Paloma Faith… ‘I overshare by whose standards? Not mine.’

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1:13hello and welcome to how to fail with me author and broadcaster elizabeth day this is the podcast where we flip the traditional interview format on its head celebrating failure rather than success because what we learn from the former is often far more important than anything that comes from the latter. It's how we respond to failure that defines our character and helps us grow. Every episode, I ask a very special guest to discuss three failures and how they emerged on the other side to be the person we see today. Before we get into my interview with Paloma, I am so delighted to let you know that you can join us afterwards at Failing With Friends, my subscriber series, where we continue our conversation.

1:58This week, Paloma and I go through getting over an ex, risk-taking, and how your relationship with your family affects you. Also, how to train a dog. Not even kidding. And I would love to hear from you. If you'd like to get in touch, follow the link in the podcast notes.

2:18My guest today has had many jobs. She's studied theatre directing and has variously had stints as a sales assistant at Agent Provocateur, a singer in a burlesque cabaret, a hip-hop dancer, a bartender, a life model and a magician's assistant. But she's best known as a singer and actor. In her music, her lyrics trawl the depths of heartache and her melodies blend elements of soul and gospel. It is an eclecticism that has its roots in her childhood. Her mother is English, her father Spanish and her stepfather of Chinese heritage. She recalled later that she was raised to believe differences were something to be celebrated or curious about rather than demonised.

3:04She's released five critically acclaimed and platinum selling albums since 2009, scored a number one hit single and a number one album, as well as scooping a Brit Award. On TV, she's been a judge on The Voice and an actor in movies including Centrinians and The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus. Now, she returns with her sixth album, The Glorification of Sadness. Described as her most personal work to date, it details the breakdown of a 10-year relationship with the father of her two daughters. Quite often we hear about women as victims in these situations, she said recently. I wanted it to be empowering.

3:46I wanted it to be invigorating for people to feel strong. She is, of course, Paloma Faith. Paloma, welcome to How to Fail. Thank you. I'm really happy to be here because I fail constantly. Well, you're wearing a t-shirt that says shit happens, which I'm very pleased about and your album is called The Glorification of Sadness which I think is a fantastic title. Thank you. Why did you call it that? Well I called it The Glorification of Sadness because last year I had five funerals and one of the people who died was somebody who was you know quite close to me a poet and he'd written this poem which I read out at his funeral and And one of the lines in it really stuck with me.

