Hello, I'm Fern Cotton, and this is Happy Place. The podcast that shows how much growth can come from life's most difficult moments.

Today I'm chatting to Leah Williamson.

I saw a strength to myself that I just hadn't seen in a long time.

I'm making every single choice every single day for me on my own.

No one's getting me up out of bed in the morning say, you've got to do this today.

I didn't want to feel like I'd relied on anyone.

I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it, because I needed to do it for me,

otherwise I felt like if somebody was always pulling me through it, what

happens that day when somebody's not there? What if I can't do it for myself and I

learned that I could? I think the version of myself now, I love her so much more than I did before just because she looks

after herself. Leah is the women's England football team captain and she plays

for Arsenal 2 but she missed out on the opportunity to and she

missed out on the opportunity to captain her team in the 2023 World Cup

when she taught her a.C. L that's a pretty crucial knee ligament.

She's back on the pitch now, but it took a hell of a lot to get there.

And we chatted about what such a major injury has taught her,

not only about listening to her body, but also about the principles we can all

follow to come back stronger from any kind of setback.

Leah and I met up earlier this summer and you'll hear just how much we talked about the idea of everything, life,

feeling so relentless and burnout being very real because we never give ourselves an opportunity

to pause. Just after I spoke to Leah I actually took a

solid chunk of time off work and as usual I really struggled for the first few days to just not work. My head was spinning

...