The Wellness Scoop - Angela Scanlon: why gratitude is the gateway drug to wellness

Episode Date: February 22, 2023

This week Ella is joined by television presenter Angela Scanlon. In this conversation, Angela opens up about her experience struggling with her mental health all the while succeeding in her professional life, chasing silver bullets to ‘fix’ how she felt, her catalyst moment for redefining her approach to feeling better, as well as the practices that helped her get to a happier and healthier place.   They discuss: Avoiding facing uncomfortable emotions Learning to ask for and accept help from others Chasing silver bullets to ‘fix’ how you feel How to listen to your inner voice Using the mornings to set the tone for the rest of the day Daily gratitude practice   Links: Angela’s book Joyrider: how gratitude can help you get the life you really want Angela’s podcast Thanks A Million For new subscribers, use code podcast20 to get 20% off the Feel Better App  Wellness Toolkit for this episode   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Visit BetterHelp.com today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P.com. Quick favor, could you hit the subscribe button? It really helps get the show out there so that more people can be inspired by the personal growth that our guests are talking about and take those lessons into their own lives. Welcome to Wellness with Ella, the Deliciously Ella podcast. This is a podcast that aims to inspire you, to empower you, to leave you feeling uplifted. And each week I want to share what wellness really looks like as we unpack the simple tools that have helped each one of our guests turn a negative into a positive and unlock true happiness and genuine health and by health I don't mean how they look I mean their energy their excitement their fulfillment the question is

how can we all get more from life so today's guest I've been wanting to have on the show for about six months I read her book last summer and her story and facets of what she talked about deeply resonated with me. The focus of today is really on the fact that first of all the solutions are always internal they're not external you can read every single self-help book out there but unless you really want to make a change it's unlikely anything will happen and also this idea that fundamentally again our self-worth, our self-esteem, our self-awareness, our propensity for self-love are really what underpins genuine health. If you're not able to look after yourself and feel worthy of looking after yourself it's very difficult to make the changes even when

you know what changes may help you so Angela Scanlon is our guest she's a presenter and broadcaster working on things like the BBC's one show and her whole journey started in her early 20s just as her career was taking off but the catalyst was the birth of her first daughter which is an unusual catalyst I think in lots of ways but looking back at the conversation I think that's one of the most raw and vulnerable and genuine conversations I've ever had the privilege of having on this show about how these magic fairy tale moments can sometimes put so much expectation and pressure on ourselves that we feel like a failure. So I really appreciate her vulnerability, her bravery, her honesty. I hope there's a lot that resonates for you

in this episode. So let's get into it. Well, Angela, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here. I've been waiting, what, six months we first talked about this? Yeah. Because I first read your book then and knew we had a lot to talk about. So it's exciting to be here. I wondered if we could start by just you introducing yourself. And I don't mean in terms of like a professional bio. Lots of people will know you, you know, as a very successful woman, you know, you've got your own business and amazing career in broadcasting, you've got your brilliant podcast, but who's Angela?

Oh God, this is the worst question you could ask me. This is the question that actually turned me, like threw me into a tailspin a number of years ago. But when I went to my agency and we were having like a, oh, what are we doing for the year kind of chat and I write about this in Joyrider as one of those moments where I thought oh something is is kind of off because it was like who so you know who who are you who do you who do you want to be and I really really struggled with finding an answer to that and distilling that down I didn't know what I identified as I didn't know know who I, what I liked even. And that sounds like a really simple thing, but I think a lot of people will relate to maybe tweaking and changing their behavior and their way of being and their likes

and their dislikes based on the audience. And I say that, you know, not in terms of a TV audience necessarily, but based on who you're talking to in any given day, whether that's a parent or a friend or an office colleague. And so I had become really, really good at swapping and changing out those kind of faces, if you like. And then when I was asked that really simple question, who are you? I had no answer for it. I felt really deeply kind of wounded really by not being able to answer that question. So now, I mean, I'm a mum, which I used to really balk when people identified as that. I don't know why. I was like, it felt really reductive to me. But I feel now that actually that role is something I have grown

into maybe. And that is deeply fulfilling for me in a way that I possibly didn't think would be at a point. I'm a wife, I'm a sister, I'm a daughter, like all of those things. But ultimately, I'm a kind of slightly messy, fumbling human who is trying to grow, sometimes publicly, sometimes privately. I'm a kind of introverted weirdo who's on a stage. So yeah, that's a bit of a bag full. But yeah, that's kind of where I'm at. As you said, I think we can all deeply relate to that, of that sense of not really knowing who we are or who we want to be and being a bit of a chameleon. Yeah. Because it's easier in lots of ways than having that quite tricky conversation with ourselves. and before we get into that experience and kind of how you came not out the other side but started to form a different pathway how are you doing today I'm good today actually yeah I'm good I

haven't had much sleep I've got a teething baby and so she was up at 5am but actually I'm I'm good yeah and I always say that as in like with an element of surprise like I said I'm good. Yeah. And I always say that as in, like, with an element of surprise, like I said, I'm good. You know, checking over my shoulder. But yeah, I'm solid. Which is a word that I didn't think was very sexy up until recently. But actually, that kind of sense of being grounded, that sense of being, yeah, of some sort of stillness, I think, is something that's really comforting and valuable to me now instead of um boring which is what I thought it was yeah I'd say it's probably my

ultimate goal actually is feeling sort of solid in the sense of contented and grounded versus excited yeah highs and lows yeah because there's a lot about your story that I relate to very very heavily and I think a lot of people who ride the highs and lows and struggle a little bit with it. And so, as I said, I bought Joyrider last year. I actually realized we'd met a few years before that at an event in Ireland, but I didn't put two and two together for a little bit. Anyway, I've devoured the book and I love reading. So when I like something something it's gone in like a day or two yeah addictive personality yeah I hear you and I was just very moved by it as I said because I related to so much of it and I'd absolutely love to go through this journey and I'm always hesitant

to use the word journey because it sounds a bit cliched but I think that is what lots of us actually are on on this idea of how do we move from A to B. And can we go back to the kind of early days of your career? For want of a better expression, before you realised something wasn't right, in a way, what were you chasing at that point in your sort of late teens, early 20s? So, I mean, late teens, early 20s, I was absolutely lost, I would say. I was a bit wild. I had a lot of fun, but I think there was a real disconnect between how I presented with friends, with family outwardly, and how I was behind closed doors, if you like. And I think that I really, really struggled. I didn't know which one was real. And that was very, very difficult because I didn't know whether

I was faking this and this, you know, the outward facing person and whether that kind of heaviness that I felt privately was the real me, so to speak, which just didn't tally with who I was at all or who I identified as being, or maybe more so how I believed it was acceptable to be, truthfully. I think I was confused, which was confusing to people in hindsight, because at the time I appeared as very confident and fun. I was always life and soul. And work-wise for me, it took a long time for me to kind of figure out where I was going. I knew that I wanted to work for myself. That was a non, kind of non-negotiable for me, really, from quite early on. I didn't want to do a normal job. There was a rebelliousness in me.

