How To Be Sad with Helen Russell: Recent Episodes

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To celebrate the publication of How to Raise a Viking and as a special thank you to listeners of the podcast we are delighted to share this exclusive extract from the audiobook.

What do Vikings know about raising children? Turns out, quite a lot…

After a decade of living in Denmark and raising a family there, Helen Russell noticed that Nordic children are different. They eat differently. They learn differently. They run, jump and climb out in nature for hours a day, even though the weather is terrible and it's dark October to March. And then they grow up to be some of the happiest adults on the planet. Her question was: how?

In How to Raise a Viking, Russell takes a deep dive into the parenting culture of Denmark and the other Nordic nations, from parental leave policies to school structure, screen time, and the surprising customs that lead to happy, well-adjusted humans. This fascinating peek behind the cultural curtain allows readers a glimpse of another world, where babies sleep outside in their prams up to -20°C and pre-schoolers wield axes.

Refreshingly funny and unfailingly optimistic about the new generation of humans growing up in the world right now, this is a heart-warming love letter to Russell’s adopted homeland and proof that we could all use a bit more Viking in our lives.

Follow Helen on X, Instagram, TikTok and Facebook @MsHelenRussellRead more about Helen’s new book, How to Raise a Viking, and get your copy here.Get in touch with the show at howtobesadpodcast@gmail.com

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Julia Samuel MBE is a psychotherapist, grief counsellor, and author of the bestsellers Griefworks, This Too Shall Pass. She was also one of my favourite interviewees for my book, How To Be Sad when we talked about family and relationships. With four children of her own and nine grandchildren, Julia began exploring her own family stories in adulthood and looking at how Every Family Has A Story – the title of her new book. Here, we talk about:

• Inherited trauma and why family stories matter
• Bias and how to overcome it
• why pain is an agent of change
• how family teaches us about love
• attachment theory
• rupture and repair
• The pros and cons of Zoom therapy

Every Family Has A Story is out now, and you can follow Julia @juliasamuelmbe How To Be Sad, the key to a happier life is out in paperback and as an audiobook, read by me – and if you enjoyed this episode, give it 5 stars and I’ll love you forever.

Thanks as ever to Matt Clacher at HarperCollins and Joel Grove for production.

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Rosie Wilby is a comedian, podcaster and author of The Breakup Monologues – about the unexpected joy of heartbreak and all we can learn from it. BBC Radio 4 described her as the ‘queen of breakups’ (what an accolade!) so she was the perfect guest for a chat about how to be sad, well. Here, we talk about:

• Break up grief

• …but how we get over it twice as quickly as we predict

• Friendship breakups

• Why divorce rates for gay women are so high

• Boredom in long-term relationships

• Cheating blackbirds…

• SSRIs and ‘anti-love drugs’

• Hormones and attraction

• Separate bed stigma

• Monogamy: pros and cons

• Finding love – and getting married!

Follow Rosie on Twitter @and Instagram @breakupmonologues and check out The Breakup Monologues here. And for more on my own long (long) and illustrious history of disastrous breakups, may I nudge you towards chapters 4 and 6 of How To Be Sad…! As ever, I so appreciate your feedback and reviews so keep them coming. Until next time x

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At a time when many of us are rethinking our work, searching for meaning and connection post pandemic, I wanted to speak to someone about the part work plays in our emotional life. So today we explore the connection between love and work with Marcus Buckingham, a leading expert in the world of work. British born, US bases, Marcus shares his research into how school can stifle our emotions and idioyncracies as well as his personal journey (plus his experience of the US college admissions scandal). We talk about:

• Why work is making us ‘bad’ sad
• What to do about it
• Finding our ‘red threads’
• Why feedback is overrated
• Public speaking as an introvert
• The dangers of pathologising
• How we are all a category of one.

Marcus’s new book, Love + Work is out now, and you can follow Marcus @marcusbuckingham How To Be Sad, the key to a happier life is out in paperback and as an audiobook, read by me – and if you enjoyed this episode, give it 5 stars and I’ll love you forever. Thanks as ever to Matt Clacher at HarperCollins and Joel Grove for production.

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Cally Beaton was working as a senior TV exec until she was 45, when the late great Joan Rivers told her she should try stand-up. So she did. Now a successful comedian – you’ll have seen her on shows like QI and on The Apprentice You’re Fired – Cally’s nonetheless out to challenge the ageism she sees around her in the industry…an industry Cally admits she was a part of creating. She worked on MTV’s The Real World, one of the first reality shows, back in the early 90s and then later on Geordie Shore and Ex on the Beach in previous life as a television executive. She says now: ‘It’s fair to say I was a big part of the problem now biting me in the arse.’ Here, we talk about:

• Ageism

• Profound change

• Breaking down and building back up

• The u-shaped happiness curve

• Invisibility

• Imposter-offs

• Asking for help

• …and how there’s no prizes for styling it out

For more of the brilliant Cally, check out her live dates http://callybeaton.com/ and follow her @callybeaton

In this episode, I bang on about Robin Ince’s books again. They’re all brilliant (and he’s interviewed in my latest book, How To Be Sad but the one I’m talking about here is I’m A Joke And So Are You – highly recommend!

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My guest today began performing at Oxford with Stewart Lee and Richard Herring. She trained as a solicitor before moving into writing, presenting, acting, stand up and…pretty much everything. She’s won a Chortle Award, she was ‘Fun’ Editor at Tatler, Celebrity Masterchef Champion and – most importantly –runner up at the World Conker championship. Described in the Independent as TV’s Swiss army knife - Emma Kennedy is also the author of a remarkable new book, Letters from Brenda - a painful, funny record of Emma’s relationship with her complex, charismatic mum, Brenda, who died of breast cancer. Revisiting her mother’s letters has also allowed Emma to process a difficult childhood and the letters chart her mother’s struggles with mental health.

TW: suicide, cancer

In this episode we talk about:

• mental health
• generational trauma
• acts of service
• the power of dogs
• …and Lego
• …and comedy

Letters From Brenda is out now, and you can follow Emma @EmmaKennedy

My book, How To Be Sad, the key to a happier life is out in paperback and as an audiobook – and if you enjoyed this episode, give it 5 stars and leave a review and I’ll love you forever.

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Sadness happens to all of us, but in much of the world we don’t know how to handle it. Let alone talk about it. Having spent 10 years researching into happiness worldwide as a journalist and author, I began to notice that many of the people I met were so obsessed with the pursuit of happiness that they were phobic of feeling sad. As was I.

So why are we so bad at ‘sad’?

How is there still shame around expressing vulnerability?

And are there some any ‘good’ things about being sad?

I couldn’t find anywhere people were having these kinds of conversations - so I started my own.

Each episode, I’m joined by a special guest sharing their own experiences of how to be sad, well with insightful and surprisingly uplifting stories of lives lived. Here are some of the highlights so far, ahead of series five, launching next week:

• From S3E8 with Kate Bowler, NYT bestselling author and Duke history professor on being diagnosed with colon cancer at just 35 years old, navigating life with the knowledge it could end any moment, ‘emotional tourism’, bucket lists and why Kate won’t be making one. TW: cancer

• From S1E7 with Yomi Adegoke, award-winning journalist and bestselling co-author of Slay In Your Lane: The Black Girl Bible on how being sad and expressing grief can be political and the perils of performing our emotions online.

