Chessie King - Be Your Own Best Friend

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 fishyfrom 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 CALM SWAMPED NOT GOOD ENOUGH NEGATIVE BUT, CHESS, I DON’T KNOW WHAT I’M FEELING!

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 cancontrol 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, thenI’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.