And there was a kind of entrepreneurial spirit, I think, that I got from my parents, that I wanted to build something for myself. That took many different shapes and forms as time has gone on. But I definitely wanted to do something different. And I had a real sense that I was supposed to be doing something kind of big. And I couldn't articulate that, certainly not to anyone around me, because it seemed, I don't know, frightening to say out loud. By the way, lads, I think I might be kind of a big deal. I was like writing things in books and I would see people in magazines and things. I could do

that. Like out of nowhere, there was no basis for that belief. There was no trajectory. There was no connection. But I had this kind of sense, oh, I think I should be there. How I was getting there, I had no idea. And so I worked in lots of different things. I set up my own stall selling handbags and jewellery. And then I worked in personal shopping. So fashion was an outlet for me, even though I had studied business. And then I got into TV that way. So as like an expert on TV, talking about fashion people, you know, what they wore to the Oscars and stuff like that. And as like an expert on TV, talking about fashion people, you know, what they wore to the Oscars and stuff like that. And I was producing bits. Again, I didn't have the terminology. I didn't understand what producing a segment on a TV show was, but I was booking

models and I was doing this on my lunch break from personal shopping. And so I was kind of, there was a real hustle in me. The first time I did TV, I remember thinking, oh, this is it. Fashion had started to become a little bit tired for me. People consistently asked me what they should wear. I was like, honestly, couldn't give a monkey's what you wear. Obviously, my job was to style them, but actually it was to connect with them and make them, you know, feel good about themselves. I suppose trends were less of an interest to me, I suppose. But when I did TV, I kind of, I felt unsettled and excited and that sense of it being alive and of anything potentially happening was so thrilling to me. And so it felt so exciting and otherworldly, but also completely natural. And I was like, oh, this is actually what

I've been kind of looking for. And so I made a really clear choice to pursue TV. And like I say, there was no connection. I didn't know anyone in the business. But I was kind of into, at that point, vision boarding. I had started looking at rewiring my mind about visualizing things. And I would visualize with real feeling, which is obviously what you have to do. I say obviously. And I would see myself interviewed on chat shows and things happened with like wild speed that it should have never happened. And I maybe understand now having explored all of those things since, but I, if I felt like I found something that really fit for me in telly. And so I went after

that with gusto. And only in hindsight did I realize that maybe all of the energy was a little manic. I mean, it worked, but it was a bit manic. It was a transference of, you know, some behaviours that were unhealthy for me, an eating disorder that I'd lived with for 15 years. I basically was like, oh, I'm going to just shift this to work. And I'm like, when I do things, I like to think I'm good at them. And so I, I mean, I went for it. One of the things I'm quite fixated on at the moment is this contrast between what we see and reality yeah and I don't just mean that with people that we might see in a more public facing role I mean that with our colleagues friends peers anyone we know but outward success we've always been told doesn't equal happiness

but I think it's just becoming clearer and clearer that we look at other people and they as you said like appear with gusto and energy and they look fantastic and they're clearly good at their jobs and delivering and we think I wish I could be like that person I wish I had that confidence I wish I had that drive I wish I had that career then I would be really really happy and I know I've been in that position 100% I'm not naturally a confident person I remember that was my ultimate thing growing up was all the really confident girls and looking at them being like, I wish I could just walk into a room like that. Or I wish I would just have the courage to like make a joke or stand out because I always wanted to blend in. And I'm really interested in that kind of, as you said at the beginning, this kind of push

and pull between what people saw on the outside, which was very successful and brilliant, but then what you felt on the inside, which as you said, it's kind of like a stone on you. You're right. Sometimes it's more pronounced when you're in the public eye because there's an idea and people project their ideas onto you. And also, although I like to think, and when I meet people, they're like, oh, you're exactly the same as you are on telly. And I think I didn't train as a TV presenter. I don't know how you're supposed to stand. I'm not sure how you're supposed to technically interview somebody. I show up and I talk to people and I'm nosy and I'm curious. And I like to think that that's probably why I'm good at my job rather than because I'm super polished because I'm not. That's not how I am.

But I think everyone, there's a disconnect or maybe disconnect is too strong for some people, but there's certainly, I mean, social media is essentially that version of an outward facing persona for everybody now. So everybody has it to a degree. And I think the work and the job and the, I mean, what we're, certainly what I'm striving for is to reconcile those things, is to have the lines much more blurred. And so there is performance, an element of performance. You know, when I do my chat show, I get in the zone. You're entertaining a room full of people. You're navigating a sofa full of famous people. And so it's different to how I am slobbing around with

my kids and my husband. But the goal for me is to figure out how those two parts of me merge and to be able to show either or of them or to maybe become fully comfortable with those bits of me being seen. All of the spectrum rather than just that shiny chat show version of me. So to become comfortable with that level of vulnerability of the fact that we all struggle. Totally. That we all struggle. I mean, I put a massive amount of pressure. And I think perfectionism is this kind of horrid weight that people, you know, if you're that way inclined, it becomes a thing that prevents you from doing anything. There is no room for mistakes. So there's no room for growth. You kind of have all of the ideas. You're able to criticize everybody because you could do it better,

but you're too afraid to do anything because it won't be perfect. And you can't launch anything fully formed. You can't arrive fully formed. But I had this level of expectation that if I was supposed to do a thing, if I was meant to do this thing, that it should feel seamless. That person, she does it and it looks effortless. And so buying into the fantasy that if you're supposed to do something, it should be done with ease, that there is no struggle, that there is no effort, that there's no falling over, that there's no fucking it up, that you, everything goes perfectly. And it just became so, so strangling. It pulled the joy out of everything I ever did because there was no room to ask for help. There was no room to say, oh, by the way, I am like pretty new to this gig. I might need a bit of a hand. But being comfortable enough with