• From S4E1 with Emily Dean, author of Everyone Died So I Got A Dog, radio presenter and podcaster on family roles and the different pressures these bring.

• From S4E2 where bestselling author Mitch Albom shares a little known story about how the bestseller Tuesdays With Morrie came about.

• From S3E5 with Dr Julie Smith, clinical psychologist and former NHS turned TikTok star and author of Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before? on what happens when we push emotions away, how the stakes get higher the longer we stay in ‘the trap’, and what we should be doing instead.

• From S2E5 with Jody Day, founder of Gateway Women, the global support network for childless women on unhelpful cultural ideas around not having children, disenfranchised grief and how to heal it. TW: grief, childlessness not by choice, IVF

• From S4E1 with Emily Dean, on how to support someone who’s grieving. TW: sibling bereavement

• From S1E4 with Mo Gawdat, Solve For Happy author, tech entrepreneur and former chief business officer for Google X on how life is like a video game (and this is A Good Thing). TW: losing a child

• From S4E2 Mitch Albom on the pain of losing his daughter and the impact this had on his marriage. Plus why happiness isn’t a guarantee: it’s a gift that can help us to be sad, better. TW: losing a child

You can find all the books we talk about on the How To Be Sad podcast recommends page at Bookshop.org where you can also find the book, How To Be Sad, now in paperback.

Keep in touch @MsHelenRussell and subscribe to join us next time. Because remember: we’re all in this together.

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Whitney Goodman is the radically honest psychotherapist behind the hugely popular Instagram account @sitwithwhit and the author of Toxic Positivity – something she describes ‘as a form of gaslighting’. Here, she explains how meeting struggles with platitudes can shut us down, make us feel shame, or even that we are no longer allowed to feel at all. I wanted to speak to Whitney now, more than ever, at a time when the world is experiencing so much hurt that the idea of burying our heads in the sand and just ‘looking on the bright side’ feels unfathomable. So forget ‘good vibes only’, we’re here for ALL the vibes as we talk about:

• exaggerated claims about positive thinking
• happiness and health: causation vs coronation
• the physical impact of suppressing our emotions
• the shame spiral
• why we don’t always have to be grateful
• how ‘manifesting’ can be damaging
• when affirmations don’t work
• toxic positivity and discrimination
• radical acceptance and how to reach it
• why we’re more creative and more successful when we face up to problems

Follow Whitney @sitwithwhit on Instagram and Twitter, and check out her new book Toxic Positivity.

Share your thoughts on social media @MsHelenRussell and if you’d like more, the paperback of How To Be Sad is out now - wherever you get your books.

Thanks as ever to Joel Grove for production and Matt Clacher at HarperCollins – and I would love it if you could rate, review, subscribe, share, tell anyone who might need to hear this so that we can spread the message: feeling ALL our feelings is OK.

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My guest today met her husband when she was 19. Three kids and 27 years later, he fell in love with another woman. For several months after finding out, she did little aside from scrape herself off the floor and care for her kids, through their misery and her own. She says of this time: ‘I felt like I was either going to die or learn how to live again’. Laura chose life – as well as learning to sit with pain as a lifelong optimist. Laura Friedman Williams is my guest today - the author of Available: A Memoir of Sex and Dating After a Marriage Ends.

Here, we talk about:

• Feeling invisible
• Losing the future we planned
• The shame problem
• Learning to grieve
• Being ‘good enough’
• What family means now
• Starting over (& ‘sex treadmills’)

Follow Laura @laurafriedmanwilliams on Instagram or @LauraFWInNYC on Twitter and Available: A Memoir of Sex and Dating After a Marriage Ends is out now. My book, How To Be Sad – the key to a happier life – is now out in paperback wherever you get your books. Get in touch @MsHelenRussell and or howtobesadpodcast@gmail.com

Thanks to Joel Grove and Matt Clacher at HarperCollins for production.

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Tova Leigh is a writer and performer with a global community of 1.6m fans worldwide. Born in Israel, where she practised as a lawyer, Tova moved to the UK to study acting before becoming a household name with her hilarious and honest takes on parenthood, marriage, body confidence and sex. Through her Amazon Prime documentary Mom Life Crisis, bestselling books and podcast, she speaks with frankness and vulnerability about the pressures of modern life as well as ‘the crisis’ years that many of us will face and the normal sadness of just being human.

Here, we talk about:

-       ‘The crisis’ and losing your identity

-       Overcoming fear

-       How to have a difficult conversation (spoiler: have it more than once)

-       hiding our true selves when we’re younger 

-       social media and mental health

-       monogamy and other myths

-       how to be sexual in your 40s

-       secrets, confessions and shame 

Follow Tova on Instagram @tova_leigh or Facebook @mythoughtsaboutstuff

Follow Helen @MsHelenRussell and the book, How To Be Sad is out now IN PAPERBACK!

Thanks to Joel Grove for production and Matt Clacher at HarperCollins. Reviews really help others find us and help us to make more episodes – and you can email the show with any issues you’d like us to cover or guests you’d like to hear more of on howtobesadpodcast@gmail.com

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From the outside, life looked great for Mark Rice-Oxley - an editor on a national newspaper – The Guardian - with a happy marriage and three children. But in 2009, he suffered a major episode of depression that took him away from his work, leaving him reliant on medication and professional help for months. He wrote about his experiences in Underneath the Lemon Tree: A Memoir of Depression and Recovery and says now: life is not a linear chart that goes up. It’s a messy scatter graph of moments and experiences, some joyful, others painful. Here, we talk about:

• preconceptions about mental illness
• triggers and burnout
• being ‘good enough’
• prevention vs cure
• psychological flexibility
• the joys of hobbies (& singing whenever possible…)

Follow Mark @markriceoxley69 on Twitter, see more of his work at https://www.theguardian.com/profile/mark-rice-oxley

Follow Helen on social media @MsHelenRussell and the paperback of How To Be Sad is out now https://bit.ly/howtobesadpaperback - or wherever you get your books.

Thanks as ever to Joel Grove for production and Matt Clacher at HarperCollins – and if you like the podcast, rate, review and subscribe so you never miss an episode.

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This is a special, bonus episode where the tables are turned and I’m the one interviewed by none other than Laurie Santos, Yale professor and host of The Happiness Lab podcast.

On The Happiness Lab, Dr Laurie Santos shares evidence-based research that challenges what we think it means to live a happy life. This season, she’s helping listeners navigate something most of us avoid: so-called ‘bad’ feelings – with guests including the wonderful Julia Samuel, Brené Brown, Adam Grant and…me!

