Pod Insights Happy Place Book Club Meets: Choose to be happy, with David Larbi About this episode What is happiness to you? And do you think you deserve to be happy? Our Happy Place Book Club pick for January was Frequently Happy, by author and poet David Larbi. In his book, he combines poetry and journal prompts to help you find the glimmers in your lovely, ordinary life.
We’ll have objectively terrible days, and days that are clearly the best ever, but most days fall somewhere in between... In this chat with Fearne, David explains that while not every day is good, there’s something good in every day if you choose to look for it.
They also chat about how to stop falling back into negative thought patterns, and why the journal prompts in Frequently Happy could be helpful if you’re not sure where to start with acknowledging and getting clarity on how you feel.
Plus, there’s advice on how to move past your fear of criticism so you can share your creativity with the world, because ultimately you’ll never be able to please everyone anyway!
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0:00 Speaker 00 Hi, I'm Natalie Dormer and I'm proud to be an ambassador for Childline. This year, Childline turns 40. To mark it, I've made Child on the Line, a three-part documentary podcast. We hear why children needed a helpline in 1986, how it was built against the odds and the challenges children face today, from abuse and mental health to social media and AI. Search Child on the Line and listen wherever you get your podcasts.
0:31 Speaker 01 You used to hate the skin you're in, and now you think it suits you.
0:34 Fearne Cotton? Welcome to the Happy Place Book Club with me, Fern Cotton.
0:37 Speaker 01 The pain you thought you'd hold for life, replaced by things you're used to.
0:40 Fearne Cotton? Today, Frequently Happy by David Larby.
0:43 Speaker 01 Love, acceptance, all those changes for the better they show in your eyes and the things you thought you'd hide for life, the people you have around you, they like. They love you, the way you needed, and you hold it and you keep it close to heart. The validation they provide is nothing next to what you now have inside. It feels so precious you could weep. You almost pray before you sleep it doesn't disappear. All your fears come crashing back, but I promise, it's here to stay. Progress doesn't just go away. You don't start from scratch, you start from more than you have ever known before. Now you've turned your heart to song and you know the sky is exactly where you belong. I believe in you.
1:26 Fearne Cotton? What is happiness to you? It's a huge question, and it's one I obviously try to get closer to the answer to every week on this podcast. For poet David Larby, it's about those small moments, the little glimmers in the day-to-day that when put together build a whole beautiful life. His book, Frequently Happy, was our Happy Place Book Club pick for January. Oh, this book is a ray of sunshine. There's poems in there, there's just beautiful little thoughts, there's journal prompts in there, all with a sprinkling of David's sunshiny personality. We love him, and I really enjoyed chatting to David. He's just got the most peaceful energy, lovely calming voice. He could just sort of read me stories at night and I would fall asleep in the kindest
2:11 Fearne Cotton? possible way. And it was really interesting to hear that he reckons we have more choice over how happy we are than we might think. He explains the logic behind that one so brilliantly in this chat.
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4:01 Fearne Cotton? Right, let's do it. Here's the show.
4:25 Fearne Cotton? David, how are you? I'm so happy to see you. We are loving your book, Frequently Happy. It's our Happy Place Book Club pick for January, and it is the perfect book for this time of year. Thank you very much.
4:39 Speaker 01 Thank you. Thank you for reading it. Thank you for choosing it. I feel like it feels a little bit surreal, but mostly it just feels wonderful because... The publication date, 2nd of January, was kind of intentional. I wanted it to be the kind of thing that people can start their year off with. Obviously, it follows the whole year, so you can pick it up any time. But I agree with you, it does feel like the right time to start a book like this.
4:59 Fearne Cotton? It's brilliant, and I'm so glad to see that you've written a book. I met you maybe three, four years ago, was it? I don't know when it was, but I met you a few years back.
5:08 Speaker 01 Yes.
5:08 Fearne Cotton? And to sort of see how you're evolving online and all the beautiful things you're doing, and that it's now in book form is such a beautiful thing. How did that come about, the idea to put all of your thinking into a book?