4:33And it said, every artist's pain is for sale. And I think that I had this like once reading it, it really kind of resonated with me. And I had this kind of hyper kind of awareness that I was turning probably what was, I would say, my biggest failure in my life into a commodity. and even though it was sort of therapeutic and cathartic for me it still is like becomes lucrative for whatever businessman sits behind the desk and I had a meeting with my record company and I played probably the song that I feel saddest hearing called Divorce from the record and the head of the label said yeah but how can we turn this into entertainment and it just felt kind of like this a bit uncomfortable so I was like okay that's what I'm gonna call it that's why it's like yeah the commodification of tragedy there's so much to unpack there first of all I want to say I'm so sorry that you had five funerals yeah that's horrendous it was an avalanche of sadness because you're in your 40s now as am I and I do think there's something both powerful and terrifying about entering what is unglamorously called middle-aged because you you start to realize that you might have less time left than you've already had did it make you think differently about how you wanted to live your life going through those periods of grief nothing impacted me quite as much as the breakup because death is so permanent so there's not much you can really be doing about that whereas a breakup you're both still alive and you've got you know there were times when we see each other and it really works and it's amazing and we think or I think what are we doing and then there are times where you're reminded and you're like oh that's why yeah I think that's more thought-provoking to me than the permanence that's just sad because it's you know irretrievable there's nothing you can't go beyond it going back to your album there's a single that has just been released called how to leave a man and it's classic paloma faith in the it's very intelligent and it's also a real bop and there's sort of deep melody to it as well like it's a very multi-layered thing that you do how do you write a song like what what's the process that you go through or does it change for every single song it changes for every song because sometimes I'll just be like sent home with a load of chords like a song on the record called already broken and I just kind of wrote it while driving and I just was stopping the car voice noting stuff and then other things like how you leave a man was a song that was sort of sent to me that was almost nearly finished and then it didn't quite resonate with me personally so I changed the lyrics so it's it's kind of always different because how you leave a man initially was written from like sort of a 20 something perspective and it really I was like no I'm kind of past that and I think with the video I added that layer where it pans around at the end and it's like all glamorous and then it's you see that I've got two kids in the boots doing that which my ex was not best pleased about he's like why am I in the trunk I was just like I was like because I can't leave you not because I've murdered you it's because I can't leave you even if I wanted to there's no separation because we've got these kids so forever we're eternally bound that one was about making it relevant to my position do you ever worry going back to that idea of commodification about sharing too much of yourself or being so honest I mean I know it helps so many other people and I'm really glad that you do it and I think it's really courageous but do you worry that sometimes your instinct is to overshare before you're ready or before your ex is ready does that ever I think so but also I think that my idea of oversharing like so there's certain things that I keep very close to me that I don't share but I remember once a journalist interviewed me and it was a really clever observation they said she gives you the feeling that she's telling you everything when actually I'm worried she's told me nothing and I think that that there's a bit of that like I overshare by whose standards I don't know not mine yeah occasionally my mum gets on to me about it she's like you don't need to say that especially now I've been writing this book and she read the the second draft and she's like do we really need to know how many orgasms you had on that occasion that's a bit tabloid and I'm like she's like you could just say it was an enjoyable experience and I'm like I don't mind about that there's other things that I mind about I guess everyone's got their own parameters what they think they're oversharing yeah and I also think there's something patriarchal wrapped up in that like the idea that if a woman is honest about her experiences then it's oversharing and hysterical in some way yeah whereas if a man is honest about their experiences it's sort of bold right exactly I want to I want to talk about your book in a minute but I know that a lot of listeners to this podcast come to How to Fail when they are feeling heartbroken and it's partly because I have spoken a bit about my own past heartbreak and I do consider it a form of grief I think it's one an incredibly hard thing to go through and I wondered if you had any advice for anyone who is in the throes of that right now it's really difficult isn't it because everyone's circumstances are different I've been through a lot of breakups now and I do think that this album I've purposely ordered the songs so that it actually sort of is chronological in the stages of grief like the moments of irrationality moments of introspection moments of anger moments of self-sabotage like all it's all in there there's only really one piece of advice that anyone can ever do and it's boring and I'm sorry there's no like key to you know it's not going buy a pair of shoes which does help me sometimes but I feel like it's just an awareness that time is the most amazing I don't know if it's always a healer I don't know if I buy that but it's amazing because it always continues there's nothing you can do to stop it so every feeling you ever have is temporary and I feel like that gives me reassurance whatever's happening when I'm sitting in those feelings and I do think you have to sit in them I always have in the back of my mind this feeling no feeling positive or negative is going to remain permanent you might be like having the best time of your life listening to this podcast and I hate to tell you that might not last either.

11:51I do have a back catalogue so it's like no, I'm kidding. Yeah, somebody's going, something's going to shit on you, guaranteed. It's just more an awareness of the fact that everything is impermanent which is quite a sort of Buddhist perspective. Yeah, I've never had a breakup with children and I wanted to ask you, although it's probably an impossible thing to answer, but how does it differ with two children? I don't think it is impossible because it feels so dramatically different because you can't do the initial bit where you're like, I need space. I can't see you anymore. Like you're forced to do that.

