Elizabeth Day explains how ‘compassion to ourselves and our flaws’ helps with friendships

Virgin Radio

14 Jun 2024, 07:17

Podcaster and author Elizabeth Day joins the latest Spooning podcast with Mark Wogan, during which she talks about true friendship.

When Mark asks about Elizabeth’s podcast series, How to Fail, and whether she had any idea that it would become so successful, Elizabeth says: “None. In short, I had no idea that the idea would have resonance beyond my own little interest. So, I felt like a failure in my own life, in many ways, and I went on a journey to try and discover how other people coped with failure and what tips they could give me. And I put it out in July 2018, and it was eight episodes, the first season, and I thought maybe six people would listen to it.”

Elizabeth’s most recent book, Friendaholic: Confessions of a Friendship Addict, came out last year. She says: “My dearest wish that this is what this book will do by the end of reading it, I hope it makes you into a better friend to yourself first, because that means you can show up for other people that you care about as your authentic self, without feeling that you have to shapeshift and change in order to please someone else's projected desire of what they might or might not want from you.”

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The author continued: “The structure of Friendaholic is, there are five chapters where I talk to friends of mine, each of whom represents something different about friendship, and then, interspersed with that are thematic chapters about friendship, generally, frenemies, whether men and women can be friends, all of that stuff.” 

She tells Mark: “If your default is to think the best of your friend, even if they say something that might potentially be difficult to hear, your default is like, well, they're saying this because they love me. That's the generosity of spirit that I find important in friendship.” 

Speaking more about her massively popular book, she says: “I knew that if I wanted to tell the truth about friendship, which is absolutely what I set out to do, I also had to tell the truth about the part that I played in dysfunctional friendships and when I didn't show up in the way that I wished I had, and friendships that have gone awry, because that's, again, so much part of why we haven't spent enough time talking or studying friendship, because we're scared of it. We're scared of friendships ending. But actually it's part of the natural process of life.

“Often, when we're judgemental of other people, it's because we're most judgemental and critical of ourselves. And actually, if we extend compassion to ourselves and to our flaws, and we are honest about that, but accepting and we try to do better, but we love ourselves for trying, then we tend to be less judgemental of other people as a consequence, and others can pick up on that.”

Read what Mark Wogan told Chris Evans Breakfast about why he blindfolds guests on his Spooning podcast here. 

Previous Spooning guests include Claudia Winkleman, Helen Skelton, Gaby Roslin, Beverley Knight, Jimmy Carr, Alfie Boe, the Appleton sisters, The Hairy Bikers, James Martin, Joe Wicks, Eddie Izzard and Virgin Radio’s own Ryan Tubridy.

Spooning is out wherever you get your podcasts. Episodes are released every Thursday. Watch along via @virginradiouk on YouTube, Twitter, Instagram and Tiktok.