Caitlin Moran: "I’m two years anxiety-free!” How I finally calmed my nervous system

Writer Caitlin Moran's anxiety started when she was 13, when she accidentally let a family secret slip. That anxiety kept her wired for the next 30 years. In this chat with Fearne, Caitlin explains how choosing to be hopeful and see the good in life means she’s now two years anxiety-free. They also talk about how social media has drastically altered our perception of reality, and just how unkind (or kind!) a place the world really is. Angrily posting on Instagram at 3am? It’s not going to change society, but volunteering to pick letter... well... that might! Caitlin talks about the severe dread she feels when meeting up with her best friends; do you have that social anxiety too? Because Fearne does... Plus, how could presuming everyone’s having a really bad day make you a happier person? Caitlin’s book, How To Be Hopeful, is out on September 17th. If you liked this episode of Happy Place, you might also like: Todd Rose https://pod.fo/e/442763 Lucas Jones https://pod.fo/e/54fe22 Nicole LaPera https://pod.fo/e/40cd32 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Fearne Cotton?

  Hello, I'm Fern Cotton and this is Happy Place, the show that looks for the little joys in life. And today, I'm chatting to Caitlin Moran.

• 0:10Speaker 01

  I became so convinced that society was crumbling and that humanity was doomed, that I put in an offer and it was accepted in a remote farmhouse in Wales, where I intended to grow my own food, have my own water source, have goats. And thankfully, the sale fell through. Then I was like, right, okay, I'm sane now. I need to stay here in my own life and make it better. And the first thing I did was litter picking. My street is a trash bin. I'm on the way to a railway station. Every morning, my steps are covered in vapes and empty cans of Monster. And I just took my litter picker and started doing it.

• 0:42Fearne Cotton?

  So normally, this bit of the podcast, I think I meant to say something interesting or something that is helpful to everyone. But some days, I don't, I mean, a lot of the days, I haven't got, I don't have a bloody clue. I don't know what's going on. Like the rest of you, I'm muddling through life, through middle age, with varying degrees of success. Some days, I feel like I've nailed it and I've done solo parenting well, I've done work well. And then other days, I just think, I might book myself a taxi to Heathrow and do a runner. And some days, I'm somewhere in the middle. But what I will say is that wherever you sit on that scale of get me the fuck out of here to yay, go

• 1:26Fearne Cotton?

  me, this episode, I think will be very joyful for you to hear. I mean, number one, I fucking love Caitlin Moran. I love her so much. She is someone that I could listen to for hours and hours with complete concentration. And I have, I have zero concentration span. I have none. She is someone that I, I mean, this is such like a deeply embarrassing thing to admit, but she's someone that I really want to like me. How sad is that? But to

• 2:06Fearne Cotton?

  me, she epitomises all the things I feel I've not quite been over the years. Like, she's naturally just so cool. She's insanely smart. I think that's the bit that really gets me. Like, I want her to like me because that makes me feel like, am I smarter than I believe I am? And I just want to be in her orbit. And also, I am not, as you well know, listeners, I'm not a mysterious person who you have to like work hard to read. I just am what I am. And I often say too much and can't help myself. I'm like over excited.

• 2:48Fearne Cotton?

  So I DM'd her about four billion times before she came on the podcast. Why am I such a bloody nerd? I kept DMing her because reading her book, I had so many epiphanies. And I kept underlining things, dog earring pages, screenshotting it, sending it to her. Oh my God, this people really spoke to me. Like, I'm too much. I don't know how to play it cool. I certainly don't know how to play hard to get. Not that I'm playing hard to get with Caitlin Moran, but I don't know how to do that. I don't trust that people, I will even come into people's brain space if I'm not going like, hey, I think you're great. Can we be friends? So that's my starting point with this chat. This new book is called

• 3:31Fearne Cotton?

  How to Be Hopeful. Caitlin sort of basically felt like she had reached peak despair, like that moment where you think, sod it, I'm gonna move to a remote island or go on an epic adventure. That would be the only thing to help if I do something really drastic, which is basically what I said about five minutes ago. But instead of doing that, Caitlin decided to change little things about her day instead. Like, just stuff she could control, reading local newspapers instead of doom scrolling through world events, and sitting on the bus without headphones, and rewilding a garden. This was honestly a completely eye opening chat for me, about how we can all reclaim a little bit of hope and happiness when the world otherwise feels way too overwhelming.

• 4:18Speaker 02

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• 5:51Fearne Cotton?

  Right, to Caitlin in just a moment. But first, something I'm very, very excited about, early bird tickets. I can't believe I'm saying this because we've just bloody done it, to both of our Happy Place festivals, London and Tatten Park. 2027 are available now. We honestly had the most magical time across our two weekends this year. Pure joy. I'm still buzzing from all of it. And if, like me, you're, you're missing that buzz, or you were sad because you couldn't make it, you had some other plans, or you just didn't get around to booking tickets, if you head to happyplaceofficial.co.uk, you can get your early bird tickets now. All right, let's do it. Here's the show.

• 6:50Fearne Cotton?

  Caitlin Moran.

• 6:51Speaker 01

  Fern Cotton.

• 6:52Fearne Cotton?

  God, where do we start? Where do we start? This book that you have written is so phenomenal. I've literally hit up your DMs 800 times in the last week.

• 7:04Speaker 01

  It's given me such joy.

• 7:06Fearne Cotton?

  Because this book, which is called How to Be Hopeful, I think could have been called many things. How to Hopeful is a fine title, but also The Book of Common Sense.

• 7:16Speaker 01

  Right, yeah.

• 7:17Fearne Cotton?

  How to Be a Human.

• 7:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:19Fearne Cotton?

  Like, you've covered all of it in one book.

• 7:23Speaker 01

  Thank you so much. Are we done now? That's it?

• 7:24Fearne Cotton?

  We have finished the interview.

• 7:26Speaker 01

  Yes, that's it. We've covered everything there. You've written a perfect book. Well done. Farewell.

• 7:29Fearne Cotton?

  I love the subject of hope. As you say, actually, more towards the end of the book, it's often an icky subject to bring up. Like, people react weirdly when you start to say that you are a hopeful person, or even have hope.

• 7:41Speaker 01

  Oh, it's not polite. In the same way that in feminism, I realised that like, even the most beautiful women in the world could never say they were beautiful. It was impolite. So you get Scarlett Johansson, like measurably financially, the most beautiful woman in the world. And if someone says, you are beautiful, she goes, no, but I've got a weird nose, and like, my knees are a bit dry and stuff. You have to hate yourself. It's like for 15 to 20% if you're a woman. And similarly, it's impolite to be hopeful.

• 8:02Fearne Cotton?

  Why is that?

• 8:03Speaker 01

  Well, there's many reasons. First of all, there's a misunderstanding of what hope is. So there's that brilliant Nick Cave quote, which is that hope is optimism with a broken heart, which I think is...

• 8:12Fearne Cotton?

  Yes, hope is optimism with a broken heart.

• 8:15Speaker 01

  So it's not simple Pollyannaishness. It's not, I'm ignoring everything. Like, it's not, I'm pretending everything's okay. It's going, the quest is to find the things that are okay.

• 8:24Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 8:24Speaker 01

  And hope is a choice. Your perception is a choice. Your reality is a choice. If you look at any study that's done about neuroscience and the way that we perceive the world. So for instance, you know that advert that used to be in the cinema years ago, where there were loads of people playing basketball? And it goes, count to how many goals are scored in basketball. And then the screen goes blank and it says, did you see the bear? And then they replay the film. And because we were told to watch the basketball players.

• 8:46Fearne Cotton?

  I forgot about this!

• 8:47Speaker 01

  Right, we have not seen the massive bear that is kind of like, you know, electro popping through the background. And what we see, what we think we're seeing, is 80% what we expect to see. We have, we have a perception of what we think's going to be happening in the world. And unless we have things drawn to our attention, we do not notice them. So at the moment, what we're having drawn to our attention is terrible things.

• 9:06Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 9:07Speaker 01

  And so much of the book, and I'm sure we'll get into this later, is about how our lives have changed since social media came around. And there's a thing that I kept hearing from people of my age, going, when will things get back to normal? This feels like the last 10, 15 years have been so chaotic, so rapid, so confusing, so extreme. So we have Brexit, then Trump, then Covid, the economy. So Trump's going to invade Greenland, he's going to buy it, kind of, it's a constant stream of stuff. And... That's the only thing that has changed is the is the fact that we have this constant influx of news because social media is giving to us 24/7. If you think about genuine cataclysms, like, you know, tsunamis, like being hit by a comet, we haven't actually had any of those in our country. Normal people who are worried about the world being a terrible place.

• 9:52Speaker 01

  There was a brilliant study done in America where they asked people two questions. The first one was, do you think your country has had a bad year? And the majority of Americans answered, yes, it has. And then they were asked, have you personally had a bad year? And the majority of Americans said no. And that's why people think it's impolite to say they're hopeful. Because we go, oh, everyone's having a bad time. It would be bad if I said that I actually am having an all right life. It's not perfect, but I have reason to be hopeful.

• 10:18Fearne Cotton?

  We had a really interesting chap on the podcast called Todd Rose, and he has written a book called The Collective Illusion, which is exactly that.

• 10:26Speaker 01

  Right.

• 10:27Fearne Cotton?

  That you go with the norm, like, well, everyone says it's the world's going to shit. So I guess, you know, it's going to shit and I won't mention that I've actually had a really bloody great year.

• 10:35Speaker 01

  And that's and also that has been drilled in. Again, social media is the big cataclysm of our time. So first of all, who's got control of the word normal? Now, I was on Twitter in the early days when and what was astonishing, the first time we invented the ability for people across the world to talk to each other unmediated, you didn't need to have a TV show or a radio show or be a columnist. Everyone could have their say, everyone could talk to everybody. And at the beginning, and when I tell people, young people this, they're like, that can't be true. Twitter was parodically lovely.

• 11:01Fearne Cotton?

  Oh.

• 11:02Speaker 01

  Like, the classic story is of a woman in Welling Garden City who lost her child's teddy bear. And everybody started reposting it, we've got to find the bear, got to find the bear. By midday, the Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, had written a poem about the bear. Stephen Fry had written a eulogy to the bear. And by the end of the year, we found the bear. Everyone's like, hurrah, we found the bear. That's how it started. But then around about 2012, 2013, it started to go sour. And if you talk to people in the government now, they will say it was a completely vulnerable space, like, kind of like, you presume everybody in there is a nice, normal person, a normal citizen, an actual human being. But what it actually is, is a load of bots, a load of people who have a political agenda. And particularly, and again, you know, the government talk about this openly now, you know, we are at cyber war with Russia and China. And these are countries that Russia cannot grow its economy.

• 11:47Speaker 01

  All it can do is destroy other countries' economies. And how do you do that? You turn populations against them. You solve, you produce chaos, you make people feel that they're hopeless. And Steve Bannon, he's one of the most powerful political operators at the moment, who works with Trump and Berlusconi and Maloney. He, his big thing was two things. One, politics is downstream of culture. So culture, if you can control the culture, what people are thinking, society, what people are saying, then you will then influence politics. And secondly, flood the zone with shit.

