COPYRIGHT

HarperCollinsPublishers

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First published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2020

FIRST EDITION

Text © Chessie King 2020

Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2020

Photography © Ruth Rose 2020

With the following exceptions: here, here, here, here, here, here and here courtesy of the author

Illustrations © Saskia Robertson (Sassrobcreative.com) 2020

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Source ISBN: 9780008377397

Ebook Edition © May 2020 ISBN: 9780008377403

Version 2020-05-13

DEDICATION

This is for my Scrumma-mumma-doo-dah

This is for my Brontë Bee

This is for my best friends

This is for YOU, yes, you

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

INTRODUCTION

1. INSIDE US

2. OUR BODIES

3. OUR SOLAR SUPPORT SYSTEM

4. OUR OUTER ORBIT

THANK YOUS

About the Publisher

Introduction

GIRLS. WOMEN. LADIES. ANGELS. GODDESSES. SISTERS. NON-BINARY READERS. (And to the guys who have bought this book, I see you … I know you want to see what it’s all about.)

This book is all about the glorious, delightfully complex truths of Femalehood and becoming your own best friend. We’re going to discover your true worth, big up your self-appreciation, find your inner cheerleader and celebrate you – zooming in, zooming out, while shaking it all about.

I believe there are four layers that make up you, me and the book you’re holding.

 Our insides: hormones, emotions, feelings and our juicy bits.

 Our bods: boobies, body hair, periods, contraception, sex and all the things we didn’t get taught at school.

 Our solar support system: your community – the spine to your life – your family, the people you work with and your friends, your tribe, because there ain’t no hood like sisterhood.

 Our outer orbit: social media bollocks, people’s views on what women ‘should be’ and connecting with strangers.

Every single one of us is navigating our way through life and sometimes, in this huge, gigantic world, you can feel like you’re doing it on. your. own. It’s a jungle out there, but I hope, while you read through, you’ll be nodding your head like ‘Yes, uh-huh, this is totally me – oh holy mother of Dorothy, I thought I was the only one. Phew. WOW. Okay, so if Chessie’s been through this too, I’ve totally got it.’

I invite you to take a comfy seat in my brain, my world. I’ve poured love, honesty and memories into this baby. I’ve cried into my laptop, laughed at the stories I’ve unearthed in my history bank, and braved sharing unspoken pieces of my past. And heavens to Betsy, I have absolutely adored this whole never-written-a-book-before-what-am-I-doing thang!

My scrumma-mumma-doo-dah fired me out into the world on 23 June 1993, so I know I’ve not yet experienced all the bonkers things life can throw at us women. But I want to be dancing around in my underwear until I’m 100 – so I’m not even a third of my way through the game. I’m absolutely no expert, nor am I trying to ‘fix’ you. But I believe I don’t need a PhD or a degree to want to help you or to share my life, my stories and my advice with you. I can promise you, this book is so much more than me telling you to sleep more, eat your veg and step up your step game … We’re going to take back the power, we’re going to turn surviving into thriving, we’re going to become the CEOs of our busy brains.

We’re all unique, we’re all multi-dimensional, we’re all phenomenal – however, the majority of us just don’t believe in ourselves. Whether you feel like you’ve lost confidence, never found it or you’re going through a shift, I’m here with you. In Blue Peter-style, here’s one I made earlier: I’ve tried and tested the infinite list; exploring, discovering and unpeeling the layers of myself over the years. So, I thought it was about time I got it all down on paper … 240 pages’ worth of paper.

I like to think of us all as scrummy, spongy cakes. We all started out the same, cooking in the womb. Then over the years, we’ve added in different ingredients, soaked up different experiences, to make us all even more delicious and unique … But we’ve been decorated with heavy toppings like self-doubt, comparison, heartache, trauma, grief … they’re all baked into our lives and they could be weighing us down.

When you’re ready, we’ll work through your recipe and eat cake together. We’ll strengthen your relationship with your bod, your brain, with all of the incredible humans that make up your tribe, and with women from all around the world.

