Be Your Own Best Friend

I feel so much pride for my friends, family, Mat and total strangers – but I have struggled to congratulate myself in the past. I’m easily proud of the little things like putting on a white wash without turning it all pink by sneaking in a red sock. But with the bigger things, the things other people were ‘proud’ of me for, I just couldn’t feel it. But we’re working on it, my best friend and I.

Writing this is genuinely the proudest I have ever felt of myself. Every time I sit down at my laptop to write words, I do a little wiggle. I think it’s a real milestone for me, it’s a proud mum moment, like I’m proud of my brain, proud of my fingers for tap-tap-tapping away.

INDULGE IN THIS PRIDE.

Tell your brain just how phenomenal you are. Not anyone else – you. This is your time to big up yo-self. It’s not just saying, ‘Well done, good job gal,’ once a year – it’s a daily thing, because it all adds up. You have to believe you’re worthy of the congratulations, the celebrations. Be your own supporter, cheerer-on-er and then spread the lalalove:

You have three ‘I’m proud of you’ compliments in your kindness bank; they’re to give away today, tomorrow and the next day …

1. For you

WHAT ARE YOU PROUD OF TODAY?

Write it down – you can read this whenever you’re stuck in a patch of self-doubt. Revisit it, relive it.

HEY ME. REMEMBER THAT TIME YOU …

did your first talk at a school and spoke to 150 girls about body confidence, mental-health awareness and social media?

YOU ORIGINALLY THOUGHT THAT …

you wouldn’t be able to do it, so you were going to say no when you were asked to speak for an hour on your own.

BUT YOU DID IT AND YOU FELT …

so appreciated and you still buzz off the energy in that room now. You woke up the next morning so proud of yourself, you were paid in hugs, lovely feedback and teachers who said how interesting they found the talk.

SEE, YOU CAN DO IT.

2. For a stranger

I see you – you’re feeling yourself, let’s use that rocket fuel to make someone else feel proud of themselves too. Let’s show everyone else some love and feed them some of your energy. You’ve noticed the new assistant in the office is feeling a little anxious as it’s her first day – give her that extra boost and recognition she deserves by commenting how well she did when you’re leaving the office. Build each other up, see people, hear people, root for each other. A fire doesn’t lose anything when lighting another fire.

3. For a family member/friend/partner/colleague

With all compliments, they should come from a place of truth, and not just be forced, because that won’t help anyone.

See how it goes down … how do they take it? If they deflect it, say it again in a different way … I find rephrasing it works – mean it and repeat it:

It’s never too late for you to start being proud of yourself – it doesn’t mean you’re ‘cocky’ or ‘arrogant’. Come back to this joyful feeling when your inner cheerleader has gone quiet on you.

I’m feeling HONEST

MY DEFINITION: when you feel like it’s time to be totally truthful with yourself AND with others.

This is your time to come clean; you’re ready to open up and say it how it is. I’m writing this bit with my bits out … I’m completely naked. I ran out of the shower to do this little section – it came to me just as I was washing my armpits.

TRUTH-FACED OR TWO-FACED?

As I’ve grown up, I’ve learnt that the more open and honest I am with my friends, the stronger and more understanding our relationship is. Especially for women, there is still a stigma around us all being ‘two-faced’ and not telling each other how we really feel about things … well, that’s not how I roll. There is absolutely no benefit to speaking behind someone’s back. I believe it’s better to address a situation before it becomes a mess – this is what I like to call being ‘truth-faced’.

Honesty doesn’t have to a brutal – ‘Wow, you’re totally shit at singing, please stop, I’m sending you the invoice for my broken ear drum surgery’ – it can be nurturing and ‘character-building’. If anyone has upset me or made me feel uncomfortable, I meet up with them face to face and tell them with kindness and empathy. I know they might not even be aware of it, or they didn’t intentionally do it, or they could be going through something.

I have a good friend who I’ve known for years. We have a very complex friendship, but we respect and understand each other. She’s admitted that, before me, none of her other friends had ever been honest with her. Out of courtesy, I’m going to call her by another name: Gladys.