• 12:14Fearne Cotton?

  Yes.

• 12:15Speaker 01

  Make sure there's a big story, a chaotic story every day. That's what Trump does, that's what the far right do. So you are, you know, you're going on social media, which tells us what is normal and what people are thinking. And it's not normal, and it's not what people are thinking. It's, it's foreign agents, it's governments, it's bots, it's people who are mentally ill, it's sour people, it's people with agendas. And that's what we think the world is. And my thesis, having gone through a year of withdrawing from that and trying to live in my actual real world, is that's not the real world.

• 12:43Fearne Cotton?

  Now, there are great people out there, and there are lots of great people out there. Like you say, it is flooded with shit. And I think most of us don't realise what that's doing to us. That has sadly become our norm. But I just feel slightly electrocuted all day because I'm bombarded, this deluge of shit constantly, and I'm not filtering any of it.

• 13:04Speaker 01

  Right. And you're told, as you know, as a good left, lefty progressive person, which I self admittedly am, you are, you believe that you have a duty to consume news, you know, to be uninformed about this, you know, kind of, why would you turn your back on the world? You must read news and consume news and listen to analysis. And I reached a point in the book where I was like, do I have to? Like, at the point where it's affecting my mental health. I don't want to become ignorant, but if you're on a 24/7 news cycle, say on Monday, Trump says he's going to buy Greenland. Everyone's up in arms on social media. And there's a whole thing on social media, if you're, you know, you're prominent on social media, have a big following, if you don't say something about it midday, people go, I thought your views on this would be useful, your silence is violence. Why have you not come out onto your social media balcony like a Vita and addressed the

• 13:46Speaker 01

  world and said, I deplore the movement of the Trump government? And you're led to believe that that's what you should do. And it makes no difference at all.

• 13:54Fearne Cotton?

  Makes none. I felt so under pressure in so many situations where I've tried to do my reading on something and educate myself in all areas of it. But A, I'm still learning and I might not have an opinion yet.

• 14:07Speaker 01

  You're not an expert on Greenland.

• 14:08Fearne Cotton?

  But also, do you think that some random TV presenter who grew up in the suburbs, who knows fucking fuck all, is going to have any impact on what Putin's doing?

• 14:18Speaker 01

  Literally this. Putin's like, oh, cotton's angry.

• 14:20Fearne Cotton?

  Van Cotten's tweeted, better stop the war. Better stop it.

• 14:23Speaker 01

  Right.

• 14:24Fearne Cotton?

  What the fuck am I going to do?

• 14:25Speaker 01

  Literally this. And also, so that happens on Monday, you're pressurised to say something about it, that's the social media culture. By Sunday or Saturday, if you just read the weekend papers, what I do now.

• 14:34Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 14:35Speaker 01

  You just read a report going, yeah, like, some governments talk to Trump, like, the UN have had a word, it's all, it's all blown over.

• 14:40Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 14:41Speaker 01

  So if you've been reading the news every day, every day, your zone is flooded with shit, you're supposed to react. If you're simply just reading the Sunday papers and local papers, 90% of the time, the world has sorted out and they managed without us.

• 14:52Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, somehow.

• 14:53Speaker 01

  Right? Isn't that amazing?

• 14:55Fearne Cotton?

  It's amazing.

• 14:56Speaker 01

  And there is a point where it does, you do start to go, well, this is like, kind of, a, a form of narcissism. Like, again, I talk about several case studies in the book of, like, people that I've known. I would say that the, the, the mental health attrition rate of people that I know on social media has been fully one-fifth, have become seriously mentally ill.

• 15:10Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 15:11Speaker 01

  Or radicalised or self-radicalised, like, or have had to leave, or have been destroyed and shamed on social media. And these, you see people sort of posting, you know, they start posting about one issue, they get obsessed with one issue, whether it's Gaza or trans right or Ukraine, or the environment, or vaccines, or guns, or whatever it is. And as soon as that post takes off, suddenly that's their cause.

• 15:30Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 15:31Speaker 01

  They become obsessed with it, they're being rewarded by clicks. People are going, I love, that was the post, you're the girl, say more. And suddenly, a year later, you're so deep in this that you're posting videos at four o'clock in the morning, sobbing, going, the government should be hung from lamp posts, they are vermin, I can't believe they're allowing this to happen. You know, and with something like Gaza, and people are going, you know, I'm now on antidepressants, like, I can't hang out with my children because all I can do is imagine it happening to them. And I just think that is a form of narcissism. If you went and talked to someone in Gaza who's just been bombed and said, there's a woman in Hackney in a really nice house, who's crying on Christmas Day, saying her mental health has been affected by this, she would say two things. First of all, are you insane?

• 16:08Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 16:09Speaker 01

  I'm being bombed, you're not. And secondly, if you look at the way these topics then become divisive in our country, she would say, why have you imported a conflict in our country where people are divided and imported it into your country?

• 16:20Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 16:21Speaker 01

  Where you are now having marches and riots and bricks thrown through windows and whole families and social groups falling apart. She would, the first thing you learn about conflict and war is don't spread it.

• 16:29Fearne Cotton?

  No.

• 16:30Speaker 01

  Don't import it into your peaceful country that generally we've all jogged along quite nicely, don't bring it here.

• 16:35Fearne Cotton?

  No, no, no. And if you, like, this is in a chapter called, don't become an activist, don't be an activist.

• 16:40Speaker 01

  Yes, don't be an activist, yeah.

• 16:41Fearne Cotton?

  Don't be an activist. And looking at what you actionably can do is the sensible, the common sense outcome of, I believe in something, I really want support, whatever it might be, whatever issue, animal charity to disability charity, whatever. Amazing that you feel passionate, but talking about it on social media with anger is not going to do as much as you, I don't know, whether it be donating a tenner or doing a fun run or something that is actionable.

• 17:08Speaker 01

  Oh, if you talk to anybody who works for any organisation that is actually doing something, they are pulling their hairs out because people think they are making things better. People think they are changing the world simply by posting about on social media. And of course, the thing is, as soon as you say you stand for a cause, the other half of the world usually opposes your cause. So suddenly you've made loads of enemies who are going to pile onto you, you're going to destroy your mental health.

• 17:28Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 17:29Speaker 01

  And in those hours that you spend at two or three o'clock in the morning, arguing with people on the internet, someone's wrong on the internet, I'm going to fix it. You talk to these people from these organisations and were like, if they come and volunteered and drove some people around, if they mentored someone, if they raised some funds, if they came and helped decorate a community centre, like, there's all, saying something, we've been led to believe that simply saying something, our job is done. And it's not, go and do something.

• 17:51Fearne Cotton?

  So this for you was litter picking.

• 17:53Speaker 01

  That's where I started.

• 17:54Fearne Cotton?

  That's where you started. That's such an easy thing. I mean, me and my kids will always do it. If we're at a beach, we're like, let's just pick up any plastic we see, put it in a bin at the end of the day, I'll take it to a recycling thing, like, just do, it's like a tiny thing, but it makes you feel great and you know you've done something.

• 18:08Speaker 01

  I'd like to invent the phrase selfish altruism. Like, kind of like, if, if you've turned up on a beach and it's just all full of rubbish, like, and rather than sitting there, which I used to do, going, the government should do something about this, David Cameron has, is responsible for this, who do I vote for? Someone should do something about this, someone should fix this. There's a day where the light bulb goes on and you go, oh, it's me. I'm the someone. I'm sitting on this beach right now, I can see a problem, I could fix it in 10 minutes and then I will enjoy my day. And I'll feel a beautiful, underrated smugness and glow, that I've just made a tiny difference. And this was my gateway into, the book starts with me explaining, I was having a proper full-on midlife crisis. The menopause had started, but I didn't know. My friends kept saying, you need to go and see a doctor, you're, you're, you know, you've lost your sense of humour.

• 18:49Speaker 01

  And I became so convinced that society was crumbling and that humanity was doomed, that I put in an offer and it was accepted in a remote farmhouse in Wales, where I intended to grow my own food, have my own water source, have goats, have a forge, so that I can make my own rakes. And thankfully, the sale fell through. Then I got HRT.

• 19:10Fearne Cotton?

  Yes.

• 19:11Speaker 01

  And then I was like, right, okay, I'm sane now and I'm, I'm not a tech bro millionaire who can build an apocalypse bunker in the hills.

• 19:17Fearne Cotton?

  No.

• 19:18Speaker 01

  There's a reason why the tech bros are doing that, it's really expensive. I need to stay here in my own life and make it better. And the first thing I did was litter picking. My street is a trash bin, I'm on the way to a railway station. Every morning, my steps are covered in vapes and empty cans of Monster, and I just took my litter picker and started doing it. And if anyone from our generation who played Pac-Man, it's like real life Pac-Man, you're going along gobbling things up.

• 19:40Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 19:41Speaker 01

  For like, points in your head.

• 19:42Fearne Cotton?

  Yes.

• 19:43Speaker 01

  In front of you is a trashy street, behind you, serene, clean, like Tokyo at 4am, it's beautiful.

• 19:48Fearne Cotton?

  Yes, any of us can do that.

• 19:49Speaker 01

  Right.

• 19:50Fearne Cotton?

  Any of us can do that. So when, as you just stated a minute ago, when it comes to imbibing news, you've got rules around that now for yourself, that you'll do the Sunday papers and we're done.

• 19:59Speaker 01

  And the local papers.

• 20:00Fearne Cotton?

  And the local papers.

• 20:01Speaker 01

  That's the other key thing. Because when I added up, again, it's like, you know, we need to know about the news, that is what a good person does, they stay informed. I added up how many news shows, podcasts analysing the news and how much time I was spending on Twitter with the news scrolling past me. It was around about 18 hours a week, which explained why every morning before I got HRT and realised I was going mad, I would wake up just literally flooded, I'd wake up like that scene in Pulp Fiction where they stab her in the heart with a dreading pen.

• 20:26Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 20:27Speaker 01

  It's another day on this terrible world, put the radio on, terrible news, go on Twitter, terrible reactions. Then I, so I was like, I added it up, 18 hours is too much. The Sunday papers is enough, that, that will catch you up on everything that's happened.

• 20:39Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, and you've got some lovely little supplements in there, I love the supplements.

• 20:42Speaker 01

  Well, culture is equally important. I remember Yoko Ono, 30 years ago, God bless her, going, the news is so weird, like, we have the news and it's usually the bad news, and then it's followed by the sport. Why is it followed by sport?

• 20:52Fearne Cotton?

  That is nuts when you think about it.

• 20:54Speaker 01

  Why isn't it culture? Why isn't it the environment?

• 20:56Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, that's so funny.

• 20:57Speaker 01

  Why isn't it like humanitarian efforts? Why isn't it like advances in philosophy? Like the funniest things.

• 21:01Fearne Cotton?

  Did we find out an answer?

• 21:02Speaker 01

  Right. And sport just goes on forever. So it's quite frustrating.

• 21:05Fearne Cotton?

  I actually hate sport.