myself, and I mean like base confidence, because like I presented as confidence, but the confidence to really know that you deserve to grow and that you will get better and that you're not supposed to show up perfect. And when you were at that point and you said you were looking around a lot of other people and thinking, oh, she does it seamlessly or he does it seamlessly. Did you feel you were kind of, again, I just think this is something people can relate to so much. You know, my aim is to show these universal challenges and not universal solutions but I think whether it's in tv or whether whatever your job is or whatever you're doing every day I think we all have that those moments in our lives where we feel

lost and confused and we're achieving things but it doesn't marry up with how we feel inside and you know we're presenting on the outside like we're really happy and things are great maybe you're presenting your relationships really happy and you're scared to say it's not I'm not happy this isn't right and it's it's a very daunting moment I think did you feel at this point you were comparing yourself to all these people around you and being like they can all do it right why can't I do this job and be really happy because I certainly have had that a lot in my life and I'd say my career you know I've had quite big chunks of my career where I'd say I was really outwardly successful and inwardly incredibly unhappy you know my first book came out I was

23 I mean I was an absolute baby and it was the fastest selling debut cookbook ever. It spent eight weeks across every category on Amazon and number one. And in retrospect, I'm not sure I realized what an insane deal that, I mean, it was absurd. It was an absurd accomplishment for a baby. You know, I was just very, very young. And I was so unhappy the next six months. I hadn't been particularly happy up until that point. I'd never had this sense of real self-worth and self-confidence and self-esteem.

I didn't really realize it at the time that that was the problem. But in retrospect, it was definitely the problem. And I think I thought that would make life easier. I probably always felt I had something to prove to people because I don't think anyone ever thought I'd be very successful. It felt very much in the shadow of my brother and my sisters. And then my first book came out and by all accounts, it was an extraordinary success. But I spent the next six months with such crippling anxiety that I felt sometimes I couldn't leave the house you know I felt

swallowed and suffocated by it yeah but I wasn't talking about it because I didn't know how to reconcile these two parts I mean I remember my husband this was right around when we met saying it's a bit fake to be honest you know I think he was gentler than that but it's effectively what he said you know you're showing this happy life but you're not really happy at all and anyone from the outside would say wow what an amazing moment and I'm just curious about how you felt this sense of you're achieving what you started to set out to achieve but you're looking at everyone else around you thinking that they've got life much better than you have and you've got this wrangling going on yeah and I think wrangling is exactly it and I really relate to that idea of something happening

outwardly that's like a big deal I mean not to that level but this kind of sense of things that you may have written down dreams lists of things that you would love in your wildest dreams to accomplish. And they start to happen. And you think, so it's like imposter syndrome. And that really comes out. And you know, you will have had people applaud you for your success writing the book. And suddenly that like puts a magnifying glass up to how you really feel about yourself. Because you're thinking, everyone's telling me this is really good and really exciting. And I feel nothing but the opposite of joy or pride or happiness or contentment, whatever it is. And I think for me, it was landing on BBC One.

I was doing cover for the one show. It was, I had done Robot Wars up until that point, which again, I had no idea that that was, you know, what Robot Wars was, truthfully, when they asked me to do it, I had to Google it. But it was a really gentle, loving audience. Then I hopped onto the one show to cover Alex Jones's maternity leave. And suddenly it was millions of people every evening, but it was a massive thing for me. And I had moments where I couldn't leave the house. I was like, oh my God. It was so incredibly overwhelming at a time when I felt like I should be loving this. I'm literally living the dream. Everything I've put on the list

is happening. What is wrong with me? And I think it's at the time, such a frightening place to arrive at because I was mid thirties maybe and had this sense of, oh my God, I'm never going to be happy. I'm never going to be happy. And there's something wrong with me. There's something a bit broken. And this is going to be a long old road. But there's also something that I'm really grateful for is having hit that, having hit those milestones that for me were out of reach and realizing that actually they didn't fill the void, if we want to use yours, feed the beast, whatever it is, that the goalposts will always move. And that as long as you're hoping to fill yourself up from the

outside, they'll continue to move. You will reach them. You'll have a little moment. You'll, you know, feel shiny for 10 seconds. But there's a kind of, and the word I come back to is like there's a hollowness to those achievements sometimes if you are not nurturing yourself internally, I suppose. That all of that stuff is lovely, but it's not the answer. I'm really interested in this idea. And by the way, I completely agree it's not the answer. But I'm very interested in the idea of thinking you're broken and you know I hope you don't mind me going into that because I just wonder how many people listening how many people we all know how many people just living their lives today feel alone in that question you know I've certainly had that at points again in my life

where I think am I just not like everyone else am I the only person that feels this way you know am I the only person that can't really figure myself out that can't really be happy I don't think I was happy yeah for probably 30 of my almost 32 years I almost think I've only been happy for the last couple of years having worked on actually understanding my self-esteem and everything but I just wonder maybe that's extreme but I just wonder how many people have wondered if there's something wrong with them too because they don't feel quite like everyone else but we don't actually know what everyone else feels like which is just this interesting contrast how long did you feel that sense of kind of

something wasn't right like I mean I don't think that is dramatic to say it was it was 30 years I think a lot of people are unhappy or maybe not unhappy but are I wasn't unhappy for most of it it wasn't yes I had very some very serious issues with my mental health when I was ill but you know let's say that was two of the 30 years I wasn't inherently unhappy I wouldn't have seeked help for low mood. Yeah. But I didn't feel a true sense of contentment, of ease. I felt, like you said, this almost weight on me. Like I just wasn't, something just hadn't clicked. You know, I didn't have an ease in my life in any capacity.

