Rowan Blanchard’s Guide to Actually Feeling

Words: Gina Tonic | Guide: Rowan Blanchard

In a time where every swipe on our phone screens makes us want to scream, cry or throw up, it can be hard to want to embrace our emotions. It’s difficult, after all, to fully embrace the heat of the sun beating down on your face on a bright September afternoon knowing that there are many reasons to feel miserable, which lie beyond our physical enjoyment moment to moment. 

Yet, as Rowan Blanchard and PinkPantheress remind us in a new campaign for UGG, we were born to feel, and even though that may mean accepting our sorrow, it also requires us to reckon with the joys that also shine through in everyday life. Whether that’s from frolicking through an abandoned playground or through the thrill of finding like-minded friends online, letting ourselves feel our feelings can, all in all, only lead to good things.

In the following guide, actor slash activist Rowan Blanchard joins Polyester to give her top tricks on connecting with our feelings.

Embrace The Moment

For me, what the concept ‘Born To Feel’ means is just feeling joy, feeling your feelings in the moment, feeling impulsive. That's how the shoot felt too: We shot at this school in Queens, and I had never met Pink before, but we had a lot of mutual friends. So it was nice. It was such a fun day, and for me, it's just always nice to be around someone my age on set because that doesn't happen all the time, and so it was really cute to be with her and get to know her. She's adorable.

Be Passionate

I'm an actress who is also engaged in politics because I care about the world. I feel grateful that I've been able to share things that are very important to me, and that people respond well to that. Because this is who I am. I can't separate it. I have felt very very passionately about the things I've felt passionate about and accepting I can’t change that has been great for me.  

It can get messy on the internet with public-facing people attaching themselves to certain things. And for me, I've just always believed in these things, in my personal life, so that is reflected. It’s worth the mess.

Prioritise Physical Comfort

In the last few years I've been really interested in being comfortable, and I mean that physically, even down to my clothes. When I was a teenager I liked to dress really crazy, and now I just really want to be really comfortable over anything. 

I was wearing UGGs on set yesterday - they just make me feel cozy and warm. They help me prioritise physical comfort but there’s also nostalgia there. I feel like they're just something that have always been in my life somehow. I remember when I got my first pair of UGGs and that was a really big deal. I remember reblogging UGGs on Tumblr and Pinterest in ‘fall inspo’ posts. 

Overall, I feel more confident, I just feel less pressure to perform anything. I’ve gained confidence and a sense of self through prioritising comfort.

Log Off

I think it's important to have a strong sense of self outside of the internet, but it is hard. I don't share everything online at all now - I don't want to. I think it's important to just know and understand what you're doing in your actual life offline.

I'm also always trying to kind of look for my part in things. I don't like to be somebody that things happen to - I'm always looking for where my autonomy is in a situation because I do have power in how people “make me feel”. I love therapy. I love being offline.

Find Confidence in Your Taste

I don't know if I have favourite films that are necessarily about self-expression. I like films about womanhood, I would say my favourite films are about young women, like Fish Tank. I just watched Andrea Arnold's other movie, Red Road, which was so good. 

I don't necessarily think those are films about confidence, but watching movies, picking out my favourite movies, things like that, make me feel like I have an identity, which helps with confidence.

Confidence is always so weird. It's such a hard one. But I've noticed that when I let myself gravitate towards things naturally and allow myself to feel comfortable, that makes me feel more confident.