Poorna Bell: "Women want more, not more to do!" How to put yourself first

0:01Fearne Cotton: Hello, I'm Fern Cotton and this is Happy Place, the show that gets you thinking about what you want out of life. And today I'm chatting to Poorna Bell.

0:10Poorna Bell: I, as one of my hobbies, do weightlifting and I could see how I was getting physically stronger and stronger year on year, which seemed to me to be evidence that this narrative that we're told about ageing, which is that you get weaker, the default is diminishing. and so I think I just felt that there was the narrative which was constantly telling me that I just wasn't good enough and who I was and who I wanted to be I needed to aim for different things and I think there was also a realisation that we are surrounded by institutions that are never really going to hand us that power.

0:43Fearne Cotton: I'm so excited about this chat do you know why because Porna is an amazing person and also a friend and I'm one of those friends that I've made through my job that I luckily love because it's interesting and I get to meet incredibly interesting people. That is the best thing about what I do. And to have amazing women in your life as you navigate your 40s, I think is absolutely key. Women that you can have deep and interesting and curious conversations with. And Pornor has certainly always been one of those people. I think we met, we were trying to work it out maybe a decade ago, maybe a little less than a decade ago when Porna was working at Huffington Post and I'd gone in quite nervously to do an interview about the first book I ever wrote which is a book called Happy which is about depression and Porna had not long since lost her late husband Rob to suicide at this point and we just clicked massively and had this really interesting chat and I became totally obsessed by her actually but her first book which we talk about a little a little in this conversation is about grief and I mean it's so poetically written I would highly recommend you read Porna's first book if you can all of her books have been amazing but that one it inspired me massively in terms of how you articulate a story and how you can look into the depths of your own emotional well and how you can communicate that with other people.

2:16Fearne Cotton: She's just phenomenal. But also we're the kind of friends that we don't get to meet up that often because of like everything. We've got busy lives or whatever. But me and Pornar love a very long voice note tennis match. So it's a back and forth where I'll send an eight minuter. She sends a six minuter back. And this is not something I want from everybody in my life. But I really love getting these messages from Porna because I'll go off on a walk down the river and then I'll have this like amazingly in-depth monologued voice noted conversation with her. So you're going to get to basically hear one of those voice notes in real life in this chat now.

2:55Fearne Cotton: So let me tell you a little bit more about Porna. She's an award-winning journalist and author and she specializes in women's issues, diversity, fitness, pro-aging and mental health. All the stuff that we absolutely bloody love on Happy Place. And her new book is excitingly called She Wanted More. Reimagine your future and live by your rules. Oh, we're already completely obsessed. So as you can imagine, we had lots to talk about because the first time, well, I mean, we chat outside of work, but the first time Porna came on Happy Place was eight years ago. Unbelievably, it's about eight years of stuff to chat about.

3:32Fearne Cotton: We talk about turning to elders for wisdom, which we've sort of forgotten about altogether. We look back at Porna's reflections on her own marriage and her choices around marriage today. And the bit I guess I took the most from was looking at if, as women, we believe we deserve more out of life and we want more, how we go about doing it. If that chimes with you, this is the chat for you. Okay, just a quick one before we get into this conversation. Make sure you keep your eyes on our socials this week for some very exciting Happy Place Festival news. And if you didn't already know, we now have our very own Happy Place Festival Instagram page.

4:16Fearne Cotton: So it's got all the festival info in one handy place. It's where you can keep up to date with all of the brilliant things we've got planned at both festivals this summer coming. So this is the handle if you head to Instagram at Happy Place Festival. Very simple. Does what it says on the can. Thank you kindly. I will see you there. All right, let's get on with it. Here is the show.

4:47so

4:57Fearne Cotton: porner i am so happy to not only see you in the flesh but also to revisit a conversation with you because we initially had a chat on Happy Place back in 2018.

5:10Poorna Bell: Whoa. Has it been that long? Yes. How? Yours was the first podcast I ever, ever did. I popped my cherry, my podcast cherry with you.

5:20Fearne Cotton: I'm honoured. Yeah. I mean, we've had a chat about this off mic that neither of us knew what the hell we were doing. I was just starting a podcast and asking my mates to be on it, quite frankly.

5:30Poorna Bell: In your living room. In my living room.

5:32Fearne Cotton: And we were fumbling through this podcast landscape, trying to work out how to have deep conversations. And, you know, you had written one book at this point, two books at this point, maybe. I think my second had just, just come out in 2018.

5:49Poorna Bell: No. Oh, gosh. No, I just finished writing my second book. So my first one would have come out, Chase the Rainbow. Yeah.

5:55Fearne Cotton: And we talked about Chase the Rainbow a lot, which is a book that I absolutely devoured. and it's still a massively inspiring piece of writing to me. The way that you, storytelling that book is exceptional. So anyone that wants to know more about that, spoil back eight years on the podcast feed because you'll find that chat there. But we both said since, just when we've been chatting on VoiceNote mainly, that we would have loved to have done it differently. And this is our opportunity to have that chat now. We're eight years wiser. Very much so. And we've got more lived experience some are a different part in our lives and we're women in the thick of our 40s what do we want to talk about and this is exactly what your new book she wanted more the best title um is really saying it's all about that exact topic you know being at that point in your life you're you're looking at women who are in their 40s 50s 60s and 70s when did you get that unimagining before writing this book, you had a little spark of, oh, I need to write this.

7:01Fearne Cotton: This feels like that book, like I need to get this out of me. When did that hit you?

7:05Poorna Bell: I think it was maybe a couple of years after I wrote my last nonfiction, which was called Stronger. So that would have come out actually very, very fresh into the pandemic. So 2021. And there was one chapter in there that really stuck with me, which was the chapter that featured older women. So it was interviewing older women who pursued some form of physical movement for whatever reason, not necessarily pro athletes, but these are usually like amateur athletes. And I also finished that chapter with a kind of charting of, you know, this is what your future could look like. But I remember, A, reading a lot of inspirational stories of women, especially in their kind of 50s, 60s and 70s, who were just doing things, Fern, like this one woman who was pole vaulting in her 70s.