• 21:06Speaker 01

  It never ends. I keep, every year when the league starts, I'm like, didn't they settle this last year?

• 21:10Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, why are we still talking about it?

• 21:12Speaker 01

  You know who the best ones are? The ones who won last year. Like, can we just leave this now? Like, are we done?

• 21:16Fearne Cotton?

  All of our male listeners, if we had any, have now left the building. Um, no, I totally get it. That is so weird, but I, I love learning about other people's lives. So the supplement for me, like this Sunday, Richard Lee Grant was on the front of the supplement. And I was like, I want to read even more about this man, this fascinating character. He's now a granddad. Let's go.

• 21:35Speaker 01

  He's dealt with such grief.

• 21:37Fearne Cotton?

  Such grief.

• 21:38Speaker 01

  His wife died, he had a daughter, everyone had a daughter, and here he is. But that's the thing, you get the longer story. National news. So, so there's, I've worked in newsrooms and the slogan there is if it bleeds, it leads. So when we watch the news, we think we're watching the news, but we're watching the bad, dramatic news. So the, one example would be if some kid goes into a school and shoots it up and 10 people die, worldwide headlines, the day before, in the same town, at the same hospital that all the victims are taken to, a surgeon could have saved the lives of 30 people, but that will never make the news. There's that saying about how you can hear the ax felling the tree, but you do not hear the forest grow.

• 22:12Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 22:13Speaker 01

  And good news is slow. It's hard to tell, which is why we find it in culture. This is why we read books. This is why movies exist and local papers tell the whole story.

• 22:22Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 22:22Speaker 01

  So in the riots last year, when they were burning down refugee hotels, uh, that was reported all over the place. And we get a, for a picture of what our country is like and where we're at now politically and how we feel about immigrants. And then in the local papers, it was explained that the next day, volunteers turned up and started cleaning up those hotels and rebuilding them. And in fact, volunteering in this country doubled in the weeks after the riots, because there were so many good, quiet people who the day after everybody trashed anything went, I will rebuild it.

• 22:50Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 22:51Speaker 01

  And this is the thing, whenever you're talking about a, a national disaster, like, you know, a friend of mine was going, how do I talk to my kids about awful things? You go, look for the helpers. Look for the silent majority of good people who will want to come along and fix it. And local papers tell you the full story.

• 23:05Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 23:05Speaker 01

  Like, kind of like something awful will happen and then you see the community reaction. Then someone goes and talks in the schools about what it's like to be an immigrant. Then the kids write essays about it. And it's also got news like a new bicycle lane has opened. There's a new bakery. A girl has gone to university. Someone's cut their hair off and raised money for cancer. And that's the news of your world. That's your local area. And as humans, we're not really built to know 24/7 global news in countries that we've never been to. It doesn't mean being non-empathic or informed.

• 23:32Fearne Cotton?

  No.

• 23:32Speaker 01

  But your world, you know, until a hundred years ago, what we would know is happening in our valley.

• 23:38Fearne Cotton?

  Yep.

• 23:38Speaker 01

  A neighbouring valley.

• 23:39Fearne Cotton?

  Yep.

• 23:39Speaker 01

  And maybe if Napoleon did something in Europe, we'd hear about it.

• 23:42Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 23:43Speaker 01

  And that's about the level of news that we're built to cope with.

• 23:46Fearne Cotton?

  But it's also the news that we can react to. We can do something about, like, that feels important. And it also feels important, equally as important, if not more, to hear good things. But like you've said so many times already today, and it's something that I, I couldn't get out of my head whilst reading the book. And I still don't, I haven't landed on the why. Why do we believe that it's really smart to know about all the terrible shit? But that it is maybe a bit basic to know about the good stuff? What the hell is that?

• 24:16Speaker 01

  It's interesting, isn't it? So that thing, so when, when the riots happened and they were burning down all the refugee hotels, I can remember thinking, so watching it all and going, okay, how does this make me feel? It makes me think maybe in this country, the majority of us don't welcome immigrants. We are angry. It's gone too far. We're rebelling. Like, maybe this is, I'm getting this information now that our country has reached a point where we don't like this. Like, this is why these riots are happening. And then when I read about the volunteers the next day, 65,000 extra hours of volunteer work going on, suddenly my view of the country changed. And I was like, oh no, we are a country that likes to help. We're a country that goes in and builds things. We're a kind country. We're a good country. And it's important to realise, I think we think it's grown up. But particularly people in newsrooms as well, they've got this kind of like, you know, it's still usually men, adventurous men.

• 25:01Speaker 01

  It's kind of like, you know, and they think in some way that it's cool to drink whiskey, even though it makes you shudder and it's disgusting and not as nice as a chocolate milkshake.

• 25:07Fearne Cotton?

  Hahaha, so true.

• 25:09Speaker 01

  That's bad news. That's hard news. That's disasters. That's the thing that a grown up man drinks.

• 25:12Fearne Cotton?

  But why is it smart? Why is it smart? Like, that's the bit I can't get my, because I, I like you, you describe yourself as an optimistic but anxious person, or you were anxious, and we'll get to that in a bit. I feel the same. I, over the years, have actively, not so much anymore, but back probably in my, like, twenties, thirties, especially when I was like working on Radio One where you're meant to be cool. I thought, God, being enthusiastic is not going to fly here. Like, I need to dull down this natural optimism and hopefulness, because I'm meant to be like, and I'm, I've got the news on my show all throughout the show as well, so I'm hearing all of this shit. Like, I need to be smarter. I need to be well-read, know about all the terrible shit going on,

• 25:53Fearne Cotton?

  less enthusiastic, less hopeful. Now I've bindled that. I, I am enthusiastic. I'm energetic. And I want to feel hopeful about everything and like there's forward motion. But there's something in me that still feels like, and is that a problem? Am I thick?

• 26:08Speaker 01

  Yeah. Am I being a stupid girl?

• 26:10Fearne Cotton?

  Am I being stupid?

• 26:10Speaker 01

  Am I being silly?

• 26:11Fearne Cotton?

  Stupid little girl.

• 26:12Speaker 01

  Right?

• 26:12Fearne Cotton?

  What the fuck is that?

• 26:13Speaker 01

  Well, it's a phase you go through. If you look at He Controls the News, it tends to be very driven men, still, sort of in their thirties, forties, fifties. And so you go through a phase. Everyone is born hopeful and an optimist. And then something may happen to you at some point that will make you anxious or hyper vigilant.

• 26:29Fearne Cotton?

  Yes.

• 26:30Speaker 01

  Or cynical. You know, you, you, you, the, the definition of a cynic is, is a disappointed optimist. So kind of like, so, so you feel like you've had your heart broken by the world, but you haven't continued that journey, which you must go on, which is to find a way to fall back in love with the world again. And the reason that you, that's the smart thing and why you must do that and realise that your cynicism is a phrase, is this is the only life you've got. This is the only planet there is. If you spend the whole thing not trying to find the good bits, if you just sit there going, nope, some people disappointed me once, so I will presume that everyone will disappoint me again. Some governments and politicians disappointed me once, so I must presume that everybody is awful and we will never progress as a species. First of all, that goes against facts. You know, I read a lot of history and we go through cycles. There are bad cycles, but then there are good cycles.

• 27:13Speaker 01

  If you listen to Melvin Bragg's In Our Time every week, it's about, right?

• 27:16Fearne Cotton?

  Melvin.

• 27:17Speaker 01

  Right. And Melvin taught me everything I know. I didn't go to school. They're like, well, he's always doing it. It usually starts with a huge problem or a pickle that humanity is in, and then someone smart comes along and fixes it. Suddenly we enter a renaissance. Suddenly we have an enlightenment. Suddenly someone invents penicillin. That's the story of the world.

• 27:33Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 27:33Speaker 01

  You know, people are always, my, my biggest subscription that I have is the new Scientist magazine, in which every week nerds just tell you what's being invented now.

• 27:41Fearne Cotton?

  Great stuff.

• 27:41Speaker 01

  Right. Stuff that will save the world. Like, they've found a bacteria now that eats carbon dioxide.

• 27:46Fearne Cotton?

  Incredible.

• 27:47Speaker 01

  So carbon dioxide is what's giving global warming. We need to get it out of the atmosphere. This bacteria eats carbon dioxide and, and turns it into an edible protein.

• 27:55Fearne Cotton?

  Fucking brilliant.

• 27:56Speaker 01

  So we can feed the world on the thing that's giving us global warming.

• 27:58Fearne Cotton?

  Yes.

• 27:58Speaker 01

  It's just like, that's, that's incredible news.

• 28:01Fearne Cotton?

  Why don't we know about that on mass?

• 28:03Speaker 01

  Literally this. We need to look at the way that the news is presented. And I found it really interesting that even with social media being as awful as it is now, still, there's so many people online who will just go, found this cool story, feel like we need this today, just going to pop this in your timeline and cheer you up. We have a need for good news.

• 28:18Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 28:18Speaker 01

  And it's not being served to us generally by, you know, the big TV shows, because they're still stuck in that old fashioned thing of it's serious and grown up to show things being destroyed. And also it's hard to show slow good things. That, and that's a creative problem that we need to fix. It should be just as exciting to see someone fixing things and changing things and making them better as it is weirdly, darkly threatening to see something being bombed or destroyed.

• 28:43Fearne Cotton?

  I agree. I mean, you, I've got three thoughts going on my head at the same time.

• 28:47Speaker 01

  Hey!

• 28:49Fearne Cotton?

  You say one of the most important things we can do. One of the most important, if not the most important thing on social media is just point to the good things.

• 28:58Speaker 01

  Fangirl.

• 28:59Fearne Cotton?

  That's one of the best things I've ever heard. Like, just point to the good stuff.

• 29:02Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 29:02Fearne Cotton?

  Point to the good stuff.

• 29:03Speaker 01

  Yeah. Because we're now 15 years into an experiment where arguing with people you disagree with, going online and tearing someone down. You know, I've been there. I've been torn down. I've gone on there and torn some people down. If you see someone doing something wrong or bad, you're like, I'm going to go on there and I'm going to attack them and explain why they're wrong, because I'm a good person and I think this person is wrong.

• 29:20Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 29:21Speaker 01

  That takes weeks. Those arguments take weeks. They go on forever. Everybody's followers pile on. It becomes like warfare. People break up friendship groups. Families are destroyed. It goes on. And at the end of it, even if you've won that argument, and by the way, no one ever comes and says, you've won the internet.

• 29:36Fearne Cotton?

  Here's a badge.

• 29:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, literally. Yeah. The bell doesn't ring and you're like, you've won. Like, kind of like, even if you win that argument and the majority of people are on your side, then what you do? You're standing in rubble, loads of people have like literally lost their sanity, loads of people have been destroyed, friendship groups have broken up. What do you do then? The thing you would do next is go, so here's how I would do it better.

• 29:54Fearne Cotton?

  Hmm.

• 29:56Speaker 01

  Half the time, people don't have an idea for how you would do it better.

• 29:59Fearne Cotton?

  No.

• 29:59Speaker 01

  So don't start that argument anyway. But if you do have an argument for how you think things could be better, rather than spending months trying to destroy someone's bad idea, just start there.

