I think, oh, I must not. Like, oh, it's so, you know, voyeuristic to try to see if somebody got hurt. What am I doing? Another thing we do is we watch endless televised accounts of murder. Real murders, fake murders. The American Children's Psychiatric association says that by the time a child in America reaches adulthood, they've seen 16,000 murders. Because we're obsessed with things that will.

[A]

Help us avoid danger, that these antiquated throwback parts of our brain believe will help keep us safe.

[B]

Oh, yeah, the throwback parts are going, control, control, control.

[A]

There's murder everywhere. Everywhere I look, there's true crime.

[B]

Be very, very careful. And this is fascinating, yes. But when you turn on a true crime story, and we know our beloved Karen, she love her. She's a very anxious person. So why does she watch murders every day, all day? Like. Like the. The whole. It's always. It always starts out like any other day. Never have a day that starts out like every other day, because it will end in carnage and never be someone.

[A]

Who lights up a room Just by looking in, because you are never be.

[B]

A family that looks picture perfect because one of y' all is going down. And so Karen sits there and watches. Not just fake murders, but, you know.

[A]

She commits them regularly just to keep herself entertained. It's just you don't want to be our neighbors and our friends. Like they just come over to drop off some cup of sugar, sat them with a chainsaw.

[B]

People in America are always dropping off cups of sugar. Okay, all right.

[A]

I want us to get back on track. I want to know how to live. We don't have a huge amount of time left, so I want us to understand, okay, what can I do to not nurture the non anxiety part of my brain in my real life?

[B]

So you can start with a curiosity, Even if it's that kind of prurient, murder style curiosity. And you can one really good psychiatrist, brilliant guy called Judson Brewer, he suggests just saying, hmm, hmm, like look at something intensely and go, hmm in a room full of people. And they will all like be like, what? What? Where? What? And just keep saying. And it will drive them nuts with curiosity. But immediately their anxiety will abate and their mood will elevate.

[A]

So cool. I love that. I just love it.

[B]

Isn't that cool? He just takes people out, his patients out into the mountains with a friend doctor of his. And then this highly anxious group of like Olympic athletes will be standing around and both doctors at once go, hmm. And everything changes.

[A]

It'd be really fun to just like cultivate a few of those. Like, huh? Oh, you don't see that every day.

[B]

Oh, what the. That's a good one. What? I think Australian does really well with this. What the bloody what?

[A]

In the blazers?

[B]

Okay, so let me drill down once you can get curious about anything, including your own anxiety. Like, why am I so messed up in the head? This is why I went and found out about it. I was like, why is this bothering me so much? Once you get to curiosity, then the right hemisphere, instead of telling you a story and wanting to control things, pulls you toward investigation and starts to connect things. So the right side of your brain is actually a slightly different color than the left side.

[A]

No way.

[B]

Yeah. The left side has lots of little gray cells and they're all kind of lined up in little short circuits. The right side has these long, long, long nerves that connect things that aren't usually connected and connect them over a further distance. And those nerves, because they're so long, have to be wrapped in a lot more of this substance called myelin, which is like the wrapping around an electrical cord. It actually is the wrapping around an electrical cord. And so these long white myelin sheaths actually mean that the right side of your brain is paler than your left side. And so when it starts to connect things, when you're watching, like, if you're watching a really good, like, event series show and there is a mystery, or you're reading a really good mystery book and there's murder and there are things to pull you in, but with anxiety, but then it becomes curiosity. And the detective is always so obsessed with the case that he cannot stand to be pulled off it, even though it's just sort of random. Anyway, he's so curious. He owns that thing and he starts to investigate and he begins to connect clues. And when that starts to happen, he is making a theory. And when we have to assemble things in order to make them, whether it's intellectual, physical, social, anything, when we start to connect and we start to join things together that we haven't joined together in our heads before, we go all the way into a kind of transportation into the place that some psychologists csikszentmihalyi labeled flow. It's a place where we're pushing the limits of our knowledge out of a basic curiosity and then a love for what we can create when we connect unusual things. And that is the origin of human art. And everywhere there has ever been a human population, no matter how oppressed they were, no matter how impoverished they were, they're making art like there's no going home.

[A]

So what happens between why am I so messed up in the head and the masterpiece oil painting?

[B]

It's where you say, for example, I am so messed up in the head, and I think it's because of the chaos around me. But I really. I see someone else over there who also looks very stressed, and suddenly I'm curious about why that person is stressed. And for just a moment, I. I get out of my control. Strategy, obsession, that only I exist. And I think if I can somehow communicate to that other person how I'm feeling, I might feel less alone. And you start to think of ways to represent your inner state. And that could be. It can be in something like a conversation. Everything we do is creative. Making a meal, talking to a friend.

[A]

We do, though, because, like, some things are, like, adding up as numbers. That's what the left hemisphere is there for, right? Yeah.