I didn't naturally wake up and think like, yes, this is a great day. And, you know, I think, again, it's a fantasy to believe that other people have that naturally. And I think the people who do, many, maybe people, some people do because the habits have been instilled from the time they're small. But it ultimately, I think it's about the tools and the habits that you do every single day. I think I certainly felt ease was nothing close to what I felt. And only now that I do regularly have a sense of ease and contentment, do I realize how like that's really the thing we should be striving for because it's so, I mean, the opposite of it is disease. And so I think we underestimate the importance of that,

but also we underestimate how, maybe not difficult it is, but that that's actually, it takes work and it takes commitment and it takes everydayness, which is not a word, but it's that routine. It's the kind of more day-to-day things that most of us don't want to hear. We want instant gratification. We want immediate change. We want transformation overnight. And actually, it does take a few years. I mean, technically 30 days to install a new habit or whatever, but actually it's the commitment to doing something day to day. And truthfully, a lot of the time it requires you to slow down long enough to hear something inside go, I'm not okay. Or I don't feel, this is not enough for me. Whatever this is, is not enough for me. And to hear yourself say that,

you can't. And I write about this in Joyrider. It was one of the most confronting moments. And it's that sense of fully knowing yourself and self-knowledge and everything else being born out of that. I think we are so busy being busy that we never sit down to actually listen to ourselves. And most of us are too afraid because bubbling in the background are the answers to changes that we need to make, things that we've ignored, ways that we've abandoned ourselves. And so to sit down and hear that, you cannot unhear it and you either have to continue to ignore it and to distract yourself with addiction or whatever unhealthy behaviors or you have to change and that's hard it's so hard and I know in my experience I think you've got to feel worthy of that change and I think for a lot of people

that's myself very much included that's that and the self-awareness are two very difficult things and before we move into a little bit about kind of that catalyst moment for you because I think it's a really important kind of step in in the conversation what did that you know you touched on it really quickly earlier but that sense of kind of addiction and avoidance and numbing out how did that look in your life because again I think this sense of burying the conversation with ourselves yeah and thinking oh it's okay because I've done really well at work or it's okay because I've got lots of friends and keep pushing it down almost makes it easier

to ignore it because some things feel like they're going really well well I think so with my eating disorder it started when I was end of school kind of. And I think with distance and with time, for me, it was connected to developing actually physically developing into a woman and not feeling prepared for that at all. My eating disorder, and it was anorexia and bulimia, depending, they kind of interchanged. But it was a way to keep my world really small, actually. I wanted to travel. I kind of had this idea of myself and I did. I traveled relentlessly. But actually, I think I was really, I am really sensitive. And I did not like that about myself. It felt like a weakness. It felt like a chink in my armor. It felt like I just was not equipped to deal with

the world in the way that everyone else seemed to be equipped. And so I thought that I could run away and go to fancy places and pretend I was this Carrie Bradshaw type woman. But equally, I think my control around food allowed for me to fixate so deeply on something really tiny, like meal to meal. It meant that I didn't have to look. I didn't have to take my head up and go, what do I want to do with my life? That's a big old question to ask as a teenager or in your early twenties, or if you don't really know where you're going. And so it allowed for me to feel quite safe and protected. My mind was preoccupied. My world was pretty tiny, but it was also deeply lonely and isolating and embarrassing actually. And so there was this shame around it. I didn't want to let it go because I didn't trust what

might happen if I let it go. I didn't think I was ready. And so I had to get to a point where I was actually just so sick of being miserable and of feeling quite hopeless actually I was like there's literally no reason why I should feel this way and so I again didn't realize at the time but very neatly switched my commitment to that behavior to work. I was like, I read an article about bulimia, which said it takes 14 days for your body to normalize after a binge purge episode. The language was always a bit weird. And I thought, oh, I don't have, I don't have that time. I'm now, like, I have got to start working for myself and building a business and creating a career and building a life. And it was like this very, like really, really clear line in the sand

where I thought, well, that's that. That's history. And I am now focusing elsewhere. And so all of the drive, all of that relentless passion, I guess, that I had reserved for my eating disorder went into work. And it's tricky because I'm really grateful for a lot of that that kind of drive in an industry and you'll relate to this it's a it's a difficult industry to crack and I am grateful it yielded results for me there was definitely more benefits to being addicted to work than being addicted to food. But did you feel the same loneliness continue? Yeah, which was the frightening thing. And look, it took me much longer to recognize. I just thought I was superhuman and that I had magically cured myself of an eating disorder literally overnight by making a decision that I didn't have time anymore, which is obviously ridiculous. It was

interesting because on the one hand, yes, I was being rewarded financially and publicly. And, you know, I was shiny. It was interesting to people that I was doing this, you know, public career seemingly out of nowhere. But it was more lonely because I guess nobody really recognised that it was problematic because, you know, I was flying. Did it build up like a niggling sense of it being problematic? And did you talk to anyone about it or did you keep it really locked in? I kept it totally locked in until I realized that I literally was. I was finding it hard to leave the house unless I had to get in a car to go to work. And I think we kind of wrote it off.

And, you know, my husband, he was like this. I don't I mean, I don't think this is normal, really. And I would just get fixated. And we kind of put it down to anxiety of like increasingly bigger jobs, you know, and me thinking, oh, I just need to get comfortable with this growth. But it happened gradually, I think. And then I spoke to a therapist about it a few years later, actually. It took me a while. And I remember a lot of the time it was tied up in logistics for me. So I wouldn't recognize that I needed time or space.

I would literally look at a diary. And if there was an hour in the middle of a day, I could fit in a podcast, let's say. There was no recognition of my limits or my needs as a human being. It was a diary, like fill my day basically. And I can keep going literally until I fall over. And so when I went to my therapist, who's still my therapist, I basically went saying my life has turned into work I don't everything else is sacrificed so I make loose plans my work plans are concrete and everything else is you know I have commit to and then I cancel if something work-related comes up or if I double book that goes and she was like what about your normal diary I was like

I don't what do you mean she said do you do you have a personal diary I was like no I have a work diary that my agent fills and then I show up and so it was the first time that I recognized that I was not in touch with what I needed like in real real life. Did you feel you were an autopilot in some ways? Yeah. And, you know, much like that fear of sitting down and listening to yourself, it was much easier for me to be busy all day, every day, be so tired I fell asleep. And holidays were really problematic for that very reason, because suddenly the space in a day allowed for the things that you're running away from to surface. And weirdly, I had gotten into this thing where I was so

overworked that I'd get into a car and I would literally just fall asleep. And I think it was my body's way of going. I just couldn't cope with understanding any of those emotions or the things that I had been kind of running from. So I just, yeah, I mean, not quite narcolepsy, but it felt a bit like that. I like the way you talk about this running away though. Because again, even if, you know, depending where you are in the kind of continuum, this idea, you know, you put it just very succinctly, the idea that you're watching TV, but you're also reading a book, but you're also texting someone or scrolling Instagram. And, you know, you're at work, but you're thinking about making toast, but then you don't make toast. Should you make toast or could you go and buy bread? And then I'm kind of in this meeting, but I'm kind of on my phone.

