Donna Ashworth has helped millions navigate the messy business of life. Now, one verse at a time, the UK’s bestselling poet is encouraging us all to tame our inner critic and find wonder in the ordinary

By Cheryl Caira. Photography: Susie Lowe

There are points in my interview with Donna Ashworth where her words truly feel like lightbulb moments – even more so when I listen back to them later on, in the relative quiet of my garden in the evening. I’m trying to get a natural feel for those ‘glimmers’ – the small moments of unexpected joy that the universe might bestow on us if we’re open to it. It’s something Ashworth encourages across her writing, whether shared online or printed permanently on paper. 

As a person finding affinity with the author’s take on happiness, authenticity and womanhood, I’m clearly not in the minority (actor Dawn French described Ashworth as a  “human disco ball”). She is the UK’s bestselling contemporary poet, and a jaw-dropping eight-time Sunday Times bestseller. Her words of comfort, reassurance and essentially self-help across life’s universally challenging themes have garnered her a social media following of over two million. We’re all navigating the choppy seas, but perhaps things are just a bit more bearable if we jump in the boat together. 

Ashworth is chatting to me from her home in Alva in the scenic Hillfoots, where she lives with her husband and two sons. Jaunty bunting hangs in the background with the message ‘Words Can Fly’ – Ashworth had it made for the launch of her children’s book of the same name, and decided to keep it raised aloft. The topic at hand is a potential ninth bestseller – a soon-to-be-released new book, The Art of Being Easily Pleased. It’s been billed as the author’s “most personal collection to date”, weaving together poetry, affirmations, essays and original artwork.

What inspiration was whispering in her ear when she was scribing its pages? “This is really the beginning of me sharing my story, and why I felt the need to start writing. I thought revealing myself through poetry was vulnerable. But this is me revealing myself directly, saying, literally: ‘This is me.’”

Ashworth has been prolific across her six years of published writing. She couldn’t ignore the burning in her gut during the UK’s first Covid-19 lockdown, and felt drawn to start sharing her poetry on her then-blog, Ladies Pass It On. Her poem ‘History Will Remember When the World Stopped’ went viral after featuring in a fundraising video for the NHS. It gave her the momentum to self-publish on Amazon, and then again with her second poetry volume, To The Women. A publisher took notice and signed her in 2021 – she’s now the author of 14 poetry books, with the latest collection being acquired by Hay House in a multi-six-figure deal. Next on the list is trying out fiction as a format, something she’s never done before but is keen to dive into.

In her forties when she put her work out there, Ashworth, now 51, talks of a midlife unravelling – that once she pulled the thread, she couldn’t stop. It was about “crossing the cringe” in the end, and realising that pent-up feeling inside was a stronger force than the fear. 

“I knew that writing needed to become a part of my life again, as it had been when I was younger and writing songs. But I thought people would just go: ‘Grow up! What are you doing?’ It’s like an unravelling of a persona that you build in life, that you think you should be: good mum, good wife, good friend. You’ve got the bank account. You’re paying the bills, but actually there’s so much more to a happy life.”

To be fair, Ashworth had taken the leap a few times earlier on in life, pivoting between an eclectic mix of professions. She worked as a journalist, co-owned a children’s play centre, and sang and performed in cabaret shows on cruise ships. As a teen growing up in Stirling, she absorbed the music of Deacon Blue and Texas, and later played confessional rock-pop pioneer Alanis Morissette on repeat. She had hoped for a career in the music industry and briefly signed with a management team based in Manchester to try and make it as a solo artist. “I would fly away, try something, then I would run away when people saw the real me or it got too difficult.” 

In a similar vein to Morissette’s raw, unfiltered lyrics, Ashworth doesn’t edit the words that flow. It stems from her wanting to communicate, woman to woman, in a way that feels accessible. “My poems are not for poetry’s sake – they’re for delivering a message. There’s no hiding under complicated metaphors. If you start to edit, everything starts to become something else, and you might take away the very rawness of that original spark. I call myself a recovering perfectionist. There’s no end to it once you start comparing and criticising.” 

Part of that recovery is touched on in the new book, where Ashworth reflects on the overwhelm of continually feeling the need to achieve, suggesting that we might be better off learning to find happiness in the everyday. “When I was at school, ‘Oh, she’s easily pleased,’ was a huge insult. It implied you weren’t discerning or intelligent enough to want more. You’re told you need to be chasing more, more, more. Why wouldn’t you be easily pleased if you could wake up every day and seek contentment without running out into the world to get validation? It’s the secret to a life well lived.”