5:21 Speaker 01 So I kind of, so I studied English and French at university, and writing creatively has always been something that's continued no matter what else I'm doing creatively. And then, obviously, my social media content kind of started to lean more and more towards poetry, until it was pretty exclusively what I was doing. When I started doing poetry pretty exclusively, I started talking to a couple of publishers. I had my own podcast, which is called Mindful Moments, going on at the same time. That is more kind of reflections of my thoughts on life in non-rhyming form, I guess. And then, when I started talking to publishers, my now editor, Amanda, said that I actually think you should put the two of these things together, your reflections and the poetry, because I think there's actually a real space for that. And that's, yeah, that's kind of how this came about.
6:05 Fearne Cotton? It's so lovely, and you know what? I love that there's so much poetry in the book and that you're putting your poetry out there. It seems that over maybe the last five years, poetry is having this huge resurgence, which I'm so glad about, because it was a real lost art form at points, and it was tricky to kind of find new poets that were writing exciting things. It's just glorious. I mean, one of your poems, it's pinned at the top of your Instagram, Mini Chili Pepper, has had over a million likes. It's just, you know, take, everyone wants to hear these poems, read these poems, feel something from these poems, share these poems. It must be lovely to be part of that new wave of poetry.
6:45 Speaker 01 It's really wonderful, it's really wonderful. The best thing about it is that, as I said, I studied English at university, but I've never particularly seen myself to be anything, you know, special. When you hear- Poetry, you think of Shakespeare and you think of, you know, massive names doing really big things. But I think poetry, at its heart, poetry can be anything. And my favourite kind of poetry is always very whimsical. My favourite poet ever is Benjamin Zephaniah. Obviously, he addressed a lot of deeper topics, but generally, his poems are very whimsical, very happy in delivery. And so writing poems that aren't necessarily that complex about things I just happen to be happy about. To see that that has an audience is something that really warms me as well, because it just means that, yeah, you don't necessarily have to be
7:27 Speaker 01 really well versed in the art form to feel its effects, which, you know, poetry's for everyone.
7:32 Fearne Cotton? Yeah, it's the feeling bit. And I think also, you know, there's so much nonsense online and there's so much negativity out there. When I watch you read a poem, I'm just grinning from ear to ear and we need, we need more joy out there, David. And you're bringing it. Tell me why you chose to feature the four seasons in the book and why the book's formatted in that way.
7:52 Speaker 01 I wanted this to be something that someone could pick up any time in their life, any time during the year. And there are things that are relevant to whatever they happen to be going through at the time. Like you said, I don't think there's ever a point where someone can't do with a bit of joy. And that kind of taking a seasonal approach to the book makes that very clear in a literal sense, as well as in a sense that the reader will feel for themselves, as it's not like something you read in the winter chapters can't apply to you during the summer. It's just, it might have, you know, details that link it to winter, but it's a principle that carries across the year. Just setting it out in that structure kind of makes that a little bit clearer, if that makes sense.
8:29 Fearne Cotton? Yeah, it's lovely. And it is actually quite nice to pick it up and look at the part of the year that you're in and see if those words resonate or what it brings you. It's a, it's a beautiful idea. I mean, the book's called Frequently Happy. Are you frequently happy?
8:43 Speaker 01 Yeah, I am. I really am. I think, so the, the title Frequently Happy comes from one of the poems, the last four lines of which are, I always pay attention when a small joy grabs me. Some say easily pleased, I say frequently happy. And that line came to pass because there was something I was happy about one day. And I was talking to a friend about it. I was like, I know it doesn't seem like much. And they're like, well, if it makes you happy, then of course it's something big. And that A small state, but really just switched my perspective because I was kind of like, yeah, there's actually nothing that's too small to be happy about. And if we're able to notice the tiny things and be happy about the small things, that just means that during our day to day interactions, our day to day lives, we'll get so many more doses, micro doses of happiness. I've heard them described as glimmers. I've heard them described as casual magic. It's all the same kind of thing.
9:25 Speaker 01 If you could be happy about the small things, that means you get to be happy more often. And in every day, there are several small things that we're able to be happy about.
9:33 Fearne Cotton? Casual magic. I've not heard of that one before. I like that. I've heard glimmers, but casual magic. It's kind of suave. I'm into it. But it's so true because I don't think they're, I mean, sadly, I think the majority of people don't feel frequently happy. You know, and that's why we need books like yours. That's why we need to have these conversations, I think. And I've had big periods of my life where I really, really wasn't happy at all, which is why I'm so, I guess, fascinated with the subject of happiness. And it's quite a loaded subject. I think often we believe that happiness is at the end of something. It's when we get the job, the place to live, the perfect partner, whatever it might be, we think it's this destination.