Gladys has been through things no human should have to deal with. I cannot even imagine the pain and hurt she’s been through and how it has affected her. There was a stage in our friendship where she was spending most of our time together talking about other people negatively. It left me feeling really deflated, questioning whether she spoke about me like that to others … so I addressed it head-on. I said exactly how I felt, and asked if she was aware she was even doing it. She was initially a little defensive, saying that she didn’t mean it maliciously; she was processing stuff and her way of doing that was talking about others, to me.

A few months later, Gladys thanked me for being honest with her. It had made her think and she was more aware of spending time talking about other people while she was with friends. I was genuinely quite surprised by the effect our conversation had had on her, but we are now even closer because of it.

I used to be sensitive to honesty; I was a confrontaphobic. I would immediately go into self-protection mode and make an excuse for myself before apologising. It can be hard to take, but flip it round and be honest with yourself: if you didn’t know you had upset a friend, would you prefer them to communicate with you directly or would you want them to go to someone else and talk about you?

I find that if you both have a mutual understanding and level of respect for each other, you will have one conversation about whatever it was and then (hopefully, and I talk about this later in the book) it won’t happen again. I believe honesty is a really important part of building a friendship.

CONFRONTING TRUTHS ABOUT YOURSELF

Being honest isn’t just an emotion you can use with others; it’s just as powerful if you use it on yourself.

It can be painful, but these moments leave me feeling empowered – like I’m taking back control of my life and deciding to make a change. It took me a good chunk of time to be honest with myself about a previous relationship that had left me feeling weak and trapped. I felt like someone had smothered me in superglue and stuck me to this relationship for just over a year – I had convinced myself I wasn’t strong enough to get out of it. So you don’t all go after him, I’m going to call him Hamish – because Mat had a goldfish called Hamish when he was seven, and things with this guy felt fishy from the start …

Writing this now and opening locked-up memories actually helps me understand why I’m more apprehensive about self-celebration … every time I came back from work with exciting news, I would always get shot down by his pessimism. This was at a stage of my life when I was shifting jobs, from working at a start-up app in London to getting somewhere with my presenting. I’d come back home late after events, super-excited to share them with Hamish, but he would ask, ‘Why would you want to interview these fake people on red carpets?’ ‘What satisfaction do you get out of this fake industry, with your fake hair, fake nails and fake friends?’ Hamish was the king of eye rolls. He was the guy who told me I couldn’t do something when everyone around me was trying to show me I could. He was the guy who left me broke at 23, financially (I couldn’t afford a £10 dinner out with friends, let alone my rent in London) and mentally. He was the guy who told me I was overreacting when I’d driven back from leaving my nana in hospital after watching her go through a biopsy. He said she was absolutely fine and I was making it sound worse than it was … she died a few days later.

No one really knew what was going on, but people made comments online and in real life about his negativity, especially towards my job. It started becoming more transparent to others how unenthusiastic and disapproving he was of my life. He put me down constantly and had stolen so much of my happiness I didn’t feel like myself at all. Friends were noticing it, family could see a slither of it, and I knew I had to get out. Waking up one day and feeling truly honest with myself gave me the extra fuel I needed to end it.

HARNESS IT

So, you’re ready to channel your inner honest-truth-faced-Chessie? If you’re in a difficult situation with a friend, partner, work colleague or family member, don’t let it get worse – let’s work through it and hopefully settle things between you.

HERE’S MY STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE ON HOW TO APPROACH IT HONESTLY WITHOUT:

1 hurting them

2 hurting you

3 blowing things up to be bigger than they already are/should be, and

4 protecting the friendship, if, at the end of it all, you want to remain close.

I’ve been through all of the above, but I promise, there’s peace in knowing you’ve listened to yourself. Be proud you trusted your emotions.

PAYOFF:

Honesty can be scary, it can be difficult, but it can also be transformative. It can bring you closer to your friends and to yourself or it can help you distance yourself from people who are making you feel like shit. Always choose talking about it to the person over speaking behind their back.

I’m feeling CALM

MY DEFINITION: Enjoying the magic of being in the moment: the right here, right now, RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW … sing it, Fatboy Slim.

In our jam-packed, go-go-go lives, we are constantly thinking: ‘What’s next?’ Our brain goes into overdrive thinking about the future, not the now.