12:28And you're forced at times. Well, I was because I put myself under that pressure. We both did. We pretended at first, like pretended to get along, pretended that it wasn't. We weren't both absolutely devastated. and it gets confusing it still gets confusing it's like a never-ending breakup it's like I feel bad for you know anybody who dates me because he's so important he's so wrapped up in my children that he's almost more important than anybody else that might come along like my relationship not necessarily that I would like cuddle up in bed with him of course I wouldn't but I think that relationship with him is more important to me now at this stage in my separation I feel I put him before I do most people because he's the father of my kids and I really like feel very kind of emphatic about stabilizing my children and I can already tell that they've had a better experience of it than I did as a kid because I was a child of divorced parents and my relationship with their dad is so much better than I grew up with it's still not at that place where I would openly say who I'm seeing or you know like it's just a bit uncomfortable it's all a bit new and it's the first time for both of us and it's I don't know it's a bit bit murky I think and it's two years later like usually two years on you're just done you're just like well we live we don't even want to be friends anymore because we just don't see each other that much we haven't got time blah blah blah no hard feelings but you know but with this it's like no it's still a really significant relationship how old are your daughters seven and two that's also a very sort of intense period of parenting you had this wonderful metaphor I hope I don't embarrass you by reading it out loud you can't embarrass me in a recent interview you were asked about the reasons for your breakup and you and you spoke about expandable foam do you remember this yeah will you tell us what you mean by expandable foam it was so good I think that when you're in a relationship there is there are holes like there are bits that you can't fill and then as a healthy relationship grows those holes your partner hopefully sees them and then sort of you squeeze they squeeze themselves in them like expandable foam it just fills the gaps that you leave and so in order to sort of progress like there is an inevitability of change everyone changes over years and years so if you are with someone for like 20 years 30 years 40 years it'd be weird if you didn't change as a person so the idea is that in my mind that they need to be like expandable foam they need to observe your changes and you observe theirs and you both kind of fill in the gaps in the sort of I guess like a more fluid way than just being like rigid like I don't like the new you I don't like this change and I think for me when I speak about that the most significant change was going from being like a couple of two people to three people then four people being our children and so there was a rigidity I think that was difficult to navigate for us because I changed and I changed what I was capable of giving and I think that I'm going to make a sweeping statement but I think quite a lot of heterosexual men want mothering and when a woman's mothering actual children they don't really want to I don't just I just feel that capacity I just don't there's being there for someone and then there's like being expected to kind of mother and almost like give them what they lack and I just feel very unavailable for that I think so many people relate to that.

16:38I've heard very good friends of mine saying the same thing.

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18:17Before we get onto your failures, I just want to touch on something that you mentioned about how your parents were divorced when you were quite young. what is your abiding childhood feeling about your parents splitting up well I'm really glad that my parents split up because my dad was really difficult and so I think that I would have been a lot more of a mess psychologically if they'd have stayed together so I'm so grateful for it and I'm grateful it was when I was young as well do you have a relationship with your dad now no I said it was my last question for your failures I lied because I remembered I want to ask you about your book it's called MILF yeah it sounds brilliant you were telling me about it before we started recording what was the premise of it I've changed the anagram to motherhood identity love and fuckery I don't know if you can swear I actively encourage swearing the title is kind of about the fact that it's a bit of a runner-up prize calling a mum a MILF because you're like, oh, at least we still fancy you.

19:18Thanks. But it's sort of about social expectation of women and female identity. I guess from the perspective of someone in their 40s, whether they've got children or not, it's kind of across the board, but it's really about the idea of feminism's abandoned us halfway through its work, in the West particularly, and left us kind of with sort of free jobs and all this responsibility to like be more than and sort of be such expandable foam that we're just like whoa filling every space and it's about the frustration and I feel like we need to have more boundaries about it I just feel like so pressed by culture and expectation and it's just an example what the book's about here's an example There's one where I write about a boyfriend asking me to like understand his feelings and be there for him and how I was cold about it or whatever.

20:20And I'm like sitting just thinking, I've already this morning dressed three bodies, brushed three sets of teeth, fed three breakfast, wiped three bums and done a workout. And I'm sitting here going, sorry, I wasn't. You know, it's just a lot. So it's just, yes, kind of exploring those themes. I'm fascinated to come on later to talk about how you came of age as a singer and a famous person in the noughties, which was a particularly toxic era, I think, for women. And I'm someone who also remembers the 90s, which is pretty toxic as well. But maybe we'll come on to that later as part of one of your failures, because your first failure is being thrown out of ballet school age 10.

