Anxiety, Beauty, and the Unknown: A Map to Emotional Resilience with David Whyte

The One You Feed

Eric Zimmer, The One You Feed

Buddhism, Education, Self-improvement, Religion & Spirituality, Health & Fitness, Mental Health

4.6 • 2.5K Ratings

🗓️ 6 May 2025

⏱️ 60 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In this episode, David Whyte explores anxiety, beauty, and the unknown as a true map to emotional resilience. David shares how anxiety can be a doorway to deeper understanding and connection. He and Eric discuss the paradox of holding both joy and struggle, the surprising wisdom hidden in everyday emotions, and how poetry and language can bring us closer to the heart of life. This is an inspiring look at how we can build resilience by embracing life’s uncertainties. Key Takeaways: Exploration of human emotions, particularly happiness and anxiety. The duality of human emotions and the internal struggle between positive and negative qualities. Insights from David's book"Constellations Two," focusing on the rehabilitation of common words and their deeper meanings. The significance of the parable of the two wolves in understanding personal struggles. The relationship between anxiety and unspoken truths about care and vulnerability. The role of poetry in expressing and understanding complex emotions. The importance of recognizing and embracing both happiness and unhappiness in life. The concept of horizons as boundaries that inspire imagination and growth. The idea that nagging in relationships can be a form of love and care. Encouragement to engage in meaningful conversations and reflect on personal emotional landscapes. If you enjoyed this conversation with David Whyte, check out these other episodes: The Art of Poetry and Prose with David Whyte Beautiful and Powerful Poetry with Marilyn Nelson The Power of Poetry with Ellen Bass For full show notes, click here! Connect with the show: Follow us on YouTube: @TheOneYouFeedPod Subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify Follow us on Instagram See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	You always get to your happiness through the traviles of your discontent and your difficulties you have being in the world and being at ease in the world.
0:10.7	And happiness is actually knocking on our door telling us this is the way to happiness.
0:29.6	Welcome to the one you feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have.
0:39.1	Quotes like, garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think, ring true. And yet, for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self-pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't have instead
0:46.1	of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just
0:51.7	about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent,
0:56.1	and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep
1:01.4	themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf.
1:07.9	We often take ourselves so seriously, the name we carry, the identity we've constructed,
1:13.6	the projects we chase, and yet, as David White reminds us, the whole endeavor might be just slightly
1:20.6	absurd.
1:21.6	In this conversation with poet David White, we explore the deep truths that reveal themselves
1:26.6	when we let go of our need to name,
1:29.3	to define, to fix.
1:31.5	David talks about anxiety as a mask for unspoken truths, about the real meaning of care,
1:37.0	and about the strange, sacred humor that arises when we realize how much we don't control.
1:43.8	From Zen koans to Irish folklore to yak
1:46.8	mangers in the Himalayas, David weaves together the poetic and the practical, and somewhere
1:52.3	in all of it he helps us see that maybe the goal isn't to be extraordinary, but to recognize
1:58.3	the unordinary beauty of what's already here.
2:01.6	This is an episode about loosening our grip, living with paradox, and letting language lead us
2:07.3	closer to the world, not away from it.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Eric Zimmer, The One You Feed, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Eric Zimmer, The One You Feed and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.