Blame achieves nothing! How to forgive yourself and others, with Charlie Mackesy

Happy Place

Fearne Cotton

Society & Culture, Mental Health, Health & Fitness, Relationships, Personal Journals

4.6 • 15.2K Ratings

🗓️ 13 October 2025

⏱️ 78 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Blame isn’t helpful. Illustrator and author Charlie Mackesy thinks learning to forgive yourself and others will lead to more peace.

In this chat, Fearne and Charlie talk from personal experience about just how physical shame can feel. Charlie explains how fear of abandonment keeps us silent about our insecurities, but that in reality the moment we start talking about our shame is the moment real human connection is made.

Charlie and Fearne also chat about how polarised the world is becoming, and offer advice for how to cope with fear, as well as why it’s important to disagree respectfully.

Plus, why did Charlie feel he needed to hide away in the toilets at the Oscars?

Charlie’s latest book, Always Remember: The Boy, The Mole, The Fox, The Horse, and The Storm, is out now.

CONTENT WARNING: This episode contains some conversation about suicidal ideation.

If you liked this episode of Happy Place, you might also like:

Teddy Swims

Will Poulter

Olly Alexander

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hello and welcome to Happy Place with me, Fern Cotton. This is the show that helps us understand each other better.
0:07.7	Today I'm chatting to Charlie Mackay. You know, I'm a great one for looking to blame, whether it's me or someone else.
0:14.8	But I think in the end, blame doesn't really achieve a great deal. I've learned.
0:19.3	So at some point, you have to let it go, either yourself, forgive yourself or others and
0:23.8	walk free of things.
0:25.8	I think it's very important if bad things have been done to state them.
0:29.7	But in the end, once you've processed all that, to let it go means that you're not continually
0:36.3	drinking from the same cup of toxin that only damages
0:40.0	yourself.
0:41.2	How are you, gang?
0:41.9	I hope you're all well and happy.
0:44.1	This is a really thoughtful, beautiful chat you're about to hear, so do stick around.
0:48.9	I needed this chat.
0:50.5	This is the good thing about doing this podcast is sometimes I turn up in a shitty mood
0:55.7	or I'm just really discombobulated, stressed out. And then I have a chat and my whole mindset
1:03.0	changes and, you know, that's what I hope for you lot that listen to. I turned up today slightly
1:08.1	flustered, all sorts of, you know, the usual stuff. My son's lost his
1:11.5	football boots and he's got a football match today, you know, all the usual sort of stresses.
1:16.3	I also had an epic fail at the weekend where it was my daughter's 10th birthday and I had ordered
1:24.0	a bouncy castle held to Skelter, which I saw online and got quite excited about.
1:29.6	I hadn't measured it and it wouldn't fit through the house.
1:32.7	So I had to have this fucking massive inflatable helter scelter erected on my driveway.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Fearne Cotton, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Fearne Cotton and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.