TURIA PITT EXCLUSIVE ‘I'VE FOUND MY HAPPY'

The inspirational speaker, athlete and mum-of-two talks about her new book and how she’s come to find happiness

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Why did you want to write Happy (And Other Ridiculous Aspirations)?

Well, for close to a decade now, people have asked me a lot of questions about happiness. Thousands of emails, hundreds of questions. People wanting to know how I was so happy and how they could get some of it, too. I think what they were really asking was, “How can you survive a grassfire, suffer burns to 65 per cent of your body, have your life and appearance fundamentally changed, and still, um, be happy?” And how could they get through their divorce/ cancer diagnosis/crippling self-doubt, and be happy as well? So I wanted to really dive into that question. How do you get through those really hard, challenging times and come out happier? And how do we manage to find joy and happiness in our everyday moments? I wanted to find tangible, practical things we can do to feel good.

You have endured and overcome so much. What’s one of your main mantras that’s helped you stay happy since your accident in 2011?