Oh, what's my friend just said? And it's this sense that we collectively struggle so much to sit still and just read a book or just watch TV. Almost at this point, I feel like just watching TV is quite an alien concept without your phone, without your laptop. And I'm not saying that's always unhealthy, but it's just this, I think it's challenging for the brain on a physiological level, that consistent overstimulation. And again, I think you're very succinct in the fact that I don't think we always recognize that for the brain on a physiological level that consistent overstimulation yeah and again I think you're very succinct in the fact that I don't think we always recognize that the overstimulation it's just physiologically quite challenging on our minds and on our bodies and

sometimes it can lead to anxiety or feelings like anxiety and we think there's you know it's tied to work or it's tied to this but it's also just tied to this intense busyness and this consistent distraction and burn it i mean you're kind of operating at a level where your brain is fried completely fried i want to talk about your catalyst moment this moment where you realized you deserve to kind of find joy and you weren't happy and you know something had to change and i think what fascinates me if you don't mind me saying about this catalyst moment is that from the outside again it should have been the happiest of moments it was the birth of your first child and yet that was the moment actually you felt your life imploded which again i just think dispels a lot of these myths that a anything has

to be a certain way you know so and I think we often put a lot of pressure and expectation on ourselves you know birth of our first child our wedding our dream job whatever it is this has to be phenomenal and sometimes it doesn't feel like that and that that's okay that doesn't make you a failure and I think that's an interesting recognition but again the fact that sometimes things just work out really differently for some people and sometimes moments from the again looking at it from the outside that we think wow great job great husband baby yeah tick tick tick life is sorted and that was the moment you felt life imploded you're a podcast listener and this is a podcast ad heard only in canada reach great canadian listeners like yourself with podcast advertising from libsyn ads choose from hundreds of top

podcasts offering host endorsements or run a pre-produced ad like this one across thousands of shows to reach your target audience with libsyn ads Email bob at libsyn.com to learn more. That's B-O-B at L-I-B-S-Y-N dot com. That was the moment you felt life imploded. And imploded. I mean, I sometimes say, oh my God, I'm so dramatic. But also, you know, it, that feel, it feels really heavy, I suppose. And even when I talk about it, and now I think I have my own struggles with guilt

because my experience second time round was different. And so I'm very grateful, I guess, for that experience because it essentially pushed me into this journey, we use that word, that allowed for a different experience. But it's still hard to admit that it wasn't perfect for me, certainly. And yeah, it probably was one of those things where the expectation around that moment, I thought I would feel whole, I would feel full and happy. I'd be natural. I would be, you know, just this earth mother type. And it was, again, that forced sitting physically under a baby and thinking, oh my God, what am I doing? And the fear of having this tiny, beautiful little soul completely dependent on me, and the fear that I would not be able to deliver for her what she deserved or what she expected or what she needed.

And so I had, and truthfully, I think, and people may relate to this more. For me, it put me in touch with my inner child and me as a baby in a way that was so like moving to me and so overwhelming that I was like, oh my God, I kind of had compassion for myself in a way that was like hard to handle, you know, because I thought, oh, I've actually been quite, yeah, just relentless with myself forever. And then suddenly I have this baby and I think, oh my God, I was a baby. I actually, you know, was completely dependent on a mum who was probably struggling in a similar way that I am. And so I had compassion for my own mother that was new for me. I suddenly had this kind of sense of, oh, wow. Yeah, it's messy. The whole thing is messy. And my expectations around what perfection looks like as a parent

and that dynamic and that relationship and everything just like flew out the window. It was tough, but it was also the moment where I thought, whatever I've been doing up until now, I don't want to continue because I thought whatever habits I've gotten into, whatever behaviors I have built my life around, I've gotten to this point and like, it's not right. This is not how I want to be. And I don't want my daughter to learn that this is the way to be. And so it was kind of, that was the kick up the arse for me was, I need to fix stuff so that she doesn't end up like this. It's so honest that I have to say, and I don't know about other people listening,

and I really, really relate to you saying how difficult it is to say that out loud because I think I had, it's probably why I love joyrider so much because I felt it validated so much of my own experience in my life but not to sound deeply self-centered no no but that I mean that's what I hoped for yeah and then it's absolutely what you achieved and it's that's how I felt after my first daughter was born and I've always find that really hard to kind of admit because you do you think it's going to be perfect and I'd been living the busiest of lives and every second was full and I don't really know what I was chasing but something and almost at this point just like keeping up and she was born and it wasn't easy it was really really really hard why I thought it

would be easy goodness knows but it wasn't it really really wasn't and I found breastfeeding almost impossible and I found I almost used that as the validation that I wasn't very good at this and and I found it really difficult and I went back to work after like four or five weeks and I always say you know I haven't really talked about this before but I always say you know I had to go back to work and it's so interesting because I've been on a real journey of self development the last few years and like really putting my mental health first and as again very I think very similar to you and really understanding like that joy and contentment is the goal of life and living life with this sense of ease is it's literally life

today in life five years ago it's like they bear no resemblance to each other which I'm incredibly grateful for but I nothing about that experience was good and I said I said I had to go back to work but I I think I said I had to go back to work to keep myself very very busy and distracted and not really admitting that you know I was kind of felt like I was drowning really in lots of ways and you know I'm sure there were things I couldn't get out of you know I'd committed to doing a cookbook and we had a shoot and I hadn't done any of the recipes because I had such bad morning sickness and all the rest of it I probably couldn't have got out of that but all of that by the shoot could have been done at home but I was like got to keep going with the podcast got to do this and I was like running around London six weeks after she was born and then yeah got to get back to

breastfeed at two o'clock like who knows what I was thinking and it's a really interesting one to look back on with a lot of self-compassion now and I appreciate why you say it's so difficult to talk about but I also think it brings a lot of validation and comfort to a lot of women who are potentially in that place or almost just permission that if and when they are ever in that place it doesn't necessarily have to look how it sometimes looks for other people which is that this happens and your life's complete sometimes it happens and as you said it holds up the most brutal of mirrors to the fact

