I’ve been putting off writing this newsletter. Since the beginning of the year in fact. Every time I opened my laptop, or scribbled in my notebook things I wanted to say and share, a spark would ignite in my tummy, a flutter in my chest, followed swiftly by a firm, gentle voice in my mind telling me to stop what I was doing. That my thoughts and my words weren’t quite ready for the world yet. That I needed some time…

The truth is, I found the response to my last newsletter overwhelming. And I’m not talking numbers here – it landed in the inboxes of just 194 people. Yet, the direct, heartfelt messages I received back in response to my essay about Mum caught me off guard (in the same way they did when I first wrote about Mum for Stylist back in 2016!). It was a similar response to what I’d receive a month later when I published two pieces in YOU magazine on matchmaking my mates (and Dad), and the rise of young grief clubs. Both these pieces – one about love, the other about loss, and both about life (and death) – incited a response that made me feel at once full up and excited, sparky and fluttery – but also anxious and uncomfortable. As my friend put it: “you’ve got a vulnerability hangover”.

It’s something I’ve always wanted to do – to write and draw and talk about the things that matter to me. The small moments that become the big memories, the quiet acts of love that make up a life, and the devastating losses that shape one too. But I’ve always erred on the side of caution, wanting to make sure I was ready and in the right place to do these topics justice. To make sure I’d sufficiently worked through my own feelings before sharing them with the world. It’s perhaps why, in my career so far, I’ve maintained an emotional distance between most of my work – be it creating recipes, travel writing, editing an East London magazine, or interviewing interesting people, where I can write about important, emotional things – just not important, emotional things related to me!

Over the past year though, I’ve found myself wanting to share more about my own life – as a way to dig deeper into universal themes I’d like to explore in my work yes, but also because I’ve felt my voice, my story, rising up in me, eager to get out. And although my words are always chosen carefully, the stories I tell crafted, as anyone who has ever written something personal knows – be it an Instagram post or a best-selling memoir – there’s a rawness that comes from telling your ‘truth’. And at the end of last year I felt ready to embrace that rawness (my truth!), and did. Then, suddenly, I didn’t want to anymore.

So, as the world moved into the new decade, I retreated inwards – inside my home, inside my head. I convinced myself I just needed time away from the outside world – more specifically, my forward-facing professional world. You know, just a little time off after a busy 2019. I told myself I needed to practice the self-care and boundaries I so often spoke about, and that winter was the time to stay indoors anyway – to stay warm and cosy. So I did just that. But that also meant staying small, quiet and unseen. I completed the work that needed to be done to pay the bills and I set aside all my passion work – the tummy-sparking, heart-fluttering work. “You’re not ready to do that work yet,” my cosiness whispered, whilst feeding me bowls of pasta and making me copious cups of tea and hot water bottles.

Soon though, my cosiness became suffocating and controlling. She told me to say no to social invitations, even when I quite fancied going along. To postpone exciting meetings because I’d be more ‘up for it’ come February (which then got pushed back, vaguely, to ‘The Spring’). She told me to not post that tweet (it wasn’t dry-witted enough apparently), and she told me to not write this newsletter until I could put into words perfectly everything I wanted to say in a way that was at once eloquent and concise. She told me at every turn, every email, every interaction that I wasn’t quite ready to start my next decade properly. She told me to bundle up all the words I wanted to say and to put them in a box under my bed for when the time was right – soon, she’d say, soon.

But the time is never right to say what you want to say, and to do what you want to do. We can never be ready for the selves we are going to become, because we don’t know yet who that self is. I do know something though: we definitely don’t become our happiest, fullest selves hiding under a tartan cashmere blanket with a hot water bottle scrolling and reading and listening and watching the lives of others play out (side note: Lucy Sheridan has just published a fantastic book, The Comparison Cure, about this very thing!).

I eventually came to realise (after a lot of festering, self-doubt and therapy I should add), that the ‘cosiness’ I thought I’d welcomed into my home and heart, the time away from The Big Stuff, was actually Big Fat Fear. And I’d let it coddle me and drape me in promises of ‘not quite yet, but not long now’. I’d let it nestle itself firmly in my psyche too, allowing it to feed me lies about perfection – about how my offerings to the world were nothing if they weren’t perfect. That good enough wasn’t, well, good enough.

A moment of epiphany came when I dragged myself out the house one evening for a walk around town. The wind lashed at my face and the cold bit my nose as daylight faded to night. I purposefully left my phone at home and, as I walked along the canal banks, I made myself breathe slowly and just observe everything around me – the naked trees starting to stir, the paddling ducks, the TikTokking teenagers and couples walking hand-in-hand. Then I looked up and noticed the moon, a thin bright crescent hanging confidently above. I thought: the moon doesn’t wait until she’s whole to show herself to the world. In fact, the moon knows she’s always whole – regardless of how much the world can see. If the moon waited until she was ‘perfect’ and ‘whole’ to show herself to the world, she’d only come out to play once a month (about the same frequency with which I’d been leaving the house!).