In this episode, we talk about:

• why our view of sadness needs to be rehabilitated
• how we react to sadness in a variety of unhelpful ways
• why we try to suppress sadness
• experiencing guilt - and apologising for feeling

…because, spoiler alert, sadness will touch us all - so to be happier and more resilient we need to accept the emotion. You can hear more episodes of The Happiness Lab at https://link.chtbl.com/helenrussellhappinesslab @lauriesantos on Twitter and @ lauriesantosofficial on Instagram. Follow me @MsHelenRussell - and the book, How To Be Sad is out now in the US (hardback, HarperOne) and the UK (in paperback! @4th Estate)

I’ll be back next week with another very special guest for more on how learning to be sad may be the key to a happier life. If you enjoy the podcast, I’d be utterly delighted if you could rate, review and subscribe so you never miss an episode.

Thanks so much to Joel Grove for production and Matt Clacher at HarperCollins for making the podcast happen.

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My guests today are Jo Piazza and Christine Pride. Jo is a bestselling journalist and author, Christine is her esteemed editor and a publishing veteran. Working together, the pair became friends and now they’ve written a novel together.

We are Not Like Them is the story of a lifelong friendship between a Black woman named Riley and a white woman named Jen. When an event throws their friendship into turmoil, they have to do a lot of racial reckoning and coming to terms with the blind spots that they - and many of us – have around race. At How To Be Sad we are all about learning to handle sadness, better, learning to tolerate discomfort and get better at difficult conversations. And We Are Not Like Them is a masterclass in difficult conversations – not only for its characters Jen and Riley, but for its authors. Here, we talk about:

• Why it’s hard to talk about race

• Interracial friendships

• Cancel culture

• Having difficult conversations (more than once)

• The mental load of ‘double-consciousness’

• Exceptionalism

• Formative female friendships

• Infertility

Follow Christine Pride @cpride on Instagram and Jo Piazza @jopiazzaauthor (Instagram) or @jopiazza (Twitter). Their thought-provoking, compelling, page-turner We Are Not Like Them is out now.

Follow Helen @MsHelenRussell and How To Be Sad, the book, is out now in the North America and out in paperback in the UK.

Thanks to Joel Grove for production and Matt Clacher at HarperCollins. If you like the show please tell your friends, rate and review to help us attract more great guests!

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My guest today is Mitch Albom - American author, journalist, and musician - whose books have sold 40 million copies worldwide. Having achieved national success as a sports writer in his early career, in 1997 he published Tuesdays With Morrie, an account of the weekly reunions with his old college professor Morrie Schwartz.

Morrie was dying when Mitch made contact with him and the book is a poignant recollection of the wisdoms passed down from teacher to former pupil. It went on to spend four years on the NYT bestseller list, became the bestselling memoir of all time and was made into an Emmy Award winning film, produced by Oprah Winfrey.

Mitch went on to write nine more bestsellers including his latest, The Stranger in the Lifeboat. He’s known for the inspirational stories and themes that weave through his work. and says: ‘I like to say that I don’t write about death, I write about life. Death just gets your attention’.

Here, we talk about:

• The lessons he learned from Morrie

• How a loss is an opportunity to wake up (and show up)

• Why we should all slow down

• ‘Losing your cynicism’

• Howling at the moon and hard feelings

• How death ends a life not a relationship

• Giving back and acts of service

Follow Mitch on Instagram and Twitter @MitchAlbom and The Stranger in the Lifeboat is out now.

Follow Helen @MsHelenRussell and the paperback of How To Be Sad is out TOMORROW - January 20th - and you can pre order/pick up a copy wherever you like to get your books.

Thanks as ever to Joel Grove for production and Matt Clacher at HarperCollins – and if you like the podcast, please do rate, review and subscribe so you get a lovely ping from us each week when a new episode is released.

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When writer, radio presenter and podcaster Emily Dean lost her sister to cancer, her world caved in. Within three years, both her parents had died too. She felt as though she’d never be able to move on with such grief – but then along came a shih tzu called Ray and some surprising ways to keep going and find joy again. Emily is a total delight to spend time with, as well as warm, wise and hilarious – as listeners of her radio show with Frank Skinner will know.

Here, we talk about:

• Unusual upbringings and family roles

• ‘Being’ versus ‘seeming’

• survivors guilt and limitless grief

• how to support someone who’s grieving

• running away from sadness … and how to sit with it

• therapy and The Hoffman Process

• writing her own story

Read Emily’s brilliant book, Everyone Died So I Got A Dog and follow Emily on Instagram @emilyrebeccadean or Twitter @Divine_Miss_Em

Follow Helen @MsHelenRussell and the book, How To Be Sad, is out in paperback January 20th available to pre-order now. Thanks to Joel Grove for production and Matt Clacher at HarperCollins. Reviews really help others find us and help us to make more episodes – and you can email the show with any issues you’d like us to cover or guests you’d like to hear more of on howtobesadpodcast@gmail.com

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Kate Bowler is a NYT bestselling author; history professor; and ‘an incurable optimist’. Host of the podcast Everything Happens, her TED talk has more than six million views and her book, No Cure for Being Human is a must-read for anyone wanting to find out more about how to be sad, well.

When Kate was just 35 years old, thriving in her career and mother to a very young son, she was diagnosed with incurable colon cancer. This forced her to completely recalibrate and focus in on the things that really mattered: what it means to live life well – particularly when you find you’re approaching its end – sharing the impact that her diagnosis had on her relationship, career, parenting, faith and all the everyday stuff that many of us take for granted. Here, we talk about:

• navigating life with the knowledge it could end any moment
• what to say and what not to say
• financial pressures
• ‘emotional tourism’
• faith and loss
• bucket lists and why Kate won’t be making one
• how some pain is just for no reason
• …but life’s still beautiful

Follow Kate on Instagram or Twitter @KatecBowler and check out No Cure for Being Human.

Follow Helen on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook @MsHelenRussell The book, How To Be Sad is out now in North America and the UK.

Thanks to Joel Grove for production and Matt Clacher at HarperCollins. If you enjoy the show, do leave a review – it really helps us to be able to make more podcasts.

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Today’s guest is Joshua Becker – author, philanthropist, pastor and minimalist. After a personal epiphany, Becker found that when he began owning less, he had more time. He also had more focus, less stress, fewer distractions and more freedom. Because, he says, ‘every added possession increases the worry in our lives.’ Today, he has two million followers at Becoming Minimalist; he’s the author of five bestselling books; and he’s here today to share his insights about how to be sad, well – and live with less.

Here, we talk:

• unhelpful motivations (& sibling rivalry)
• the misconceptions about minimalism
• Joshua vs TV
• The Hope Effect
• Restoring sanity to gift giving
• Decluttering our goals and habits

Follow Joshua on Instagram or Twitter @joshua_becker, visit becomingminimalist.com and hopeeffect.com

Follow Helen on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook @MsHelenRussell

The book, How To Be Sad is out now in North America and the UK.

Thanks to Joel Grove for production and Matt Clacher at HarperCollins. If you enjoy the show, do leave a review – it really helps us to be able to make more podcasts.

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To celebrate the publication of How to be Sad in America and as a special thank you to listeners of the podcast we are delighted to share this exclusive extract from the audiobook. We will be back with a new episode of How to be Sad with Helen Russell next week.

An expert on the pursuit of happiness combines her powerful personal story with surprising research and expert advice to reveal the secret of finding joy: allowing sadness to enrich your life and relationships.