21:08why were you thrown out because this is the really heartbreaking bit I was thrown out because I showed signs of becoming curvy and that wasn't like the correct body for a ballet dancer and I was really committed I was at like a proper ballet school and I went four times a week after school and then they they told me that they didn't they just said we just don't feel like your body type will be suited which was a big moment which has probably influenced me I think I've got like a slightly I always talk about body positivity like I'm envious of it I'm me too I'm really body negative

21:52I know and then I feel negative about being body negative because I feel like I should be being body positive yeah you want to leave by example you're desperate for it but you can't although I'm quite good at it with my children I think so as long as I can make two women be positive then I've succeeded setting realistic goals but I think um yeah it was a bit of a blow and then it made me sort of obsessed with it forever basically that was it what form did that obsession take I didn't ever develop an eating disorder which I'm grateful for but I I did go on to dance school and I have body dysmorphia like I don't act on it in sort of like addictive ways but like it does sometimes I look at photos and I just think I was huge in that photo but then I'll see the photo and be like I wasn't like in my mind it's like I was really sad at that point because I felt I was overeating or whatever and then I'll see a picture of it or a video and be like I've never been like and I tell people as well I've said in interviews even and I won't say it today I've said like my weight's always fluctuated and actually it really hasn't like I mean within half a stone but like the only time it ever did was postpartum and I was just really headstrong about it and I just got on with it I just got rid of it I was I don't think I've ever it's been as bad as it is in my mind like the torment of it and I really like you say wish that I wasn't because I see other people owning who they are and owning their bodies and I just feel like they're amazing and inspiring and all of that I just can't get there how much of that self-critical voice is actually you do you think and how much of it is conditioning ballet school the 90s being told that a bowl of special care day was a good diet to shift those extra pounds I know it's probably quite difficult to sort of separate all of those strands well I call it the in the bully because it's sort of a permanent thing and if you speak to anybody who's had sort of a successful career most of them have quite a loud in a bully because it does also motivate you and I think that actually when you talk about body relationship with your body it's not usually about your actual body in a literal sense it's to do with saying you can try harder you got to be better and I think like growing up my mum was always really encouraging of me as I was and never put any pressure on me I had some learning difficulties as a as a kid and then suddenly just excelled overnight and it was really strange I was in the Hackney Gazette for doing really well in this underachieving school but I was kind of like very low bottom end until I was about 13 slow reader slow all these things and my mum was just always like you'll come to it in your own time and my dad was always like even when I did well he'd be like why isn't it an a star if I said I got an a well that's how we graded it back then in the olden days that's what my daughter calls me in the olden days when you were little like I'm not that old but then it just becomes this thing of like me always feeling like that child that was behind always feeling like I needed to prove something even like once I'd got to dance school um one of the teachers called me to her office and was like did you write this essay because it's extraordinary and I was like yeah but she goes but why do you present yourself as like a bit stupid and I was like do I she's like I don't I don't I can't believe you wrote it and I I was like I just think that I'm not pretentious doesn't mean that I'm stupid anyway all that stuff it kind of like adds up doesn't it and over years and years it mounts and you're like I have to prove this thing and you know I'm also like I don't know about you but I find myself so inarticulate when I speak but much better writing I'm exactly the same but can I just reassure you that you are phenomenally articulate right now right here but but I do I really relate to that that the voice in your head being like you haven't found the right word as you're speaking yeah yeah yeah and it's much calmer for me to be writing something same and I can go back on it and sometimes makes people go oh you're so humble you're so sweet and I'm like humble would be nice but like actually quite abusive like internally it's probably not and I think that I am quite abusive I'm really to myself yeah no I get it make that clarification.