7:54Poorna Bell: And during the pandemic, strung up a washing line in her back garden to practice hurdles because all of the athletics grounds had like closed right and that really really stayed with me because I think when I when that book came out I was just just turned 40 and it was something that really started to overturn that aging narrative in my head because even though 40 came with a sense of clarity especially around time it did feel like a constant dance between me trying to kind of gas myself up and empower myself but also being surrounded by a world that has a you know very very I think quite destructive narrative around aging for women sure yeah and so that absolute that I think that was the seed and I just thought oh maybe I should feature inspirational stories of women and I just thought I just don't think that that's going to cut it I need to tap into what also makes me angry and makes other women angry and then the anger came over time and that coalesced into a book yeah I love a book that's fueled by a bit of rage definitely it's the best read it's the best read

9:03Fearne Cotton: because I think many of us have felt really suppressed when it comes to well not only how we choose to do life and what society puts on us and the pressures that are there but also like what we can say out loud and what it's okay to be angry about. And although this isn't a book of you like sat there ranting away, you can tell it's fueled by this deep burning passion for you to have your voice, you know, speak on these subjects, but also the stories of all these brilliant women. There's a line in the book where you say, I want more, I want more, I want more. And I wonder when you first either said that aloud or really had that thought and believed that you deserved it?

9:42Poorna Bell: I think it definitely came about a couple of years ago. And I think that partly it was realising that I felt like I was in a state of limbo. So I felt like I was inching further and further into my mid 40s. And I felt like there was all this power that I should be feeling. But at the same time, I didn't know how to navigate my way through, you know, that narrative around aging, which just seems to be around how you look, you know, and how you present yourself. And I just felt that there had, I knew that there was more to it already from just my journey with like something like physical activity.

10:21Poorna Bell: And so I, as one of my hobbies, do weightlifting and I could see how I was getting physically stronger and stronger year on year, which seemed to me to be evidence that this narrative that we're told about aging, which is that, you know, the default is that you get weaker. The default is diminishing and disappearing and disappearing and invisibility.

10:43Fearne Cotton: Yeah.

10:44Poorna Bell: And, you know, when you're when you let's say if you're competing as a woman wearing a singlet, like lifting a very heavy barbell, you are very visible, you know, on a platform like that. And so I think I just felt that there was the narrative which just seemed to be designed to make me shrink or was constantly telling me that I just wasn't good enough and who I was and who I wanted to be. I needed to aim for different things. And I think there was also a realisation, which I think is why a lot of that rage and fury starts in our 40s and 50s, which is just realising that we are surrounded by institutions that are never really going to hand us that power.

11:24Poorna Bell: And they're never going to sort of pat us on the back and go, you know what, you don't need to spend all of this money with us or you don't need to do all of these things that make you easier to control. they are going to want you to do those things because we live in a patriarchal system and so I think I realized that I needed to chart my own path that wasn't you know it's not just based on what I think and what I want I'm very much inspired by other women around me but that was the moment where I just thought this is bullshit and I just can't accept this any longer and and so I'm just going to create something new for myself yeah that's just magical on every level

11:57Fearne Cotton: because we live in this society, yes, patriarchal and also obsessed with youth. And, you know, we're all buying into it to a degree, whether we're looking at who's on the red carpet at a film premiere or which pop stars are at the Grammys or whatever it might be. And everyone's in their 20s. And, you know, I used to be that person in my 20s being, you know, when I was on the radio and people taking pictures of me like the paparazzi, and I'd be like, what's the big deal? Why is everyone taking my picture? And then you hit an age where it's like, oh, boring. We don't need to take your picture anymore.

12:27Fearne Cotton: And actually what we've done there is wipe out the notion of the elder, which in so many cultures is still held in such high esteem that you look to the older women. You know, maybe it's in Mexico, it's the grandmothers who you look to and you ask for their wisdom, their lived experience. And I've certainly got friendships that are intergenerational or women in my life that I would be absolutely buggered without who are in their 60s and 70s. And it's those women that I go to when I'm in turmoil or I need help or I need a greater lived experience and a soundboard of that nature. And when our culture doesn't in any way give any credit to aging and the just pure amazingness that comes from having lived a very, very full life.

13:18Fearne Cotton: I completely agree with that.

13:19Poorna Bell: I think that so it's this cognitive dissonance, right, where you have cultures and countries and, you know, my cultural heritage is Indian, where age is wisdom and that is something to be respected and revered. And at the same time, however, I would say that within my own culture, there is absolutely a, you know, an expectation of frailty the older you get. So on the one hand, you're revered for your mind and your perspective and your experience. But on the other hand, I do think that there is a missing piece around, you know, the physicality of things. So encouraging people to move and so on.

13:55Poorna Bell: So I don't necessarily know that we always have things perfect in those regards. But absolutely, I would say, you know, in like the West, in the global North, there is its invisibility. And worse than that is this narrative around women's voices. So when we think, for example, about how something like menopause or women of a menopausal age have historically been depicted, you know, in films or TV shows, it's ridicule. You know, it's they are governed by their hormones. So their voices don't count or, you know, they're clearly hysterical. I absolutely hate that word. And so all of that disenfranchises the voices of those women that actually, quite frankly, to me, for younger women, provide wisdom, of course, a sense of perspective as well, and also reinvention.

14:46Poorna Bell: And I think that when we're younger, this is something I feel quite strongly about. I think that we can feel really stuck around certain decisions or paralyzed by certain decisions because we believe that those decisions are going to shape our entire lives or that we will have to contend with them for our entire lives. And so the idea of being able to change your mind about things, you know, if something doesn't work out for you, I think it also taps into bigger things around failure, like just being okay with the idea of failure. And okay, that thing didn't work. It's okay. It doesn't mean that I'm terrible or that I'm an idiot or I made a mistake.

15:21Poorna Bell: It just means I need to do something different. And I think if you don't have those older people in your life, if we don't even leverage those older voices in like media and advertising, we rob ourselves of such an important perspective of being able to look further down the line and seeing how things can change and improve. And I do feel very, very strongly that we have been missing those voices for a really long time. But I also do feel positively that those voices are coming back. Social media is one of those things where there's less gatekeeping around certain things. So I've definitely seen women be able to like leverage that more and be a bit more visible.