If I could describe my Instagram in one word it would be ‘honest’. But unlike social media, this book has been a real safe space for me to take that to the next level. To help you, to share everything with you, uncensored. Helping, guiding, nurturing and supporting people is something I feel I was born to do. It’s written in my DNA, embedded in me from my mumma, my mum’s mumma (my nana), her mumma … all my female ancestors have exuded love. I’m a big sister in real life (anyone who’s the oldest will know what it feels like to be the ‘trial run’, the guinea pig) to Brontë and Henry, and I have always wanted to protect anyone younger than me. I’ve watched them both grow up from teeny tiny beans in our mumma’s tummy, making their way through life, growing into their own individual personalities. I don’t ever tell them what to do; I just guide – sharing with them my mistakes and what I’ve learnt. I celebrate their differences, encourage them to do anything they want and absolutely adore them.

This book is for you. Think of it as having a book-sized me with you at all times. I’m here with you on every single page. I want this book to be a constant reminder that you are abso-bloody-lutely extraordinary, so keep it close to you: in your handbag, on your bedside table, on your desk at work or under your pillow. Pick it up when you need a boost, and know that you can always come back to it in this wild, wild world.

There is absolutely no judgement here from the pages, the words, the book or me. I want you to feel like I’m reading every word out to you in real life (which, if you’re listening to the audio book, I am!). I love scribbling, getting things down on paper, so I’ve added interactive parts to help you discover new ways to express how you’re feeling … so if you want to doodle, please do(odle!) … or if you’d prefer, scribble everything down in a Be Your Own Best Friend notebook.

Put your hand on this page and take three of the deepest breaths you’ve taken all day. I’ve just done it with you. Are you ready to come on this roaring voyage with me? Are you ready to unleash that badass warrior inside of you? Shall we do this? Yes, yes, yes, Chess. Let’s go.

SQUILLIONS of love,

Inside us

Every woman is made up of what I like to call our ‘juicy bits’. The bits we find once we strip back all the outside layers and delve deep into our centre – our core.

We’ve all heard, ‘Oh don’t worry, it’s just all going on in my head’ … Wellllll that’s because it is, but we need to talk about it. Our brain’s function is to think – she’s the powerhouse, she’s the boss. Our juicy bits are our feelings, our emotions, our likes, our dislikes, our hormones, our thoughts and our unique personalities. Those sensations we feel have the power to dictate our days, our entire lives. Our feelings and emotions are the realest thing we have, they’re unique to us. They’re how we connect with ourselves and with people’s souls, but they’re invisible – so no one in the world really knows what’s going on inside there. Not our partners, our sisters, our parents who’ve known us since day one, our friends – and sometimes not even us.

You know those people who don’t yawn when you yawn, like they’re immune to the infectious, contagious yawn? Well, I’m not one of those, I’m totally the opposite … I’m extremely empathic. I can’t walk past another human crying without wanting to make sure they’re okay and have a good cry with them. As I’ve got older, my feelings have deepened, my emotions have developed, and my hormones … well, I’m still trying to make friends with them.

My coping mechanism to deal with painful, harder, more complex feelings used to be to cram them out of sight in a metaphorical box. But that ended in an exhausting emotional extravaganza whenever the box got too full and burst open. I thought the only emotion I was allowed to feel was happiness, that crying was a weakness and everything else was unnecessary. In my early twenties, I morphed into a robot – an empty, emotionless, ‘I’m tough, I got this’ kinda gal. I was presenting on a red carpet most evenings, working silly hours on top of that and giving up my spare time to surface-level relationships with absolutely no grit about them whatsoever … plus I don’t think drinking eight coffees a day to make up for the lack of food helped at all. I lost a chunk of myself while giving so much to my work, funding the coffee industry (with what probably added up to £20+ a day) and pouring energy into boys who covered up their cheating by saying they were dedicated to the ‘polymonogamous life’ (which I have absolutely nothing against … when both parties are aware there’s more than just you two involved – which I wasn’t for 5 months!). Oh I definitely learnt a huuuuge amount from all of it – but it took suddenly losing my hearing and becoming partially deaf at 23 to realise I need to release these emotions when I feel them.

