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COPYRIGHT
HarperCollinsPublishers
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk
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
With the following exceptions: here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here © Shutterstock.com
A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library
Chessie King asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Find out about HarperCollins and the environment at www.harpercollins.co.uk/green
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.