Happy Place Hotline: Excruciating embarrassment and resisting rest

0:00This ad is sponsored by ZocDoc. Hi, it's Danny Pellegrino from Everything Iconic. Have you been putting off that annual doctor's appointment because you don't want to make the call? Or maybe you've been meaning to find a new dentist, but you have no idea where to start? I find that's especially true when you move. It's hard to find your people. I've been there, which is why I use ZocDoc. Now, as a busy podcaster, parent, and someone who's always juggling a million things, I love anything that makes life easier. and ZocDoc lets you search and compare local in-network doctors with over 250 ,000 providers across more than 200 specialties.

0:33You can read reviews from real patients, find a provider who feels like the right fit, see actual appointment openings, and book instantly. I recently had a last-minute health issue pop up and needed to see someone fast. Instead of calling around or sitting on hold, I found a doctor on ZocDoc and booked an appointment in just a few minutes. It made the whole process so much less stressful. Now, taking care of your health just got easier. Download the ZocDoc app today. That's ZocDoc, Z-O-C-D-O-C, and book that appointment on your to-do list. Some travelers want the charm of an independent hotel.

1:07Others want the confidence of a trusted global brand. With Series by Marriott, you get both. Each property is uniquely connected to its destination, delivering local experiences and memorable stays while being backed by the quality, reliability, and Marriott Bonvoy benefits travelers know and trust. Experience the destination without the compromise. Series by Marriott is part of Marriott Bonvoy. Book direct at Marriott.com or on the Marriott Bonvoy app. Help I Sex and My Boss is the podcast where manners meets mayhem. I'm William Hanson. I'm Jordan North. And together we take on the hilarious challenges of modern life.

1:44William's the arbiter of etiquette. And Jordan's the chaotic yin to my perfectly polished yang. So if you want laugh out loud stories and brutally honest moments, then you'll love Help I Sexted My Boss. Watch and listen every Tuesday and Friday. On YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts. Just search Sexted. Be warned, it's a bit rude.

2:08Fearne Cotton: Hello everyone, I'm Fern Cotton and welcome to Happy Place. it's time again to open the Happy Place hotline. This is a chance for you to get in touch with your dilemmas, if you so choose, and your voice notes and little life updates. You can basically use and abuse this hotline, well within reason, for whatever reason you need. You can tell us a problem you've got going on, something like some great news that's happened to you, a funny story, whatever you like. So I want to hear all about what's going on for you. You can email me hello at happyplaceofficial.co.uk or you can just slide into our DMs.

2:50Fearne Cotton: You can give us a little voice note on Instagram. It's at happyplaceofficial. So right, let's get to some of your brilliant messages that you've sent in. This one is from... Hello, it's Olivia. It's Olivia. Olivia says, I have loved the pod for years, so wanted to write in. I've realised recently that I've somehow become the person everyone comes to when they're having a difficult time. My friends ring me when they're upset. My family relies on me to organise things, and at work I'm always the one who will step in when someone needs sorting. I genuinely like being someone who can be depended on.

3:28Fearne Cotton: I care about the people in my life, and I don't want to become someone who's less available or less generous. But lately, I've started to feel quite resentful, which makes me feel awful because nobody's actually asked me to do these things. I just automatically say yes. The problem is when I'm the one having a hard time, I find it really difficult to ask for help. I think part of me feels that I'm the capable one. I should be able to cope. And another part worries that if I stop being so useful to people, they might not need me in the same way. I'm starting to wonder whether I've accidentally taught everyone that I'm fine all the time.

4:01Fearne Cotton: How do you learn to put your own needs first without feeling selfish? And how do you stop being the person who holds everything together long enough to let someone else look after you? Olivia, this is an excellent, excellent topic for us to look at. There's so many things I want to say. I'm going to start by just one sentence that you put here. And this one for me is a great subject because I was slash still can be an Olivia. I can so be an Olivia. And it's taken me a good couple of years to undo some of the things I've put in place as you have, Olivia. So you said here, I care about the people in my life and I don't want to become someone who's less available, I think you should.