26:51I really relate and I'm really sorry that you're dealing with that, but I'm also so proud of you for having that level of self-awareness about it because the first step is observation of it rather than feeling it is swallowing you up. I wonder how much of this drive, this kind of internal motor that you have to prove yourself comes from being the child of a quote-unquote single mum which was a label that had a particular resonance in in the time that we were growing up did you feel that you had to compensate I did especially because my mum came from like extreme poverty on a scale that doesn't even really exist anymore because of changes in sort of you know the way the state is run and stuff like they came from like a hand-to-mouth type of family like if there was no money there was no food and stealing like food from other farmer's stuff and you know all of that because they were from a rural area knowing that she came out of that and sort of telling me all the time like oh I we had education because we wanted to get out of that so we studied because we wanted an escape route and so coming from that home life of like education being this important thing sort of led me to getting kind of all A's at my exams and then going on to do a degree and then a master's and all of that was definitely motivated by I guess honoring what she had done and then knowing you know seeing the difference in my childhood like I remember the visual change in where I lived over the years changing as she progressed in her career I just remember like what our house looked like when I was really young versus what it looks like now and how that was like a visual representation of her work and effort and I just thought I can't drop the ball and I still won't drop the ball today because I just want her to know that like it wasn't all in vain and I do think it's probably the main motivator I think that and also when I was 26 I have a sister who's my dad's child with another woman and well I have two but one of them I became her legal guardian when I was 26 and at that point I was quite kind of creative and a bit art school and a bit more whimsical and then when I became her legal guardian and had this social worker and I had to prove that I could look after and I'd be responsible I suddenly did this like big u-turn on my career and started pursuing like more commercial angle of of my creativity so I think that's how I ended up in films and how I ended up becoming like a commercial more commercial musician I think before that I was way more experimental but I just felt responsible did she come and live with you how old was she she was just about to be 16 no maybe 15 into yeah until she was 18 that's a huge responsibility and I think it's it's it's not because if you think of it I was 26 and some people have babies but it's just that she was a teenager so I didn't grow with her like having had children now I can understand why it was difficult because when you have a baby you sort of grow with it you learn with it but I kind of just had this person that was half child half adult and also had quite a sort of tumultuous life before that, like coming to live with me.

30:27I speak a bit about it in the book, but I frame it in the idea that it was the first time I became a mother, really. Yeah. How is she doing now? She's amazing. Good. I'm so proud. All credit to you. I get all tearful because I think she's just my hero.