10:14 Fearne Cotton? But actually, your take on it seems to be very much in the moment. It's these tiny things that you're noticing and leaning into. And I guess that is also down to choice, you know, I know obviously there are terrible things that are happening in the world and happening to individuals all the time. But when we're talking generally, we do have more choice over how happy we are than we believe, I think.
10:38 Speaker 01 Yes, I think what you said there was perfect in terms of we tend to think of happiness as something that comes at the end of something. And when I have this, I'll be able to feel like this. When I get that, I'll be able to feel like that. And we tend to think in extremes at the top one percent and the bottom one percent of what we go through, our very best days and our very worst days, forgetting that most days are spent somewhere in the middle of both of those things. And the element of choice, that's where that comes in. Obviously, there are days that are going to be objectively terrible. And we shouldn't be happy on those days because we need to process what we're going through. There are going to be days where that's the best day of my life. I didn't have to think twice. What I proposed last year, I didn't have to think twice about being happy for the next six months. It wasn't a big deal. Whereas on. Your day to day, in your day to day life, when you're going through your general struggles, you feel really down at work, you feel like you're not progressing, you feel like you haven't seen your friends in a while.
11:24 Speaker 01 On those days, that's where we are capable of making that little bit of effort to cheer ourselves up or find something to be happy about in that day. And it feels very difficult to you, but it's always worth the effort. Not every day is good, but there is something good in every day. And it's not a moral failing if you can't find it, but it's a wonderful thing if you can. And I think, yeah, that's why even writing this book, I called it frequently happy, not happy all the time for a good reason. Like, it's not healthy for us to always be happy because that's not real happiness. But if we're able to make the choice to try and see those things in our day to day lives, then yeah, we'll be a lot better off for it.
11:57 Fearne Cotton? Yeah, it's an interesting one, isn't it? I, I, I think about this a lot because I, I know when I fall back on bad habits of getting into a negative headspace and really spiraling. And I think we've all got the propensity to do it versus having those moments where you go, do you know what? I am going to still remember that I'm grateful for X, Y and Z. Or I'm going to really, you know, look out the window and see that beautiful sky that I know can make me feel a bit better, whatever it is. And it's a sort of fine balance between doing that and not looking at the stuff you need to look at. Cause I think it can be quite dangerous when you're just constantly trying to look for the good stuff,
12:39 Fearne Cotton? but you're not looking at, oh, actually beneath that, I feel a bit sad or I feel angry or there's something that's making me feel distressed that I'm not looking at. I guess it's a, it's a tricky balance to get.
12:51 Speaker 01 It's the hardest, it's the hardest balance. It's the balance of the human experience is I don't want to dismiss these negative feelings. I don't want to push them to the side for them to come back worse later. But I also don't want to sit in them all the time and feel down and feel negative. And I also want to feel like I deserve to be happy about things, even though things might not be perfect. And I think the biggest thing, the biggest thing that I try and do is I look at it as the, seeing the happiness is just as much a tool as anything else. I think sometimes happiness and joy can be looked at as slightly fanciful or, you know, once I earn this or once I've gone through difficult things, then I can feel the happiness. But I kind of. See it as the happiness is what's helping me get through the difficult times. I acknowledge I'm having a really difficult day. Let me think about something and focus on something I'm happy about for a minute.
13:34 Speaker 01 Just to remind myself that things aren't all bad and then get back to dealing with whatever I'm finding difficult at the moment.
13:39 Fearne Cotton? Yeah, do you know what? I think the key word in that is deserving. I think so many of us have moments or maybe our, you know, a lot of our time is taken up by feeling unworthy of happiness. We think, we think we're a bad person or our actions are shitty and that we don't deserve happiness. How, how would you say we can cultivate the, the worthiness, the, the feeling that we do deserve happiness?
14:05 Speaker 01 It's really hard because it's one of those things that a lot of us will have had circumstances where we feel like we haven't been given permission to feel that way. We are more used to focusing on the difficult things in our lives rather than the positive things. It's, it's very hard to feel that sense of deserving the happiness that we all do. One of the biggest reasons I wrote this book is because whenever I share my poetry, whenever I share stuff online, I do get messages and I'll get comments and I'll get people reaching out to me saying, thank you so much for the happiness today. I didn't feel like I deserved this, but I really do. My biggest belief is that by virtue of your existence, you deserve a happy existence. By virtue of your existence, you matter and because you matter, you deserve a happy existence.