15:58Poorna Bell: But it's still really tough. I still don't think that women's voices, especially older women's voices, are valued as much.

16:05Fearne Cotton: No, but I love, you know, even in the book, you say you sense a shift. And as a journalist, you sense a zeitgeist shift like a dog smelling sausages. Like that is just something inherently within you. you're like, oh, I can feel it in my waters. There's like there's something is is afoot here. And that feels exciting. I think we need to hear that because we could be so bogged down with the state of things at the moment and also how some progress that's been made for equality in terms of, you know, female rights is actually now being diminished. So I think we need to hear those hopeful stories and those individual stories and those cases that you bring forward of it doesn't have to be a whole collective of women, but of one woman deciding to do things differently.

16:47Fearne Cotton: You know, they want to live life differently. So therefore they will. I think we need to hear that.

16:52Poorna Bell: Yeah, I think it's important. And also the reason why I focused on women who are in their 40s, 50s and 60s is because that specifically is the generation or is, you know, I mean, yes, it does straddle two different generations, but we grew up in an analogue time and we're living in a digital world. And I think that that perspective on things is really interesting to me. And our lives also don't look anything like our mother's lives. You know, it was really important for me to, to remind people of that my mother who is in her mid 70s, was in her mid 20s, when the law was changed around whether or not a woman could take out a mortgage.

17:29Poorna Bell: And so one of the biggest things that is driving, I think this change amongst women, absolutely is, you know, things like financial autonomy and independence and yes we we're not not everyone is emancipated around their finances and there's so much work that needs to be done and we've had a really terrible few years in terms of the economy but in terms of that financial autonomy what our lives look like is very different to what it looked like for our mothers and our grandmothers and that to me is an enormous source of power and one of the things about marking that zeitgeist shift is also saying that this doesn't have to be about ejecting, you know, from your life or ditching it entirely or making really dramatic changes.

18:14Poorna Bell: Because I think that that scares the shit out of people who think, oh my God, am I going to have to like burn my entire life down? It can literally be a very, very gentle inventory that women undertake in their lives. And again, it's not saying you shouldn't get married, you shouldn't have kids. It's not pushing women one way or another. What as you exist in the world, you should be allowed to exist in safety in whatever way you want, in whatever way you choose to live your life. But that is not the world that we live in. We unfortunately live in an inequitable world for women. So within this structure, what is it?

18:48Poorna Bell: What is the smallest thing that you can do to make you feel like you have agency and advocacy in your life? And that's literally, if that's the minimum that someone takes away from the book, I hope that they take that away, that it's not me telling you what you should be doing with your life, right? so I think that for me that it was very important to chart that and I do believe that that shift is

19:07Fearne Cotton: happening it is and I completely agree I think you know that is the what you've just summarized there being the choice that we now have but what you still have to do is mitigate the judgment because there is still so many double standards when it comes to women making choices about whether it's not getting married not having children however they choose to live work there is still judgment that men do not receive and it can be it's not judgment necessarily from men it's you know, we've been totally conditioned for women to judge other women for making certain decisions or not. And that's something where I think, God, you need to double down and be so resilient to get through outside commentary on your choices.

19:44Fearne Cotton: And you talk about a lot of these subjects in the book, like marriage. And we touched on this in our first chat, you got married relatively young. And for choices that you've now sort of later down the line examined and and sort of looked at it with a different perspective how do you think your your visions of marriage have changed since your 20s?

20:07Poorna Bell: I think when I was in my 20s especially my late 20s which is when I met my late husband Rob so I would have been about 28 I think from memory is that that was the goal you know I was never the type of person that planned my wedding as a girl or, you know, young, even a young woman. But I knew that that was something that I really wanted to do. And I think that the idea of being chosen by someone there being a sort of a finished product to your life was something that it wasn't pushed upon me by my family. But it was something that I knew I was supposed to do right complete. And so when I met Rob, and I knew he was the person that I wanted to be with and to get married to, I don't think I really questioned or interrogated some of the things that I now know we really should have had conversations around at the time.

21:02Poorna Bell: And I'm not saying that, you know, with the best will in the world, whoever it is that you're with, you can't sort of sit them down with a checklist and go, OK, so I've ticked off everything on my list and now we're going to get married. And life just doesn't work like that. And also what I've since learned is I think that that's actually quite a codependent thing I'm a massive codependent where you think that because you've asked all these questions and you tick these things off that you're safe and life is going to be cool now and when the other person breaks that rule then you can you don't have to take the blame right for it yeah and so I but I definitely know that when I got married I didn't think about the practicalities of it I just thought about us being in love and I just thought this is the person that I want to just spend every single day with for the rest of my life and build a life with.

21:50Poorna Bell: And I think that looking at where I am at now, because the question I sometimes get asked is, you know, would I get remarried and so on? The answer is no. I'm not saying it's 100 % no. I'm saying it's pretty much a 99 % no, because the person that I would have to meet in order for them to fulfill what I think I want from marriage is the chances are quite slim. But I think that there was so much I wish I knew. And it turns out that speaking to other women about this, especially women who have either lost their partners or definitely women who have been divorced, is that these are a lot of the same things that they also wish that they had known when they were younger.

22:33Poorna Bell: And I think one of the things I think we do such a disservice, especially to younger women, is we get them so hyped up and excited about the goal of getting married and the wedding day that we don't actually have a chat ever really about what the practicalities of it what are the realities of it because that's almost deemed to be too cynical too dark a conversation but then when you are having to deal with the real-time consequences of things going wrong it is horrific so I think we should be talking about that a bit more I agree

23:06Fearne Cotton: I mean, and you talk about, again, a lot of this in the book about the share of responsibilities within a relationship, within a household. If there's kids in the mix, the share. And we and we know that, yes, there's, you know, people are doing this in their own way. And there are some brilliant examples where people manage this very, very well. But I'd say the vast majority of heterosexual couples still find themselves in a role, whether the mum or the partner, the wife is full time at work or not, taking the lion's share of household duties, the emotional burden, the responsibilities. And there was a line that I literally was like cheering from the rooftops about in the book where you say something along the lines of women want more, but we don't want more to do.