4:50Fearne Cotton: I think you should become much, much less available without a doubt. The problem is in this day and age, we can be available 24-7. We feel we have to get back to text messages and phone calls immediately because if we don't, we worry like, oh, they'll think I don't care about them or whatever it might be. And I think making yourself slightly less available is the best bit of self-compassion you can give yourself because where, Olivia, are you in all this? Are you being available to yourself? Does that make sense? Do you know what I'm saying? Like, are you leaving room to go, what my needs? What about me?

5:29Fearne Cotton: That's why you're feeling resentful. And I tell you what, I got so resentful being like this. And, you know, like you've said in your email, of course you want to be there for your friends and family. You love them. You don't want anyone to suffer. But when you then start suffering, and resentment, I think, is suffering, that's when something needs to change and there just needs to be a shift. And it doesn't need to be one thing or the other. It can still be there for people, but with some boundaries in place. I'm not a therapist. I'm not a doctor. I'm just saying this because I have so been there and my resentment got so bad.

6:02Fearne Cotton: I think it actually made me sick. I think I actually got sick from feeling such inattention, like your muscles are tense, your jaws clenched. I got sick from feeling like that. So I would say feeling resentful is a real good sign that something needs to change. The other part of this issue is a very historic issue that relates to being a woman. And that issue is that there's the sort of trope of being a martyr that has been attached to being a woman forever, like throughout history, that we are to be the nurturers, the people that give and give and give and we have this endless supply of ourselves to give other people in all manner, all manners.

6:54Fearne Cotton: And that's not true. We, you know, we need to keep something back for ourselves. And because we've had this kind of put upon us, we then feel like we're being selfish if we go against the grain and we say, actually, I can't help you out. Or you just don't text someone back. You're not being selfish. You're not being selfish. It's that classic case of if you're not looking after yourself, you can't, of course, look after anybody else because you're full of resentment and you're pissed off and you're knackered and you just want to hide away. And I think you probably do get to the point of burnout if you don't put boundaries in place.

7:26Fearne Cotton: So Olivia, I'm speaking from a place of like absolute experience. What I do now is just answer honestly. So if one of my mates gets in touch and says, oh my God, could we have a quick phone call? I'm having a really rough time. If I've got the headspace to do it, I absolutely will. I will have that phone call and see if I can be of help. And a lot of the time, you know, you just need to listen. You don't have to find a solution to someone's problem. You just need to listen and that makes them feel good. So that's like a slightly easier way of dealing with it. But equally, if I'm in a place where I am max capacity up to here with like jobs I've got to do, juggling work and kids and all that comes with that, I will quite honestly just say to someone, do you know what?

8:12Fearne Cotton: At the moment, I'm just absolutely full to the brim with stuff and I've got some of my own personal things going on and I promise I'll, you know, get back to you at some point. Maybe next week we can go for a walk or we can have a coffee but at the moment I just can't there's nothing wrong with being honest doesn't mean you're a selfish person and actually by doing that it shows that you have got needs and they then might go oh what's going on for you um which is how it should be it's not a one-way street so I think just start being a bit more honest and just say no just say or just don't even respond you don't have to have a day we just ignore your phone you're not there to fix everybody's problems like you're really really not just be there for yourself as much as you possibly can and say no when you get to a point of resentment because there's no point helping someone whilst secretly feeling resentful like yes I'd love to help out what can I do for you that is not good for you or them so just put those boundaries in place and Olivia be a bit more selfish because you can afford to be okay good I'm saying that because I got so fucked off with doing everything for everyone.

9:22Fearne Cotton: And now I have boundaries in place and I am happier. Oh, the other thing, Olivia, there's a PS to this. You will piss some people off and that's all right. Okay. On to the next one. This is from Rosie. Hello, Rosie.

9:43Hi, Rosie.

9:45Fearne Cotton: Hi, Fern. I wanted to get in touch with the hotline as I have a problem that might be relatable for others. I've realised that I'm actually quite bad at resting. I can have an entire free afternoon ahead of me with absolutely nothing I need to do. And rather than feeling excited, I feel vaguely anxious about how I should be spending it. I feel like that. Oh my God. If I sit on the sofa and watch television, I start thinking about all the things I could be doing instead, like how I could go for a walk, call a friend, sort out the cupboard, read that book I bought months ago, or do something fairly productive.