14:47 Speaker 01 And I think it's a case of not, you don't have to change your mind overnight or be able to see it immediately. I think it's a case of gentle reassurance over time and putting these practices into place and letting, yeah, letting evidence show to you that, you know what, when I am happy, my life is better and I do deserve it. No one's going to take away from me. It's something that I can have just as much as anyone else can have.
15:08 Fearne Cotton? What about breaking bad habits? Because, you know, I think we all do this. We fall into what's comfortable, what we know. And, and it might be, you know, being down on ourselves or writing off a whole day because one thing went a little bit wrong. How do you stop from falling into those negative habits to choose to, to see the good in the day?
15:30 Speaker 01 Obviously, I know you talk a lot and this is a very big, it's looked at very positively generally. In the happy place is a very big thing and I believe very much in journaling. And I think one of the biggest things about journaling is it's acknowledging and understanding how you feel. And when it comes to breaking bad habits, I think acknowledging that you have this certain habit and being able to identify it is half of the battle. When you can see yourself slipping back into that pattern, that's when you're so much more capable of doing something about it. And the second, third, fourth, fifth time you see yourself falling back into it, it becomes easier and easier to kind of deal with it. And it doesn't linger for as long because rather than it happening and you being unaware of it happening. It then goes to, it might happen, you might not stop it straight away, but you're aware it's happening and you want better for yourself.
16:14 Speaker 01 Until you kind of eventually practise and train yourself into recognising it when it's happening and not letting it stick around for a long time. I think one of the worst things we do to ourselves is thinking that there's going to be a point where I've broken every single bad habit I have. And I'm never going to do this badly again. There are habits, they're in there somewhere. If we've done them before, we have the ability to do them again. It's when you realise you're doing it, giving yourself the grace and forgiveness, understanding, okay, I've slipped back into this, it's happening. Again, it's not a moral failure to be going through this again. I just know what I need to do differently and I know why I want to do it differently because I deserve to be happier than I feel right now.
16:50 Fearne Cotton? Yeah, I think, you know, you've got loads of journal prompts within the book, which I think is so perfect for people that haven't journaled before, that don't really know where to start, what you're meant to write. I mean, there aren't really any rules, but do you find yourself journaling daily? Is that something that you find really helpful?
17:05 Speaker 01 Almost daily, yeah. Uh, super, super helpful. For me, I, as someone who tends to look at my emotions or yeah, it's my natural tendency to look at my emotions as puzzle pieces. And are these things all in the right place and how do I solve this? I'm sad, how do I fix it? And it's taken me a long time to realise that, you know, these aren't things to fix, they're just things to be aware of. And a lot of the time, my self-awareness just wasn't really there because there are so many things jumbled up there. And because I can't see a solution, I think, I just don't know what's happening. Whereas writing things down helps me to just look at what's going on. And then sometimes not even do anything about it, just be like, okay, this is how I feel. Let me settle this for a day and then see where my mind goes from there. At least I know what I'm going through, I know what I'm feeling.
17:48 Fearne Cotton? Yeah, having that clarity is absolutely key. There was a lovely poem that you put on your Instagram feed. When you're with your mum and you're talking about your mum and how much she means to you and how much she has set the tone of how you think. Was that something that she instilled in you in childhood, would you say, to have this sort of outlook in life?
18:09 Speaker 01 Definitely, in a lot of her teachings, but mostly by example, I think. One of the things my mum has always said to me is that when you show people or tell people how you feel, you have no idea how you're able to affect them just by sharing your feelings. And that is one of the biggest reasons that I do what I do. I don't, I mean, this book, for example, isn't prescriptive. It's me sharing my experiences and giving you, the reader, a space to feel. And the reason I approached it that way is because me showing how I feel is half of it. And I've learned that, a lot of that from my mum. She's very open with what she's going through, why she's going through it. Encourages us to talk a lot about the way we feel and what we're going through. And as you said, I think the word you used is clarity, which is absolutely perfect. It just gives so much more clarity. And when things are clear, it's easier to know where to go from there.