23:52Fearne Cotton: and that is such a clear definition of of all of this like yes we we should have the space to say I want more for myself I I desperately want more for myself I don't want more to do I really really don't and that still seems to be a massive issue in terms of well it doesn't even have to include marriage but when you're in a heterosexual partnership with that discussion happening as to who the hell's going to do what.

24:19Poorna Bell: Yeah, the having it all thing, right, which is something that, yeah, which is bullshit. And it is definitely something which a lot of, especially older Gen X women also reference quite a lot that I mentioned in the book, which was that having it all was the biggest load of bullshit that was ever sold to women. It just created a rod for our own backs and just added way more stuff onto a list that was already quite full.

24:43Fearne Cotton: Yeah, so you've got to be, you can go be the CEO, but please make sure that you've done the hoovering at the same time as being the CEO. Just to make sure that you know that.

24:51Poorna Bell: That's how the rules work. Absolutely. And I get that we, you know, if you are in a long-term relationship or a marriage, you know, there are some women who are very deeply frustrated at having to carry the extra load and are okay with it. And it's worth the price of their relationship. And there are some women who have reached the absolute end of their fucking tether with it and don't want to put up with it anymore. And it should be okay to say that that is a legitimate reason to exit a relationship if you have tried to have a conversation about it and your other half is just not getting on board with it, is not changing their behavior because I think historically, and I get that this is also to do with the fact that no-fault divorce only came in fairly recently.

25:37Poorna Bell: Very recently, yeah. So we've all been brought up with this idea that to exit a marriage in particular, it needs to be something like cheating. It needs to be this horrific betrayal. And actually, a lot of these like little things are small betrayals. If your partner is perfectly happy for you to carry a lot of the excess burden in that relationship, it's okay for you to exit that relationship and not feel guilty about it. I think that one sort of bit of positivity to say is that I asked women who were in like 10 year plus relationships, had they ever had that chat with their partner, like an inventory of what worked for them, what's not working for them, how can they change things?

26:19Poorna Bell: And the ones that said that, yes, they, you know, they had managed to do that, especially the ones that were in, you know, 20, 30 year plus relationships. I mean, you're not going to be surprised by this, but it's communication and it's willingness for the other person to want to evolve and change as well. It is completely unrealistic that the person you are going to meet in your 20s or your 30s is still going to be the same person in your 50s, 60s and 70s. And it doesn't mean that that person is ever going to be the perfect person or will always do the things that you want them to do. But it was the willingness for them to sit down and have the conversation and to understand that they are an equal partner in it.

26:57Poorna Bell: And that things like emotional load, like having to tell someone to do something is still an extra bit of labor. But in addition, it doesn't matter if the other person has unloaded the fucking dishwasher. If you had to tell them to do it, that is still an extra bit of load that you have to do. But that that like communication thing that actually did give me quite a bit of unexpected hope, I would say, in terms of like long term partnership.

27:21Fearne Cotton: Yeah, because that is an that is demonstrative of a woman saying in that situation, I want more for myself. And that might be more time, more space, more freedom to think about other stuff other than logistics. I think that's such a great example of it. You did this survey initially to sort of kickstart, I'm imagining, the themes of the book and how you might go about tackling some of the issues that many women in this part of life feel. And you asked them certain questions. And one of them was, what would you, I don't know how you phrased it exactly, but what do you want more of? If I asked you that question, what do you want more of?

27:57Fearne Cotton: Were you surprised by the answers that you read?

28:00Poorna Bell: I wasn't wholly surprised by it, but there were a few that were a very pleasant surprise, I would say. The survey initially, I thought, OK, well, if my demographic is mainly women in their 40s, 50s and 60s, but I would say that it's for women of all ages and younger women have found it very useful to figure out what their older life is going to look like. But I did, I set the bar from 25 plus because I wanted to see the shift in what, how women were thinking in terms of groups. So for example, that showed up in terms of asking them, you know, what do you wish that your mother had had or your relationship with your mother and so on?

28:42Poorna Bell: And definitely like, as in looking at your mother's relationships and her life, what do you want more for yourself? And that was actually a very fascinating look from, you know, women in their 20s to women in their 50s. But I would definitely say that with the when I asked women what they wanted more of, you know, unsurprisingly, some women said, you know, I want better sex. Some said I would like some sex and others said things like, you know, just more time, like more time to do things that they love doing. but the one that really surprised me because this was one of the most common was move by the sea like go and live by the sea which I just I loved and I felt like to me and this is my own interpretation of it so I don't have a definitive answer but I think it's because the sea is also a

29:29Fearne Cotton: metaphor for freedom I think it's an absolute metaphor for people want an expanse of like the unknown ahead of them it's like whenever I'm by the sea I'm like what's out there like you feel excited and I think again the narrative is you get to the this age or the ages that you're talking about and it's like oh well the rest of your life just plays out as we're going to tell you it plays out and you're going to retire at some point you know doodle about a bit grow some vegetables in the garden you know but but I don't want that I want the expanse of the sea and the unknown and the excitement I used to feel in my 20s and I think how beautiful that so many women had that as an answer I want I want that I love that it moves me I love it so much going back to to what you're saying a moment ago about the the mother-daughter relationship I texted you the other day because I actually you lay out some questions in the book of as to what you might ask your mum some some questions about how she feels about romance how she feels what she feels about you as a daughter in your relationship and these really big questions that you know we rarely ask people that are in our intimate circles because you know you're you're in a pattern of your mum comes around or whoever it might be your brother your sister whoever is familial and and you go how are you yeah great what's new or my mum always goes what's the gothic like you have these set things that you ask and it would be sort of utterly weird and maybe awkward to go what what were your childhood dreams out of the blue we don't ever create this space to ask these big questions and I felt really prompted by reading that in your book that I would I didn't call my mum but I text her because I thought I want her to have a bit of time to mull over these answers and there were two surprising things one of them was I assume my mum would come back I don't think she'll mind me saying this with kind of jokey answers or something that was maybe a bit sarcastic because that's usually she's got a great sense of humour and it's usually her way of deflecting from things that she doesn't want to talk about.