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31:57when you started becoming famous and having your picture in papers was that also quite destructive for your sense of self and your body image yeah people think that's the reality but those lenses are sort of like so because they take a photo from so far away and zoom in they're just so enlarging I have people all the time meet me and they're like oh my god you're tiny in real life it's so irritating because it gives people this really weird sense like I remember once somebody came up to me in the noughties from the clothes show and said I love what you do for women with curves and I was like I'm a size eight please don't project that narrative like I am not a woman with I mean like I'm curvy on my frame but like I'm a size eight don't go around telling people I'm a curvy woman it's not fair on people I want to talk about your second failure and I'm so glad that you chose it because I think it leads on from what we've been discussing about your body and what our bodies can and can't do and what we expect them to do and what society tells us they should do as women and your second failure is your failure to conceive your kids naturally so you had IVF and also your failure to have a natural birth yeah and the reason I'm so pleased that you're talking about this is because I also went through several rounds of fertility treatment had recurrent miscarriages and don't have children and I'm at peace with that now it's been a long journey but I'm at peace with it and that's why I'm really grateful to have this conversation with you that you still feel this failure even though you have your daughters so please tell me about your journey first of all sorry because it's so harrowing doing it and then like no and it's always in the background no one really knows it's happening yeah and it's a quite a lonely thing I think to do even if you've got a partner you're still alone in it because it's all on you isn't it very very isolating so what happened with me was I always thought or felt that quite fertile and I had had a situation when I was very young where I sort of looked at penis and became pregnant so I just thought I was like oh on high alert my whole life about not conceiving after that and then we had some issues we knew quite quick I knew quite quickly there was problems because I'm a bit witchy anyway and I just thought there was something and then found out that what actually happened was the beginning of our fertility treatment it was because it was on his side that there was fertility problems but thanks to modern science and the patriarchy it still falls on the woman no funding research has been done to allow the man who's got fertility problems to take any sort of physical responsibility for that it's the same process as if it was my issue it began like that and then I then had an ectopic pregnancy with the first um I'm sorry one and then so then you like then my fertility starts going because I've had one tube damaged so then it's like every other month and then anyway so the second time did work so I was lucky because I actually had two viable pregnancies even though one was ectopic quite quickly and then the birth was really difficult it was like actually unbearable and the kind of long version is in my book but it started off with proms which is called premature rupture of membranes where you're sort of in labor and that was only six months pregnant I think yeah and so I was leaking and they were like you're gonna have to induce we're gonna have a premature baby and I just kind of like was really defiant that I didn't want to do that and I basically had bed rest and I was just drinking four liters of water a day and I kept her in for a month just laying down to kind of replenish the lost waters and then eventually the birth itself was went terribly wrong and lots of things like we all have this idea that we're gonna have this natural birth and it's all going to be perfect and I'm mother nature and like even I've written about this in my book they tell you that you put the baby on you and it finds its way to the breast absolute nonsense I don't know who came up with that but it's rubbish it doesn't they just lay they're looking at you crying and then it all just went a bit wrong and after 21 hours of labor and like a lot of kind of stuff and no sleep for a week I had seven hours sleep in seven days I had an emergency cesarean which also caused me later on fertility problems as well and then a bit of postpartum psychosis because of lack of sleep so I like was hallucinating it was all just awful that's so traumatic I was probably depressed for a couple of years without realizing because the weird thing about depression is that I didn't realize was that you don't or any mental illness is when it's legitimate mental illness you're very unaware of the fact you've got it and it's only when it passes that I realized that I had been mentally unwell and so I think that took its toll on my relationship which this album's about and and then like later you know I wanted a second child and then I had three failed um transfers like one more egg collection three failed transfers and then the fourth one worked and then I was just so kind of headstrong about it in a way how like a woman doing IVF becomes almost like in this trance like state of like that's what I want and a lot of stuff falls by the wayside like your emotional life your relationship because you're just so like focused on this thing in quite an obsessive way you don't even like consider what might be lost or a woman's identity becoming a mother or anything you're just about having these babies anyway eventually I've been very fortunate and grateful that I've I had the second one but even then it's only recently because that child's now too and she I didn't realize that I'd been quite depressed even after that and actually wonder I always think like would my relationship have broken down if I'd have medicated like this stuff doesn't get talked about enough I feel like maybe it was all because of it you said that you're a bit witchy I imagine you believe in some sort of universal power do you think it had to be this way in that respect like how do you feel now being a mother given everything that you went through and what you had to deal with and the pain you had to suffer along the way and what was lost as well as the enormous fortune that you have these two beautiful daughters but how does that feel I just wonder whether it's a mindset like I see people who have careers and lives where the stuff they want stuff and it sort of just happens my manager who's been my manager since the beginning of my career called and he was like yeah but it wouldn't be you if it was easy would it and he said that and I was like oh my god you're right actually like it's always whatever whatever's happened it's been difficult and I think that goes for a lot of people but sometimes from the outside you look at the world and you think oh like I know people who said oh we're going to start trying for a baby and three weeks later they're pregnant or people who sit in interviews in the music business and say yeah we just wrote this song in 10 minutes and it's a global smash you're just like ah how's that happened to you but you know what though the beauty for you for paloma faith and for the rest of us is in those difficulties because what you're doing every single time you're surmounting a challenge is you're becoming wiser and stronger yeah and also like those cases are usually in reality a bit of a minority like i'm sure you know from your podcast that most successful people have had way more failures than they've had successes and only people only ever focus on their successes they never focus on the million times that they failed before that can we just clip that how that is the social media clip the official blurb precisely that but i just want to return to the fact that you've chosen this as one of your failures i i can relate to it but i think some people will be listening thinking but it's not your failure if you didn't manage to conceive no you're right it's to do with social pressure isn't it it's to do with how we're raising our girls how we're raising women from childhood as like this is one of your purposes in life is you were born to do this and you were born to further the human race and no pressure but now because of feminism this is one of my things is like this abandoned us is like but you also need to like have your independence you need to have your career and you know we've all arrived at this point in history where we're like well trying to get my career going and then it means that we're having children later and then we're not really being able to kind of foresee these issues early enough to be able to time runs away from us doesn't it it's like now I'm 42 and I think oh I'd love another child but I've kind of thought I probably won't be able to now not with all and my mum's always like your body wouldn't cope with it but I think yeah it's exactly that it's to do with like this idea that we are groomed to think that's our job and that that's our kind of that's the most fulfilling thing you can do as a woman that's not true even when you've got kids you're made to feel a bit guilty if you don't think that your kids are the most fulfilling thing in your life I do get a lot of fulfillment from other parts of life it doesn't mean that I don't love my children or I'm neglecting them I remember saying something to my mum even about sacrifice when it comes to parenthood like all the sacrifices you make for yourself well I wouldn't look at it as a sacrifice having a child is not a sacrifice and it's like you're not even allowed to think that you might go well sometimes I do quite miss spontaneity sorry to admit but I do sort of miss being able to go right I'm getting on a plane tomorrow and I'm going to go and just be at this thing that might help my career or whatever motivates you or just see this natural phenomena or whatever it is go see a volcano Yeah, exactly.