[B]

Yeah, that's true. We do a lot. I mean, making a spreadsheet that you don't really want to make is not so much a Right hemisphere activity. But knowing what it means is a right hemisphere activity. All this stuff, like I quoted Jeff Bezos in my book because he often says, and he wrote in his letter to stockholders, I tell every Amazon employee to wake up terrified every morning and stay scared all day, because that leads to productivity. And what is productivity? It is more wealth, more material wealth for a few people at the top of the pyramid. That's productivity. That's the left hemisphere's perspective, and that's what it creates. But when the right hemisphere starts to create, it builds things that cause at the outside of it, you start to lose language, because the left side of the brain handles language. So as you start to create something, even if it's something social or something like engineering, as you get into the part where you're truly generating something new, language falls away. The idea of time and the feeling of time passing falls away. All anxiety falls away. And we get wrapped up in flow. And our brains, instead of producing a huge amount of adrenaline and cortisol and everything, are now producing dopamine and serotonin. And without even really knowing it, we begin to create things that connect other people to our experiences. And it starts to become another cycle. But it's a cycle that begins with curiosity, goes into creativity, and then ends with connection, which then feeds back into more curiosity about more things, more connection. It's the thing that sends people out traveling to learn about each other or.

[A]

I love that. I love the idea that I curious of you right here. I curious of you. So I create a thing to represent of me. Like, here is what it's like to be me. Are you too curious of me?

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Right. And then, yes, we're making these things that are there to stay. Say, this is what it's like to be a me. And I've never thought of it that all art is that. But of course that. And I love it. And you know what I always think about? I've still got this dog barking downstairs. I always think of like two dogs on. On. On each side of a fence, you know, like in suburban backyards. And one's going, I'm a dog, a dog, a dog. And the other one's like, I too, I'm a dog. We're both dogs.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And maybe that's like, I love it. That's how we get out of anxiety, is we just create something in three dimensions or two dimensions, which says, I'm a dog on some level. Like in a. In a more complex way than that. Right. And I just want to say on the connection thing, given that to live is to be curious about others is to forge connection and to represent ourselves to each other as connection. And in the interest of connection for the Kahoot that is our space, to do that together is called Wilder Community and you can find [e-mail] if you. And we also have weekly connection points like Live Connections. We have an Arty Friday hang where we come together and make art together and connect in our right hemispheres and for our right hemispheres. And it's a really good anxiety diminisher.

[B]

Yes, it is. And we did it because we wanted. You cannot have human interaction without creating culture. And we wanted some place where people could be countercultural in a way that would take them out of anxiety and into connection, out of fear and into love. And it's just a little fledgling of a thing, but oh my God, the people are amazing. It works. It's like I remember when I thought, I think this will work. And then I decided I was going to push my brain to only use right hemisphere. By the way, the right hemisphere uses language for three things. Poems, songs and jokes. Otherwise it's left hemisphere working with words. But I thought, I'm going to just really see if it works. I'm going to push my brain that hard to the right. I'm going to draw, I'm going to write, I'm going to tell jokes. I'm going to do things that are all about self expression and connection with other people and empathy. And my anxiety dropped through the floor even as things got worse and worse and worse in the world around us. Which they really have. Yeah, they really have.

[A]

It works and we can do it and we can do it together. And Martha's book is called Beyond Curiosity, creativity and finding your life's purpose. In our next podcast, we might come back to where finding your life's purpose comes into all of this.

[B]

Yeah, there's a lot more to say about that. The one thing I want to leave people with is, yes, there are a lot of problems that could legitimately be seen as fear making. But the way to encounter a problem, a real problem, effectively, is to go at it with creativity. Create your way to a solution. Fear won't help you do that. Anxiety won't help you do that. Curiosity, connection, love and self expression will help us solve the problems that make us so anxious everywhere.

[A]

Amazing. Thanks, Marty. And when as we do that together, we will be sure to stay wild. We hope you're enjoying Bewildered. If you're in the USA and want to be notified when a new episode comes out. Text the word wild to 570-8730-1454. We're also on Instagram our Handle is Bewildered podcast. You can follow us to get updates, hear funny snippets and outtakes, and chat with other fans of the show. Bewildered is produced by Scott Forster with support from the Brilliant team at mbi. And remember, if you're having fun, please rate and review and stay wild.

[B]

People are always asking me, how did you get into training life coaches? And the answer is backwards. I did it backwards. That is, I didn't set up a program and then look for people to fill it. It's just that so many people were coming to me for coaching that I realized in order to serve the market, I was going to have to train other people in my methods. That was decades ago, and now the Wayfinder program contains all my very best wisdom and tools for living, boiled down to their savory essence. Now, if that sounds interesting to you, head on over to MarthaBeck.com and find your way.