31:29Fearne Cotton: And equally, I didn't know if she'd even bother answering them. And so it was surprising that she instantly texted me and said, give me a moment. I'm going to look at this now. And secondly, her answers had zero humour. They were deadly serious. And that really took me by surprise because it was, I actually felt quite sad. Like I've not taken the time to ask these questions and to show her that I have great interest in her thoughts and her life and and her dreams from before or what she thinks about certain situations today and again it shows that communication is so key in our intimate relationships that we show other people interest and we give them the time and the space to to really consider life and and to talk about it and it was sort of instantly you know like a lovely moment of maybe a slightly deeper bit of bonding that I hadn't done with her for a long

32:26Poorna Bell: time it was amazing I mean I love that you did that because I know we spoke about it but I I would hope that people would be able to have that conversation but I know that not all of us you know most of us do have a complicated relationship with our with our mothers and so it is really difficult to have those direct conversations right but I think I actually stumbled across that by accident. I didn't know what questions I was going to ask my mum before I interviewed her for the book. What I realised is the trick is to ask them questions that are not connected to their identity as your mother. Yes.

33:04Poorna Bell: Because I don't know how your mum is about this, but I feel like with our mums, there are regrets that they have around certain things that they probably will never really voice to us about it. And I think that any parent is always trying to do, more or less is trying to in that moment, do the best by their kid. And that's all that they can do. And in retrospect, maybe some of that stuff wasn't the best decision making, but they don't necessarily know that at the time. So I want to have like a lot of grace for my mum and other people around that, right? But I think that when I asked my mum questions about herself, like before my sister and I were even a twinkle in her eye there was a softness about it and there was an honesty about it and you're absolutely right because my mum does the exact same thing she's a very very funny woman and humor is one of the one of her go-tos but we didn't have a funny conversation we had like quite a an honest sometimes sad but also I just like I love my mum a lot as a person, you know, not just because she's my mum.

34:09Poorna Bell: There are things that I admire a lot about her. But I also felt really protective over a version of her that I, you know, no longer exists because I've only got the understanding of her now as she relates to me as my mother. But there was a part of me that was really glad that I had that knowledge and that understanding that was directly from her rather than someone else's account of her.

34:34Fearne Cotton: Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's so important it's so important for us to just see our parents as humans or to acknowledge they had a life before they had this role of you know the dynamic of mother and daughter and I you know I even find it with my kids if they ask me a question like the other day my my kids one of them asked me about have I ever smoked and I thought I'm always going to be really honest and I was like yeah back in the day I used to you know if I went to the pub and had a drink I'd socially smoke and they was horrified obviously and I was like look I obviously then learned down the line it was a good idea not to but it was sort of watching their faces see me as this flawed human and not just the mum who's putting the food on the plate and making them sit and like cleaning their teeth it was like oh my god you used to do things like stuff and it was kind of exposing to me but in a good way and I think it's so interesting to get to know those people that we just have that it's quite a two-dimensional dynamic in ways because it's just this is the transaction we know how it works your mum I'm the kid or vice versa this is our dance that we do absolutely and also you know

35:37Poorna Bell: let's be real here my mum was not having these conversations with her mum absolutely not so I think it's just something that we we do we just get stuck in a rut you know with our parents especially our mothers I think that we I definitely speak to my mother in a way that I've really tried to catch myself around this but sometimes the way like I phrase things to her I would never talk to anyone else like that and I just and I really have to have a talk with myself afterwards and I'm like you know that really is not that's not okay like she's a precious little jewel I treat her as such and be nicer to her but then she just does something that drives me mad and then I forget so

36:15Fearne Cotton: yeah you know what this is sort of slightly unrelated but it's just brought a thought up I watched an Instagram video today of I don't know some psychologist I can't remember the name of But he was saying that it's all very well and good being like the good human we think we are when we're out, you know, in the coffee shop being so nice to the person that's made your coffee or so lovely to the person who is struggling with their buggy upper stair or a person that you sort of half know at work. The real test is how patient and grounded and generous you can be in the four walls of your own home in a metaphorical sense, you know, with your parents, your siblings, your own children, because they're the people that mirror to us all of our own biggest fears, our flaws.

37:03Fearne Cotton: They can trigger us more than anyone. It shows up all of our own idiosyncrasies and worries. is it's it's there that we have to practice that and I think again the mother-daughter relationship is is often that one that it's you can get so riled and irritated by something and it's it takes such a lot of practice to have the the patience and generosity in that dynamic

37:25Poorna Bell: it does I also think that it has gotten easier the older I've become why do you think that is I think because I'm just very aware of the passing of time. And I think that with my parents, especially, I get that there's a balance to be had, right? Which is you can't live every single day as if that's the last time you're going to see someone.

37:50Fearne Cotton: because that's like very intense and bleak and stressful for everyone.

37:54Poorna Bell: And whenever we organise a family holiday, you know, my mum's always like, well, we don't know how much longer. And I was like, where are you going? Like, what plans do you have? So I do think you have to kind of like mitigate and sort of balance some of that out with, we cannot go into every family holiday thinking this is going to be our last holiday because no one wants that kind of energy. But I think the older I've gotten, I am aware that they're not going to be around forever. You know, it's not something that I really ever thought about when I was younger, but I am aware of the of the passing of time.

38:29Poorna Bell: And so in as much as I can, I do want to have those conversations with them. I also want to create memories with them, which are fun, which are about us spending time together in a way that doesn't feel like enforced fun. And that definitely has made me be a bit more kind. But also, it's about reciprocity, right? So my parents, we had this conversation very recently, where they understand that if I'm saying no to something, it's because I have a very good reason. You know, I'm not just saying no, because I'm being a contrarian, or because I'm being lazy, or any of those kinds of things. And I think that that understanding and knowing has been a very, very important part of our relationship for them to understand the motivation behind what I do and what I say that I'm actually I would like to think quite a considered person so that understanding on their side means that when I do say no to something there isn't this immediate pushback or trying to get me to change my mind about things and I have to be honest Fern that has been an absolute game changer in our relationship and I think that's probably quite rare of that

39:34Fearne Cotton: generation because and I'm massively generalizing here but I do think our parents generation were perhaps more inclined to be stoic about everything and like you just shut up and you do the thing and it was quite boundary less I know my mum would even find the word boundary to be annoying like oh my god all of this newfangled chat about having boundaries yeah so I think sometimes when you set a boundary and say no it's badly like there's there's a level of defensiveness that's come coming from the other side of it or a lack of understanding that causes a bit of a flare-up. So it's quite amazing.