18:54 Speaker 01 So yeah, definitely from her example as well as the things that she's always told me.
18:57 Fearne Cotton? And what advice would you give to people that enjoy writing their own poetry or or even just sort of creative expressive writing and putting it out into the world? Because it can feel like a very private endeavour to be writing down your thoughts and feelings and then having other people listen to them. It can be quite a terrifying thing. I mean, you're at the point now where you understand that there's great connectivity there, that people are really resonating with what you're saying. But I think that first time that you want to put your poems out there or your creative writing, it can be really scary.
19:30 Speaker 01 Very scary. And number one is someone misunderstanding something doesn't invalidate it. You might not necessarily find the right audience for what you're doing and what you're creating immediately. But that doesn't mean they're not out there, it just means that this isn't the right place for it. And I think, I think there's a criticism generally, but especially when it comes to creative things. Criticism isn't as personal as we feel it is because, as you said, you've shared your own personal thoughts and feelings. It's so important. If anyone doesn't see it, doesn't receive it the way you want it to be received, it can feel like a direct attack on you and what you're thinking, what you're feeling. But it's not, it's just that thing isn't at home with this person. And so it just needs to find another person to give it the right home. So I think, yeah, putting yourself out there regardless of the fear of criticism,
20:15 Speaker 01 because that just means it's not in the right place. And then also putting it out there at all. There's a reason that anytime someone puts out a song or a book or whatever it's called a release, it's because at some point you have to release it and let it go. So that other people can feel the effects of what you've been able to do. And it's in releasing that you make yourself into the artist you want to be. You can't be perfect and then release. You release to become what you want to be eventually. Yeah.
20:39 Fearne Cotton? Yeah, it's bloody good advice because I think we can get so blocked by going, oh, my God, what will people say and how will they receive it? And as long as you're writing something from the heart that you believe in, that makes you feel something, then like you say, it will find the right people. And also you can't please everyone. You know, I've definitely had to learn that lesson the hard way. It's people will love your work, people will hate your work, people will like you, people will not like you. It's just, it's out of your control, but it shouldn't, it shouldn't stop you from putting work out there that you believe in. I think it's a really important thing.
21:09 Speaker 01 Well, I did, um, I did English and French university, which meant I did A level French. And in A level French, you used to get a lot more points for using idioms. And there's an idiom in French that's un ami de tous et un ami de personne, which means a friend to everyone is a friend to no one. And that's how I think of things that I create is if, if absolutely everybody in the world loves it, that means that there's some element of inauthenticity there because I've tried to please everybody. And if I do something that really comes from my heart, that means that there will be people who don't like it. But that's because it's been so individual for me that it can't possibly appeal to everyone. And that's fine. In fact, that means I've created something that has integrity at its heart. So as you said, you can't please everybody, but that's kind of the point.
21:46 Fearne Cotton? I like that one. I'm taking that little Frenchism with me. Thanks very much. It's going straight in my pocket. Um, David, we're so happy to be reading your book this January. I think it's going to bring so many people, so much joy, so much happiness. It's going to get people thinking and talking, hopefully writing their own journal prompts or writing their own poetry. Um, it's a complete ray of sunshine for January. So thank you for writing it and thank you so much for being on the podcast.
22:12 Speaker 01 Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.
22:16 Fearne Cotton? Casual Magic, I've stolen that, I'm nicking it and I'm gonna start using it immediately. David, I loved every bloody second of that, thank you so much for your time. I feel, I feel frequently happy right now. Frequently Happy was our Happy Place Recommended Read for January and you can get your own copy right now. I would really love it if you started reading along with us each month if you don't already. February's book is by Holly Bourne and it's called So Thrilled For You. This is gonna be a real conversation starter, I think. It's about a load of friends in their 30s who are forced to start navigating their very different lifestyle choices. These women are all gonna be put under a lot of pressure as they confront their own and each other's views about motherhood.
23:00 Fearne Cotton? Holly is gonna be on the show with me in a few weeks' time, but in the meantime, do pop over to Instagram, @HappyPlaceBookClub. That is where we'll be chatting about So Thrilled For You over the coming weeks. But for now, a huge thank you to the brilliant David, to the producer, Anushka Tate, at Happy Place Studios, and to you. Look for those casual magic moments, won't you lovely people?
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