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Happy Place with Fearne Cotton

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Why don’t you like yourself? Gabby Bernstein: How to stop numbing difficult emotions

Episodes

58 minutes | Monday, 18 August 2025
Getting lost in anxiety, shame, or self-loathing? Spiritual leader Gabby Bernstein wants you to acknowledge all the messy parts of your true character. Spoiler: you’re not going suddenly to like yourself overnight, but acknowledging the uncomfortable bits will get you there sooner!In this chat with Fearne, Gabby explains how ‘protector parts’ like perfectionism, people pleasing, and numbing out can spiral into extreme self-soothing behaviours like drug or porn addiction if they’re not dealt with.Fearne and Gabby chat about anxiety as a protection mechanism, exploring why being focused on th...
41 minutes | Monday, 11 August 2025
Do you love a true crime scam documentary? Our latest Happy Place Book Club read is for you! Iconic author Lisa Jewell has written Don’t Let Him In, a thriller about a perfect man... who’s a fraudulent liar.In this chat with Fearne, live from The Happy Place Festival, Lisa explains how she got into the mind of a psychopath despite being a very honest person herself. They explore how people fall for charming romance scammers, and how Lisa has become a relentlessly happy person.Plus, Lisa’s written 24 novels but has given up on trying to be a ‘professional’ kind of person – she explains how t...
46 minutes | Thursday, 7 August 2025
Are holidays for switching off... or for fun activities? Broadcaster Clara Amfo is big into travelling solo so she can unapologetically indulge her own passions, like live music and salsa dancing.Welcome to The Happy Place Guide To Holidays! In this chat – brought to you by British Airways Holidays – Fearne and Clara share their thoughts on how to take your holiday hobbies and passions more seriously, including signing up for local classes, and swapping partying for fitness retreats.They also reminisce on the moment Fearne passed the Radio 1 Live Lounge over to Clara, and chat about how to ...
49 minutes | Monday, 4 August 2025
Are you living the life you want to live? Broadcaster Davina McCall’s recent health scare has shown her the importance of living boldly, with no regrets.In this chat, live from The Happy Place Festival, best pals Fearne and Davina share how having tumours removed within a few months of each other brought them closer together.Davina explains how you can turn fear into joy through mindset changes, and how to apologise so you’re not carrying the weight of guilt anymore. She also reflects on how being in Narcotics Anonymous finally enabled her to like herself, warts and all.If you liked this ep...
45 minutes | Monday, 28 July 2025
It’s ok to make mistakes! Comedian Harriet Kemsley says her dyspraxia meant she learnt very early on not to take herself too seriously.In this chat with Fearne, live from The Happy Place Festival, Harriet explains how to get through the cringe part where you’re really rubbish at something new, and why it builds resilience for all parts of your life.Harriet also chats about the chaos that comes with co-parenting and dating after divorce, and has the final word on that eye-roll stereotype that men don’t like funny women...If you liked this episode of Happy Place, you might also like: Florence...
46 minutes | Friday, 25 July 2025
It’s National Orgasm Day on July 31st, so Fearne is listening back to Happy Place conversations about female sexuality, fantasy, and – obviously – orgasms, so that we can reclaim our bodies and desires as our own...In this episode – - Crystal Hefner describes what it was like living as a sexualised woman at the Playboy House-Emily Ratajkowski unpacks how we can remove our sexuality from the male gaze-Dita Von Teese gives her take on nudity and building confidence in your body-Gillian Anderson chats about what she learnt from collecting essays on women’s fantasies-Miranda July explains why s...
38 minutes | Thursday, 24 July 2025
Be honest... do you pick your holiday destination based on the food you can eat there? You’re in good company – that’s just what Richard E. Grant does!Welcome to The Happy Place Guide To Holidays! In this chat – brought to you by British Airways Holidays – Fearne and Richard share their thoughts on how to take your holiday food and drink more seriously, including asking mates (Nigella Lawson, if you’re Richard!) for recommendations, looking for restaurants with small menus, and testing ingredient quality via a Caesar salad starter.They also get into a heated debate about whether perusing th...