40:07Fearne Cotton: Did you have to sort of explicitly say, this is how we're going to do this dance now? I'm going to start saying no to things and you're going to have to understand it?

40:15Poorna Bell: I think it was a bit more gentle, as in very occasionally I will say that if I say no to something, I will say, you know, do understand that I almost like 90 % of the time will say yes to something that you're asking me to do, especially if I know that it means a lot to you. And I think that there has been a real level of understanding where, you know, when my mom is sometimes asking me to do stuff that I don't really want to do, she knows that I don't necessarily really want to do it, but I'm doing it for her. So she does acknowledge and she does see that. I definitely also think it is about me putting up boundaries in terms of when I say no to something, I give an explanation as to why I'm saying no to that thing.

40:57Poorna Bell: And so I'm not saying that that's always necessarily been, you know, understood in the moment. I think my parents are quite cool at like not letting me feel or know exactly how they might be feeling about things or making me feel bad about, you know, they wouldn't make me feel bad about things. But it has been a gentle kind of asserting boundaries, a conversation around it, trying to have that conversation with kindness. and also you know absolutely to your point of of that generation around stoicism around saying yes to something because of how you might be perceived if you say no I would hope and like to think that you know my mum has also taken something from us me and my sister in terms of giving herself permission to say actually I'm really tired and I don't know if I can say yes to that thing so I'm probably not going to I mean I would still say maybe maybe that is getting better in a way that I'm not witness to but I do think that that also might be again it's a two-way street I think she might be taking a bit more of that on herself yeah I'm sure she looks at you and your sister

42:02Fearne Cotton: and is incredibly proud of the decisions that you've made for yourselves because as a mum you want that you want your your daughters your children to be happy and you talk about your sister a fair bit in the book and her decisions around leaving a marriage and the discussions that you've had around that since. And also for your mum to see how you've navigated immense grief and also making the right decisions for you at this point in your life. I mean, one of them, again, that you talk about, which again, there's so much judgment from men and women towards women that make the choice to not have children.

42:34Fearne Cotton: And we've had a fair few discussions on Happy Place with other guests about that subject matter, deciding that it's not something that you want, but it not being this simple kind of, that's it, I'm drawing a line under it, that it is a really complex decision that actually lives with you long-term. It's something that sits with you.

42:54Poorna Bell: Yeah, I love that we're having a lot more nuance around it as a conversation. And definitely my views around, you know, being child-free has evolved and changed. Like I would have said, for example, even as recently as a couple of years ago, oh, yeah, you know, I'm definitely like child free by choice, blah, blah, blah. But the truth is, a more accurate definition of it would be that I thought I was going to have children. When Rob and I were married, we talked about having children. That was very much something that we were both going to do. You know, he had massive like health issues around struggling with both depression and addiction.

43:33Poorna Bell: And it was very clear towards the end of our marriage that whatever the state, so we were separated for the last three months of our marriage. And we didn't know whether or not we would reconcile or what would happen with that. But it was quite clear to us that children were probably not going to be part of our equation because the level of his addiction was so high that it just felt like too much of an uncertainty. And that wasn't necessarily even just coming from me. It actually was a conversation led by him. and when he passed away I would describe myself as like child free by circumstance because you know the the grief of that my initial thought wasn't oh okay you know better get back back on the dating circuit it was literally just trying to figure out a way of surviving the next few years after that and and to have some semblance of a of a life let alone anything that involved another person or children and I would say that when I turned 40 that's when it felt very definitive because I think up until that point, I was still umming and ahhing about, you know, would I have children via a donor?

44:37Poorna Bell: Would I do it solo? Because my literary agent, Rowan Lawton, she had... Oh, I love Rowan. Rowan is such a huge inspiration. She had her child in her mid-30s.

44:49Fearne Cotton: Do you know why I weirdly bumped into her and her child in a souk in Morocco? I love this.

44:54Poorna Bell: Like how random. But she is the most phenomenal force. She really is. I mean, she just how she had the conversations with her parents and her brother around the support system that they would create around Kit, her daughter. You know, so I looked at what Rowan was doing and there was a part of me in my late 30s that I thought maybe I could do what Rowan's doing because, you know, she seems to just be so sorted. and then when I hit 40 I couldn't really tell you definitively what it was but I there was just a peacefulness around my decision and I was like actually I don't think I want children and I really like my life the way that it is and I don't know that I have it in me to have and rear a child like take care and nurture a child in that way and there was a huge sense of peacefulness that came around that decision I would say though that it's not black and white no there there is definitely a part of me especially when I look at a relationship between a mother and a daughter and so when I go for example to my um my nail salon you sometimes see mother and daughters going in there and they just have this like gorgeous like interchange where the daughter's probably taking the piss out of the mom and they're just having like a little like they're planning what to do on their holiday and all of that and there's a moment when I look at that and I just think that is such a beautiful relationship and there is like a slight pang of like oh damn you know it would be so great to have that and then I go home and I just sit in my life and I'm like I actually really like my life like it's momentary your life is fucking great do whatever you want yeah yeah and because what I'm looking at is I'm looking at the best version of that relationship and I'm so glad that it exists for people I'm so glad that people have that relationship with their kids but I just don't have what it takes to also deal with all of the other stuff I don't think I have what it takes anyway nor do is it something that I necessarily feel I'm able to give of what it takes of the other side of parenting which you know full well which is all of the other stuff that comes along with it right um so I think that is that's my experience with it so far but I also think it's really it's really interesting because some people make a shorthand of the fact that you've chosen not to have children which is they assume you don't like children and that's really not the case for me I think that you know my niece who is now 11 my um we have a very very close relationship and I see my role in her life as being one that also is helping to shape her as a person of course and I take that role really seriously so I also am very interested in the conversations that while I don't think anyone should ever expect a woman to nurture just because she is a woman some women may not choose to do that at all as a child-free woman that part of nurture of like helping to raise a child is a

47:51Fearne Cotton: very important part of my identity yeah but that's what it's all about and that's what so many women are missing is that collective helping raise their children because we're living in these nuclear families now or fractured families and it's so full on for the mum it's so full on and if you've got this amazing bevy of other people that want to be party to helping shape that person and mold that mold the child as they grow through life what a beautiful thing so what I'm really thinking and what I was thinking throughout reading the whole of this book is so many women are going to be reading it going I do want more and maybe they've never even allowed themselves to think that before or it's a fetal thought and they're like I know I want more I do want more out of my life I want more for myself in whatever area of life it might be whether it's their relationships their work life geographically where they live their stress levels time space whatever what I guess you need to make any change because any change feels big when you're used to rumbling along in the same way is confidence and of course one of the things that we're again told in this era of life is that that's probably going to dwindle, that we're not necessarily feeling as confident.

