Pod Insights Happy Place Fearne on the loneliness of chronic pain and why she likes breaking rules About this episode There’s probably a bit too much pressure on reaching a definitive state of happiness isn’t there? It’s just not realistic. So Fearne’s dropping into your feed every week for some honest chat about what’s making her (and you lot) feel great, and what’s making us all feel completely rubbish.
This is a cosy little corner for all of us to explore what’s been on our minds, what’s been getting us down, inspiring us, and making us laugh. Want to join the chat? Send us a voicenote, DM, or comment on Instagram @happyplaceofficial!
In this chat, Fearne explores:
-Trying random new hobbies in midlife and actually being good at them
-A bit of reminiscing about her 90s TV presenting days
-Admiring nature through a camera lens
-Going to the doctor and having your pain believed immediately
-Why she’s not a fan of following rules (and what happened when she disobeyed them at The Vatican)
-Taking time off work for poor mental health
-Why wearing a bra in the heat is SO AWFUL
-Why wearing clothes full stop is a mad concept
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Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:01 Fearne Cotton? Hello, I'm Joanna Fletcher.
0:03 Speaker 01 And I'm Marco Burchella.
0:04 Fearne Cotton? And this is Boots Off.
0:07 Speaker 01 We are friends who have spent a decade together, walking up mountains, across deserts and along coastlines with some seriously awesome groups of humans.
0:15 Fearne Cotton? And something happens when you're out there, feet on the ground, surrounded by nature. The conversations just spill out of you.
0:22 Speaker 01 This series is about the adversities that lead to adventure.
0:25 Fearne Cotton? The adventures that lead to adversity.
0:27 Speaker 01 And how life can be one big adventure in itself.
0:30 Fearne Cotton? Listen every Thursday, just search for Boots Off.
0:37 Fearne Cotton? Hello and welcome to Happy Place. My name is Fern Cotton and today we're going to chat about things that are putting us in a happy place and things that are not, things that are really riling us.
0:50 Fearne Cotton? I'm going to get to your likes and team Happy Place's likes in just a moment. But first of all, I'll kick off with one of mine and you probably won't be expecting this. Archery. Yeah, I said it, archery.
1:03 Fearne Cotton? Who knew that I liked archery? I didn't. I think I did it once when I was about 10 at Centre Parks. And then the gap between 10 and 44, archery sparse, like none. Didn't touch a bow and arrow. And somehow I ended up doing some archery the other day because me and my kids went to a hotel for the night and they had archery on offer and I thought this could be good fun. And my son, who's 13, so obviously he just thinks I'm a moron. I'm like the least cool person ever. He was like, you're going to be so rubbish at this mum. And I was like, am I now? Turns out, pretty good at archery. Don't know why. My mum was also there and she obviously had to link it back to, apparently our ancestry were archers.
1:48 Fearne Cotton? She doesn't know that. She's made that up. So in my DNA, there were some like archer skills and I put it into practice. But I got three bullseyes in a row. There was something that did feel like super medieval about it that I was loving. I wish I'd had a big kind of dress on and a hat with a veil or something, just but it was so cool. And why I wanted to point out this like this week was because I think it's always a good idea, no matter your age or how much time you've got at the moment, to try something new. Sometimes you think, oh, I can't be arsed. I don't want to do a new hobby. I'm 44. I can't be bothered. I got so much joy from trying a new thing and being good at it.
