Some thoughts on Cheryl's Elle interview...

Cheryl Cole’s rather divine issue of Elle magazine is out in the shops at the moment and going beyond the simply sumptuous photoshoot, there’s also a brilliant new interview with her in their too. Now, Cheryl’s interviews are something I always really look forward to as I think there’s a lot of truth to her words. She has a way of saying things, a way of capturing the beauty and fragility of human nature.

One of my favourite quotes from the new Elle interview is this:

“Giving up would be the worst thing. To mope around and feel sorry for myself? I don’t think I could have handled things if I’d chosen to do that. I spent a lot of time feeling sorry for myself. But you can’t allow self pity to swamp you. You learn some hard things in life but they make you grow up a hell of a lot.”

There you have it. In a handful of sentences, you get an instant sense of not only Cheryl as a person, but feelings I’m sure all of us have faced at times. That is after all one of the many reason’s she is the ‘nation’s sweetheart’. She encompasses the normal person, the every-man and woman.

What’s most powerful about this quote, and the reason I like it so much is that on one hand it is the admission to a struggle, between good and bad feelings. More importantly though is the emphasis on choice; the way your state of happiness can be ‘allowed’. Yes, bad things happen to us, and it hurts at the time, but we learn from it, we don’t allow it to beat us completely, and it makes us all the stronger in the future. It’s a classic example, but one that still holds true.

When we feel bad there’s a colossal sense of feeling rushing round our heads, all these emotions and sensations – one thought often leading to another, and we just end up feeling worse. But here, we can see that just as easily as we can tip into this nasty cycle of negative feelings, we can convert that massive excess of feeling into something positive, to go ‘You know what, i’m going to take this feeling and ride on it to new heights, to beat down the negativity and look forward to the future.’