• 30:08Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 30:08Speaker 01

  Start immediately with, hey, this thing's going on, here's how I would do it better. Or here's how a different country have done it better. Or here's how in history we solved this problem. Just start with the good stuff.

• 30:17Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 30:17Speaker 01

  And if you don't have an idea for how you can make things better, find someone who has and put your energy into platforming them and supporting them. And point at them. Be a fangirl.

• 30:26Fearne Cotton?

  Like you say, whether it's starting an argument online, pointing out that someone's severely wrong and needs to be cancelled, or even pushing a cause or something that you believe in deeply, there's so much of a backstory that we don't ever explore or even assume is there. Whether it's someone's having a really shit time because they're getting divorced, they've lost their job, someone fucking beeped at them on the way to school and in rush hour, gave them some fucking road rage. Like, there's always something under it.

• 30:57Speaker 01

  Literally this. The amount of times with, because a lot of the people that I know who've suddenly become really passionate about one cause, and they're the people doing the crying videos at three o'clock in the morning. Because I know them, I know they've had some stuff in their childhood that they still haven't dealt with. They're going through a divorce. Their mental health is, is difficult. They've just come out of hospital. Of course, they're not posting that. Instead, they're posting that the cause becomes a proxy for their grief.

• 31:19Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 31:19Speaker 01

  So all this emotion that you see when they're crying, so much of it is actually their lives are terrible at that moment. But of course, they can't post that, because we've invented this thing on social media about 10 years ago, that if someone said, I'm going through a bit of a rough time at the moment, some pious people on your side would turn up and go, privileged, check your privilege, like, kind of like, you, you, you're weeping first world tears here. Your woes are nothing compared to that of Sudan. And so understandably, now everyone's like, well, I'm crying because of Sudan.

• 31:46Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 31:46Speaker 01

  And like, you know, underneath it all, the thing that initially made, well, always, humans feel an emotion first and then we ascribe a thought to it.

• 31:52Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 31:52Speaker 01

  And we will keep searching for a thought until it's an acceptable thought that gets us traction. But we started with an emotion.

• 31:58Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 31:58Speaker 01

  And if we can start with the emotion of, I feel really lost and sad and lonely. I am going through a terrible time and we could be honest about it, then we would save ourselves all these factional wars that are driving people apart.

• 32:09Fearne Cotton?

  I so agree with you. I put a post out on Instagram recently about this very thing. The notion of saying to someone, oh, well, blah, blah's got it worse than you.

• 32:19Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 32:19Fearne Cotton?

  Which we've all had said via, you know, a parent, a teacher or a mate, meaning well. Like they're doing it from a place where they want you to feel better. But you instantly go, put a lid on that emotion. I'm not going to feel the actual deep sadness that you're allowed to feel because you're a human being.

• 32:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:35Fearne Cotton?

  There will always be someone who's got it worse than you. In my eyes, and only from, I can only speak from my personal experience. And I did that for years, by the way, gaslit myself, like you do not deserve any emotions because you are lucky.

• 32:48Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 32:49Fearne Cotton?

  And people have had it way worse than you. So I pushed down anger, sadness, the feelings of injustice, all this shit that I had genuinely felt. Which is the only thing that matters is you feel it. When I could acknowledge it and look at it and feel it, I could deal with it and I could go to therapy and I could look at it. And now I don't feel those things. If I had kept a lid on it, I would probably be on Instagram going, fuck this, fuck that. Like, well, because it's still in there.

• 33:13Speaker 01

  And also because you finally put on your oxygen mask before helping others.

• 33:16Fearne Cotton?

  Yes.

• 33:17Speaker 01

  You are now healthy and well and optimistic enough to actually go and help other people.

• 33:21Fearne Cotton?

  Yes, correct.

• 33:21Speaker 01

  And go and help in Sudan or wherever and make your donations and stuff like. But if everybody's just broken and unable to talk about, and also as a sidebar, that whole idea, I don't believe in a hierarchy of sorrow.

• 33:30Fearne Cotton?

  No, it's not the suffering Olympics.

• 33:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. If you are, if you are distraught, you are distraught. And what I've noticed from like particularly young women who develop like eating disorders or self harm. They are often middle class girls who ostensibly have lovely lives and they feel upset and anxious, something's happening in their lives. And they will get people going, but you, you go to a lovely school or you've got a pony or like you're thin or you're beautiful or you're white. You live in the first world, you should be happy. And so it has to metastasize into something bigger.

• 33:56Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 33:57Speaker 01

  If at the very first outset, their sorrow was enough and they went, I'm really lonely at this school and I feel really worried about my future. And they got the help, then it would be fine. But because everyone's like, no, cheer up, it'll get better, you're lucky, compare yourself to everybody else. That's when those kinds of sorrows fester and start turning into something deeper and darker. Until you are clinically unwell and then people will take your unhappiness seriously.

• 34:18Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 34:19Speaker 01

  So belittling someone else's sorrow is incredibly dangerous.

• 34:22Fearne Cotton?

  Mm hmm.

• 34:22Speaker 01

  And also if we're just talking about simple finances, it costs our NHS billions. So even if you don't believe in being nice to people and you think that's soft, then just look at it from a financial point of view.

• 34:32Fearne Cotton?

  And also we don't know the half of what people are going through or what they've been through or what's happened in their childhoods. We don't know. We base it on like 2% of what we see. It's crazy.

• 34:42Speaker 01

  I always presume everybody's had a bad day. I always presume someone is presume, especially women of my age, I always presume they're probably looking after an ailing parent.

• 34:50Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 34:50Speaker 01

  They have troubled teenage kids, that kind of like, you know, their, their, their personal lives are falling to bits. If it's not true, I've lost nothing. But if it is true, you've just saved someone so much misery and grief by presuming that they're okay.

• 35:01Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, I so agree.

• 35:02Speaker 01

  People are walking around carrying stuff we just don't know about.

• 35:05Fearne Cotton?

  We don't, we really don't. I love that thought. There's a really cheesy phrase that I love, which I'm going to say out loud, which is you've got to feel it to heal it.

• 35:12Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 35:13Fearne Cotton?

  And it is that simple. If you can really accept it and go, oh God, I actually am really sad. I'm sad. There doesn't even have to be a reason, just I'm sad. Then you can go, and what next? How do I, how do I feel unsad? What do I do about that? And you can sort it out.

• 35:27Speaker 01

  Yeah. But if you are suppressing your sadness, then you're turning to an angry person or a bitter person. And that's so much harder for someone else to deal with than you just simply going, I'm sad. I've had to catch it myself. I'm a generation where you didn't go, you know, I'm sad or I'm anxious. You just plastered on a span and cracked on a Tuesday.

• 35:41Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 35:42Speaker 01

  And, you know, I can see now that kind of, I thought I was doing the best thing for my friends and my family by not, but I, but they were having to suddenly deal with someone. He was mysteriously angry, he was mysteriously peevish, you know, who, who was suddenly mysteriously short with them. And it was, the mystery was solved as the day that I could just go, actually, I'm just feeling really sad right now. And then they can help. You know, it's really hard to help an angry mom, a mom who's crying and you can put your arms around them. And I'd also thought that it was bad parenting for your children to see you being sad. And then it was explained to me, uh, after a lot of therapy, that if your children don't see you being sad and admitting to it, how can they do that?

• 36:17Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 36:18Speaker 01

  And, and you wouldn't want your children not telling you that they're sad. So suddenly all these things, I think particularly as women and mums were like, no, it'd be selfish to do this. As soon as someone goes, what are you teaching your children by that behaviour?

• 36:28Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 36:29Speaker 01

  You're not actually being a good selfless parent.

• 36:31Fearne Cotton?

  You're also not acting human.

• 36:32Speaker 01

  Right.

• 36:33Fearne Cotton?

  Just like be a human, which is so bumpy.

• 36:35Speaker 01

  That's the job.

• 36:36Fearne Cotton?

  Like, yeah, it's great, it's awful, it's sad, it's happy, it's all the things and we have to show that.

• 36:41Speaker 01

  Yeah. And that's literally our only job on earth. Like we're alive for a very short amount of time. You've just, you know, you've just got to try and live a truthful and honest life, be open to the people that you do and try not to be a dick.

• 36:49Fearne Cotton?

  Try not to be a dick.

• 36:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:51Fearne Cotton?

  Just give it your best shot.

• 36:52Speaker 01

  Every day, don't be a dick.

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• 37:59Fearne Cotton?

  Let's talk about anxiety because this is my specialist subject. Um, and I.

• 38:05Speaker 01

  Will it make you anxious talking about it? Where are you in your anxiety journey?

• 38:07Fearne Cotton?

  Um, I never quite know. I'm not where I was 10 years ago, which is great. 10 years ago was like, I'm having eight panic attacks a day, can't drive on a motorway, can't do live TV, which actually I still haven't tackled, but whatever, I'll get down to that. I can drive, which is brilliant. And most of the time I feel okay, but it's a subject that I am deeply fascinated in. I've only managed to tackle mine because I have a loose idea, I have a good idea of some of it. And there's loose ideas of other bits that I'm still figuring it out now, which feels really great. Like it's only bringing me clarity so I can continue to tackle it. But you are two years anxiety free.

• 38:47Speaker 01

  Yes. Yeah, I, yeah, I'm, I'm in recovery from anxiety. It's a, it's a pretty sweet place to be.

• 38:52Fearne Cotton?

  I love it.

• 38:52Speaker 01

  And I never thought such a thing was possible. So, so I went on a journey. So during this, this, so the, the book, the first sort of half of the book is me kind of going, I'm really anxious, I'm having a midlife crisis. What are the practical things I can do? So I start litter picking, I donate blood, I rewild my garden because I'm sad about the environment, I do practical things. And I get to the end of all this and I'm like, okay, I've materially improved a huge amount of life, but there's a big end of level baddie that I have not tackled. And I know the reason I have not tackled it is because I have a complex relationship with it and it is my anxiety. So I call my anxiety my best bad friend because for a long time, it really seemed to be helping me. And that was why it was so pernicious. So when I was 13, I was not an anxious person to the age of 13 and we were raised on benefits in Wolverhampton.

• 39:35Speaker 01

  My dad was disabled, uh, but we had to keep it a secret. Because often he would have to bind up his legs with bandages and take a huge amount of painkillers and go outside and mend the car. Because we did not have enough money to send that to a garage. And he believed that if someone saw him, if they knew he was disabled and they saw him mending a car. We would be dobbed into the DSS and we'd have our benefits taken away from us. And this was like the, the biggest job that we had to do as a family was keep this secret. So we kept the secret until one day I was walking down the road and a lovely old lady at the end of the road invited me in to see her kittens. And I ate many of her delicious chocolate biscuits and I was very garrulous and sort of gossipy because I hadn't spoken to anyone for ages because we were being homeschooled. And suddenly in a kind of gossipy burp, it came out that we were on benefits.