10:18Fearne Cotton: Even when I do manage to relax, there's often a little voice in my head telling me that I'm wasting time. I know we're constantly told about the importance of slowing down, protecting our energy and taking care of ourselves, but sometimes I wonder whether I've become so accustomed to being busy that I no longer know how to enjoy doing nothing. And I'm also not necessarily achieving anything by keeping myself occupied. I'm just tired. And then I feel guilty for being tired because I haven't done the thing that should have made me tired in the first place. What a conundrum. How do you learn to rest without feeling like you need to earn it first?

10:52Fearne Cotton: And what do you do when slowing down feels uncomfortable rather than restorative? Oh my God. Right. I am straight up hyperactive and I have been forever. I saw a friend yesterday who came over to the house and after I'd finished work, I decided to make a Halloween costume out of old tights. And I did it quite quickly because I wanted to do another chore afterwards. And my friend came around and went, what's that? And I went, oh, I just made it. When? I went, literally just now. You made that just now? I was like, yeah, I just made it. What do you mean you just made it? I just, I made it. And then I was on to sorting the loft out.

11:30Fearne Cotton: Like I am. I like having little busy, little busy bee projects to be doing. But just like you, Rosie, I hit a wall and then I think, oh my God, I shouldn't have let it get this bad. I should have had some rest beforehand. I'm really bad at rest because I don't know how, I don't know how to do it. If there's a TV show that I find very compelling below deck, I can chill out and watch that in bed on the laptop but there are very other there are very few other shows that hold my concentration as Below Deck does. Traitors maybe as well. I find it so hard to chill out so I'd say don't give yourself a hard time because if you like being busy that's okay I think.

12:15Fearne Cotton: Allow yourself the like the joy of clearing out a cupboard or like the other day, I reorganized the whole of the loft. Oh my God, it was so sexy. I bought a bunch of massive plastic containers like this big. I got a black marker of some of Virgo as well. And I wrote like Christmas decorations, Halloween decorations, generic party decorations. And then I stored them all in boxes, lined it all up. Oh, it is gorgeous up there. No one will ever see it apart from me, but it is so gorgeous up there. I think let yourself enjoy being busy. If you know you're about to hit burnout and you feel utterly shit, that's when you probably need to find some sort of rest.

12:59Fearne Cotton: Like what is your below deck? I can't think of any other ways that I chill out. I do love reading in bed. So I read in bed every night, but that is part of my sleep routine. So I don't think it constitutes as rest, but just like general rest. I don't know know how to do it. I don't know. Like Rosie, I need this advice as much as you do. All I've got for you in the bag today is try Below Deck. And if you haven't seen Below Deck, you have got years of archive. Like I'm jealous. You've got so many Below Decks to watch. Rosie, that is all I've got for you. I'm really sorry. This is why you should have not used the Happy Place hotline.

13:41Fearne Cotton: You should have gone to a professional person who knows what they're talking about because I don't. Thanks, Rosie. Don't forget to check out below deck. Oh, we've got Charlotte on. Hello, Charlotte. Charlotte says, hello, Fern. I need to tell you about something that happened to me recently because I'm hoping that by sharing it, I might finally be able to move on. I do believe sharing cringeworthy stories is the only way to make them dissipate. Charlotte says, a few weeks ago, I was walking down the street when I spotted someone I was convinced I knew. Oh fuck, I've so done this. I gave him a massive smile, waved enthusiastically and shouted, oh my god, hi, how are you?

14:27Fearne Cotton: They looked at me completely blankly, so naturally, rather than accepting that I'd got the wrong person, I doubled down. I started asking questions, trying to jog their memory until it became painfully clear that I had no idea who they were. I wanted the pavement to open up, and swallow me whole. The really annoying thing is that at the time I laughed it off and carried on with my day but now weeks later my brain keeps replaying the whole thing at the most inconvenient moments. I'll be brushing my teeth or trying to fall asleep and suddenly I'm back on that pavement reliving every second. It made me think about how much energy we spend worrying about looking silly in front of other people.