2:31 Fearne Cotton? I mean, it was probably fluke and I will probably not do archery again for another 30 years, but I really bloody loved it. So new hobbies, that's what I'm into, trying new things. Let's get to some of your likes. Says watching Dig It. Now, this could mean either Joe Wiley and Zoe Ball's podcast. It can't mean the TV show that I was on back in the 90s because where are you watching that? I don't know. I mean, either. Great. For those that don't know, Dig It, the TV show that I did was a kids TV show where we had pop stars on,
3:14 Fearne Cotton? the likes of Bewitched and A1 couldn't stay away. And we had children who were viewers would be our phone operators each week because they would answer actual phones, phone calls from the viewers. And we played sort of computer games that were very basic and we sat on an inflatable sofa because that was very 90s to present the show. If you're watching Dig It, that dig it, wild to me. I'm hoping it's Zoe Ball and Joe Wiley's brilliant podcast, which is excellent, by the way. They are queens, both of them. I'm obsessed with them. Sam says, going on holiday and looking forward to aimlessly taking shots with my camera of
3:55 Fearne Cotton? the beautiful nature around me. Stunning. I love that. I just love being on holiday. I love it. I love it. I love it so much. There's nothing better. Why can't we just be on holiday all the time? Why? Let's head to Team Happy Place and see what they're saying. Let's go with this one. This is a great one from Anushka. Anushka works on the Happy Place podcast and she said, going to the doctor and actually having your pain believed straight away, game changing. Now, that seems like a very obvious statement, but so often for people, they go to the doctors with something wrong and I am throwing zero shade on doctors.
4:36 Fearne Cotton? They are time poor. They do not have, they're not given the right amount of time to sit there and properly dissect why somebody is going through something, how it has manifested. I totally get it, but I think, yes, game changing when you go. Whether it's a physical symptom and also with mental health, as we all know, it's so hard to quantify how bad things have gotten. All of it's anecdotal, you know, until we have the science that can peek into our brains and go, oh, this is off, the wiring's out of sync here. It is just people saying, I feel like shit. And you do need a doctor to respond to you appropriately, to take it seriously so that
5:17 Fearne Cotton? you can get the appropriate treatment, whether that's physical health or mental health. So it seems like it should be a given, but of course it's not. And that's why we know so many people live with chronic pain, have to try and find their own coping mechanisms to deal with discomfort and physical pain. My mum had polymealgia for years. I can't think how many years it was now.
5:44 Fearne Cotton? And again, it's one of those things that's hard to quantify or measure because the symptom is a lot of pain and the inability to move as freely as you want. And I think to have a doctor really understand how debilitating something like that is and why it's happening and how things can improve. I'm really happy to say that she is pain free now. As far as I know, she doesn't really have any symptoms and she's shifted certain things, lessened stress in her life, dietary situations, how she copes with stress, et cetera. And it's been game changing. So, you know, lots of people have been through polymealgia, fibromyalgia, and it feels very lonely. So, yeah, there, there, there definitely
6:28 Fearne Cotton? can be healing involved. But I think that is really pertinent. Like, I'm very passionate about that one. Thank you, Anushka. Let's move on to dislikes. This is my dislike this week. I'm not very good at rules. I don't suppose I ever have been. Like, I'll follow the rules where it makes sense, but sometimes I stand back and really need to question things. And I realised this hugely, very recently, when I was in Rome. I went on a short city break, and obviously, when you go to Rome, what do you do? You go to the Vatican, because it is famed for the Vatican, and it is a beautiful place to walk around. I mean, I've never seen so many ornate ceilings in my life.
7:09 Fearne Cotton? It was like ceiling after ceiling after ceiling, which ends through that Vatican route in the Sistine Chapel. And obviously, I was so keen to go to the Sistine Chapel, because you've got Michelangelo's famed painting of the two hands nearly, nearly touching. I'm desperate to see that in real life, and obviously, take a photo of it. I got in there, I didn't realise, you're not allowed to take photos. I'd missed that Tannoy announcement, and I went to take a picture. I got massively reprimanded, like shouted at by a very burly Italian security guard, which should have sort of freaked me out and made me go, oh, God, I'm so sorry. But instead, I wanted to go, fuck off.
7:52 Fearne Cotton? I would never do that in the Sistine Chapel, obs. But I was so riled, like, I want to take a picture of it. I haven't got my flash on. Why is it a problem? I also understand and respect that there are religious reasons, potentially, as to why I shouldn't be taking the picture, I'm assuming, because I'm not quite sure why else. But it gave me a moment of self-awareness that I don't like people telling me what to do. I don't like rules, that they are just sort of like a natural dislike. And I think sometimes that can be a good thing, because it makes you want to try new things, do things your way, rather than follow the crowd. But sometimes also just like gets you in trouble, and that's not so fun.