• 40:17Speaker 01

  And then about 20 minutes later, I left skipping down the road until I got halfway back to my house. And suddenly something happened to my body as I had the thought, what if she betrays us? What if she tells someone? What if we have our benefits taken away and it's my fault? My job was to keep that secret and I have let that secret go and my family could literally be ruined. If our benefits go, we're, we are homeless. And this thing happened to my body as I kept thinking this thought that I, at the time I did not know what it was, but it felt like a cross between a, a heart attack and being poisoned.

• 40:47Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 40:48Speaker 01

  Your thoughts just go faster and faster and faster and faster. Something happens to your guts, it feels like your veins are turning black.

• 40:54Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 40:54Speaker 01

  Like everything is full of electricity. You have, you don't know what to do with yourself. And I know now that was my first panic attack. And from that day on, I was incredibly anxious. So my plan was that I had to forestall any kind of badness that would happen to my family by sitting, the post, the first post would come at 7.30 and the last one would be at 12.30. And I presumed the first thing that would happen if we were dobbed in was that we get a letter from the DSS saying we're taking away your benefits. So I sat at the bottom of the stairs opposite the letterbox for about four months. So that if that letter came, I could get the letter and I don't know what I would do next, but that was my only plan. I'd get the letter and I don't know, ring them up and go, can we, can we talk about this or rip it up? I don't know what the plan was. And after four months, I realized that even if I got the letter, they would probably still take away our benefits.

• 41:39Speaker 01

  So I needed to have a second plan. And I was still so full of this anxiety and adrenaline that I was like, okay, I need to earn money. I've now got the energy, I can't sleep, I'll write, I'll write until I earn enough money. So that even if they do take our benefits away, I will be earning enough money by then to say, it's okay, family. I screwed you off on the benefits, but now I'm a millionaire because I've written a book. And so I started writing and I could write a book at the age of 13. Because anxiety is drugs. It's amphetamines, cortisol and noradrenaline. And those are drugs that, um, they increase your brain speed, they give you physical strength, they keep you awake all night. Amphetamines are what they give armies, like the Nazis marched on amphetamines.

• 42:23Speaker 01

  When you're anxious, suddenly you're, you're own drug dealer. You're flooded with these amphetamines that mean you can kind of do anything, you're riding this massive adrenaline wave. And so for the next 30 years, it was my best bad friend. Because I could write 10,000 words a day, 15,000 words a day, you know, nine books, screenplays, columns, features, like kind of. It was my friend. I was, I was proud of it. I, I, I wanted to protect it. First of all, it earned me money. Secondly, I thought it made me clever. And thirdly, I was proud of it because I thought if you aren't anxious about the world, if you're not running to get somewhere safe, if you are not working as hard as you can to make your family safe, then you're probably just a bit stupid. You know, someone who is not anxious is a foolish,

• 43:06Speaker 01

  Pollyanna-ish person who has not seen the world for what it is. I'm a cortisol kid. I'm proud of that. I, I make my money and I take my drugs and I keep working. And that carried on until I was forty seven. And by that point, my guts were screwed because if you're constantly pumping adrenaline to your body, it is a bad time on the toilet fern. You are nodding as if you know that, right? Bad toilet times.

• 43:27Fearne Cotton?

  I'm a cortisol kid.

• 43:28Speaker 01

  And I was, I know, I, I could tell. And it would get to the point where when I was doing live tours, like thirty seconds before the curtain went up, I would be lying face down behind the safety curtain. And there'll be a stage manager there going, are you okay?

• 43:39Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 43:39Speaker 01

  And I'd be like, yep, as soon as that curtain goes, I'll probably be fine. But right now, I'm dying.

• 43:43Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 43:44Speaker 01

  But I will be professional. Don't worry. When that curtain goes off, I'll be on that stage. I'm gonna be smiling and laughing and no one will know.

• 43:49Fearne Cotton?

  No.

• 43:50Speaker 01

  And but at the, the end of that last tour, I realised that my adrenal gland was just starting to die. I could not do it anymore to myself. I would look haggard. I could not sleep. My toilet times, as I've described, were terrible. And I was like, I'm gonna have to go cold turkey from anxiety. And I've had to sadly sit my family down and go, look, mommy's gonna become really stupid and poor now.

• 44:13Speaker 01

  Mama's gotta come off these amphetamines. Like mama, mama gotta, mama gotta have a normal life. So I'm just gonna turn into a kind of dim, mooing creature and I won't be able to write and will all be really poor, but I can't do this anymore. I'm really sorry.

• 44:24Fearne Cotton?

  So you assumed all motivation would just disappear?

• 44:28Speaker 01

  I, I could not see where I ended and my anxiety began. I presume that was a very huge and probably the best part of me. I was really, really proud about. I was like, you know, it, it's like in the industrial era, like kind of, you know, they build those factories and they fuel them with coal and they poison the rivers. But they, that's the industrial era. That's how you build your factories. That's how you build an empire. And I was like, I have to convert to a cleaner fuel now. I, I am past my industrial era. I must find some kind of renewable, clean solar power to run myself on. And so I went and got a bunch of beta blockers. I told my doctor about my anxiety and he was astonished that I had not told him about this in thirty years. He was like, why would you not tell me about this? And he was like, particularly if you're in the public eye or doing public speaking, everyone I know who does that has beta blockers.

• 45:10Speaker 01

  You don't even need to take them, but just having them in your pockets and touching them will reassure you. So I took the beta blockers and that immediately broke the physical link. So instead of waking up every morning and immediately going, because I was immediately full of adrenaline about the terrible day. As soon as I felt that, I would just take a beta blocker, forget. And then twenty minutes later, there was no anxiety because it simply turns off the adrenaline. It turns off the amphetamines. And I thought that it would be stupid and that everything would be terrible, but I just felt normal. I finally understood what it was to feel normal. I was like, I felt safe.

• 45:43Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 45:43Speaker 01

  When you're anxious, your body is giving you that adrenaline. It's an old evolutionary development. So that if you're in danger, about to be eaten by a tiger or someone stealing your child, that you run with your super amphetamine parent and save them. And but then you get stuck in that mode, even though the danger has passed. So you never feel safe. And as soon as I removed the adrenaline, I finally physically, mentally and emotionally felt safe for the first time in my life. And ironically, I could write more because I didn't, my body wasn't thinking that any minute my house was gonna burn down or that something awful was gonna happen. And, and that's what anxiety is. You constantly think you're in a danger mode.

• 46:21Fearne Cotton?

  And do you still have to take beta blockers or you can?

• 46:24Speaker 01

  Every so, I mean, they're always there, like, kind of like, I took one this morning, but that was more because I'd had five coffees to write a column before I came here. That, that was a caffeine thing.

• 46:34Fearne Cotton?

  But it was the thing that got you out of a hole because I had the same, I had the same with antidepressants fifteen odd years ago when I was in a very black hole. And I used them to get out of the hole.

• 46:44Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 46:44Fearne Cotton?

  And then I weaned off and I learned a bunch of new stuff that would help me. And then I'm the same. I have Diazepam by my bed if I need it and one in my bag if I need it, but I'm not reliant on it. But I like knowing it's there. But you do have to find like other things that help.

• 47:01Speaker 01

  Well, with, with you, because my theory is that like, because we're not born anxious.

• 47:05Fearne Cotton?

  No, no, no, no.

• 47:05Speaker 01

  Something happens that makes us anxious and then we never come out of that state. We remain hypervigilant.

• 47:10Fearne Cotton?

  No, yeah, mine was started at thirty four.

• 47:13Speaker 01

  Thirty four. And was there a reason for that?

• 47:15Fearne Cotton?

  Oh, yes. There was a reason. But then now I've done so much therapy and tried all these different things. There's other stuff. There's usually always other stuff, I think. And I reckon that I've probably had an underlying anxious thing going on forever. But really, I, I don't think I felt it at all, like that acutely until I was thirty four. That's when it was like, boom, we're, we're having panic attacks. And like, hearing you talk there, not only about your younger self, which made me feel like very emotional hearing you talk about that, because that's such a weight for like little you to carry. You're holding all of your siblings and your parents on your shoulders, looking at the postbox every morning, waiting for a letter.

• 47:59Fearne Cotton?

  Like, that is so much for a little kid to deal with. Like, that is full on.

• 48:04Speaker 01

  But that's if you look, because I, you know, most of the time I'm interviewing like famous people who've done incredible things. And they all have pretty much the same origin story.

• 48:13Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 48:13Speaker 01

  There's a moment where you're, you know, you interviewed Paul McCartney, like kind of, you know, any of the creatives, you go through history. They've all had a moment where suddenly they had to grow up really quickly, where the family was in trouble and you stepped forward. And there's good things, you know, it's not an entirely negative thing to suddenly learn, to feel your power, to go, I can change things.

• 48:30Fearne Cotton?

  But then you become hyper-independent.

• 48:33Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 48:34Fearne Cotton?

  I would say I am.

• 48:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, right.

• 48:35Fearne Cotton?

  I'm hyper-independent. I don't trust that anyone will do the thing.

• 48:40Speaker 01

  Did you read that book by, oh god, who was it by? Oh, Amanda Palmer called The Art of Asking?

• 48:45Fearne Cotton?

  No, I need to.

• 48:47Speaker 01

  Yes. She's just like, women cannot ask for anything.

• 48:50Fearne Cotton?

  I find it impossible.

• 48:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, I would, like, I mean, I've really worked on that.

• 48:54Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 48:55Speaker 01

  But like until very, until I started tackling my anx, because once you take anxiety out, you start working on all these other things as well. They'll feed off each other.

• 49:00Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, I'm not there yet. That's where I wanna be. One thing in this book that I've almost obsessed over, because I've never heard, I've never seen it written on a page. I've never heard someone say this out loud. I thought, because it's, I'm finding it interesting that you're talking about, you've really worn your anxiety as a badge of honour at times. I have felt only mortified that I'm anxious. I feel like at time, at worst, I felt like an absolute freak, like what is wrong with me? And on a good day, I'm like, this is unbelievably annoying and disproportionate. And it's getting in the way of so many things. I want it to fuck off. I've never, ever seen it as something that I'm happy about at all.

• 49:42Fearne Cotton?

  But one, like the, the secret layer below that is this thing that you've talked about, where you would dread meeting up with friends because interactions don't feel safe.

• 49:55Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 49:56Fearne Cotton?

  I narcissistically thought, no one out, that's just me.

• 50:00Speaker 01

  You got it too.

• 50:01Fearne Cotton?

  I still have it now. In this situation, I don't have it. There are rules. This is a podcast. I've written notes. I've done research. I know how this is gonna go. If I were to bump into someone on the street out there, that is my worst nightmare. Like, how, what, I don't know how this works. What if I say something fucking stupid? I upset them, they walk away and then I can't sleep. But it has ruined so many brilliant moments, like going for dinner with friends, meeting up with someone for coffee that I haven't seen for a while and I've got to like do the catching up thing. It feel, and, and it's not only the dread, that is like, I could deal with the dread. It's the, when I'm there, I feel like I'm stiff, like my whole body is sort of rigid.

• 50:43Fearne Cotton?