Seeking a life led by delight didn’t come naturally. Ashworth did mindset retreats in Mexico, studied the neuroscience behind it all, got into meditation in “a major way” and really learned the art of creating an easily pleased brain. She discovered the inner workings of the Reticular Activating System – a network of nerves that acts as the brain’s filter, which can be trained to align with your vision of a better life. “You’ve got to wake up seeking magic, joy, light and fulfillment. You’ve got to decide you’re worthy of it, and that whatever happens today, you are problem-solving. I’m not looking for things to moan about. I’m looking for things to appreciate, and I’m living my life right here, right now. Let me tell you, it absolutely works.”

Perhaps unusually for our generally youth-obsessed society, Ashworth couldn’t wait to jump into a new decade and turn 50. “My life has measurably and increasingly improved as I’ve gotten older, because I’ve got more wisdom. You learn that we all feel the same, give or take a few wee happenings. I can’t speak for other parts of the world where hugely traumatic events are going on, but in our ordinary everyday lives, we can all be working through these unseen battles.”

Ashworth has had her share of internal and externally manifested conflict. The poet’s work has spotlighted the exhausting cycle of body image, reframing our physical forms as hard-working vessels that keep us safe. ‘When You Cannot Bear Your Body’ (from the book Life) features the lines: “You, my friend, did not ruin your body, or let yourself go. You are merely living, and life takes its toll, as it absolutely must.”

Having spoken openly about coping with anorexia – an addiction, she says, that began in her teens in the pursuit of control – she’s now reached a place of self-acceptance. Did it take a long time to be able to start discussing her experience so candidly? “I think it did. But once you start, you can’t shut up. It’s the sharing of the ugly that can really help somebody. Hearing how someone else survived can be the treasure map for getting out of rock bottom. So I bang on about it all the time, and I try to be as open as possible.”

Does the seemingly unceasing scrutiny around women’s bodies trigger her in any way? “I mean, I grew up in a time where it was free game. We were literally tortured on a daily basis about how we looked, and it was just allowed. Bullying was allowed. We’re in a better place now in society, but you can see that cycle going back around to skinny, because of the weight-loss drugs that have made it possible. 

“I did find myself getting really triggered at first, but then I thought: ‘Right, I have to accept this.’ This is the pendulum that swings. This is what society will do, and you have to be steadfast through all seasons in that respect. Part of me goes: you should be doing that too, or these little toxic thoughts might pop in – but you’re not your thoughts. You’re the thoughts you choose to keep. You can just flip them and think: ‘No, we’re not doing that.’”

She had masked neurodivergence for years – crowds, queues, changed plans and people arriving late were typically challenging situations, while a lack of clarity in communication would make her spiral into paranoia. Ashworth shared in 2024 that she had been diagnosed with autism – her youngest son had also been diagnosed with autism and ADHD just before the start of the pandemic.

“Navigating my son’s diagnosis, I could see: ‘This is me. He is me.’ That changed absolutely everything. You look back on all these things that happened and realise you weren’t being difficult. You were just processing in the only way that you knew how, in a world that doesn’t teach us that it’s OK. As a parent, there is a grieving process for the way that you parented until you knew. But once you’ve accepted that and come through the other side, you go forward with a completely different expectation of yourself.”

I’m not sure whether I should mention that I read Ashworth’s poem, ‘Dear Daughter’, at my mum’s funeral service. It seems too personal, but also completely relevant to what we’ve been discussing – that inherent human connection. That we’re all linked by grief and loss in some way. The poem’s take on imperfection and the enduring bond between mother and child resonated like no other poem had in the run-up to that surreal day.

“When someone tells me that, it’s the biggest honour of all,” she says. “That my words have been chosen at the end of someone’s time here on this planet. It gives me goosebumps – that I’ve been given a way to be of service in the darkest moments of people’s lives. What better way to spend your time here in the world than being that tiny piece in someone’s mosaic? That purpose overrides anything that could be heavy about it. It’s the love that I’m listening to. These huge losses are huge loves.”

My spirit feels lifted after our conversation. I have food for thought on my own hundred-mile-an-hour approach to life. And maybe, just possibly, sitting on the grass listening to the world go by really is enough.

The Art of Being Easily Pleased by Donna Ashworth is published on 27th October