something's wrong yeah and actually for me it didn't happen until almost a few months later because when she was about seven months covid happened yeah and lockdown kicked in yeah and i had to sit still and everything i was meant to do for the next few months was cancelled i was meant to be on a book tour and blah blah blah and everything was cancelled and I was pregnant second time around and became honest with myself about it and I did yeah started this journey at that point but I think it's just incredibly brave to be honest about the fact that these moments can be the making of you and what did that look like because again this is what fascinates me this idea of this wake-up moment I need to make a change but making the change and seeing the change through

is a whole different ball game yeah kind of what did you do the next day I mean I don't know that it was like I and I and I do write about this in Joyrider, I would, in moments of desperation, like text people. And then I would shamefully kind of retreat and be like, oh no, no, no, no, it's absolutely fine. So I knew something was wrong. I would try to reach out and then I would go, oh no, no, no, hang on. I'm not there. And I guess maybe people talk about a rock bottom, those moments where you're on your knees, literally, because maybe I do have one of those moments where I kind of could see I was clinging on so tightly. And it was linked to breastfeeding actually at the time. And I was pumping and it became such a fixation for me. I was like,

if I don't manage to breastfeed this baby, it was like the emotion of being a mother was so overwhelming to me. But if I could focus on the mechanical side of being a mother, then that was much like the logistics in my diary. I didn't have to really delve into need and limitations and space and room for messiness and room for like wriggle room, I suppose, room for humanness, I think. And so the breastfeeding thing was like a mechanical obsession. And I just was so green and I was pumping like a crazy woman. I mean, I had a fridge full of breast milk and then I thought, oh shit, I've got loads, but I can take a few days off. That's obviously not how it works. And suddenly I had no milk and I was literally walking. I remember walking the street

one Sunday morning, weeping, leaving a voice memo to a friend going I'm just waiting for the health food shop to open so I can buy some brewer's yeast because my milk supply has gone down and now I need more milk and the milk in the fridge has run out and I now have no breast milk because I've obviously stopped pumping for a few days anyway and then I remember pumping and getting like a minuscule amount. This is a niche content. And my husband, he was like, you need to get some rest. And I was so wired that I couldn't. I was like, fine, there's 50 mils. I had spent an hour pumping 50 mils. So I put it in a bottle. I handed it to him. I kissed her goodnight. I went upstairs. And then I heard like literally as I was leaving the room, the teat in the bottle hadn't been like popped. And so the 50 mils was all over her baby

grope. And that was it. And like the plan had been that I would go and get this like magical three hours sleep that would suddenly replenish my stocks and that I'd feed her in three hours time. Anyway, that didn't happen. And he was like, we're done. Sunday night, he went to the local petrol station and bought some formula. And I remember weeping as I went up the stairs. I was like, I can't look at you doing this. And I lay down and I thought, A, it's absolutely mental. And then I felt a relief that he had kind of taken it into his own hands and been like, enough is enough. Sorry, go to bed. So he fed her. Anyway, I ended up breastfeeding for nine months and getting somehow managing to get it back on track.

But it was a moment where I thought that is, it's so manic and so out of proportion for what's happening. My emotional state is not, I'm not okay. And I found a therapist and I rang and I was like, I briefly went to therapy, you know, in my late teens when I had originally told my parents about my eating disorder, but it was a bit token. I wasn't ready. And I told her and I was like, I need help. And it was like the first time I had said that to anybody where I was like, I need help. And it was like the first time I had said that to anybody where I was like, something needs to change, whatever it is. I don't care.

I don't have the answers anymore. I've read all the self-help books. I've read everything since I was 15 years of age. And I've been trying to consume all of these things and nothing is working for me. Please, please help me. And what did you start to do? So you started to talk to her. And I think it's a very interesting point, this idea of waiting until you're ready. My dad sent me to therapy when I was ill and I just wasn't ready to be there. So I just sat there,

it was very defensive in retrospect. And I said, I said I'm ill you know I can't do anything anyone else can do I can barely leave the house I sleep 16 hours a day I can't really walk down the street so I feel quite left out there's nothing anyone can do about the illness so there we go what do you get and she basically said I'm not really sure there's much I can do and I took that as a sign of there you go validated you are broken no one can fix you off you go that was just pointless and actually I was just not ready for it and I haven't been back but I've done a lot of other exploring through other different ways but it's a really interesting point I think of read all the books but unless

you're ready to make a change and you know that fully within yourself, it doesn't really mean anything. How many books did you read? All of them. I mean, I never, I'm slightly embarrassed to say that I don't read fiction. I've literally, since I've been 15 years of age, probably, and they were called self-help then, not self-development. That's all the books I've read, maybe an autobiography, but I was reading, again, in a slightly unhealthy way. Betterment was my goal. It wasn't escape or comfort of reading a book, curling up with a book. It was like, okay, how do I make myself better through reading this information? And look, I love that. I have a thirst and an interest in

all of those different things. It's how Joyrider came about because I feel like I've kind of done a lot of that consumption on your behalf. But I do think it is readiness. And look, my hope for people is that they don't get to that point where they're literally falling apart to say, can somebody help me? Or to look for help. And I say help. For me, having a baby meant that I couldn't be a lone wolf anymore. I had to depend massively on my husband. I had to depend on a nanny. I had to depend on people. Like if I needed to go to a doctor, I needed somebody to help me. And I had never done that. I'd prided myself on being able to go wherever I wanted, whenever I wanted, pay with money I'd earned myself. I was completely independent. And so it was a shock to the system in so many ways. And the kind of way that I had constructed my life, baby aside, suddenly it was that sense of having to reach out and ask for help and be dependent on other

people. That was a big issue for me. But I think for most people, they're just looking for ways to shift perspective. They may not be as deep in the solo hole as me. Like gratitude, which was the starting point for my podcast, Thanks a Million, and also for Joyrider was one of the practices that I started to lean on really, really heavily and more seriously. It was something I dipped in and out of for a long time before that and kind of dismissed. And this is something I would encourage people to do. Often we think, we look back and go,

oh, when I was in a not so great place, what was I doing? How do I change that? But actually taking note of the things you're doing when you are in a good place is invaluable when those cycles or periods happen when you're not feeling so good. And gratitude was the thing