I’m guilty of getting worked up thinking of my ridiculously busy day tomorrow, which ruins my today. Or thinking back to an interview I did a few days ago, replaying it back in my head wishing I hadn’t gone in for the second kiss on the cheek afterwards while they were fixed on just the one (something I don’t think any of us have mastered – the art of greeting a stranger politely … Is it one? Is it two? Is it five on the cheeks then one on the lips?!).

What I have learnt is that I cannot rewrite the past, but I can control how I feel about it.

I still gotta remind myself to slowwwwww the paaaaaceeee dowwwwn. A few years ago, I made myself pretty sick because I just didn’t stop. I was on the go constantly, life was bonkers. I was saying yes to everything, a yes woman. I was unwell with back-to-back illnesses because my body was just screaming out for me to stop. It was telling me I needed plugging in and recharging after running myself completely empty, but I still wanted more more, more …

Mr Mathew ‘Calm’ Carter and my zen-filled mother have helped me by installing a very important word in my personal dictionary – no.

With social media comes a lot of performance ‘busy’. People are constantly trying to show how much they’re working. I’m so used to reading stuff like this on Instagram Stories: ‘Wow life has been non-stop madness for 62 weeks, haven’t had a second to breathe but my 4am alarm is ready for my morning spin, nine back-to-back meetings, lunch with the CEO of girlbossuniverse.com, then I’m hosting an event for 123 of you (last tickets available swipe-up!) while trying to film you a make-up tutorial you’ve all been asking for, then I’m back to my laptop to #wurkwurkwurk #nodaysoff …’

Seeing other people being busy does not mean they’re more productive than you; it does not mean they’re more popular, nor does it mean they’re more successful. The most valuable thing we can do is look after ourselves – and that’s where we find the power in saying no. N. O. Saying stop when everyone else is saying go.

Losing my hearing suddenly was a momentous time in my life – which I speak about in Chapter 2, Our Bodies – it has carved out the way I look after myself now and for the future. I feel like a tiny little human found its way inside my brain and installed an internal stop button that I now have full control over. I’m still learning how to find a blend of stillness in the chaotic-ness of my life and how to absorb every moment in the pandemonium. There are still days when I get swept up in my chockablock calendar, but I check in with myself, acknowledge it, and if I need to, do something about it. I think the most powerful tool I’ve learnt is that we are all in control of this moment, right now.

‘Mindfulness’ is a term that’s been chucked around for years, but I never fully appreciated how it feels to be mindful until last year. It sounds like your mind should be full – full of what? Thoughts? But isn’t that the opposite of what you’re trying to achieve? Well, after trying meditation and finding what works for me, I’ve realised thoughts are part of ‘just being’. Telling your brain to switch off and stop thinking is like telling your lungs to switch off and stop breathing. Have you ever been in a situation or been somewhere with your favourite people, convinced you’re having the best time in the world? You’re in this bubble like no one else exists and nothing else matters? That’s my absolute favourite state of ‘just being’. It doesn’t always have to be sitting down, with crossed legs, in silence, repeating a mantra in your head.

In the wild world we live in, there’s always somewhere to be. There’s always someone to see. There’s always more to do. It’s rare to just BE.

SHARE A PIECE OF YOUR PEACE

Wherever you are in the universe, try something from the list below to put this feeling to use.

When I feel calm and present, I try to use it to help myself and others by:

 Calling a friend or family member that is going through a difficult time or someone I haven’t spoken to in a while.

 Feeling like I can be completely there for them, giving them my full focus and attention to just listen without any distractions.

 Focusing on a task that has been on my to-do list for weeks. Something I’ve put off because it seemed too much to even get started on, too mind-boggling, but today I’m ready to tackle it.

 Simply just taking everything in and soaking up the moment. Those situations where I forget I have a phone, forget I have a meeting next week, forget I’m on my period – just absorbing where I am and what I’m doing. (You’re basically doing the job of a tampon, a pad, a menstrual cup/your favourite choice of period protection … you’re just mopping up the moment instead of blood!)

The result? You feel like the bawwwws, the CEO – like you’re in control of your life and your life’s not controlling you. There are so many places you could be reading this book, but wherever you are, trust that you are right where you need to be.