With the help of people talking about their mental health and sharing their own stories, I’m much more aware of my emotional self. I’m forever checking in and learning about what’s going on inside me, understanding what I can do to harness a feeling or how to give myself a little bit of extra love when I need it.

SO THIS ISN’T ABOUT ‘FIXING’ YOUR EMOTIONS – I’M NOT BOB THE BUILDER. IT’S ABOUT:

 Recognising them

 Harnessing the power of the fiery ones

 Helping out the more complex ones

And most importantly, if you thought you were the only one feeling 26 different emotions a second then hopefully, reading this, you’ll start to see I’m feeling it, your best friends are feeling it, your cousins, your boss, your work colleagues … we’re all feeling it.

In this section, we’ll delve deep into our cores. We’ll zoom in and uncover the layers that we’ve built up. I want to help you peel them back and hopefully get to know your most authentic self, your cake before all the toppings were added. We can learn to trust and accept our emotions – the good, the bad and the messy … they are a way of celebrating ourselves, expressing ourselves and trusting ourselves.

Check in with yourself

How are you today? How are you really feeling? Trust the first thing that comes up with no judgement, just recognise it. Today might have mixed up a complicated cocktail of emotions – this is your time.

You’re always asking how everyone else is but the more we get to know ourselves, the stronger our relationships with ourselves. Every day is an experiment – notice when you’re feeling the happiest version of yourself. Remember who you were with, remember what you were doing, remember where you were. Get to know what makes your heart feel full.

BRAVE

PROUD

HONEST

CALM

SWAMPED

NOT GOOD ENOUGH

NEGATIVE

BUT, CHESS, I DON’T KNOW WHAT I’M FEELING!

I’m feeling fearlessly BRAVE

MY DEFINITION: the red lipstick of emotions. You’re walking round with a big old ‘I was brave at the dentist’ sticker on your forehead and you feel like you could tick off every task on every to-do list you’ve ever made.

This surge of energy can come when you least expect it, but how super-fucking-duper does it feel? For me, I get this rush of power after a coffee or a matcha! Other times, it’s post-workout (or post-orgasm) – all those endorphins rushing through my body like electricity. The docs and specialists out there know that dopamine and oxytocin improve brain function, they flush out cortisol (the stressy bits). For me, I like to think of it as brain food – my mind is feeding off those chemicals, creating ideas, and I feel invincible.

You know those massive inflatable sumo suits, or those huge zorb balls you can climb into? Well, when I was 19, I had to go into the Houses of Parliament actually dressed in one of those. Yes, I was a human ‘hive’ for Allergy Awareness Day. I had to be rolled through the door lengthways, with my legs poking out the end, as I couldn’t fit through standing. When I feel superpowered, I feel like this – like I’m wearing armour, an inflatable shield of invisibility; I’m protected and I can do anything. We are our own secret weapons when we’re feeling courageous.

When I started doodlin’ and designing my own prints, I just did it for me, in my notebook. I absolutely loved the creativity flowing out of my brain and it was super-calming. I’ve never been ‘arty’ – I mean, I can draw a pretty inspiring stick woman – but since leaving home at 18, I’ve always filled my bedrooms with quotes and colourful prints. Around Christmas time 2018, I showed my Future Husband Mat (since finishing this book, Mr Carter has proposed and by the time you read this … we may be married) and my family my notebook scribbles and told them I wanted to make them into something. They encouraged me to do more. One morning I woke up, felt this tingly sensation in my body like I just wanted to pour all my love and every ounce of creativity into what are now my CKret prints – my babies. I just went for it. I kept repeating, ‘I’ve got this.’ I didn’t have anyone telling me what to do or feeding me the motivation to kick it all off; it was just me, my brain and my cash.