that was a kind of recurring theme and practice to me. And I completely took it for granted because it was easy and free and something that I had to do every day rather than just a pill that I could swallow. And that would fix me and was, you know, a bit fabulous. I want to go a deep dive into gratitude in a sec. I'm really interested, you said that kind of that desire for the silver bullet the quick fix I mean there can't be anyone on this planet who hasn't wished for that that you can just pass it over to someone else in a way and I know you said

you have tried all of it all the self-care all the self-development all the weird and the wacky and the wonderful what did you try what was the weirdest thing why did I try I did like psyche which is an energetic thing I did tem temascals what's that sound baths they're kind of like shaman shamanistic ritualistic things where you would you know slightly purge not ayahuasca but like in that vein tinctures potions supplements like weird and wacky things that that's my it's still my playground I go into a health food shop I go my husband relentlessly teased me about my list of quacks and I've made peace with that because actually I think I just like being rubbed, you know, so whether that's reflexology or massage or Reiki or all of those things, they, I really love them. And actually that self-care and that

kind of nurture, sometimes maybe the things I wasn't able to give to myself, I was able to somehow get from other people. However, I was consuming them with the hope that they would, yeah, make me feel fixed. And I don't think any of them do. I mean, much like I don't think therapy on its own does that. I think it's a much bigger picture, which is boring for people to hear. And that idea of having to show up every day, meditation's a big part of my life now and of my practice and in my toolkit. But most people are like, fuck that, I'm sorry. I don't have time for meditation. Where is the pill? Oh my gosh, I said I didn't have time for meditation for like five years. i i get

that completely i literally sound like you're creepy i'm like i don't know but like so many of us would like meditate sure we don't have time yeah i also pumped for an hour to get five mils of breast milk i totally relate to that deeply deeply deeply but do you say and i don't want to be reductive with this but would you say if you were thinking those external things, whilst they are really good, as you said, for nourishing, showing the fact that you do want to nourish yourself and you do want to take care of yourself and you can slow down, they didn't fix it because on their own, that's not so much often the case. Do you feel like what, I don't want to say fixed but what helped you kind of create a different pathway was cultivating self-belief self-esteem self-worth a real relationship with yourself do you feel like fundamentally that is what made the difference 100 yes it was those uncomfortable and I think of

meditation and often my meditation was sitting for an hour with myself and like listening to myself. So not always being in that Zen moment, but actually not being distracted by a million different things and actually hearing myself talk internally or my higher self, whatever way you want to frame that. But I think properly getting to know myself and like myself and care enough about myself to give myself the things that I needed to actually. And I think that was the thing with having children was I would literally lie down in the middle of the road for them. Not that that's a very useful exercise, but that I would do anything, yet I would never have offered that sort of compassion or care or commitment to myself. And so suddenly I thought,

oh no, the love that I give to other people, I have got to start throwing some of it at myself, not just the crumbs that are left. And so, yeah, it's not the platitudes. It's every day going, you actually do deserve a nap or a day off or a hug, you know, or it's okay to lie down and have a cry or to fuck something up and start again or to just give yourself a break I suppose but I had to yes sit properly sit with myself me too and how long it's a really weird question because kind of how long's a piece of string but how long do you think it took so roughly to accept yourself to like yourself to say you know what I've done a good job like I'm worth keeping taking care of

I think that's still a process for me but is it better than where it was, you know, four or five years ago? Infinitely better, infinitely better. Because here's the thing. Now I recognize when I'm moving into those states, when I'm starting to, I mean, one of my coping mechanisms when I feel overwhelmed is adding more to my plate. So it's like the fear of feeling overwhelmed pushes me to a behavior, which is exacerbating things. But to say, guys, I feel really overwhelmed. Can somebody help me? That's the worst place I can be. So I just fill my diary up. I kind of go into this mode of I can do it all. Fill, fill, fill. And now I recognize, oh, that's like... Self-sabotage.

Totally. I'm more in tune with myself so I can recognize, oh, okay, that behavior is my cue that something is up. The kind of manicness that I move towards, which is kind of a manifestation, whether that would be eating, work, that kind of state is a clue. So instead of going, I hate that I have that weakness or that tendency or that inability to cope, I go, oh, cool. It's a little signpost for me that something has gone off. And I just now will go, I need to clear the decks tomorrow or I need to let somebody down, actually. And I'm sorry I committed to that thing when I thought I could do everything. But I realized that that's not good. It's catching myself, really. And that's an ongoing thing, but it's, yeah, giving myself a break and then just being more mindful of when I fall off the wagon.

And I think that's a lifelong process, isn't it? I mean, I know I started working on this sort of two, two and a half years ago, and I feel the sense of ease and contentment and peace with myself that I've never felt before. And it's changed my life more than I could ever begin to say. But it's certainly like a daily practice, 100%. And I feel like it will be until I'm 100. I can't see ever a world in which I let all the habits that make me feel that way go. And then I keep being happy.

I think I need those like daily little check-ins very, very much. And on that, what are your sort of daily, daily-ish habits? What do you feel you do most days or most weeks to really look after yourself? Again, it depends on time. And Joyrider was written and Thanks A Million was kind of formed because gratitude felt really fluffy to me. The way it was presented was always quite fluffy. And so it would slightly throw away the science and the hard kind of benefits. And I thought, OK, my dad's probably not going to go and do a gong bath to help his vibration, although he definitely should. But he would

probably sit in his chair and go oh these are three things I'm grateful for there's a that was felt like a little habit that I call gratitude the gateway drug into into wellness it's the easiest way the easiest habit or one of the things that you can do to kind of properly shift your perspective. And I think for me that, and we touched on it earlier on that idea of comparison and looking around and I was obsessed, you know, with measuring my progress, my success, my happiness in comparison to somebody else. And look, that's a natural thing to do as humans. It's what pushes us to evolve and to grow and to get better and to strive. And I love that.

