The Self-Esteem Team's Guide to Sex, Drugs and WTFs?!!. Grace Barrett, Natasha Devon & Nadia Mendoza

was seeing this bloke she really liked for about three months when he dumped her with no real explanation. Two years later she was still talking about it. Every time I saw her. And when I gently suggested that perhaps it was time to move on, she’d say, ‘Tash, I can’t help how I feeeeeel!’

      Obviously, you want to avoid behaving in this dramatic manner if you can. The way to do that is to identify the emotion, give yourself some time to deal with it and then work out how you’re going to move forward.

      Like Nadz said, you can’t control how you feel but you can control how you deal with it.

      Over to Grace, who is going to talk tactics for pulling yourself out of the slump…

       GRACE

      Sometimes, looking back can be really useful. Working out the root cause of a problem is important. But if you’re in a negative place (‘OMG, I can’t connect to wifi – can the world just give me a break!?’), it’s possible that looking back will only result in a ride on the Brain-Worm of Doom. Yeah, that’s the pet name I give my neggy thoughts.

      So instead, work forwards. Try focusing not on what the problem is but what the solution could be. Work out what feeling ‘right’ might be to you. I’m not saying you’ll be able to work that out in a matter of minutes, hours or even days but I do think it’s a more useful way of spending time than thinking ‘What’s wrong (with me, the world, my friends, my family…)?’ The list could be endless.

      Imagine yourself feeling ‘right’ – or even let’s go so far as to say feeling happy *gasp*! Or remember the last time you felt that way. Got it? Good. Now picture it. Look at the scene: what’s around you? What are you doing? What does it sound like? Who are you with? Most importantly, what are the differences between the way your world actually looks and feels to the one you’re imagining? Scribble them down if you need to. Now, what can you do to make your world look and feel more like the one you’re imagining?

      Sometimes, the most useful question to ask is: ‘What would I like to happen?’

      It took me quite a while to answer that question for myself, back when I didn’t feel ‘right’. But once I realised that my ideal scene was really quite different to the one I was living, the feeling made complete sense. I still don’t get to spend every single day in my ‘perfect world’ but, in trying to make mine look more like the one I’d imagined, I normally tick a couple of its boxes each day.

      These days, it’s much rarer that I don’t feel right. I still have wobbles (I think everyone does) but much less often – and when I do have one, I can now envisage a way to clamber out of that hole.