1 hour 20 minutes | Monday, 21 July 2025
Are you more confident in your work life than in your personal life? Or vice versa? Entrepreneur and beauty & fashion icon Trinny Woodall is aware of where she needs to build her own self-worth.In this chat, Fearne and Trinny explore everything that comes with being the founder and CEO of Trinny London, being brazen enough to back your own ideas to women earning more than their male partners. Plus, Trinny is candid about her business endeavours that went pretty sideways, and explains how to be direct in asking for feedback without fear of rejection.Trinny is also open about the huge moments...
1 hour 2 minutes | Wednesday, 16 July 2025
The size zero trend... the circle of shame... the fad diets... Millennial women who grew up during the 2000s now have the lowest body confidence of any generation, and Rita Ora understands the pressure for women to look a certain way all too well.In this chat, brought to you by Dove, Fearne and Rita explore the factors that might have influenced their relationships with their bodies over time – from magazines, to catwalks, to so-called health hacks.As part of Dove’s Self Esteem Project, Fearne and Rita chat about how to focus more on how your body feels, than how it looks. Millennial women ...
1 hour 3 minutes | Monday, 14 July 2025
Hit midlife? What do you want to do with the second part of your life? Immunologist Dr Jenna Macciochi wonders that despite living longer now, we’re not necessarily living as healthily or as fully as possible during that time.In this chat with Fearne, Jenna talks through how we can keep our bodies as resilient as possible as we age, so we have the strength to properly embrace the fun parts, and better cope with the shit parts.Jenna breaks down the science of immunity and its relationship with ageing, but there’s no mad biohacking here, just simple advice to make sure your body is a comforta...
38 minutes | Thursday, 10 July 2025
How good are you at switching off on holiday? Are you even any good at taking a proper holiday in the first place? Broadcaster Tess Daly reckons wellness is being physically and mentally able to turn up for everything in life that demands your time... And that includes prioritising time off from a busy schedule!Welcome to The Happy Place Guide To Holidays! In this chat – brought to you by British Airways Holidays – Fearne and Tess share their advice on how to take your holiday wellbeing more seriously, including making lists ahead of time, locking your phone away, having your feet rubbed, a...
54 minutes | Monday, 7 July 2025
Do you find stripping and nudity empowering or degrading? Burlesque performer Dita Von Teese says feminism is about respecting each other’s choices, even if they wouldn’t be your own.In this chat with Fearne, Dita charts her life from working in strip clubs in the 90s, to performing in sold out burlesque shows now. Painfully shy as a kid, Dita explains how turning herself into a femme fatale helped her feel confident and powerful in her own skin.Fearne and Dita talk about the joy of getting older and understanding more about how to handle your sexuality, and Dita reveals how she makes herse...
30 minutes | Friday, 4 July 2025
Has your name influenced who you’ve become? Would you have different characteristics, would people react differently to you, would your life have turned out differently, if you had a different name? These are the questions author Florence Knapp grapples with in her book The Names – our Happy Place Book Club read for June.In this chat, Fearne and Florence share their own experiences of having slightly unusual names, and how they shaped them. Florence also explains the long journey she’s been on to get a novel published, having started writing in the late ‘90s, and wonders that she likes gett...
58 minutes | Monday, 30 June 2025
Do you trust your gut to make the best decision for yourself? Former England goalkeeper Mary Earps has had to make some bold, brave choices recently.In this chat with Fearne, Mary explains how she knew retiring from international football was right for her, and they both explore the importance of having different chapters and challenges in your life.Having experienced periods of real mental darkness, Mary talks through the practices that now ground her in the present. She also reckons setting life goals might just be setting you up for disappointment. Should we be focusing on progress, inst...
42 minutes | Friday, 27 June 2025
Fearne is marking the summer solstice by reflecting on the Happy Place episodes that’ll help you connect with nature, mysticism, and in turn, your inner self. It’s time to get back in touch with who we really are deep down underneath all the external, modern-day trappings of busyness, success and material things.   In this episode – -Kirsty Gallagher talks about living alongside nature’s cycles to help you let go of things that are distressing you-Jo Bowlby explains why spirituality is the science of exploring your inner world-Rob Da Bank loves hot and cold practices to help get in touch wi...
