Tiny Buddha’s Guide to Loving Yourself Interview: Sam Russell

This month we’re celebrating the upcoming launch of Tiny Buddha’s Guide to Loving Yourself, a book about taming your inner critic that features 40 stories from Tiny Buddha contributors. 

Throughout September, you’ll have a chance to meet some of them through daily interviews here on the blog.

Today’s featured contributor is Sam E.A.B. Russell, a UK-based writer and photographer who considers himself a cynic by nature but tries to prove through his writing that cynics can be happy and positive too.

In his contribution for the book, he shares some of the common defeatist, limiting beliefs that stand in the way of happiness.

A little more about Sam…

1. Tell us a little about yourself and your self-love journey.

I’m a writer and photographer and I live with a smorgasbord of mental health difficulties. I started to develop love for myself when I realized that a) it’s okay for me to be different and b) only I can change my circumstances. That sounds so easy: be cool with yourself and take charge. The thing is, love’s not easy.

Hate and anger—those are easy. They’re easy and comfortable, though painful, which is why it took me a long while to get myself on the path that I’m on today. Accepting my difference means accepting my flaws. Changing my circumstances means developing courage. Doing those things means looking in the mirror and loving the person who looks back, even on my worst days.

2. Have you ever felt there’s “something wrong with you”? If so, why, and what’s helped you change your perception?

Yes. I’ve grown up feeling “wrong.” Then I figured out that “inside me” didn’t match “outside me.” I was living the wrong gender for most of my life, which is no easy thing to do.

I didn’t fit the typical gender role I was raised in and I couldn’t access the one I felt more at home in. I was suspended in a very lonely grey area for what felt like forever.

The hardest thing was figuring that out, getting the language to express how I felt, but wow! What a great feeling when I did realize it and find those words. Now I’m on the path that feels right for me. I’ve got the love and support of my family and friends, which is all I need to do this.

3. Have you ever thought something was a flaw only to realize that other people actually appreciate that about you? What was the “flaw”?

I’ve always perceived and thought about things differently to others. I was the kid in the class who always used to ask the really weird and awkward questions. I used to get bullied for it by kids and adults alike.

As an adult, I’m the one who turns the everyday into the surreal when I write. I have a habit of saying the wrong thing too, though I don’t mean anything by it.

I still get criticized for it and some people have been unbelievably cruel to me. I’m lucky that most now recognize that how I see the world is unique and encourage me in my writing and photography.

4. What was your biggest mistake (that you’re willing to share), and what helped you forgive yourself?

Ugh, not sorting my awful relationship with my Mum before she died. The last thing I felt for her was resentment. I knew things were bad and I was too busy being angry with her to see that she was sick and needed me more than ever.

I didn’t take the time to say sorry or care or do anything that would have shown her that she wasn’t without me.

It’s not been easy but I’ve come to terms with this by first forgiving myself. I recognize that I was in a bad place at the time, and that my feelings toward our relationship were a part of that. Forgiving myself means understanding this.

I’ve spoken to my sister a lot about how Mum loved me regardless of the arguments we had.

We laugh about the mental things she used to get up to and share the grief of our loss. My sister is a great comfort to me, and usually the first to remind me that, despite the way I felt then, it’s not the way I feel now.

5. Complete this sentence: When other people don’t like me, I…

…instantly get upset and confused but later think, “Eh, there are billions of people on this planet. They can’t all like me.”

6. What are some areas in your life where you’ve compared yourself to other people, and what’s helped you let go of these comparisons?

Always with my writing and education. I study so hard and never feel good enough compared to others. I read my favorite authors, find a perfect sentence, and sink into despair. I look at how much work they’ve done, how successful they are and the legacy they’re going to leave behind and think: I can never achieve or live up to that.

But then I step back, see my life, my illnesses, and my work and think, “Mate, you’re doing damn fine!”

I’m only able to do this because I read. I’ve been fortunate enough to study writing as a skill so am able to understand how books work, so that helps me get some perspective on my gloomy feelings.

7. What’s one thing you would tell your younger self about looking to other people to complete you?

Nothing is ever complete. Being incomplete is being impermanent, which is being a part of the constant change, the flux called life. It’s better to be complemented, that is reflected and contrasted by another person, than completed by them.

8. Have you ever felt afraid to show people your “real” self? Why—and what’s helped you move beyond that?

I’m an unusual person, mostly quiet but prone to articulate outbursts on particular subjects close to my heart. I’m intense and emotionally needy but also loyal and generous. This leaves me vulnerable, and so I hide.

I don’t go out that much and I have a very tight circle of friends. When I have to engage with others who I’m unfamiliar with, I often put on a mask. Several masks, actually. Layer after layer of unseen protection.

I take risks when I let people in. I remind myself, in the face of fear and uncertainty, that it’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.

9. What are the top three things you personally need to do to take good of yourself, mentally and emotionally?

• Read
• Eat
• Create

I need mental and intellectual stimuli or else I fall apart. The hardest thing for me has been coping without an academic environment since I finished my Masters Degree in 2011. I’ve not been doing a good job of it so it’s even more important that those three things remain constant and strong in my life.

10. What’s something you do regularly that makes you feel proud of the difference you’re making in the world?

Probably being honest, and true to myself. If you go through life lying to yourself, you’re lying to the world too and that kind of deceit benefits no one.

*Note: I edited this post to remove info about the pre-order promotion, which ended on October 8, 2013. You can learn more about Tiny Buddha’s Guide to Loving Yourself here.

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