8:36 Fearne Cotton? So my dislike this week are rules. Let's have a look at your dislikes. Anonymous says, having to be on work leave to sort life challenges out. God, I mean, that is full on for you.
8:51 Fearne Cotton? I don't know what you're going through, but it's obviously pretty heavy if you are having to take leave. Um, and my heart massively goes out to you. I had to have a, a period off work when I had very poor mental health. I didn't actually have enough time off now, retrospectively. Uh, but even at the time, I thought, oh my God, this is a nightmare. I need to sort my mental health out and myself out, but I'm losing work and money and everything's gonna stop. I'm gonna be jobless. It's really scary on top of the stuff you're already going through. Um, so I really, really feel for you and I really hope that you get through it as smoothly
9:31 Fearne Cotton? as you possibly can so that you can get back to work and get your life back on track in the way that you want it. Um, I'm sending you a load of love. Let's have a look at team happy places dislikes for the week. Amelia, who heads up our social media team, says, I mean, this is the best dislike ever. Wearing a bra in the heat. Is there anything, like, is there anything, it's so bad. I, as soon as I walk through that front door, I don't even take my top off. I undo the clasp at the back. I put my hand up this sleeve. Off comes one strap, the other one, I lasso it, fling it.
10:10 Fearne Cotton? Get that off. I cannot bear it. I'm not good with wearing, and this sounds mad, clothes in general. I find wearing clothes the most uncomfortable thing. Does anyone else get that? Wearing clothes to me is absurd. I sleep absolutely butt naked because at night, there's no chance I would sleep if I had clothes on. But I find like my knickers are never ever comfortable. They're always up my ass, always pulling them out. I'm wearing jeans today. Every bit of it is uncomfortable. It's like, oh, my fanny, it's like, my knee crack. This t-shirt's winding me up, like rubbing on my thing here. Bra, can't, don't even get me started. It's a nightmare. I mean, I
10:54 Fearne Cotton? should live in some sort of like nudist community. I shouldn't. That's an awful idea. But I find clothes super uncomfortable. I'm not good with sort of anything on my skin. My brother is the same. So me and my brother have both got this major ick, which could also be filed as a dislike. Having our bare feet on the floor. I absolutely cannot tolerate it. So as soon as I get up from bed, from my bed in the morning, I put socks on. First thing I do, I cannot put my feet on the floor. My brother, Jamie Cotton, he's not the sort of person that wants me to say this out loud, but I'm going to.
11:35 Fearne Cotton? He has it so extremely that he wears flip flops in the shower. Okay. This guy wears flip flops in the shower. What is wrong with us? What we cannot put our feet. If I, if my foot touched the kitchen floor with even a crumb on it, oh, I'm so distracted. All I can think about is that. And that's the same with clothes. I have to like ignore that they're on my skin. Otherwise I can't think straight. Is there a diagnosis? What does it mean? Um, anyway, I went off on a big tangent there. Bras off for the heatwave, ladies. Swing low, swing free, do your thing. Who cares?
12:16 Fearne Cotton? We haven't got the capacity for an underwired inner heatwave. Quite literally got that off my chest. Um, thank you so much for contributing. Thank you for your likes and thank you for your dislikes. And a big shout out to team Happy Place who make all of this great stuff happening from the podcast to the book club to the festivals. They are the greatest team on the planet. Love you lot. Speak to you soon.
12:51 Speaker 02 Hello, I'm Joanna Fletcher.
12:53 Speaker 01 And I'm Marco Burchella.
12:54 Speaker 02 And this is Boots Off.
12:57 Speaker 01 We are friends who've spent a decade together, walking up mountains, across deserts and along coastlines with some seriously awesome groups of humans.
13:05 Speaker 02 And something happens when you're out there, feet on the ground, surrounded by nature. The conversations just spill out of you.
13:12 Speaker 01 This series is about the adversities that lead to adventure.
13:15 Speaker 02 The adventures that lead to adversity.
13:17 Speaker 01 And how life can be one big adventure in itself.
13:20 Speaker 02 Listen every Thursday, just search for Boots Off.
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