28 minutes | Wednesday, 25 June 2025
23 year old Brandon is the regional winner of the Enterprise category at the 2025 King's Trust Awards. In this chat with Fearne, Brandon explains how, before starting his braille business with the help of The Trust, he had applied for over a thousand jobs without any success. He always struggled to get past the interview stage either due to a lack of experience or due to his visual impairment. Fearne and Brandon explore misconceptions about his visual impairment, the importance of supportive mentorship, and why starting a business has to come with some hilarious trial and error! Plus, Brand...
1 hour 6 minutes | Monday, 23 June 2025
Do you find yourself running a mental list of what you’ve got to do tomorrow...next month... instead of living in the moment? Comedian and presenter Joel Dommett is getting better at appreciating the present.In this chat, Fearne and Joel debate if it’s a good or bad thing to set career goals, and explore how to focus on the process rather than an outcome. Joel also has some advice about faking confidence in order to build it, and explains why his marathon efforts brought out his shadow side...Plus, Joel justifies some of his more questionable tattoos, and reveals some big behind the scenes ...
1 hour 3 minutes | Monday, 16 June 2025
Who would you choose to be if you weren’t shit scared about what other people might think about you? Writer and speaker Natalie Lue has noticed that people pleasing is often a response to anxiety.In this chat with Fearne, Natalie explains how when you desperately people please, you’re putting your self-esteem on the chopping block. In becoming disassociated from your “no” you become disassociated from your needs, desires, opinions, and limits.Natalie talks through the five ways people pleasing might show up in your life, including ‘efforting’ (e.g. over-achieving at school and work), and ‘s...
60 minutes | Tuesday, 10 June 2025
Do you feel deep injustice at how others treat you? Mel Robbins is an award-winning podcast host and best-selling author; she says if other people want to behave in a shitty way... let them!In this chat with Fearne, Mel explains the difference between saying “let them”, and letting people walk all over you. She talks about how “let them” doesn’t make your problems disappear, but you’ll see them differently so they’re less distressing to you. The phrase will also make you feel more confident in your authentic self-expression.Feeling victimised? Stop hoping you can change a bully’s behaviour....
31 minutes | Friday, 6 June 2025
Two writers are competing for the chance to tell the larger-than-life story of a famous reclusive heiress. One of them is going to uncover the truth behind one of the most scandalous families of the 20th century. The thing is, heiress Margaret is giving each writer different tantalising little pieces of her story...Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry was May’s Happy Place Book Club read. In this chat with Fearne, Emily explains why she’s intrigued by the idea of generational trauma affecting our day to day, and why it’s important to interrogate where your sense of ambition comes from. I...
1 hour 26 minutes | Monday, 2 June 2025
Identity has become tribal, and it’s stopping us understanding each other’s humanity. Activist, writer, and model Munroe Bergdorf explains how fear and anger for society’s issues have been misdirected towards trans people.In this chat with Fearne, Munroe talks through what the recent UK Supreme Court ruling on biological sex and gender means for trans women, cis women, and society more widely. How, for example, are trans rights intimately connected to abortion rights?Fearne and Munroe chat about how to practice self-acceptance, particularly around body image, and how to use your voice to cr...
45 minutes | Friday, 30 May 2025
Fearne’s been thinking a lot lately about how much of her life she’s spent people pleasing as a result of wanting to be liked. So today, how to break free from the ‘good girl’ your family, friends, colleagues, and society expect you to be...In this episode –-Louise Redknapp clarifies why being described as ‘nice’ isn’t a compliment and how she’s gone about making people see her as a multi-faceted human-Paloma Faith pinpoints the ways women make themselves smaller in order to make others feel more comfortable-Sophie Ellis-Bextor explains how she’s learnt to navigate mum guilt while not minim...
1 hour 3 minutes | Monday, 26 May 2025
How have you come back from your rock bottom? Ashley Walters has reinvented himself over and over again, through music, acting, directing, parenthood, prison, and addiction.In this chat with Fearne, Ashley talks through the mindset that allows him to take accountability for his actions instead of falling into victimhood, and why failure shouldn’t be viewed as an end point.He explains why you should want to be the “dumbest person in the room”, and why if you feel you want to run away from a challenge, it’s exactly the challenge you should take on.Fearne and Ashley tackle the big topics that ...