Helen Russell has researched sadness from the inside out for her entire life. Her earliest memory is of the day her sister died. Her parents divorced soon after, and her mother didn’t receive the help she needed to grieve. Coping with her own emotional turmoil—including struggles with body image and infertility—she’s endured professional and personal setbacks as well as relationships that have imploded in truly spectacular ways. Even the things that brought her the greatest joy—like eventually becoming a parent—are fraught with challenges.

While devoting a career to writing books on happiness, Helen discovered just how many people are terrified of sadness. But the key to happiness is unhappiness—by allowing ourselves to experience pain, we learn to truly appreciate and embrace joy. How to Be Sad is a memoir about living with sadness, as well as an upbeat manifesto for change that encourages us to accept and express our emotions, both good and bad. Interweaving Helen’s personal testimony with the latest research on sadness—from psychologists, geneticists, neuroscientists and historians—as well as the experiences of writers, comics, athletes and change-makers from around the world, this vital and inspiring guide explores why we get sad, what makes us feel this way, and how it can be a force for good.

Timely and essential, How to Be Sad is about how we can better look after ourselves and each other, simply by getting smarter about sadness.

Follow Helen on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook @MsHelenRussell Read more about Helen’s new book, How To Be Sad at Waterstones, Amazon or Apple. Get in touch with the show at howtobesadpodcast@gmail.com Thanks to Joel Grove for production and to Matt Clacher at HarperCollins for making this podcast happen.

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Nathaniel Herr is a Professor of Psychology at American University in Washington DC, and an expert in ‘emotional regulation’ – something we should learn in childhood but that many of us miss out on.But bygetting better at experiencing, labelling and expressing our emotions as adults, we can ultimately get happier and lead more fulfilled lives. Nathaniel says: “We try to fight sadness: to lessen discomfort as a society, almost on autopilot. Only by doing so, we’re all worse off.” So here, we talk about:

• why sadness matters (and even spurs creativity)
• the gendering of sorrow and anger
• how Baby Boomers changed the way we view emotions
• where the Pixar film Inside Out got it right – and where it didn’t
• how to cope during a global pandemic
• plus why acknowledging – and allowing for –all of our emotions is key

Find out more about Nathaniel’s work at https://www.american.edu/cas/psychology/interpersonal/ Follow Helen on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook @MsHelenRussell Read more about Helen’s new book, How To Be Sad (Waterstones , Amazon UK or anywhere you like to buy books) Get in touch with the show at howtobesadpodcast@gmail.com And as ever, BIG thanks to Joel Grove for production and to Matt Clacher at HarperCollins for making this podcast happen.

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Today’s guest has 2.8M Followers on TikTok, 420 thousand on Instagram and 30.5M Likes but she’s not your typical social media influencer. Dr Julie Smith is the first mental health professional to start using TikTok as a platform for therapy. She’s the clinical psychologist and former NHS staffer who now works as an online educator - and her daily posts have become a lifeline for many during the pandemic.

She says now: “while there are lots of ways to reduce the intensity of anxiety, you must be willing to experience it. When you can’t stop fear, take it with you. That thing you want to do? Do it scared. Because, she says: The things you do the most become your comfort zone.”

Here, we talk about:

• how to cope with anxiety and ‘keep standing’ in the waves
• why therapy should be accessible to all (and funny!)
• the four signs of loneliness and what to do about them
• busting therapy jargon (from CBT to ACT, SFBT, Motivational Interviewing and Dialectical Behaviour Therapy)
• what we can do now to be sad, well

Follow Dr Julie @drjuliesmith on Tik Tok or @drjulie on Instagram and look out for her debut book, published January 2021, entitled (excellently): Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before? Follow Helen on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook @MsHelenRussell Read more about Helen’s new book, How To Be Sad (Waterstones , Amazon UK or anywhere you like to buy books) Get in touch with the show at howtobesadpodcast@gmail.com And as ever, BIG thanks to Joel Grove for production and to Matt Clacher at HarperCollins for making this podcast happen.

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“We all learn the value of rest the hard way,” says today’s guest - a former Silicon Valley tech consultant, visiting scholar at Stanford, and author of Rest: Why You Get More Done When You Work Less. Alex Soojung-Kim Pang argues that the perils of overwork are being woefully overlooked, and they’re making us miserable. He says: ”We’re hitting the wire now - it’s crazy to think how much more work we do than our parents or grandparents did.” In his latest book, Shorter, he also makes a powerful case for the four day week. Since to be sad, well – and live a full life – we need time for reflection. So here, we set the record straight on rest and the dangers of overwork.

We talk about:

• the problems of overwork (and how it makes us ‘bad’ sad)
• the cult of busyness
• the truth about the 10,000 hours rule (as feat. in Malcom Gladwell’s Outliers)
• the pressure to be happy at work
• how we get more done when we work less
• boundaries and how to set them
• why dogs, books and dads help

Find out more about Alex @askpang on Twitter and Instagram and read Rest and Shorter (they’re great!). Follow Helen on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook @MsHelenRussell Read more about Helen’s new book, How To Be Sad (Waterstones , Amazon UK or anywhere you like to buy books) Get in touch with the show at howtobesadpodcast@gmail.com And as ever, BIG thanks to Joel Grove for production and to Matt Clacher at HarperCollins for making this podcast happen.

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Many of us these days are getting the memo that a meaningful, fulfilled life comes only from letting go of our attachments to worldly things, but my guest today has other ideas. Ingrid Fetell Lee is a designer and writer whose spent ten years studying the relationship between design and joy. The author of Joyful, and the blog, Aesthetics of Joy, Ingrid argues that a few moments of joy can lift us and help us to be sad, well. She says: “I don’t need to be happy to feel joy…I don’t have to worry about making everything awesome in my life.”

Here, we talk about out:

• how many of us find joy in the material world
• why colour, bubbles and tree houses matter
• risk and the vulnerability in pursuing joy
• how many of the aesthetics of joy have been traditionally viewed as ‘feminine’ – which does all of us a disservice
• diversity in aesthetics

Find out more about Ingrid at aestheticsofjoy.com, follow her @ingridfetell on Twitter or @ingridfetell on Instagram Follow Helen on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook @MsHelenRussell Read more about Helen’s new book, How To Be Sad (Waterstones , Amazon UK or anywhere you like to buy books) Get in touch with the show at howtobesadpodcast@gmail.com And as ever, BIG thanks to Joel Grove for production and to Matt Clacher at HarperCollins for making this podcast happen.

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This episode is something of a departure - how often do you hear a happiness researcher in conversation with a heavy metal icon? Not often enough, we decided. So today’s guest is the man who put the gun in Guns ‘n Roses and LA Guns. He’s had 10 studio albums with LA Guns, two with Brides of Destruction, he’s worked with them all – oh, and he used to play golf with Eddie Van Halen. His music has been described as sounding like ‘the score to some pagan ceremony, or maybe the music they play on the elevator that takes you down to hell’ and he has, he says, always been ‘attracted to the darkness’.