  My chest, like this area of my body is like, has its own fucking pulse going on. It's like, like my heart's here, but there's something else like, like fucking pulsing here. My head is literally like, again, fucking stiff as a post. Everything's, like, I'm ready for action. I'm ready for something to go terribly wrong. I'm not relaxed. I'm not like, carefree about it.

• 51:05Speaker 01

  Shooting the breeze.

• 51:05Fearne Cotton?

  No, no, I'm overthinking everything I'm saying. What's my face doing? What are my hands up to? This with people that I've known for fucking thirty years.

• 51:14Speaker 01

  So I, this is, so if I put a date in the diary to see my friends, it would sit there like a black toad for months. These are my best friends. Like, I would, because I would be doing that thing of like going, but I know what I, what was making me anxious. You're scared. You're describing like kind of terror there.

• 51:30Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, yeah, terror.

• 51:31Speaker 01

  What's the worst thing that could happen? What is it that you're thinking when that's happening?

• 51:34Fearne Cotton?

  It's, it's, it's got to be something around them. I hate being misunderstood is one of my biggest fears. People walking away from an interaction thinking, she's this, she's that, like, she's fucking clueless. Or, I don't know, whatever judgment they've established, and I've done a lot of therapy on this stuff. Like, what is that, what is that thing? Like, it's usually boils down to, she's stupid, she's clueless. Yeah, she hasn't got a clue. It's around that, that they walk away feeling that. So my job, I've got a job to do in that interaction, is to prove that that is wrong.

• 52:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:12Fearne Cotton?

  That I am just, I'm just good old me, like, I haven't changed, it's normal me. I mean, I got into-

• 52:16Speaker 01

  I'm so normal!

• 52:17Fearne Cotton?

  I'm so normal. I got into this profession when I was 16. I'm trying to prove that I'm still that. It's like, no, of course I'm not, I'm 45. Like, that's nuts. That's absolutely nuts.

• 52:26Speaker 01

  When did that start? Did you have it as a kid?

• 52:28Fearne Cotton?

  Again, no, no, no. This was, again, like, around 33, 34. All of it came at once. I did not have it before. I would happily meet up with friends and I would, you know, probably say stupid things and I didn't give a toss. I would walk away and feel absolutely fine and sleep at night. When that anxiety hit, all of it lumped in together. But I have never heard someone admit to it.

• 52:50Speaker 01

  The dangerous, that it feels dangerous to see your friends. It's crazy, isn't it?

• 52:53Fearne Cotton?

  Crazy.

• 52:54Speaker 01

  And when I admitted it to my friends, so we're like, my hardcore friendship group is just the four of us. And I told it, I'd gone away for this girls' weekend away, that, you know, and every single one had been delightful. Ostensibly, had always been relaxed and delightful. I'd been so relaxed and delightful in every single one of these. Except I would very notably be drinking faster than everybody else.

• 53:12Fearne Cotton?

  Oh yeah, drink helps massively.

• 53:13Speaker 01

  Right? Once you'd had three, I would be like, I would be working out, like, if we were meeting in a bar, I'd be like, it never got to this, but I'd be thinking, if I did a shot before I got there-

• 53:20Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, yeah, oh, of course.

• 53:21Speaker 01

  Maybe I'd be, but as soon as I got in, I'd be like, I'll go, I'll go to the, I'll be like, I'll get them in. And like, I wouldn't want to start talking till I'd had the first pint, because that would like, take the fear off. And then I would seem relaxed and stuff. And so I finally, so we'd had all these lovely, ostensibly wonderful weekends away for like, you know, a decade and a half. And I finally had this massive panic attack and my head just crashed down onto the Scrabble board and I was completely wigging out. And I had to finally admit to them that the entire weekend, I had been full of dread. And for the last decade and a half, I'd been full of dread. And two of my friends were absolutely astonished. They were like, why wouldn't you tell us? That's crazy. This is so horrible. I'm so sorry for you. This is mad. I've never heard of this. And then they got to the end of that and my other friend, who'd been quiet all the way through this, went, yeah, me too.

• 54:04Speaker 01

  And then, and then I turned to her and I was astonished. She was like, oh, you know, everybody was going, oh, what's normal, what's not normal? How many other people don't, don't we know that are terrified of having a lovely girls' weekend away?

• 54:14Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 54:15Speaker 01

  Who's sitting around in fluffy bathrobes, just chatting, like, you know, but it's terrifying to someone who wants it to be perfect.

• 54:20Fearne Cotton?

  I know.

• 54:21Speaker 01

  Who's so worried they might have a conversational accident, mishear something slightly, say the wrong thing. And worry that afterwards, people will be sitting around going, yeah, Cat did, Cat completely misunderstood what I was saying there. Just think she was weird, like, kind of like, maybe we should all start a separate WhatsApp group and talk about how weird she is.

• 54:38Fearne Cotton?

  And then sometimes, I mean, especially in our profession, you do get critique, which makes you think, oh yeah, people are definitely talking shit about me.

• 54:45Speaker 01

  Right.

• 54:45Fearne Cotton?

  But then I've all, I've even had it with friends, and these are people that I love, but like, someone not, not that long ago, I'm not even saying this out loud, said, um, like, that they thought I was much more relaxed these days. And that I used to be very angry. And I was like, oh, fuck, I don't know if I ever knew that I was coming across angrily. Like, I must have been and I didn't know about it.

• 55:08Speaker 01

  Do you think the anger was masking the fear?

• 55:10Fearne Cotton?

  I don't know what it was, but it freaked me out for like, weeks. I couldn't stop thinking about it. And that's what, like, that to me felt dangerous, like, oh god, I wish I hadn't had that interaction. Because I sort of didn't need that in my head and now I'm panicking, does everyone think I'm really angry? Like, have I just always come across angry and no one's ever had the guts to say to me?

• 55:28Speaker 01

  And now I'm gonna be super self-conscious when I see that friend again, so I could never be angry in front of her again.

• 55:32Fearne Cotton?

  With every interaction, I must remain like, oh, don't get too passionate or angry. And, you know, sometimes I am fucking angry, like, we all are. There's shit going on in your life and you're pissed off about it, but it has now become like a slight paranoia. So I think then when you get proof delivered that, yeah, oh, it's not always safe just to go out and have a drink with someone. Because stuff like that happens.

• 55:50Speaker 01

  So your hypervigilance is now increased?

• 55:52Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, like, I have not nailed that one at all.

• 55:54Speaker 01

  Have you told any of your friends this?

• 55:56Fearne Cotton?

  No, no, this is the first time they'll be hearing about it.

• 55:58Speaker 01

  Are you formally coming out now as somebody who's terrified of friendship?

• 56:02Fearne Cotton?

  Yes, terrified. I mean, there are certain people in my life where I don't have it.

• 56:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:07Fearne Cotton?

  Where there is such a level of comfort because of our dynamic or our history, where that doesn't exist. But I would say there are still quite a few friendships where I don't feel relaxed at all in any interaction.

• 56:21Speaker 01

  Do you think you'll tell them?

• 56:23Fearne Cotton?

  I'm gonna have to now, because you might hear about it here before I've said it. It definitely was a catalyst for me to start thinking about, this is something that we should all be talking about. Because there'll be a bunch of people out there that go, oh my god, me too.

• 56:37Speaker 01

  I would imagine, listening, half the people are going, that sounds so weird, I can't imagine that. And the other half are going, oh my god, me too. I didn't even know that other people had the same thing.

• 56:45Fearne Cotton?

  Honestly, it was one of the best things I've ever read. I was like, honestly, it is just, it's totally been a game changer. Even if it is just me saying it out loud now.

• 56:55Speaker 01

  Thing is, bear this in mind, you're braver than me, like, you're doing a harder thing now. Because I never talk about any problem that I've had until I've solved it and I'm ready to put it in a book. So I never told anyone I was anxious until I'd solved it and I could put it in a book. Well, I, well, this is, this is, this is a self-belief that is probably not completely elevated and probably slightly self-damaging. But I personally, and this will be my upbringing, but I personally think you should never admit to a problem. Because that might be whining until you've got a solution to it. And clearly, that's something I would need to do therapy about, but that, that's, you know, like, when people write books that are just only about bad things that have happened in their lives. And they don't have any solutions, I feel like, oh, you've just dumped all your trauma on me in a book that I've paid £20 for.

• 57:40Speaker 01

  And then left me to work out what the solutions are. So my belief is that, as my belief as a writer is, if, if you want value for money from me. Then only when I can tell you about something that you might share and I can give you a solution, will I bore you.

• 57:54Fearne Cotton?

  I mean, it's really proactive. I would say my take on it is, and I'm not putting my books anywhere near in your league. But I'm finding the solutions as I'm writing it a lot of the time. And sometimes because I've committed something to paper, I have to address it. So like, the last book I wrote was called Likeable and it's all about the fact that likability had this huge weight for me. Like, if you're not likable, you don't have a job. So you better fucking be nice and you better please everybody around you, which I took to every extreme. And I learned a lot writing it, but actually, I've just written a little extra chapter for the paperback. And it gave me a year's reflection of, since I wrote it. And actually, I have taken so much action in that area in the last year. So it's almost, it sort of forces me to do something about it.

• 58:40Speaker 01

  But this is the brilliant thing about culture, isn't it? That's, that's the reason why books and films and podcasts and conversations exist. It's like, kind of like, it's the moment where we take time, like, most people listening to this do not have the time to sit down and figure stuff out. And write a book or have a conversation like this. And that's kind of our job. You go and be a nurse, you know, you be a fireman, you do the accounting, that's your important job. We're the, you know, leisured lucky dicks.

• 59:02Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 59:02Speaker 01

  That get to sit there and work this stuff out and then have these conversations and kind of, that's our job. That, that's the deal.

• 59:08Fearne Cotton?

  Yes.

• 59:09Speaker 01

  And I like that system. I like that we don't wait for governments to sort these things out, that just two mums can sit here on some fluffy chairs that look like minges and go, let's tackle anxiety.

• 59:18Fearne Cotton?

  Without a doubt, because I think something like as niche as, I don't feel like interactions with my friendships are safe.

• 59:23Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 59:24Fearne Cotton?

  Can't be tackled by anyone. It's an individual thing that you have to go off and have a little experience and a journey with yourself. But that needs to be unearthed. So I'm so glad that you did. And like, like, don't reduce your work to like, oh, I'm just sat here leisurely in a chair. Like, it's fucking important. And it's massively changed how I see things. So, thank you, thank you.

• 59:45Speaker 01

  It's my app, that, I mean, that's all I, the my, the thing that I have with the books that I've written is like, I mean, every day, in any time I leave the house. I will always have at least two or three women coming up to me and going, a thing you wrote 10, 15 years ago. Sometimes things that they've forgotten, they'll go, that put into words something I'd felt but had never worked out. I thought I was the only person he felt like this.

• 1:00:04Fearne Cotton?

  Yes.

• 1:00:04Speaker 01

  Particularly all the stuff in How To Be A Woman about being a teenage girl. So many girls of that generation were just like, we would pass it around. Like, kind of clandestine kind of information, because it explained to us how we could go from being children to women in a way that was fun. In a way that we understood ourselves, that we felt sort of bold and brave and proud, um, and, and not scared to be honest. So that, that's, I really like being useful.

