Fearne Cotton on her book, Bigger Than Us: The Power Of Finding Meaning In A Messy World

Virgin Radio

27 Jan 2022, 13:25

Chris Evans and Fearne Cotton. Credit: Virgin Radio.

Chris Evans and Fearne Cotton. Credit: Virgin Radio.

Presenter, podcaster and author Fearne Cotton joined the Chris Evans Breakfast Show with Sky to talk about her latest book, which explores what renowned thought leaders and spiritual practitioners can teach us to achieve happiness, connection and hope.

Bigger Than Us: The Power Of Finding Meaning In A Messy World is out now in Hardback. In it, Fearne weaves a journey of discovery and personal stories to peel back layers of anxiety and self-limiting beliefs to find contentment and deeper meaning. When talking to Chris about her own life experiences, she said: “I’m still figuring a lot of it out, but I definitely had a very tricky time, early 30s, and a lot of my 30s were a bit of a mental scramble. There were great times, having kids and getting married, and there were some work highs, but there were some big lows as well. And I think now that I’ve tipped into my 40s, I’m ready for a bit more peace.” 

The author, who also hosts the Happy Place podcast, added: “One of the points of the book is to find meaning, not just in the gorgeous, delicious bits of life, but in the bits that are messy, and to go, ‘Wow, what was the learning there, and what was the point of it?’ because there usually is some sort of point. And I can see the big one, and that’s that I’ve moved away from the stuff I used to do, the mainstream stuff, and now I’m doing my own little Happy Place world, and it feels safe, and it feels expansive, and I wouldn’t have done any of this if I hadn’t had a rough time."

Bigger Than Us covers Fearne’s own experiences of common topics of spirituality, one of which is meditation and yoga from Jambo Truong. She admitted though, that even having written the book, and although she used to be into mediation and yoga, it’s not always easy to implement what she has learnt! “I could bring out all the excuses… I’ve got kids, I’ve got a busy life… which means I need to do it more,” she said. “But I don’t. And that’s why I spoke to the wonderful Jambo in the book, because he is a meditation teacher, anatomy teacher, yoga teacher. And even though I’ve listened to what he said and I know that it works, I still find it hard to have the discipline to do it every single day!”

The book is divided into three universal lessons: Love, Awareness, and Communication, with a summary chapter, Something Bigger Every Day. One of the topics that Fearne explored was non-religious prayer, with her friend Donna Lancaster. Fearne explained: “She dedicates her work to helping other people overcome trauma and tough times, but she’s super passionate about non-religious prayer, so we got stuck into that in the book.

“We all kind of do it without even knowing it, whether we’re secretly sending wishes out there, asking for help or guidance. But I think when you do it in a more disciplined way, or you implement it into your everyday, or every evening routine, it’s really powerful. Even if you just look at it in a 'law of attraction' sense, you’re putting your focus into things you know you want to have a certain outcome, or positive energy to people you love and want to invest time in, so I’ve loved implementing that.” 

Fearne added: “Every night at bedtime, I just run through a little list of people that I would like to send good wishes and love to, and I ask for guidance on things I’m finding tricky. It’s just a beautiful thing to do every day. I love it.”

Chris and Fearne also spoke about how having an ongoing commentary on ourselves is not helpful. “All we’re doing is judging ourselves, and we’re in that compare-and-despair model, constantly. Probably because we see so much online, and we’re comparing ourselves to our neighbours and the other parents on the school run." 

She added: “We don’t realise how omnipresent that is. We’ve sort of normalised it. We’re trying to work out where we fit into the hierarchy of life. It’s not helpful, but we all do it!”

When Chris asked Fearne what the main takeaways are from Bigger Than Us, she responded: “Definitely self-compassion is a huge one. I don’t think many of us dedicate enough time to thinking about it or to having proper self-acceptance. We’ve got a lot of nasty thoughts going in our head from the ego. 

“So, I think that cultivating self-compassion is key, and that’s something that I’m wanting to work on. I think having a communication with life, whether you call that prayer or not, is integral.”

During their chat, Chris and Fearne also talked about a number of other topics, including Enneagrams, which is a system of personality typing, and Shamen. You can listen back to the full 30-minute interview here.

Bigger Than Us: The Power of Finding Meaning in a Messy World is available now.

For more great interviews listen to The Chris Evans Breakfast Show with Sky, weekdays from 6:30am on Virgin Radio, or catch up on-demand here.

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