Here, we talk about:

• how Guns ‘n Roses came about
• the joys of sex, pizza, rock and roll
• being an 80s glam metal survivor
• experiencing the ‘Hollow Ghost’
• agoraphobia and expectations
• living Danishly
• what a good life looks like, now

Follow Tracii on Twitter and Instagram @traciiguns Follow Helen on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook @MsHelenRussell Read more about Helen’s new book, How To Be Sad (Waterstones , Amazon UK or anywhere you like to buy books) Get in touch with the show at howtobesadpodcast@gmail.com And as ever, BIG thanks to Joel Grove for production and to Matt Clacher at HarperCollins for making this podcast happen.

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Psychologist and New York Times Bestselling author Dr Tal Ben-Shahar taught the most popular course at Harvard on Positive Psychology – but he’s also the perfect guest to help us navigate how to be sad, well.

From a dashed career as an elite squash player to navigating the perils of perfectionism, the fallacy of arrival and the importance of feeling all of our feelings – Tal has explored highs and lows both personally and professionally.

Now, Tal says: ‘One of the major obstacles to becoming happier is the belief that life can and ought to be free of painful emotions.’

Here, we talk about

• positive psychology vs toxic positivity
• arrival fallacy
• perfectionism (aka sunk cost’)
• why we need to embrace ‘wholebeing’
• the SPIRE model for living and being sad, well
• what advice Tal would you give to his 21 year old self

Find out more about Tal’s work @TalBenShahar on Twitter or @happiness.studies.academy on Instagram - and his new book, Happiness Studies, is out now. Follow Helen on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook @MsHelenRussell Read more about Helen’s new book, How To Be Sad (Waterstones , Amazon UK or anywhere you like to buy books) Get in touch with the show at howtobesadpodcast@gmail.com And as ever, BIG thanks to Joel Grove for production and to Matt Clacher at HarperCollins for making this podcast happen.

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Daisy Buchanan is an award-winning journalist, chart topping podcaster, author of How To Be A Grown Up, The Sisterhood and her latest, Insatiable. As well as being one of the funniest women in print, Daisy has also written incredibly movingly about her own experiences with anxiety, with disordered eating, about her relationship with her body after abuse, as well as many of the agonies of modern life that too often go unexamined – or are met only with shame. Daisy is very good on shaking off shame

and how to be sad, well. She says of sadness now: ‘the worst thing you can do is distract yourself from it. A lot like thrush…’

Here, we talk about:

• Owning your story
• How therapy helps
• Epilepsy and uncertainty
• Growing up one of six sisters
• Experiencing abuse
• The ‘M’ word (money)
• The joys of Jilly Cooper
• …plus what advice Daisy would give to her 21 year old self Follow Daisy @NotRollergirl on Twitter and @thedaisybee on Instagram and check out Insatiable via Bookshop.org link in bio (where you can also find How To Be Sad, the book, plus a host of other podcast guest book recommendations!)Follow Helen on social media @MsHelenRussell

How To Be Sad, the book, is out now. Thanks to Joel Grove for production and to Matt Clacher at HarperCollins for making this podcast happen.

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Writer and campaigner Rebecca Schiller moved her family to a rural smallholding in the hope of a simpler life. But she soon found that life wasn’t any simpler and was a damn sight harder in many ways. She has written movingly about how we can never escape ourselves – no matter how much we try – as well as her experiences with depression, anxiety, and living with undiagnosed ADHD until recently.

Rebecca says now: ‘everyone – including me – wants neat and happy endings to stories of chasing a dream. Society encourages us to believe that we are one thing or the other: happy or sad, good or bad, right or wrong; that we must pick an angle’. But we’re all beginning to understand that life is a little more complicated than that - and as Rebecca has also written: ‘nature is not a simple fix’.

Here, we talk about:

• Neurodiversity and how it’s misunderstood
• The positive aspects of having a ‘different’ brain
• How at our lowest ebb, something profound shifts
• Rejection and learning to understand it
• Parenting and the importance of risk
• Being kinder to ourselves. Starting now…

Follow Rebecca @schillerrrrr on Twitter and @rebecca.schiller on Instagram and check out Earthed via Bookshop.org (where you can also find How To Be Sad, the book, plus a host of other podcast guest book recommendations!)

Follow Helen on social media @MsHelenRussell How To Be Sad, the book, is out now. Thanks to Joel Grove for production and to Matt Clacher at HarperCollins for making this podcast happen.

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Baz Ashmawy is an Irish radio and television star whose series, 50 ways to kill your mammy, won him an Emmy. He’s also a podcaster, dad of six and an outspoken advocate for feeling all the feels. Born in Libya to an Egyptian dad an Irish mum, he moved to Ireland age 6. One of the few dual heritage families in his part of Dublin suburbia at that time. His father left when Baz was just seven, an experience that had a profound effect on him and his sense of identity. He’s experienced the highs and lows of fame and family life; come back from the brink more than once; and learned a few lessons about how to be sad, well along the way. Now, he says, these experiences have helped him become who he is today

Here we talk about:

• Growing up dual heritage in Ireland in the 1980s
• His dad leaving ‘in search of happiness’
• Ageing, fear and pushing past comfort zones
• Taking ownership of sadness
• Toxic masculinity
• What happens when one of your lungs collapses on a transatlantic flight
• Days when all you want to do is stay in bed
• Being ‘on’ and the pressure to perform
• How the joy of winning an Emmy only lasts for a week. After that? Is the little things, like steak for dinner or walking the dog

Follow Baz @bazashmawy on Twitter and @bashmawy on Instagram Follow Helen on social media @MsHelenRussell How To Be Sad, the book, is out now. Thanks to Joel Grove for production and to Matt Clacher at HarperCollins for making this podcast happen.

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My guest today is the toy designer Matthew Ashton - Vice President of design at Lego; Executive Producer on the Lego Movies; head judge on Lego Masters UK; creator of Unikitty and the man behind Lego’s first ever LGBTQ+ set – the rainbow inspired Everyone is Awesome. The set represents a huge milestone both for Lego and for Matthew personally, who has spoken out about the struggles he faced growing up as an LGBTQ+ kid in the 1980s and 90s.

He says: ‘being told what I should play with, how I should walk, how I should talk, what I should wear – the message I always got was that somehow I was ‘wrong’. I wish, as a kid, I had looked at the world and thought: ‘This is going to be OK, there’s a place for me’. I wish I’d seen an inclusive statement that said ‘everyone is awesome’” - and so, he made it himself.

He’s putting it out there into the world to mark the start of Pride Month.

Here, we talk about:

• Growing up under section 28

• ‘Throwing like a girl’

• Learning to ‘breathe’ for the first time

• Lego (& other life changing moments)

• Breaking down (even when you have the best job in the world)

• …and building back up again

• Why therapy takes patience

• Finding purpose, now

Follow Matthew on Instagram @matthew__ashton or on Twitter @matthew__ashton Follow Helen on social media @MsHelenRussell How To Be Sad, the book, is out now. Thanks to Joel Grove for production and to Matt Clacher at HarperCollins for making this podcast happen.