• 1:00:25Fearne Cotton?

  Oh my god, you'll be on, you'll be on useful.

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• 1:02:04Fearne Cotton?

  Right, we've talked about some, some things that you've actioned that you know have made you, like they've boosted you, they've made you feel great in your everyday life. But what sort of specifically helps with the anxiety? You get out of bed in the morning, you've limited your news intake and social media intake. What else is helping keep you, you know, so you can continue to abstain from this anxiety?

• 1:02:23Speaker 01

  Well, breaking the physical, so it's, you know, we know that thing that a month establishes a new cycle. Like my body has forgotten how to be anxious now because I've so assiduously, don't look at your face. You're so envious. I would like that. You're like, you have the face that women are supposed to have when they're talking about diamonds. I want them.

• 1:02:40Fearne Cotton?

  I would way rather be anxiety free than have diamonds. I give a fuck about diamonds.

• 1:02:43Speaker 01

  It does feel very luxurious, I have to say. So many things in my life make sense now, I'm not anxious. I understand how to love people properly, like, kind of like, you know, I can feel joy. I had this thing, which thing a lot of people had after lockdown. And my daughter was really, at the time, it was called anhedonia, where you feel just completely flat. You've crushed all your negative emotions, but you can't only crush your negative emotions. So you just cut off all emotions and you're just flatlining. And I was, and you know, once lockdown was over and my daughter was better, I was like, oh, I'm ready for joy. And, you know, it's euphoria to come back into my life and they just didn't come. And then I was talking to a therapist and she was just like, do you leave space for happiness to grow? And I was like, please speak more on this subject. She was like, for instance, if your daughter comes over and hugs you, how do you feel? Very happy.

• 1:03:28Speaker 01

  What would you do next? And I thought, and I was like, I'd hug her and then I'd immediately say, are you hungry? Do you need anything? Like, should we go and do something? You know, kind of like, how was your day? And la, la, la, being useful. And she was like, just stop and don't do that. You don't need to be useful in that moment. Why don't you just sit there and give space for happiness to grow? Just have the hug, stay silent, and experience that moment.

• 1:03:49Fearne Cotton?

  Was that excruciating?

• 1:03:51Speaker 01

  It was amazing. Like, I mean, I felt, for the first, you know, 30 seconds she hugged me, I so wanted to be of service to her and immediately like make the experience even better. And just like, show her how much I loved her. But I stayed silent and I hugged her. And after 30 seconds, she suddenly realized I wasn't going to say anything or ask her any questions. And she just melted. And the hug got even bigger. And then I sort of sniffed the top of her head, which always smells like a baby, even though she's 23. And she just looked up and she was so soft and melting, she just went, you're such a lovely mum. And I went, you're such a lovely girl. And we hadn't had to be clever or useful or accelerate the conversation. We were just two very simple mammals going, I love you. I love you too. Because all that needed to happen was to be happy in that moment. And you don't need to maximize, we're so into maximizing.

• 1:04:35Fearne Cotton?

  But also the anxiety is driving you needing to say, do you need anything? Are you okay? So that goes.

• 1:04:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:40Fearne Cotton?

  You don't need to do all of that shit.

• 1:04:41Speaker 01

  Literally that.

• 1:04:42Fearne Cotton?

  Was there any element of superstition that made you feel like you needed to still say it? Because I've had a bit of that going on, like, there is a, it's a superstitious, totally illogical bit of reasoning behind why I have to ask the question, do the thing, be responsible for everything.

• 1:04:56Speaker 01

  Is it that the world will end and civilization will crumble?

• 1:04:58Fearne Cotton?

  And it will be my fault.

• 1:04:59Speaker 01

  Yeah. So obviously that was the driver that I had when I bought that house in, I was going to buy that house in the mountains and stuff. And I, you know, and when you're on social media, you're constantly being told that we're possibly in our final era. Like, young people now are saying, I don't want to have children. You know, you've got people in the White House like J.D. Vance, who genuinely believe that the second coming is happening. There's hard right Christians who are talking about this. Elon Musk is going to go to Mars. He's like, life on earth will not continue. Like, the most powerful, richest people with the biggest voices in the world are constantly talking as if we might not be here in 10 years' time. It's all going to end. And so the smart thing to do would be to stay hypervigilant and constantly be ready to save your family. But that's not going to happen. Like, we're not going to go to Mars. The world isn't going to end. Humans will be here in a thousand years' time.

• 1:05:43Speaker 01

  Things will come and things will go, like, kind of like, but if you read history, you know, whole continents have torn apart. Whole countries have disappeared under the ocean. We've had infinite depressions and viruses and, you know, beliefs that drove people crazy, made them kill each other. And wars that have flattened Europe, but we're still here.

• 1:05:59Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:00Speaker 01

  Like, this is a relatively okay era. It's not primo, but like, if something could happen in 10 years' time where we go, actually, that, that time, like 2026, that was actually okay.

• 1:06:11Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:12Speaker 01

  That the problems that we had were normal problems, like things need to be funded, some infrastructure needs to be done, we need to sort out some problems. But they're not end of the world stuff.

• 1:06:20Fearne Cotton?

  No.

• 1:06:20Speaker 01

  And so that really, reading much more history, allowed me to stop being hypervigilant and kind of going, I must be ready to save my family. Because I can't, I don't have an apocalypse bunker. And, and if you do want to try and make the world, you know, if you do want to make the world a safer place, then becoming a calm and sane person and spreading calm rationality and reading history and doing local practical things and falling back in love with humanity and believing in people and trying to make your day as lovely and helpful and pleasant as possible. That's our job, that's the best we can do.

• 1:06:52Fearne Cotton?

  Yes, exactly.

• 1:06:53Speaker 01

  And that's our, and that's the only thing that has ever made the world a better place.

• 1:06:56Fearne Cotton?

  Of course.

• 1:06:56Speaker 01

  The anthropologist Margaret Mead just goes, you know, all the way through, the two things that she said were, one, all the way through history, you should never underestimate what a small bunch of concerned citizens can do to change the world. It's the only thing that ever has.

• 1:07:07Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:08Speaker 01

  And secondly, which blew up the anthropology world at the time, she went, everyone's, you know, all the men are going on about how the biggest inventions in human history that we find in archaeology are weapons and the invention of fire and stuff. And she's like, no, this is the most important thing that we've ever found that explains what humans are. And it's a mended femur from, I think, the Sumerian era, for like 30,000 or 40,000 years ago. And everyone's like, why is that so significant, Margaret Mead? And she goes, because this was a bone that was broken when someone was 16 or 17, but this person died when they were 60. So already at this point, we believed enough in each other and we had enough of community and we believed in love, that even though this person was so badly injured, that if we were uncaring people, we would have just left them behind as we were migrating. We loved that person, we bound that bone, we kept them in our tribe and they lived to be 60.

• 1:07:53Speaker 01

  I found the first evidence of love. I found the first evidence of society, I found the first evidence of community, and that's the oldest thing we found. And that predates fire and that predates weapons and that's who we are.

• 1:08:05Fearne Cotton?

  Yes.

• 1:08:06Speaker 01

  And these are the things that I hold on to. Margaret Mead's broken femur, like, kind of, that's who we are underneath all of this.

• 1:08:11Fearne Cotton?

  It also, there's something that I kept picking up on throughout the book that seems really important in a human practice of hope is turning lots of words into verbs.

• 1:08:21Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:08:22Fearne Cotton?

  Gratitude, turn it into a verb, it's a doing word. Happiness, turn it into a doing word. Winter.

• 1:08:28Speaker 01

  Yes, wintering.

• 1:08:28Fearne Cotton?

  We love Catherine May.

• 1:08:29Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:08:30Fearne Cotton?

  Turn it into a thing that you do, make these things action-led, rather than happiness is in the future when X, Y, and Z has happened and I'm this, that, and that. Or I can be grateful when blah, blah, blah. Look, you've got to do it.

• 1:08:42Speaker 01

  Well, this is, this is the cataclysm of social media, like, kind of, there's, there's a brilliant, very short book written by Naomi Alderman that's called Don't Burn Anyone at the State Today. And she's talking about how, when we're talking about this is a mad, chaotic era because of the invention of social media. She's going, there are two examples where something like this has happened before in the past. And they're both when forms of mass communication are invented. So when we invented the written word, that was a massive explosion, revolution, because before then, the, where you had knowledge was in old people and you could only hear it orally. So unless you knew a clever old person, you would have no knowledge. As soon as people started being able to write it down and send it to other cities and spread knowledge, huge revolutions and foment, and who do we trust? And what does this mean? And that went on for like nearly a thousand years. And then the second time was with the invention of the printing press, which again, you know, ends up in witch trials and revolutions and stuff.

• 1:09:26Speaker 01

  But each time, the, the chaos after it is shorter and shorter. And what, and so the third form of mass communication that we've seen in our lifetime is the invention of social media. Everyone can talk, it is genuinely mass communication. So there is, as there has been in the previous two times, this, this uprest, the kind of like false information, the facts that you can't trust, factionalization, people breaking apart. But what always happens when you've invented a new form of communication is eventually people go, the things that are most important are facts. You cannot run a civilization unless you have verified facts, things that we can believe in, people cooperating, moving together, revering knowledge and having places that you trust. And at the moment, we're just sort of like, we're figuring out how this is, but we will go back to, because this is what we always do when we're creatures of habit. We will believe in facts again, there won't be conspiracy theories, there won't be fake news.

• 1:10:11Speaker 01

  We will need facts because civilizations can only prosper with them. And we have to find a way to get on, even though we have these massively divisive opinions, because that's the history of our, of humanity. That is inevitably what we will do.

• 1:10:24Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:25Speaker 01

  So that's where you need to hold tight now, like, kind of like, we are in this period of our people, but we've been through it before. And on the other side of it, the good things about people being able to communicate across the globe are still hugely underrated. The voices that we hear, the informations that we have, the insights into other people's lives. I still love the idea of social media, but this current iteration has been poisoned and it's not good for your social health. And if you look, if you walk down the street once, you know, I stopped wearing my headphones and I came off my phone. And when you walk down the street, everyone is on their phone and they have headphones on and they're listening to the people. And this reached its apogee when I was on the Piccadilly line at about midnight and everyone had their headphones on apart from me. And I had this terrible screaming, like I've never heard before, and someone shouting. And everyone had their headphones on, so they couldn't hear, their heads were down.

• 1:11:09Speaker 01

  And then suddenly the tube ground to a halt, the doors burst open and the emergency services ran in and are off, off, off. And a woman had taken her life by throwing herself in front of the train. And all these people were now finally taking their headphones, going off, going, what's happened? What's happened? And I was the only person who'd heard it. And those are all people who will probably go home and say something like the modern phrases that we hear all the time. Everything feels a bit weird. I don't quite know where I am. Like, kind of, it feels like we're so fragmented. Things feel isolated now, like, kind of like. And it's like, yeah, if you're walking around with your headphones on and you're facing a phone, where are you?