43:09And we're allowed to be many different things that are sometimes complementary and sometimes contradictory. And the patriarchy does all genders a disservice. It traps us all. And you alluded to this, but the idea that the medical establishment has not funded a lot of research into how to make things easier for women in many respects. and certainly my experience going through IVF and I know it's changed a lot now but I was made to feel like a failure because of the language used by medical professionals like that idea geriatric mother yes I get that or like this transfers failed exactly you fail to produce enough eggs yeah your cervix is incompetent yeah it's not and I heard one that was something like it's not a viable yeah no but something about the environment of my of my uterus inhospitable yeah inhospitable environment thanks i was very welcoming i felt i'm sure you have a lovely warm generous womb and i would love to book a room there high thread count sheets can you just tell us what your daughters are like as characters yin and yang so the older one is super bright on a sort of emotional comedic level because she's only seven people don't understand that she's just got really deadpan humor and quite often think she's just like a bit of a rude child but she's not because she sort of winks at me afterwards she's just so hilarious and it's like a bit of an old soul and she's like this dark person so there's a great anecdote that I've got from recently we went on holiday and the um the way she's very like feminist the the waiter like pulled out a chair and went this is for you princess and she went I am not a princess I'm the queen of darkness so she's kind of like a bit of a hero and then the other one is like where this one who's like kind of intelligent stimulating lateral thinking and a bit cynical the flip sometimes she's lacking a bit on the kind of like cuddles and the cuteness and so the little one's got all of that in bucket loads and everywhere we go people are just like oh my god I've never met a more cute child like she's just like this sort of she's like a Japanese cartoon character she's just so cute big eyes smiles at everyone and makes everyone feel special and I know what the future looks like the future looks like the older one is going to look after me in old age and like despise me and say I was irritating and annoying but be there every day like wiping my bum when I'm incontinent and then the young one's going to be someone sorry mother I'm just in Thailand they need me here everyone loves me here just like giving her love and I'll I'll be like, oh, she called.

46:14So the older one will be like, she gets all the credit. I'm so uplifted because she rang me once in six months. And the older one will be like, I hate you, mother. I'm here every day. Oh, that's genius. That's it. That's the future. Before we get on to your third and final failure, I hope you don't mind my asking you about this, but I read that you suffered a miscarriage on set once yeah and again I think a lot of women will relate to this you went back to work well I didn't go back I was just in it and it started at work and it was a fight scene on Pennyworth and I just thought to myself it's gone so I might as well carry on with what I'm doing I had to go to the toilet nine times and on film sets they escort you to the toilet because they don't want to lose you and like delay filming or whatever so it was quite embarrassing I was like oh sorry something bad last night so I knew that if I told them I was miscarrying they'd send me home I didn't want to because I just thought I'd just be going home without work and without a viable pregnancy and I just thought I just I'm just gonna stay and I just sort of stuffed loads of tissues in my underwear and I said I've come on my period could you send for something or whatever and they did I was like it's quite heavy and I just carried on filming and actually I don't regret it I think it's kind of very indicative of who I am as a person and some people might find it I don't know disturbing or a bit weird or whatever but I just think that's kind of the way I am and I didn't really cry about it and I don't think that's necessarily a good thing but it is it's me it's it's what I'm like do you think you disassociate yes I think quite a lot of people who've had varying degrees of trauma from childhood learn disassociation and I think that I did and it's like I I listened to Alain de Botton quite a lot and I listened to him say the other day which was good like those kind of survival mechanisms you develop as a child were really good for you as a child because they help you cope but taking them into adulthood can sometimes not be great for you because they don't really work long term but well done to the child you for figuring it out kind of thing acknowledge the child and what they did to protect you yeah I know what you mean though because I have had miscarriages and I think I disassociated and I've done that thing of like I was at brunch with a friend and I carried on having the brunch like and I think when you were talking earlier about being in depression and not acknowledging it as that then but only in retrospect you were in retrospect yeah I can see that I numbed myself and that was the way that I got through it and I more recently had an experience of that sort of um that tapping therapy yeah EDMR EMDR so good isn't it well it was interesting because they they are well they asked me like think of a a difficult image like a sort of flashback image a traumatic image and I could think of the image but I had no feelings attached to it and I was like oh that's how deep my disassociation went you knew that it was difficult but you didn't feel like exactly yeah exactly and then I got into the people pleasing thing of like I now need to pretend yeah I'm finding it uncomfortable I'm being cured yeah thank you so much But it works.