49:02Fearne Cotton: That might be true. It might come along with perimenopause, menopause, your confidence starts to dwindle, life experience, you know, potholes in the road that you have to deal with, of course, can erode your confidence. And both you and I have been through that in various ways. How do you think, I don't know if you want to talk about your own personal story or how you might offer advice to women listening to this now if they want to make a change if they desperately want more out of their life experience and they've got an inkling that they deserve more what is that first step if you're lacking in confidence to making a change

49:39Poorna Bell: in the right direction I think that having a support system around you is really important but I am very aware that some people don't have that support system and we have this phrase it It takes a village. Not everyone has a village, you know, to help out. And I think that when you feel stuck, it can be really difficult to to know because you at some point you have to make a decision, however micro that decision is. And at some point that decision might lead you to have to communicate that to other people. And if other people are not necessarily as supportive of that, especially, for example, if it involves taking time away from them or something that requires them to do more so that you can do less.

50:23Poorna Bell: Not everyone is necessarily supportive of that. But there is I think it begins with you. And I think it begins with a decision that you have to make yourself before you do anything, you know. And one of the women who I interviewed for the book, which is the incredible author, Marianne Keyes, I just said to her, you know, do you have any words of wisdom for women who are feeling stuck, who just want to know that it's OK to make a change for themselves? and I'm going to very clumsily paraphrase this but what Marion said was that you know very often women are told that their purpose is service right to others and that your needs have to be at the back of everyone else's needs and she said that you know she acknowledges that neither her nor I

51:12Fearne Cotton: have children but um in our separate relationships not together sorry I realized how weird that

51:19Poorna Bell: sounded. But she said that, you know, obviously, if you have children, that's a very hard way to argue your way out of because, you know, of course, especially if your children are younger and they're not adults, they need you for things. But there is a percentage or a portion of your life which is just for you, which does not have to be in service for other people, that you don't have to justify your time via your productivity or what you produce. And I think that for me, if I would say there's a baby step that you can take, it is figuring out like even if it is one area of your life that you want to change, it's figuring out what you would like your life to look like.

52:02Poorna Bell: Literally, like in, you know, it doesn't even have to be that far down the line. it could literally be a month's time or maybe six months time or a year for some people looking at the overall picture is really overwhelming you know like if you take a relationship like a bad relationship as an example I know people who are in bad relationships who if you were to say you know you just need to get out of that relationship it's too much and so it's breaking that down into I think manageable chunks like what is if you break it down into a tenth of a decision that feeds into that overall thing what is like the first thing that you can do around that I definitely think that following behavioral change people really helps like Shahruh Azadi who is an expert in this field she will work talk you through how to do that in a very very compassionate way but for me I think it is about it's not even about necessarily the idea of reinvention or you know reclamation because for many of us we're reclaiming something that actually never existed in the first place.

53:03Poorna Bell: And that's really, really difficult. I think the first and the most simplest thing is that if there is a story that you have been telling yourself about you, whether that's I'm bad at money, I tend to pick this kind of guy, whatever it is, that's a story that you've told yourself and you can change that story. You don't have to do it overnight. You know, it doesn't have to be a dramatic change, but that story started from nothing. And so you can go back to that place of nothing and create something new that is what worked for me it is what I've seen has worked for other women as well it is literally just the fundamental belief that you are worth something you are of a person of value you've got to like yourself you've got to like yourself and if you can give love and service to everyone else in your life that has to start with you and if that's not starting with you then that is a problem and that's maybe the first problem to try and fix

53:57Fearne Cotton: It is because I think, again, culturally, we've been told you have to put yourself last. Like that's been the narrative for women for hundreds of years. And I tend to think about my grandmas, I guess, in this conversation. Like they're up there cheering me on going, yes, do what we couldn't. Please do what we couldn't do. And I'm not throwing shade on. I had a lovely granddad called Phil. I'm not throwing any shade on late Phil whatsoever because he was a great guy. But he was in a system that was deeply old fashioned where, you know, he went to work and my nan stayed at home and looked after.

54:30Fearne Cotton: They were teenagers when they had kids, but they'd be looking after my mum and her sister. She didn't have that opportunity. So I often think of in my mind's eye going, do like do what we couldn't. There's the opportunity there now. And we're all trying to progressively move forward. And, you know, hopefully there's systems down the line. you know grandchildren's grandchildren where there is more parity and there is more understanding that women aren't here just to do everything for everybody and that's how the world keeps moving

55:02Poorna Bell: completely and also for a visual imagery like if people struggle with that well what is the what is the first step or whatever there's a metaphor that my sister used which is in the book which I I love so much and I think that this you know she has a child so I feel like this is especially important for people with children, women with children rather, is that the sun doesn't orbit the earth, the earth orbits the sun. So for everyone else in your life to be okay, you have to be at the center of it, you have to be okay. And I completely understand that for some people, that may feel like a selfish choice or selfish decision.

55:42Poorna Bell: I think that this is something that women struggle with a lot because of how we've been socially conditioned. I don't like to speak in generalizations, but I don't think that men struggle with selfishness in the same way.

55:56Fearne Cotton: Agreed.