I have worked over 30 different jobs since I was 14, but I had never set up my own business with products that I was hand-designing all by myself. There was so much more to it than just drawing stars and writing a quote about magic. I hired an illustrator, who is just brilliant, and from day one, she just understood me – she transforms my ideas and makes them the real deal. So, after finalising the original six prints to start with, I set up the business 42 days after my first scribble. For the first month, I wanted to do it all myself, to fully immerse myself in the business. I wanted it to feel personal, to handwrite a thank-you to the people that believed in me and bought a print. I was doing the designing, the printing, the packing, the personal notes, the shipping labels, the post-office run, the customer service … a month turned into two and I was packing over a hundred orders a day. It was incredible and so unexpected; I had to rally round the troops (my brother Henry, my mumma and postman Mat) to help with the sheer volume.

I look back now and realise it was all because I woke up one day feeling brave, ready to work on something new and take a risk – now that was a superpowered moment.

Channel that superpower

So you’ve got this energy vibrating inside you – let’s do something with it. This is the perfect time to challenge yourself, to start something new, to say goodbye to self-doubt, to say ‘I love you’ first, to come out to your parents, to take risks …

When I was at school, I couldn’t wait for the summer holidays, and to stop learning things for eight weeks. But when you’re an actual adult, you realise life is so much more exciting when you keep topping up your toolbox of skills, and I’m way more of an interesting human if I’m learning new shit.

A few years ago, instead of making New Year’s resolutions, I wrote down five things that I used to do when I was younger that I haven’t done since moving to London at 18 (where you’re distracted by everything and your monthly rent is the same price as buying a private jet …) and missed.

It was honestly one of the best mini-challenges I set myself and I urge you to do it, too. It doesn’t have to be five. These were two of mine.

ROLLERBLADING

The remains of half of my left knee still lives on the concrete pathway in Battersea Park – exhilarating for four minutes until I took a nose-dive into the floor, smashing my phone and nearly my face. Luckily I was with one of the most multi-talented humans to grace this planet. A best friend who doubles up as my regular saviour (while juggling a highly sought-after hand-modelling career), Sammy peeled me off the floor and carried me to the first-aid centre. It was only then, at 22 years old, that I fully understood why Mum always insisted I wore knee pads, wrist pads, a helmet and two pairs of trousers. The scar lives to tell its story, but it honestly made me feel alive. It reminded me that the world is our playground.

DANCING

I mean, I’ve never actually stopped. I’m a professional dancing-in-the-house-completely-naked-until-I’m-sweating dancer … but when I was younger, dancing shoes were permanently glued to my feet. My entire out-of-school life was dedicated to it – but in my teens I went from doing eight hours a day, doing shows monthly and regular auditions, to doing nothing in the space of a few weeks. So this challenge gave me the fuel I needed to join my friend Lottie in a dance lesson. Before I knew it, I was lost in the music, prancing away, giving the mirror some fierce looks I didn’t even know I had in me … It felt so liberating. During and after, I just felt pure joy.

Finding my inner child re-lit that fire inside of me. I proved that voice in my head wrong and it made me realise that if you stop anything you love, it’s not forever. You can always come back to it at a different stage of your life.

What did you do that you haven’t done since you were a dinky kiddywink? Swimming? Horse riding? Tennis? Painting? Trampolining? Make a promise to yourself that you’ll try at least one of those again in the next month. It might feel new, it might feel like you never stopped. But just know, however it feels, you are never too old. Do it once, do it weekly, but most importantly, do it for yourself.

Stretch yourself, believe in yourself, keep filling your brain with new things. It’s ironic that as you get older, things become more accessible, but life gets in the way. Give yourself the time your younger self would thank you for. Channel and savour that superpower. Hopefully this offers a little encouragement to give yourself that boost to take this feeling to the next level. I know you are more capable than you think.

I’m feeling PROUD

MY DEFINITION: Your inner cheerleader is chanting, ‘Give me an O, give me an H, give me a YAAAAS … Give me an I. Give me a D. I. D. I. T. And what do you have … OH YAAAAS, I DID IT!’

Whatever you did, no matter how big or small that thing was, I am so damn proud of you. We’re going to celebrate this moment because next time you doubt yourself, you can come back to this place and remember how glorious you felt.

We can all be pretty bad at congratulating ourselves, but giving yourself recognition is so important in building our self-esteem and becoming our 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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