49:53But have you found it helpful? I think therapies are good because I think that they just give you that one hour a week to kind of really focus on something. I don't think that anyone is particularly better than another and everyone's different. Do you think you disassociate when you perform slightly? As in, do you have a persona when you perform? it's the only time weirdly when I'm performing the only time in my life that I'm fully committed to the moment I'm in and I'm not thinking about what if anything ahead or anything behind I'm only in that moment and therefore it's the complete absence of anxiety for me and I have anxiety about everything all day every day but the only time I don't is on stage the only time which is why I think that that in itself you know when people say your kids need to be the source of everything they riddle me with anxiety like going on stage is amazing I don't even worry about them because I think I have to go on to this stage and finish this performance and I've done it in so many situations the same as continuing the fight scene while having a miscarriage it's like for me work is a refuge it's like I just really want to deliver a performance and it's beyond me or any kind of like real life stuff.

51:11And so, yeah, it's a bit disassociated, but not necessarily because I'm very present in it. Well, talking about your love of performing brings us neatly onto your third failure, which is your failure to have a good work-life balance. I think we all feel that. Do we? I think so. I know people who don't work that much. Do they feel that they've got the balance correct though? because probably even there they're worrying that they're doing too much. Yes. Do you think you're a workaholic? Yes. Okay. And it's really bad and I think it gets to dangerous levels. But I think both my parents, so like I know I don't have a great relationship with my dad, but I do have a work ethic from both my parents.

51:56Both of them when I was growing up were just obsessed with work and then I sort of just like copied it and now I don't really, really fully know because I've never witnessed it in my life how to do anything else other than be obsessed by work. It's so interesting going back to what we were talking about right at the beginning about that idea of honouring what your mother went through and her striving and working to make the house nicer that maybe you still are so driven by that. A hundred percent, yeah. But also it's not just workholism and it's, I get so much out of it. Like I'm lucky as well that I have a job I love so much.

52:39But I think like that thing of just being like so fulfilled by something and kind of governed by a fear that that thing might be taken away. Yes. Is what motivates me. Every time I put a record out, I think this is the last one or I notice everything like the record company aren't calling me as much as they used to. Or I wasn't invited to this event. why wasn't I like like it's just so ridiculous I don't look at other people but I just worry about my own failures Paloma Faith I have loved talking to you so much I could do it for hours thank you so much for coming on I2Fail just a quick reminder that we continue the conversation over at Failing With Friends it's a wonderful community of subscribers where we chat through your failures and questions I get annoyed by men asking me to marry them.

53:36I think it's irritating. That is the best soundbite ever. And I need that on a T-shirt. That needs to be your merch. It's actually offensive. It is. It's completely offensive. It's like, what, you want to own me? You want to own me? And you won't feel that you have to invest in it and, like, show up every night because you want to. No, because I have to. signed this piece of paper invented by men for the benefit of men i'm not i'm not into it get failing with friends episodes every week and all episodes of how to fail ad free just visit the how to fail show page on apple podcasts and click start free at the top of the page to begin your free trial or you can visit failingwithfriends.com if you're not an apple user

54:33Thank you.