I’m feeling SWAMPED

MY DEFINITION: when you’ve got too many tabs open in your brain, you’re drowning and life feels like an overwhelming, stressful mess.

Mini Chessie did all the activities – at school, after school, on weekends … Life was non-stop, packed with dancing, singing, theatre school, drum lessons, swimming, diving, horse riding, tennis, homework, revising … but it all felt manageable back then because I had Julie taxi-driver King, AKA superwomannnnn. Being an adult is a little bit different! I have those days when I feel like there’s a squillion and one things to do, one of me and only 24 hours in the day to get it all done. Sometimes when we’re overloaded with the glorious bollocks of life, we have to remind ourselves how much our noggins are doing for us.

Our brains are very good at making things way more serious than they actually are. Don’t make your life more exhausting than it already is – it doesn’t need to be. If we all stay in this state of ‘I have so many things to do and I just can’t do it all and if I don’t get them done someone’s going to die and I feel like it’s going to be me’, that pressure is going to limit our ability to get shit done (short term) and our happiness levels (long term).

Dr Chatterjee (who Mum is only slightly obsessed with … She has his podcasts on repeat and sends every new episode of his to Dad, Brontë, Henry, Mat and I … and her yoga students) talks about ‘micro stresses’ and how they can all add up to feeling overwhelmed. That feeling when your brain is about to explode might have a little something to do with a morning of micro stresses like this:

 You snooze your 6 a.m. alarm three times, then check your phone and it’s 7.30 …

 You start reading your 42 million messages, determined to clear your WhatsApp sitting on the toilet.

 Ten minutes later and you’re still sat there even though you finished nine minutes ago because you’re trying to reply to your boss’s ‘Urgent. Please respond ASAP’ email.

 You turn on the radio, and the news is telling you all your trains are delayed by an hour.

 You look on Maps to see how long it would take you to walk the six miles to the office … 75 minutes … cute.

 You click on Instagram just to see how your post went down the night before, then somehow end up on your friend’s ex’s mum’s dog’s profile, liking a photo the dog posted in 2014.

 You get on a replacement bus because your train is now cancelled and realise you left behind your lunch that you spent over an hour packing up last night.

 You finally get into work at 2 p.m. and your boss calls you in for a meeting to talk about your time management …

I’VE BEEN THERE … I’VE GOOGLED ‘CAN A PERSON SELF-COMBUST AND IS IT MESSY?’ NO WONDER YOU FEEL CLOGGED UP AND READY TO IMPLODE – YOUR BRAIN IS FULL TO THE BRIM!

LET’S CLOSE SOME TABS DOWN

Our brains were not designed to take on an endless stream of emails, WhatsApps, comments, messages, notifications and constant noise … You need to give your mind the quiet it needs to sift through all this information.

Tell me what you’re thinking about. Grab your notebook and let’s have a satisfying brain dump …

 Draw your brain – whatever shape, squiggle or outline.

 Write all the words, all your thoughts, the questions – everything going on inside.

 Is there anything you can answer? Is there anything you can’t? Write it down without judgement.

 What about the things you can control? Ask yourself: is the world going to end if I don’t do this? Is anyone going to get hurt? Will it make me happy if I do this?

 No? No? and No? Well, you don’t have to do it then. Draw your brain’s twin. Empty.

 Fill it with just three things you can do. Three things you want to do.

 Close your eyes and take the deepest breath you can, fill yourself up with air – that air is confidence and belief. Slowly breathe out all the shit you can’t control. Know that you can come back to this place, to create space.

I have always been a yes girl, rarely giving myself time to even think before I’ve given my answer. But I’ve learnt how to say no. It’s a feisty word once you understand its power.

REPEAT AFTER ME:

 I will say no if someone says, ‘Are you okay?’ and I’m feeling like shit.

 I will say no to things that make me feel uncomfortable.

 I will say no to, ‘Are we still on for tonight?’ if I don’t want to be ‘on’ for tonight.

 I will say no to seeing people who make me feel heavy and negative.

 I will say no to things that aren’t going to help me or anyone else.

 I will say no when I know I need to say yes to looking after myself.

… and never feel guilty for it. Be proud that you made that choice for yourself. You honoured your freeeeeeedom.

The moral of my swampy story: you can do anything … remember not to confuse that with everything.

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