Niamh O’Reilly learns how the popular TV presenter and mum of two found a way back to herself through a journey of selflove, healing and learning to ask for help.

Angela Scanlon is usually the one asking others to open up to her and drop major revelations, rather than the other way around.

Her recent RTÉ One TV show Ask Me Anything, saw the Meath native ask her celebrity guests a string of mouth-dropping questions, with nothing off limits.

The show which featured guests such as Sharon Corr, Imelda May, Amy Huberman and rugby legend Gareth Thomas ran for eight weeks on the national broadcaster's prime-time Saturday night post 9 o’clock news slot. Despite some positive feedback, the show’s run failed to bring in the big viewing numbers of the likes of The Tommy Tiernan Show, suffering somewhat from the covid restrictions on what guests it could have on. While the reception the show received may have felt like a slight setback, the upbeat and sunny Scanlon has found new depths of inner strength to cope with challenging times of stress, through the writing of her new book Joyrider. Part memoir, part self-help guide, Joyrider sees her chart her own journey into the world of self-development. It’s filled with the learnings she’s made along her life, as she navigated issues such as anxiety and imposter syndrome, as well as the bulimia she lived with for 15 years. But how did the talented broadcaster, who’s become a household name in the UK thanks to fronting shows like the BBC’s flagship The One Show, feel about putting her book out there?

“Quite terrifying, to be honest,” she declares. “Last year there was quite a lot going on, and I kind of thought, ‘Yeah, I’ll get to that in May’,” she says, reflecting on the gap between finishing writing and the book coming out. “Now, the reality of people actually sitting down and opening it and reading it is like, ‘Oh, Jesus Christ!’”

But this isn’t your usual self-help book. At its core it's about joy and gratitude. Although, if you think it’s going to be a straight-laced bore-fest featuring only serious meditation rituals and requiring readers to be thankful for things as mundane as the broccoli on their plate, then think again. The book is delightfully punctuated by Angela’s cracking sense of humour and refreshing self-honesty, traits that have made her such a successful commodity both here and in the UK.

So does the Meath woman truly believe that gratitude and self-discovery can fi x a person utterly and wholly?

Er… that’s a tricky one. In fact, she’s very much of the school of thought that if a person thinks therapy and self-help is going to ‘fix’ them and stop them ever having a ‘negative’ thought ever again, then they need to think again. “It’s really annoying [that these things aren’t a magic fi x],” the 38-year-old quips. “But it’s also the reality and quite comforting. And I am certainly not in a position to fix anybody, never mind myself. I think it’s about understanding that, and going, ‘Oh, this is a forever thing, we’re learning’ – the focus is growth, rather than the end result.”

“And none of us are broken,” she adds. “Yes, you want to be better at doing certain things, handling certain situations, but we’re fundamentally not broken. So being fixed is not the end goal – although that’s exactly what I’d hoped for when I started mainlining all these things,” she adds, laughing. “I’m looking for a refund!”

BABY BLUES

Angela has certainly grown over the years, battling with her eating disorder and bouts of anxiety, but it was the birth of her baby Ruby in 2018, that really precipitated a need for change in her life. Although she says she wasn’t fully aware of the fact at the time, Scanlon has since come to the realisation that she was dealing with postpartum depression after having Ruby, who is now four. Often terrifying and crippling for those who go through it, postpartum depression officially affects one in six women in Ireland. However, many of those who have experience of the condition believe the official number to be much higher due to the perceived stigma around coming forward or talking about it.

Angela’s brave decision to speak out and normalise it, can only help to further break the taboos around maternal mental health, which is an area that is greatly underfunded in Ireland.

Scanlon often talks refreshingly about the realities of being a mum to two small children on her Instagram page that has struck a chord with mums everywhere.

In one exchange, for example, when a follower asked her how she copes with tiredness, Angela replied: “Sometimes it breaks me! I have to remind myself that it passes. I try to grab a little nap when I can, do meditation when I can which recharges me and also just accept that I'm going to feel a bit f***ed for a while! Also, take all the help you can get... when someone offers help, TAKE THE HELP!”

While her experience with postnatal depression was clearly a tough time, the broadcaster, who is married to Irish eco entrepreneur Roy Horgan, recently welcomed her second daughter, Marnie, in February. A proud and now doting mum of two girls, she reveals that it was her toddler Ruby’s unwavering and innate sense of self acceptance and joy that unlocked a desire within her to reconnect with these things herself. “Her un-self-conscious love of herself, and of her body, that was a really big one for me,” says Scanlon, who writes about a penny-drop moment one day, while watching Ruby delight at her own reflection in a mirror.

“It was almost jarring to see that, you know, but it was one of those things that kicked me into action. Because that idea of self-love – you see it on posters and shared all over Instagram – but what does it really mean? That feels so foreign to me. Again, it’s something you have to work on, most of us don’t feel that – there’s a very critical inner voice yapping away that we’re not even conscious of, it’s so close to us.

“So just to see her, I suppose loving life, made me want to get in touch with my inner child, who I had slightly abandoned because I was so serious, and it was all about work and doing stuff . I suddenly thought, ‘Maybe I should be dancing naked in the living room’.”

HARD GRAFT

Scanlon’s journey to self-discovery and self-healing has been one peppered with ups and downs that may not necessarily have been visible to the outside world. Outwardly, the Meath native comes across as a confident, capable woman who has worked hard to get where she is, but inside it’s sometimes a different story. Starting out as a stylist and moving up the ranks of the TV world from appearances on TV3’s Xposé, to slots on RTÉ, to being a roving reporter on BBC’s e One Show, to ultimately taking the helm of that show, Scanlon has grafted hard to get to where she is and generally appears unflappable. However, as zen as she may appear now, there was a time when that anxiety or imposter syndrome was a very real presence in her life.

Scanlon recalls a period of peak anxiety after landing the main presenting gig on BBC’s e One Show. Appearing calm outside, she reveals she was frantically flapping in private. Still, it was a dream opportunity, the sort of thing she had longed for and told the production team she was readily experienced and equipped for. Except, she wasn’t – but admitting that, or asking for help, was not an option. “It was too late to backtrack, so I spent a long and lonely stint never once expressing fear or asking for the help or support I so desperately needed,” she writes in the book. “I had built myself a little cage and wouldn’t let anyone in. The team were amazing but I was riddled with anxiety.”

“That reluctance or inability to ask for help” was a common thread, she agrees. “Actually, I don’t even know if reluctance is the right word, I just think I didn’t really know what I needed at all, I don’t know myself very well, truthfully.

That happened on The One Show, and it happened again, probably in a more vulnerable state when I had my daughter – feeling like I should have it all together, I should know what I’m doing, and not really being able to show those cracks that are very human but felt like failings on my behalf.”

These days, it seems as though Angela is a little more forgiving of herself and has used the experience of writing Joyrider as her bridge back to loving herself a little more. While laying herself bare to the world has been a scary prospect, it also appears to have been ultimately freeing. Writing on Instagram, after the launch of her book, she said “unleash those gorgeous little gremlins into the world, share your fears & (sic) flaws with someone today. It’s terrifying but it’s also very healing (at least that’s what I’m telling myself)!”