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Sophie Walker is a journalist, activist and former politician. She spent 20 years at Reuters and after a long and trying journey supporting her daughter through a diagnosis of autism, started campaigning for disability rights. She went on to help create the Women’s Equality Party and ran for London Mayor in 2016. Sophie now works for the feminist law firm, McAllister Olivarius and is the author of Five Rules for Rebellion, Let’s Change the World Ourselves. Sophie says now: ‘We can only do this together. Our plan to save the world has to ensure that you can keep going when I’m flagging, - and that I can keep going when you’re flagging.’ Here, Sophie and Helen talk about: * Burnout, bravery and being ‘good enough’ * The power of anger (in a society that doesn’t like angry women) * How bad we are at accepting difference and SEN (special educational needs) * ‘The realisation that no one is coming to your rescue’ * …and how to roll your sleeves up and get on with it * Finding a community * Activism and how to be a part of it * The importance of hope

Follow Sophie @SophieRunning on Twitter and @sophiewalker_official on Instagram Follow Helen on social media @MsHelenRussell How To Be Sad, the book, is out now. Thanks to Joel Grove for production and to Matt Clacher at HarperCollins for making this podcast happen.

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Jody Day is the founder of Gateway Women, the global support network for childless women - now celebrating its 10th Anniversary. Jody is also a psychotherapist and author of Living the Life Unexpected: How to Find Hope, Meaning and a Fulfilling Future Without Children - the book The British Medical Journal now recommend to patients coming to terms with unavoidable childlessness. Jody says of childlessness: ‘in no way do I wish to diminish the heartbreak you might be feeling right now - I’ve been there; it’s the darkest place I’ve ever been. You never ‘get over’ childlessness, it’s not the flu, but it is possible to heal around it.’ Here, Jody and Helen talk about: - Jody’s journey - How IVF isn’t a magic bullet - PTSD and fertility treatment - Childless or child free - how the terms aren’t interchangeable

• Unhelpful cultural ideas around not having children
• Painful things people say
• …and what to say back (‘I’m not ‘childless Google’!’)
• ‘Pronatalism’ and how it does all women a disservice
• Disenfranchised grief and how to heal it
• Finding a new purpose – a ‘good’ plan B Triggers include childlessness not by choice, infertility, IVF, abortion. It’s a very powerful episode where we talk about a lot of extremely painful things (there are tears). It’s difficult but important and that’s what learning how to be sad is all about – so I hope you’ll join us on this one and do get in touch at howtobesad@gmail.com if you would like to discuss further or visit https://gateway-women.com/. Follow Jody @gatewaywomen on Twitter and Instagram.

Follow Helen on social media @MsHelenRussell How To Be Sad, the book, is out now. Thanks to Joel Grove for production and to Matt Clacher at HarperCollins for making this podcast happen.

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Dr Xand van Tulleken is a much-loved medic, broadcaster and someone with first hand experience of the impact of covid 19. In spring 2020 Xand contracted Covid while preparing to film a documentary about the virus with his twin, Dr Chris van Tulleken. Xand isolated at home for two weeks but continued to experience strange symptoms, including heart palpitations. When these worsened he rushed to University College Hospital, where his twin was working on a Covid ward, and had to have his heart ‘shocked’ back into a normal rhythm with an electric current. Xand talks about his experience of going so publicly from presenter to patient.

He’s also someone who has witnessed more than his fair share of sadness on a global scale, having worked during the genocide in Darfur and in various humanitarian crises all over the world.

So here, we talk about all he’s learned to date and how he copes now. Xand and Helen discus:

• Sadness and the medical profession
• Watching your heart stop on national TV
• The isolation and loneliness of covid
• Working in disaster zones
• Getting teary and talking about feelings when it’s not your MO
• How understanding our body helps (and how, some days, it doesn’t)
• The vagus nerve and why ‘what happens in vagus doesn’t stay in vagus’
• How to sneeze paint out of your nose (you’re welcome)
• Missing someone so hard it hurts
• Why we all need ‘an emotional support dog’
• Love, loss and why heartache isn’t the worst thing in the world

Follow Xand @xandvt on Twitter or @avantulleken on Instagram Follow Helen on social media @MsHelenRussell How To Be Sad, the book, is out now. Thanks to Joel Grove for production and to Matt Clacher at HarperCollins for making this podcast happen.

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Rosie Green is an award winning journalist and columnist who’s spent 20 writing about beauty, fashion, spas and health - as well as interviewing and styling countless celebrities. But she was blindsided when her marriage of 26 years broke down. Nothing prepared her for hitting what Rosie calls ‘rock bottom’ - nor for the response she got when she wrote about her breakup, and the devastation and heartache it left in it’s wake. She talks honestly and openly about how she managed to move forward - about the experts, books and advice that can help anyone who’s experienced a split to feel better and less alone. Her mission now, she says, is to share: “everything you need to create a truly arse-kicking plan b.” Here, Rosie and Helen talk about: * ‘Missing a pride chip’ * Losing our gut instinct and how to get it back * Gaslighting, abandonment, and history repeating itself * Antidepressants and rebuilding a life * How as journalists we get to ask the burning questions * Tackling the ‘jobs laced with hurt’ post heartbreak * Being brave (and how we’re all braver with a good ‘team’) * How calm seas do not a good sailor make * In praise of having a wild time in our 20s

You can find Rosie on Instagram @lifesrosie or on Twitter @RosieGreenBQ and her book, How To Heal a Broken Heart is out now. Follow Helen on social media @MsHelenRussell How To Be Sad, the book, is out now. Thanks to Joel Grove for production and to Matt Clacher at HarperCollins for making this podcast happen.

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This week, we have our first mother daughter guests on the show. I’m honoured to be joined by Mungi Ngomane, human rights activist, the granddaughter of Archbishop Desmond Tutu and author of Everyday Ubuntu - the book inspired by the African philosophy and way of life that counts Meghan Markle and Prince Harry among its fans.

And with Mungi today is….her mum! Reverend Nontombi Naomi Tutu is a priest and social justice activist. Growing up ‘the daughter of Archbishop Desmond Tutu’ offered her opportunities as well as challenges. Not least, the call to ministry – something she resisted until she was finally ordained in her 50s. Now works tirelessly both in her own community and for the advancement of women and girls globally.

Both women are shining examples of what can happen when we live by the principles of Ubuntu – the South African philosophy of ‘I am because you are’.

Here, Naomi, Mungi and Helen talk about:

• Naomi’s experience of growing up in South Africa during apartheid

• Growing up an activist and having a sense of duty

• Getting all of us to have difficult conversations

• Telling the story as part of the healing process

• Why ‘boundaries’ are the ultimate in self-care

• How community is everything

• Faith (spoiler alert: mother and daughter have very different views)

• Why Midsomer Murders and red wine can both help us to be sad, well

Find out more about Mungi on Instagram @mungi.ngomane or on Twitter @EverydayUbuntu and you can read more about Everyday Ubuntu here. Follow Helen on social media @MsHelenRussell How To Be Sad, the book, is out now. Thanks to Joel Grove for production and to Matt Clacher at HarperCollins for making this podcast happen.