• 1:11:41Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:42Speaker 01

  You're not there. You're not here. You're not in your life. You're not in your day. And we saw it as a liberation to be able to, like, listen to a million voices and communicate with a million people on our phones. But there's a million people looking at that website or listening to that song. Whereas when you take your headphones off and put your phone away, if you're, like, walking through the rain, on your own in a forest, that is a couture moment just for you.

• 1:12:04Fearne Cotton?

  Yes.

• 1:12:04Speaker 01

  No one else's. That's your life. No one else is experiencing that. And that's free, and that's good for you, and that's the point of life.

• 1:12:12Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, it is the most simple, basic shit.

• 1:12:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, it really is.

• 1:12:17Fearne Cotton?

  It isn't. It's no more complex than being in the rain in a wood. I can't think of anything I'd rather do.

• 1:12:22Speaker 01

  I know. And we, and the thing is, we know this, and that's why it needs to be like a kind of cultural tipping point. Because when I talk to people in mental health, they say, they always ask the same two questions to their clients, and they come in. First of all, they go, where's your mental health on a scale of one to 10, one being bad and 10 being good? And they'll go, it's two, it's bad. And then the second question they ask is, and what have you done today for your mental health? And we all know what the things are. Put away your phone, eat some good food, have some exercise, engage in something that gives you a sense of, like, awe or spirituality, some beautiful music, you know, sort of look at something beautiful, you know, help someone else rather than helping yourself. It'll make you feel sort of like, you know, empowered and part of a community. And we know all these things and we still don't do them.

• 1:13:02Fearne Cotton?

  No.

• 1:13:02Speaker 01

  And I think now, I feel like we've reached peak despair, like culturally. I think everybody's so hungry for there to be a different mood. And the logical nexus, the opposite cycle that you have after despair is hope.

• 1:13:14Fearne Cotton?

  Yes.

• 1:13:15Speaker 01

  And I really, really, you know, when I wrote this book, it was like, you know, I don't generally believe in manifesting or wishing, but it was like manifesting going, around the time this book comes out, I think people are going to be looking for a manual to be hopeful.

• 1:13:27Fearne Cotton?

  Yes.

• 1:13:27Speaker 01

  And I've done this, and here's everything I know. And I, if you follow this, you, it might not cure everything, but you will feel better by the end of it.

• 1:13:35Fearne Cotton?

  Yes. Let the next zeitgeist be hope.

• 1:13:37Speaker 01

  Right. Wouldn't that be amazing?

• 1:13:39Fearne Cotton?

  Yes. I want that.

• 1:13:41Speaker 01

  We all want to live through a golden era. We all want to live through hope.

• 1:13:44Fearne Cotton?

  Of course we do.

• 1:13:44Speaker 01

  And if not for ourselves, for our kids.

• 1:13:45Fearne Cotton?

  Yes.

• 1:13:46Speaker 01

  They've, you know, you know, we're the rave generation, you know, we, we, we were glow sticks and like, you know, incredibly high quality ecstasy. Like, you know, we should remember what joy and euphoria is. And if we're not showing our kids, you know, we need to get our emotional glow sticks out, Gen X, and just wave them in the air and tell our kids, like, we remember community and hope. Like, kind of like, let's have a little bit nostalgia. Let's go back to that.

• 1:14:05Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, let it be hope. I'm so here for it. I mean, I could sit and talk to you for weeks and weeks and weeks, and I would not have enough of you, Caitlin Moran. But just thank you for this book, which has not only personally been just, like, my brain has exploded reading it, but will just help so many people get, get onto this, like, little habit of being hopeful and doing little things that, that lead towards all of us having a more hopeful day. That's all we can do, is make our own little worlds better, help the people around us, and then the ripple effect of that, we don't know where that will end up.

• 1:14:40Speaker 01

  Literally that, as they say in Alanon, you've got, all you can do is keep your side of the road clean.

• 1:14:43Fearne Cotton?

  Yes.

• 1:14:44Speaker 01

  And your reality is, to a massive extent, your choice. Like, choose which reality you want to live in. Do you want to live in the online reality? Or do you want to take your headphones off, put your phone down, and live where you actually are? Because you know what? If you open the window and look outside, people are really lovely. It's actually quite a lovely world.

• 1:14:59Fearne Cotton?

  They're so lovely. You went really brommy there, I love it.

• 1:15:01Speaker 01

  Really lovely. It's a lovely world. Fern Cotton, it's a really lovely world. To be fair, to be fair, it is not half bad.

• 1:15:07Fearne Cotton?

  Okay, we're making a Happy Place playlist.

• 1:15:09Speaker 01

  Amazing.

• 1:15:10Fearne Cotton?

  Why don't we put on a hopeful song? What song makes you feel, like, drenched in hope?

• 1:15:15Speaker 01

  Oh, my God. Music questions are hard. Like, when I did-

• 1:15:19Fearne Cotton?

  I know. How, there's too many songs.

• 1:15:20Speaker 01

  Right. When I did Desert Island Discs, like, that was like six months of trauma trying to pick those out. What do I love? I mean, Elbow, I find, are, that, that, they are, Elbow and Blur are my two bands of this century, like, kind of like, they speak to my soul. I mean, I mean Tender by Blur.

• 1:15:35Fearne Cotton?

  Tender.

• 1:15:36Speaker 01

  When they played Glastonbury and they came offstage and everyone continued singing, "Come on, come on, come on, get through it." That's all you need. That's it.

• 1:15:45Fearne Cotton?

  That song makes me weep. I love it.

• 1:15:48Speaker 01

  I saw them at Wembley and I sobbed. I was going through a really bad time. My, my book about men has come out a year too early for people to want to listen to the man, but think about the man of fear. And I'd had terrible reviews and it was awful. And I went to see Blur in the middle of the tour, and I have never sobbed like I did during that song.

• 1:16:03Fearne Cotton?

  You so needed that.

• 1:16:03Speaker 01

  Yeah. Damon was singing that to me.

• 1:16:05Fearne Cotton?

  Yes, he was.

• 1:16:06Speaker 01

  Hold on, hold on, hold on, get through it. And I did, and I did get through it, because we always do.

• 1:16:09Fearne Cotton?

  We do, we do. That's going on the playlist. And my final question is, where is your happy place?

• 1:16:16Speaker 01

  See, that does sound like a euphemism for vagina.

• 1:16:19Fearne Cotton?

  It can be.

• 1:16:22Speaker 01

  Although it's very troubled at the moment. I've got terrible cystitis, my old enemies come back.

• 1:16:25Fearne Cotton?

  Oh, no. Get the cranberry out. Does that do anything?

• 1:16:27Speaker 01

  No, it doesn't. No, it's a myth. No, I've got an Achilles, Achilles urethra. Where is my happy place? I mean, it is just every night, me and my husband get into bed, and just the dog is on the bed, and we always pretend the bed is a boat, and we're sailing away from the day and going up to dreamland. It's like we're back in the boat and we're sailing away from the day to the safe place of sleep, so.

• 1:16:45Fearne Cotton?

  Oh, that is adorable.

• 1:16:48Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:16:48Fearne Cotton?

  That's such a cute little thought.

• 1:16:50Speaker 01

  It's really soothing. If you ever have problems sleeping, just pretend you're in a little boat floating away from the world. Yeah.

• 1:16:55Fearne Cotton?

  Of course you do. You're Fern Cotton, you're really anxious.

• 1:16:58Speaker 01

  I can never sleep.

• 1:17:00Fearne Cotton?

  Turn your bed into a boat.

• 1:17:01Speaker 01

  I'm 34. Okay, I'm gonna do that tonight. I'm gonna get you a cockapoo, they really help.

• 1:17:04Fearne Cotton?

  My cats will go nuts, but I like the idea of it.

• 1:17:07Speaker 01

  A dog will. I mean, there's the reason why there's a whole chapter about the dog in there. Because we look for, like, I was like, why can't I get an electronic item that teaches me how to enjoy my life? That, you know, that just beeps when I need to, like, stretch or feel happy, or be told I'm a good girl. When you get a dog, that's it. It's a furry Fitbit that just says, "Come for a walk right now. I love you. I'm gonna lick you. We should have a snack. Why don't you roll around on the floor with me and sort your back out?" So.

• 1:17:27Fearne Cotton?

  Cats don't do that. They just go, "Fuck you. Where have you been? Get me some food."

• 1:17:31Speaker 01

  Cats are cunts and I respect them for that.

• 1:17:33Fearne Cotton?

  That's why I love them. I understand the dance.

• 1:17:35Speaker 01

  Me and my friends have got, half of us are cats and half of us are dogs in personality. And their icon is Prince, who is the ultimate cat.

• 1:17:41Fearne Cotton?

  Right, yeah.

• 1:17:42Speaker 01

  And the icon for the dogs in the group is Noddy Holder from Slade. That's kind of because he's the ultimate dog.

• 1:17:46Fearne Cotton?

  So niche. So niche. I didn't see it coming.

• 1:17:50Speaker 01

  It's Christmas!

• 1:17:52Fearne Cotton?

  Such a dog.

• 1:17:52Speaker 01

  Noddy's the biggest dog in the world.

• 1:17:53Fearne Cotton?

  Like a Labrador.

• 1:17:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, right, yeah.

• 1:17:56Fearne Cotton?

  So good. Thank you so much for coming back on the podcast. I am deeply honoured.

• 1:18:01Speaker 01

  It's my absolute pleasure. Let's go and ring your friends now and tell them that you're anxious.

• 1:18:05Fearne Cotton?

  I think I'm gonna fucking have to.

• 1:18:09Fearne Cotton?

  Oh, God. I love her even more now. What am I gonna do about that? What am I gonna do? Why, why, why can't I be in her, like, four best friend group? I just think she's so amazing. The thing is, right, at the end of that chat, I, I looked at my notepad, and there was half an interview I hadn't even gotten to, because we, we covered so much, but there was so much that I missed out. Like, one thing I missed out that I was gutted about was in her book. She's got this brilliant little phrase that she wrote, which is, "You are what you click." Like, we all know the phrase, "You are what you eat," which is, you know, been going around for yonks. "You are what you click" seems

• 1:18:50Fearne Cotton?

  even more totally and utterly spot on. Like, we're creating these algorithms for ourselves, no one else is doing it for us. And we imbibe whatever we see each day, and many of our thoughts and opinions are based on that. That's, sorry, that is genius. I need that on a t-shirt. Caitlin's book, which, I mean, I'm not gonna force you to read it, but you bloody well should. It's called How to Be Hopeful, and it's out on the 17th of September. I cannot wait, actually, for the next few episodes of the podcast, because we're gonna be reliving all the festival chats that we've had at Tatten just a couple of weeks ago. So a lot of fun stuff happening on the talk stage. In the meantime, a massive thanks to Catlin and to you lot. Keep finding those little glimmers of hope, gang.

• 1:19:55Fearne Cotton?

  Happy Place is researched by me, Fern Cotton. The producer is Anushka Tate at Happy Place Studios, with studio engineering by Basil Oxtaby. Basil Oxtoby.

• 1:20:05Speaker 03

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