And I love that kind of hunger in myself as an attribute. I really appreciate that now. But we can do it like literally before we leave bed, hop on Instagram and your day has been annihilated because a teenage billionaire has saved a whale or something. I don't know. And you're like, I mean, there's no point really in getting up and recording your podcast, babe. So it's kind of, I think, using gratitude to really focus on the things that you have control of, the things that you have right now and feeling nourished and feeling fed and feeling full by what you have in order to kind of cultivate more of that state in your life. So that is the thing that I start my day with,

in bed, hand on my heart, hand on my belly, and literally feel into three things. And it could be the sheets or it could be my daughter's chattering in the next room. It could be, you know, something that I'm excited to do in the day, but it's, it's getting into the feeling of it, which I think is the key rather than just banging off a list of stuff. And then it's finding space. I used to, again, like really be annoyed with myself that I wasn't up and on a treadmill at 6am like all the rest of the A-types. And I realized actually what I love is a slightly slower build to a morning. And that's not always possible, but I like to challenge myself to slow down time. So even finding five minutes and going, okay, I mean, the ideal is a 40 minute meditation. When that doesn't happen, it's sitting by my window in my

favorite chair with a blanket and five minutes of going, I am going to be right here for five minutes. And I'm going to, and I can hear chaos in the background or not if I get up early enough. And I just have this little moment to check in with myself in a way that I might not be able to for the rest of the day when I get busy and I'm in a mode of doing and creating and producing. And so it's that little moment where I can go, how are you? Are you OK? And I care enough that I can hear whatever comes up, or at least I know that I've had that little check in. Cacao,

which has kind of become this, and we spoke about this when you were on my podcast, this little ritual. And I love ritual. I love ceremony. I, you know, and I don't know whether that's a boundaries thing that I find it difficult to go. I am in this office. Please don't disturb me. I have to go, I'm doing a ceremony. It needs to, you know, have a certain level of pomp and grandeur in order for me to protect it. But the idea of like pouring, you know, a little bit of intention and that kind of presence that I get with wrapping my hands around a warm mug and breathing it in and whatever your belief is, that idea around the energy in that being slow and being soft. And it kind of reminds me to breathe so those are the things that I guess my my morning will start with maybe a little journaling although that's quite sporadic and often is made up of multiple to-do lists and multiple journals in many different places but yeah those

are the kind of things that I do and then cold showers which I love which is very much on the other side and I think balance is something that I really strive for because I do like that a-type kind of I like to get you done what I think I need to work harder at spaciousness and finding that space. So if I can somehow manage to marry those two, it's a good day. And do you feel like a fundamentally completely different person than you felt like five, ten years ago? Does life every day feel very different? It feels like, I mean, I probably maybe a year ago would have said, yeah, I'm completely different. But then there's a bit of me that feels like

that's a total rejection of a self that was actually really trying hard for many years to be helpful, I suppose. And so I like to think that those bits of me that were broken or problematic were well-meaning. And I did a retreat during the summer with Dr. Joe Dispenza. I don't know whether you're familiar. And I did a meditation in that retreat. And this moment, and often you're like striving for these moments of wholeness and you kind of hear, and I have had some of those moments where I realize like how massive everything is and how much a part of all of this I am and how all of my problems are really not problems. But I had this moment, which I didn't realize until after was quite pivotal, where I was kind of out of my body and looking at myself. And I was really frustrated because there's this

meditation, which is like about the pineal gland, which is, you know, opening yourself up to another dimension. And so a lot of it is around manifesting and like being better. And I'm really good at that. Like I try really hard. I really commit. But I just wasn't getting it. There were people in the room around me, like having these outer body, like very high volume moments. I'm not doing it right. I'm not doing it right. And so in this meditation and we touched on acceptance, there was this moment where I just thought, so me up here looking down, saw like the version of me that tries really hard. And I thought, that's really annoying.

I want to be so effortless. I want things to look like they happen easily. And I just fell in love with the bit of me that really, really wants to do something well. And that's really conscientious and that shows up and that tries and like doesn't get it right ever probably. But that really tries. And it was this, I think, kind of integration of a bit of myself that I hated for so long because it was so try hard. And it was, yeah, just a little bit embarrassing for me and so I'm maybe less inclined to dismiss and like graduate away

from older versions of myself and try and yeah lovingly bring them along by the way completely agree that I think you can't just cut off that old part of you. I think you can feel fundamentally different, but unless you accept the old part and realise they'll always be on the journey with you, then it's going to be really difficult to, again, feel the way you potentially are looking to feel. Well, to feel whole, if you're like literally discarding bits of you that are fundamental to who you are and the same with my eating disorder I'm like oh that bit of me it was destructive there's no doubt about it and needs to be handled but like was well-intentioned was actually trying to mind me

in a weird perverse sort of way and so I so I think that's the compassion piece. And for me, self-care can feel Instagrammable and beautiful and aesthetically pleasing, but a little bit hollow if self-compassion is not at the core of what you're doing every day. And that is to accept the messy, ugly, embarrassing bits of yourself that aren't as evolved or as fabulous as you think they are. I love that. That feels the perfect place to end. Honestly, Angela, thank you so much for being so honest. Apologize for being your number one groupie thing. Oh my God, that way. But I have. I love it. And I appreciate the validation you give us all thank you what an episode there was so much in that

conversation that we don't really say out loud so often and those thoughts look different on all of us but I think there is a lot that we can learn from just saying it out loud and I think it normalizes so much of the reality of life which is messy and layered and totally non-linear and totally imperfect and the more we're all honest about the fact that that's what it looks like on all of us maybe the more self-compassion we can bring to the table because we know it's normal not to be normal so I hope it was helpful as always we will round up all the tools that are relevant to the episode and to our guest and the sorts of themes that they've talked about and how you can bring those into your life on feel better the deliciously Ella app all the details for that and a special discount

code are in the show notes for you and as always I would love to hear from you I guess particularly after that episode that was so vulnerable and raw did it resonate did it help get in touch podcast at deliciouslyella.com or just at deliciouslyella on social I would really really appreciate your thoughts so I will see you back here next week. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to join us. It really does mean more than I can ever say to you. I genuinely so, so appreciate it.

And as always, just a big thank you to Curly Media, who are our partners in producing the show each week. you're a podcast listener and this is a podcast ad heard only in canada reach great canadian listeners like yourself with podcast advertising from Libsyn Ads. Choose from hundreds of top podcasts offering host endorsements or run a pre-produced ad like this one across thousands of shows to reach your target audience with Libsyn Ads.

Email bob at libsyn.com to learn more. That's B-O-B at L-I-B-S-Y-N dot com.