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Holly Tucker MBE is an entrepreneur, philanthropist, and UK Ambassador for Creative Small Businesses. She’s the founder of notonthehighstreet.com and Holly & Co, a small business advice and inspiration platform and she’s also a podcaster and co-author of two best-selling business books as well as the brand new Do What You Love. Holly is a famously positive, colourful, fabulous force of nature, but life wasn’t always so sunny - and a future in business was far from a shoo-in. She got an E in business studies at school, was divorced aged 23, battled a brain tumour, endured a near break down, and has found herself on the brink financially more than once. But now, Holly says: ‘these moments have taught me everything - and I’m sure that my future is built on the scaffolding of these failures.’

In this episode, Holly and Helen talk about:

• ‘Hurricaine Holly’ and the highs and lows of living at full pelt
• Divorce and a brain tumour diagnosis in her 20s
• Building a different relationship the next time around
• How a vegetable wreath saved her life
• Parenting and guilt
• Burnout versus the philosophy of Francis Bacon
• Pulling on the handbrake
• Trying to smell the roses (and go to Ibiza)
• Scars, vulnerability and the upside of imposter syndrome
• Why financial education is a feminist issue

Follow Holly on Instagram @hollytucker, on Twitter @notonthehighst or Facebook @hollytuckerandco and find out more about Do What You Love

Follow Helen on social media @MsHelenRussell How To Be Sad, the book, is out now. Thanks to Joel Grove for production and to Matt Clacher at HarperCollins for making this podcast happen.

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Steph Douglas is a businesswoman, mother of three, wife of Doug, and founder of the thoughtful gift company she started after realising that sometimes - when we’re in need of a pick me up - we might not want another thing we have to look after.

Steph has a dedicated Instagram following thanks to hilarious and occasionally heart-breaking posts about family life, her husband’s cancer treatment and the strains of running a business. She’s a fellow firm believer that being more honest and vulnerable makes things better for everyone and says:‘As hard and lonely as it has been at times, I’ve slowly realised there’s nothing unique about my experience. It only takes a few random conversations … and you quickly find that most of us feel the same.’

In this episode, Steph and Helen talk about:

• Cancer diagnosis and treatment
• So called body positivity movement and eating disorders
• The three day cycle
• Cancer diagnosis and treatment
• Parenthood
• Work stress and burnout
• The struggle to look after our mental health
• Redirecting our wasted capacity

Trigger: eating disorders, cancer

Find out more about Steph on her blog Sisterhood (And All That) at Don’t Buy Her Flowers or follow Steph on Instagram @steph_dontbuyherflowers Follow Helen on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook @MsHelenRussell Read more about Helen’s new book, How To Be Sad at Waterstones, Amazon or Apple. Get in touch with the show at howtobesadpodcast@gmail.com Thanks to Joel Grove for production and to Matt Clacher at HarperCollins for making this podcast happen.

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Yomi Adegoke is an award-winning journalist; columnist for Vogue and The Guardian; and bestselling author of Slay In Your Lane: The Black Girl Bible - written with her best friend, Elizabeth Uviebinené, based on interviews with 39 successful Black British women, packed full of data, advice and inspiration.

In 2020 Yomi and Elizabeth published Loud Black Girls - an anthology of Black British writing. As someone who has consistently written about race and racism, Yomi is a guiding voice for many young Black women. She’s also a source of inspiration, clarity and integrity for everyone else.

In this episode, Yomi talks to Helen about:

• Painting, hobbies and culture as cure
• How being sad and expressing grief can be political
• Racism, injustice and why diversity within diversity matters
• The perils of performing our emotions online
• Homesickness, class and family ties
• Experiencing depression and advice to her younger self

Find out more about Slay In Your Lane at www.slayinyourlane.com and follow Yomi on Twitter @yomiadegoke, on Instagram @yomi.adegoke or on Facebook @YomiAdegokeWriter

Follow Helen on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook @MsHelenRussell Read more about Helen’s new book, How To Be Sad at Waterstones, Amazon or Apple. Get in touch with the show at howtobesadpodcast@gmail.com Thanks to Joel Grove for production and to Matt Clacher at HarperCollins for making this podcast happen.

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Helen Thorn is an award winning stand-up comedian, writer and podcaster – one-half of comedy double act Scummy Mummies and co-host of the UK’s number one parenting podcast as well as the body positivity podcast, Fat Lot Of Good.

Here, Helen talks about her marriage ending in lockdown, the shock of the loss, the fallout and its impact on her family. This is a surprisingly upbeat episode and I promise you, it’s impossible not to feel better after talking to Helen.

In this episode, the Helens chat about:

• Going through a divorce
• Reimagining your future
• What helps
• …what doesn’t
• How to be sad, when you’re usually ‘the happy person’
• In defence of humour as a defence mechanism
• Why Helen would much rather make 10 lasagnes than receive one
• The power of Tina Arena’s “Chains” as a sad-soundtrack
• …and the wisdom of Unikitty

(Sidebar: Helen R misquotes Nora Ephron at one point – for which she apologises profusely. OF COURSE, Queen Nora ACTUALLY wrote ‘everything is copy’ not ‘content’. Helen R has clearly been on social media too much this week…)

Follow Helen Thorn on Instagram @helenwearsasize18. Find out more about the Scummy Mummies at www.scummymummies.com and follow them on Twitter and Instagram @scummymummies or Facebook @scummymummiespodcast

Follow Helen on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook @MsHelenRussell Read more about Helen’s new book, How To Be Sad at Waterstones, Amazon or Apple. Get in touch with the show at howtobesadpodcast@gmail.com Thanks to Joel Grove for production and to Matt Clacher at HarperCollins for making this podcast happen.

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Cathy Rentzenbrink is a bestselling author, former editor at The Bookseller magazine and head of Quick Reads – short books to encourage adults who may not be readers. Because as Cathy believes: ‘After the wheel, the book must be one of the great inventions' since books are ‘a life raft’ - something Cathy has needed, more than once.

When she was 17, her younger brother was hit by a car. After the accident, he was in a so-called permanent vegetative state and the family had to endure eight years before they could have a funeral and fully grieve.

In this episode, Cathy talks to Helen about:

• Growing up with grief
• Sibling survivors
• The experience of panic attacks, anxiety and depression
• How therapy and EMDR can help
• Divorce and doing things differently in relationships
• Parenting and how to do it (neither of us have quite figured this out yet)
• Keeping going
• Practical advice for sad times
• …and ways to make life meaningful.

Trigger: bereavement, assisted dying

Find out more about Cathy’s work at https://cathyreadsbooks.com/ and follow Cathy on Twitter and Instagram @CatRentzenbrink or Facebook. Cathy’s debut novel, Everyone Is Still Alive, is out in July.

Follow Helen on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook @MsHelenRussell Read more about Helen’s new book, How To Be Sad at Waterstones, Amazon or Apple. Get in touch with the show at howtobesadpodcast@gmail.com Thanks to Joel Grove for production and to Matt Clacher at HarperCollins for making this podcast happen.

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Mo Gawdat of Solve For Happy is a tech entrepreneur, engineer, and former chief business officer for Google X - the “moonshot” factory tackling the world’s toughest problems in innovative ways.