53 minutes | Monday, 19 May 2025
What beliefs, hopes, worries, and questions would you have if your unborn baby was given a diagnosis of a disability? It’s something retired paralympic swimmer Ellie Simmonds has spent a lot of time considering.In this chat with Fearne, Ellie explains what she’s learnt from talking to both her parents and her birth mum about their experience of her dwarfism, as well as debating the pros and cons of modern genetic testing.They also chat about Ellie’s decision to retire from swimming: how will you know when it’s time to call something quits, and how can you then cultivate new passions? Plus, ...
1 hour 6 minutes | Monday, 12 May 2025
Is there a reason so many comedians can struggle with their mental health? Mo Gilligan knows all too well that finding the funny in everything can sometimes mean having to suppress sadness. In this chat, Fearne and Mo talk about how a single passing comment can stay with you and eat away at your self-esteem over time, and why we need to be better at celebrating our talent and achievements. Plus, can scrolling through memes be a positive form of escapism when you’re low...? Mo Gilligan: Beginning, Middle, and End is available to listen to now!If you liked this episode of Happy Place, you mig...
53 minutes | Monday, 5 May 2025
At age 43 Liberty Mills was told she had a 0.7% chance of having another baby with her own eggs – and that was with the assistance of IVF. But she and her partner decided to continue their fertility journey with the help of integrative medicine, and after a lifestyle overhaul, she conceived her daughter naturally, and gave birth two weeks before her 45th birthday.In this chat with Fearne, Liberty explains how her own experiences inspired her to become a Certified Integrative Health and Nutrition Coach, helping other individuals and couples to amend their lifestyles to optimise their ability...
40 minutes | Friday, 2 May 2025
Bare is the vital true story of Lorna Tucker’s fight to survive living on the streets of London. She had to lie, steal, strip, and just about everything in between to survive. This really important portrait of female homelessness was April’s Happy Place Book Club read.In this chat with Fearne, author and filmmaker Lorna explains how chance – those five minutes that seem insignificant at the time – can send your life in a completely different direction.She talks through the reality of all the different reasons people might end up living on the street, and why she has so much empathy, and a d...
53 minutes | Monday, 28 April 2025
Does going through a rough time make you untrusting of fleeting joyful moments, or make you lean into them harder? For Dannii Minogue it’s the latter.In this chat with Fearne, Dannii explains why getting divorced and having to borrow money from family, coping with sister Kylie’s cancer, and having her body critiqued by the press have taught her to appreciate happiness when it comes.Fearne and Dannii worked together on The X Factor for a bit, and they both discuss what it was like to work on such a juggernaut programme, and chat about how to understand what boundaries you might need to set i...
39 minutes | Friday, 25 April 2025
Is your lifestyle in need of a spring clean? Maybe now’s the moment to pivot your career, pick up healthier habits, or embrace a new life you wouldn’t have chosen, but now need to make the best of?In this episode, Fearne reflects on the Happy Place episodes that’ll give you a bit of a push – or a bit of inspiration – to get you making that fresh start you’ve been thinking about for ages...In this episode you’ll hear from –-Poet Donna Ashworth on making a slow, organic career change later in life, and re-finding who you really want to be under the crap that real life shovels on top of you-TV...
1 hour 3 minutes | Monday, 21 April 2025
It’s Happy Place’s 7th birthday! To celebrate, Fearne’s put down her own trusty notebook and let her presenter mate Alex Jones turn the interview tables!In this chat, Alex asks Fearne about Happy Place’s evolution from a podcast, to a book publisher, to a festival, and now a marketplace too.Fearne opens up about feeling bleak and being on anti-depressants before she created Happy Place, as well as all the moments she’s cocked up personally and professionally over the last seven years. Do you have imposter syndrome and a deep desire to be liked? Fearne chats about how to cope with those feel...
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Why don’t you like yourself? Gabby Bernstein: How to stop numbing difficult emotions
Happy Place with Fearne Cotton

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