15:06Fearne Cotton: I know logically that nobody probably cares as much as I think they do and that most people are too busy worrying about their own embarrassing moment to remember mine, but that doesn't seem to stop me. How do you learn to laugh at yourself and let these things go? I'd love to get to a point where I can make a fool of myself, have a good laugh about it and move on rather than letting one awkward interaction haunt me for the next 10 years. And I'm curious, Fern, what's the most embarrassing thing that's happened to you that you can laugh about now? Where do I fucking start? I mean, my whole first half of my career, quite frankly.

15:39Fearne Cotton: It's just like one big cringe fest that is on the internet. What's the worst one? I mean, there are loads. There are like lots of my live radio days because you're on live radio. And one time I used to have this lovely producer on my radio show called Alex and he was from Cornwall and he was the sweetest chap ever. And I used to call him my little Cornish angel by accident as I was going like literally faded up a song to play I think I'd press play and I was doing that bit where you talk over the beginning of the song and before it goes into the intro I called him my little Cornish anal instead of angel and then the song started And we both just sat there going, oh, fuck.

16:32Fearne Cotton: And there was no going back. I'd done it. It was on live radio. Six million people heard me say that. Oh, so bad. I've done millions. I've done so many. I'm quite bad with names. So I've had it where someone I know quite well walk up to me and I'm with someone else and I have to introduce them and I freeze. I remember once a mum came up to me in a playground opposite the school. and I was fucking knackered. So my brain was not working. And I was with one of my friends, Aisha, and I was like, Aisha, this is... And I stopped, just literally said nothing. It was so awful. See, I'm still thinking about that now.

17:11Fearne Cotton: That was about 10 years ago. It happens to all of us all the time. Luckily for you, yours wasn't on live radio, but it happens all the time. Oh, I've got another one because these things wake you up at three in the morning. I'll just outright say this one. And it makes me feel sick still thinking about it. So when I was doing an episode of Happy Place ages ago, I had Chris and Rosie Ramsey on. And I was really tired. It was a nighttime record at 8pm. And I hate recording at night because I don't have a personality. And I called, I called, I called Rosie rosemary for the first like 20 minutes until I caught up with my own brain and about halfway through I was like rosy rosy it's definitely not rosemary why have I been calling her rosemary rosemary she's called rosy ramsey quite famously I was so embarrassed I actually text chris after and went I I just my brain doesn't work past 7 p.m I'm so sorry there's another excuse just called your wife wrong fucking name the whole bloody thing so embarrassing anyway my point being Charlotte we've all got so many of these like there'll be people listening to this who have farted in front of someone at work or do you know what I mean like just stuff that we know is silly and we should laugh about but definitely haunts you I would almost encourage more of these stories into the happy place hotline I think the more we can share these stories the more relieved we are because let me tell you, a weight has been lifted having just shared with you all my embarrassing encounters.

18:50Fearne Cotton: And there have been more, some I can't talk about because they're so bad. I think more of those, please. I like the embarrassing ones. What tried to take you down, but didn't? What can you now laugh about? I would say, Charlotte, time is a healer. I would say that after some years, that's when you can look back and go, actually, I can see the funny side now rather than literally waking at three with heart palpitations wanting to dry retch like we've all been there um pretending that you like knew someone you didn't thinking that it was somebody else you're never going to see that person again we hope so move on we'll have a good laugh about it on your behalf and the sad annoying thing is more embarrassing things will happen to all of us uh in the future and we've just got to deal with those road bumps when we hit them um so i think we need more of these more embarrassing stories that nearly took you down but you can now laugh about we'd like more of those uh thank you charlotte and um put your specs on next time love you so what a joy i'm loving our happy place hotline this phone is going to be literally going bananas after this hopefully with all of you uh letting us know what you're up to your stories your dilemmas you can voice note us on instagram it's at happy place official or just send us a message put your name because it's always nice to be able to give you a shout out and tell us where you're from in the world um and we will give you a little bit of space and a bit of chat on our happy place hotline thank you so much for listening until next time goodbye

20:58I thought, what if I've scaled businesses? What if I scaled my philanthropy? What if I did as much in one year as I've done in my whole life? See how your wealth could have even greater meaning at creativeplanning.com slash impact.

21:36Just search Sexted. Be warned, it's a bit rude.