Mo reached a place early in life where he was extremely successful, yet deeply unhappy. He set about solving this, developing an equation for happiness. But this was put to the ultimate test in 2014 when Mo’s beloved son Ali died unexpectedly. During the grief that followed, Mo channelled his heartbreak in an unlikely way – by writing about his happy-algorithm.

Here, Mo talks to Helen about:

• How an algorithm for happiness helped him handle his sadness
• Why being happy doesn’t mean never experiencing pain – and loss is part of life
• Differentiating between ‘sadness’ and ‘unhappiness’
• The usefulness of fear and loneliness
• How everything is good and bad
• What other cultures can teach us about sadness
• The link between technology and unhappiness
• The power of unconditional love
• …and why ‘life is a game – we just have to play it’.

Trigger: bereavement

(Sidebar: if it sounds as though Helen’s choking up at one point, that’s because she is. Speaking to Mo can do that, in a good way. Goal for 2021: make it through a chat with Mo without welling up…)

Find out more about Mo’s equation for happiness and follow Mo on Twitter , Instagram and YouTube. Follow Helen on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook @MsHelenRussell Read more about Helen’s new book, How To Be Sad at Waterstones, Amazon or Apple. Get in touch with the show at howtobesadpodcast@gmail.com Thanks to Joel Grove for production and to Matt Clacher at HarperCollins for making this podcast happen.

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Today is publication day for Helen’s new book How to be Sad. As a special thank you to listeners of the podcast we are delighted to share this exclusive extract from the audiobook. We will be back with a new episode of How to Be Sad with Helen Russell next week.

We live in an age when reality TV shows climax in a tearful finale. But feeling sad – genuinely sad – is still taboo. Yet, sadness happens to us all, sometimes in heartbreakingly awful ways. If we don’t know how to be sad, it can be isolating for those experiencing it and baffling for those trying to help others through dark times.

Today, most of us know intellectually that ‘sad’ is normal. But we’re not always brilliant at allowing for it, in practice. Sadness is going to happen, so we might as well know how to ‘do it’ right. And it’s time to start facing our problems and talking about them. Positive psychology may have become more accepted in mainstream culture, but rates of depression have continued to rise.

We’re trying so hard to be happy. But studies show that we could all benefit from learning the art of sadness and how to handle it, well.

We cannot avoid sadness so we might as well learn to handle it. Helen Russell, while researching two previous books on happiness, found that today most of us are terrified of sadness. Many of us are so phobic to averse to negative emotions that we don’t recognise them.

Follow Helen on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook @MsHelenRussell Read more about Helen’s new book, How To Be Sad at Waterstones, Amazon or Apple. Get in touch with the show at howtobesadpodcast@gmail.com Thanks to Joel Grove for production and to Matt Clacher at HarperCollins for making this podcast happen.

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Hollie McNish is a poet, writer and Ted Hughes Award-winning author of Nobody Told Me – a collection of poems and stories about raising a child in modern Britain..

Hollie writes with raw honesty, warmth and humour, but as well as great critical and mainstream success, she’s also had her fair share of setbacks and her work articulates perfectly the ‘everyday sadness’ that we all experience.

In this episode, Hollie and Helen chat:

• Motherhood myths
• The commercialisation of parenthood
• The frustrations of modern life
• Guilt
• Class and snobbery
• Online abuse
• Not belittling our sadness
• The unexpected freedoms of being a single parent
• Sting’s next project…
• …and reframing selfies as ‘the oil paintings of the Tinder age’

Trigger: suicide

Find out more about Hollie’s work here and follow Hollie on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube @holliepoetry

Hollie’s next collection of poetry, Slug, is out in May.

Follow Helen on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook @MsHelenRussell Read more about Helen’s new book, How To Be Sad at Waterstones or Amazon. Get in touch with the show at howtobesadpodcast@gmail.com Thanks to Joel Grove for production and to Matt Clacher at HarperCollins for making this podcast happen.

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Meik Wiking is a Danish happiness researcher, CEO of the Happiness Research Institute, and author of the bestselling Little Book of Hygge.

Meik is committed to researching into how more of us can get happier, but in doing so, he’s also studied what doesn’t make us happier. His latest report studied the impact of the coronavirus on wellbeing and - spoiler alert – it isn’t great. Here, he talks about his experiences of loss and sadness – both personally and professionally.

In this episode, Meik talks to Helen about:

• The loss of his mum at an early age
• Why sadness matters
• The dark side of happiness
• Comparison anxiety and inequality
• Imposter syndrome
• Professional setbacks
• Living with less
• Acts of service and the importance of feeling ‘useful’
• How to keep on an even keel
• Finding joy in difficult times

Trigger: suicide, bereavement

Find out more about Meik at https://www.meikwiking.com/ and follow Meik on Twitter and Instagram @MeikWiking or Facebook @meikwiking1

Follow Helen on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook @MsHelenRussell Read more about Helen’s new book, How To Be Sad at Waterstones or Amazon Get in touch with the show at howtobesadpodcast@gmail.com Thanks to Joel Grove for production and to Matt Clacher at HarperCollins for making this podcast happen.

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Ella Mills of Deliciously Ella is a champion of plant-based living, an award-winning author, and an adept businesswoman.

Here, Ella also opens up about her lows and feeling vulnerable at times - not least where it all began with a debilitating condition that started her quest for change.

In this episode, Ella talks to Helen about:

• Loss
• Regret
• Chronic illness
• Depression
• Trolling and online abuse
• Feelings of rejection and how we gravitate towards negative feedback
• Having a high profile and the challenges that come with it
• Allowing ourselves to be vulnerable
• The importance of ‘acceptance’
• And how ‘everything passes...even when it feels insurmountable’

Trigger: depression

Find out more about Deliciously Ella https://deliciouslyella.com/ and follow Ella on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook @DeliciouslyElla

Follow Helen on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook @MsHelenRussell

Read more about Helen’s new book, How To Be Sad at Waterstones or Amazon

Get in touch with the show at howtobesadpodcast@gmail.com

Thanks to Joel Grove for production and to Matt Clacher at HarperCollins for making this podcast happen.

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Why do we cry? How come love hurts? And what’s a happiness researcher doing talking about sadness, anyway?

Helen Russell is a journalist and happiness researcher and How to be Sad is a new podcast  based on her book of the same name - exploring why we get sad, what to do when we’re sad, and how we can all get happier by learning to be sad, better. Because let’s be honest – we are in unprecedented times. None of us are where we thought we’d be this time last year and we’re all struggling. We’re having to get better at having difficult conversations and finding ways of handling our sadness.

Join Helen as she talks to some high profile people from all walks of life who have done just that. Each week, special guests share their own experiences of everything from heartache to burnout, anxiety to addiction, the differences between sadness and depression - and how they cope.

Find out more @MsHelenRussell #HowToBeSad and pre order How To Be Sad at https://harpercollins.co.uk/products/how-to-be-sad-everything-ive-learned-about-getting-happier-by-being-sad-better-helen-russell?variant=32618500653134