55:56Poorna Bell: I don't think they ask themselves, am I being really selfish if I decide to go and play golf, go for a run, do this, do that. They have the conversation about it and then they do it and they're fine with it and they can sleep easy at night. I think that because of the way that we've been socially conditioned to always be in service of other people is that we feel that we have to almost like do a timesheet of our lives and account for every single second a minute and I just don't want to fucking do it anymore yes come on p yes oh my god I'm feeling every word

56:32Fearne Cotton: totally I mean I've definitely been the beneficiary of like unsolicited commentary about this in so many ways I remember like years ago this week because these things stick with you I put like a yoga video up whatever I'm doing yoga in my front room or whatever and another woman had commented saying like where are your kids like who's looking after your kids right now or something like that or like oh good for you that you get to do that and bear in mind I got up before the kids had got up so I could do it to then go and do the school run afterwards would someone say the same to Joe Wicks who's doing a workout of course they wouldn't because they think oh his wife's probably got the kids subconsciously they're thinking that there is so much under like subterranean judgment that lives in all of us men and women I'm not this is not like a I hate men conversation love men they're the fucking best but this is a patriarchal conditioning that we've all been under and it's in us and we and we have to all check ourselves and go who am I why am I judging this other woman why am I judging someone else's decision because this person wants to live in an entirely different way to the way I'm living and actually is any of that a bit of a mirror because I want that I mean if I were to ask you today right this second Pornart what do you want more of what are you saying oh that is such a tough question

57:51Poorna Bell: this this isn't a cop-out the thing that I want more of is I just want women to live in joy and I just want us to be able to exist however the fuck we want and for us to stop policing each other and you know judging each other's choices I just think that joy is such a it's such a vital compass for how you how you live your life because someone who is living their life in joy is not going to write some shitty comment about you doing yoga you're not focusing on what someone else is doing unless someone else is also making you feel bad and scrutinized for your choices. So I do think that the more freedom that we have in our lives, the more joy that we have in our lives, no one should have the right to tell you how to live your life.

58:41Poorna Bell: And I feel like if we could just stop that cycle, you know, if someone is doing it to you, stop that cycle. So then you will stop doing it to someone else. So that person will stop doing it. And then maybe we will create a less shitty world than the one we live in.

58:56Fearne Cotton: Yes, please. I mean, your book feels like an absolute revolution to read. It's like it's a community. It's like starting. It's like a movement. I'm so here for it. And I loved reading this book. And I know so many other women will get so much from it. Before we round things off, two quick questions. The first one is we are making a happy place playlist of songs that make you feel fucking great. This could be related to the book and the the energy behind this book or just a song that makes you feel good what would you like to put

59:25Poorna Bell: on our happy place playlist i think it has to be rolling tina turner's version yes it just i when that plays i cannot not dance you know in that dress with those heels and i just everything about tina everything about tina i love that choice that's so going on thank you and where

59:46Fearne Cotton: Where is your happy place?

59:47Poorna Bell: Oh, my happy place is my living room surrounded by all of my plants with a blanket that my friend Aga crocheted for me, watching something with my hand in a bag of crisps.

1:00:00Fearne Cotton: It's so specific. No, it's in my mind's eye. I can see it so well. You can taste the salt on your tongue.

1:00:08Poorna Bell: I can, I can. Yeah. It's so great.

1:00:09Fearne Cotton: Oh, it's just been the best talking to you. I mean we could do this for hours and hours and hours and we'll have to do a part two at some point but I urge anyone who's listening to this who feels it in their bones that they want more, that they deserve more to get this book and to feel boosted by all the brilliant case studies and stories that you've got in there of women who are living life exactly as they want to because it's fired me up and I know it will for so many other people out there. I really appreciate you Fern. Appreciate you. Love you mate. Love you too.

1:00:43Poorna Bell: Oh, bloody hell.

1:00:44Fearne Cotton: I love that chat. I feel just massively fired up for all women out there. And like I said, I really think about my nans in this context. My nan Ruby and my nan Sylvia. Nan Sylvia would definitely have a fag on. She's smoking her way up there still. And she'd be looking down going, go on, you've got this. My nan, Sylvia, actually came with me to my first ever TV audition for Disney Club because my mum was at work. And I will never forget that day. We got the train into London together and she sat through rounds and rounds of auditions in this stuffy office with me. And then we got the train back on the Metropolitan Line.

1:01:25Fearne Cotton: I think she was desperate for a cigarette the whole way back. And I always picture her when I have conversations like this really cheering me on. because like I said in that chat, you know, so many of the generations of women before us didn't have the opportunities we have. And yes, we might have a few more opportunities. There's still huge disparity and inequality in ways. But I think many of the generations before us are really cheering us on to live life authentically in the way that we want as women that might not fit into the social structures that have been there for eons. I love Paulina.

1:01:58Fearne Cotton: I just, isn't she just the most amazing person? Not only should you read, she wanted more, which is out right now, but you've also got to read her whole back catalogue because every book she's written, every book she's penned has just been sensational. Would it be a little self-indulgent if I quickly told you about my new book? I'm sorry if it is, but I don't want to waste the opportunity. I've got a brand new book out very soon. It's out in March and it's called Likeable. And I hope you would feel happy enough to read along with us for our Happy Place Book Club, because we're going to be looking at my new book, Likeable, which I also really hope is a helpful book for men and women out there.

1:02:38Fearne Cotton: This book is all about my personal obsession and issues I've had around needing to be liked by other people, looking for that validation for all sorts of reasons. So I tell lots of stories about moments in my life where I've put far too much importance on being liked and far too little importance on what really works for me and the problems that that's caused in my life and how I'm desperately trying to rectify my people pleasing ways so that I can live more mentally peacefully and actually physically healthier in doing so and I really hope that you feel boosted from reading it and confident in making positive changes for yourself too.

1:03:23Fearne Cotton: There's lots of chapters in there like, will you like me if I behave? Will you like me if I keep my mouth shut? Will you like me if I'm a bit more like you, etc. So if you're not following our book club, we're at Happy Place Book Club. You can head on to Instagram and join our book club simply by following us and chat about books and being little bookworms. More on Likeable very soon. But look, until next time, a huge thanks again to Pornar, to the producer Anushka Tate at Happy Play Studios and to you because you are extremely likeable. Actually, you're the best.