Matt Haig: Self-criticism, anxiety triggers, and imagination

Happy Place

The bad times are intimately connected to the good. Author Matt Haig thinks happiness is only happiness because sadness exists.

In this chat, Fearne and Matt talk about how hindsight can be an incredibly healing perspective shifter. He’s found closure, progress, and contentment by revisiting memories that were previously traumatising.

How good are you at facing up to your traumas rather than running away? Matt explains how he stopped finding excuses and blaming external factors – people or places – when really there was internal work to do. Plus, by trying to avoid triggers, are we just making ourselves more anxious?

Fearne and Matt also chat about our ever-shifting notions of success, and why it’s useful to feel like a failure sometimes.

Matt’s novel, The Life Impossible, is out on August 29th.

CONTENT WARNING: This episode contains frank chat about suicidal ideation.

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