It may sound a bit dramatic, but I returned home in the dark and something had shifted. The next day the birds were singing outside my window (perhaps I just started listening), as if ushering me to come and play. And for the first time in over a month I felt like I couldn’t wait to leave the warmth of my nest – to throw on my favourite dress and dye my hair pink, to meet all the people I wanted to meet, and write the words I wanted to write. My hope is I can go forth into the year keeping this can-do-will-do confidence close enough so that I can wrap it around myself, like that tartan blanket, even when I don’t feel it. I hope too that if you’re reading this and need it, you’ll take this newsletter as your (long-winded!) permission slip to put out into the world the things you most truly want to put out there, do the things you most truly want to do, even if they’re not perfect or you don’t quite feel ready. It’s better for things to be good enough and exist, than to be perfect and only ever remain in your heart and mind. And if you’re ever in doubt, just look up at the moon – confident, glowing, perfectly imperfect and always whole – even on those nights when you can’t see her.

A note on this newsletter

My hope is that The Hungry Heart will grow to be a lovely little e-space to explore, as my Mum would put it, the ‘big fat juicy stuff’ in life, like love and loss and everything in between. But I also want to share the ‘little’ things too – food, books, podcasts, as well as cool projects I’m working on or interesting tidbits I’ve come across.

Maybe it’ll be the sort of thing you read on your way to work, or you’ll settle down to over a cuppa, but however you enjoy it, I hope you do enjoy it, and if you do, I’d love to hear from you – whether via an email reply or over on Twitter. And if you really like it, maybe a friend will too, in which case please forward on and share! Finally, if this newsletter was forwarded on to you, perhaps you’d also like to subscribe here?

If you, like me, feel like you’re playing small and want to be, in the words of Tara Mohr, ‘playing big’ this year, then here are a few steps I’ve taken in the past month – some practical, some emotional – to work through my Big Fat Fear.

Disclaimer: I think the first thing to do if you’re feeling like you want to run away and hide from the world is to kindly interrogate the reason why. Is it fear that’s stopping you from putting yourself out there right now, or is it that you really are in need of some time out (because that is ok and sometimes very necessary too). Burnout is a thing, and definitely not the way to achieve your brightest, fullest self!

1 NAME IT Do you have a clear idea of how you want your year to look? Or have you not dared let yourself really think about it (because to think about it is to set yourself up for disappointment?). I think the only way we can ever build a life we truly want is to know and name what we want out of our life, both in the moment and in the long-term (whilst knowing this can also be fluid). I love a good vision board as a way to visually tune into what I want from my year (see Lucy Sheridan’s instastories for more info here), but simply just writing down words, feelings, things, people and achievements that you want see in your life is also very empowering, however outlandish they might feel.

2 CREATE ‘YOUR FOLDER’ Whatever it is: a huge project, a big dream or a general area of interest, create a virtual home for the thing that gives you a spark in your tummy, and a flutter in your heart. Whether it’s on your computer or in your notes app on your phone, just make it easily accessible so you can drop in ANYTHING that relates to it – be that an article, a quote, a picture, a contact, or even just a rambling train of thought when you wake up at 3am. Over time, step by step, you will build a juicy resource of the thing that matters to you most.

3 BE KIND TO YOURSELF, PLEASE No one ever achieved their best self by emotionally beating that self up. So, if everything is feeling overwhelming right now, dedicate just 15 minutes a day to one small task that moves you in the direction of your dream life. This is inspired by Sara Tasker (AKA @me_and_orla)’s 15 minute magic course, which I missed signing up to this time around, but I’ve been following along with as a way to push through my own procrastination and general stuckness. Also, dedicate an equal amount of time (ideally more) to doing one easy thing a day that you KNOW makes you feel good – for me it’s a short walk, a FaceTime with a faraway friend or cooking a nice meal.

4 REACH OUT I know this is easier said than done when you’re feeling like you just want to hide away, but make a list of five people you really admire – personally or professionally, a stranger or a friend – and reach out to those people in whatever way feels appropriate. This could be an email, a phone call, a message, a handwritten letter (!), an offer for a coffee, or an invitation to collaborate. It could even just be an online comment to let them know how much their work means to you.

5 TALK ABOUT IT So often we never give ourselves the opportunity to talk about the things that matter most to us – maybe we’re worried no one will be interested or that it sounds self-centred. But passion is contagious, even if you aren’t quite sure what direction or shape you want that passion to take. So, next time you are in a social situation, talk about your hopes and your ambitions for 2020 (for your life in fact!). You might find that someone may even be able to offer a helping hand, or even just give you the confidence boost you need.

R E A D I N G 

C O O K I N G

Brussels sprout salad
with burrata, orange, fennel seeds and hazelnuts

photography by Kathrin McCrea

BEAST magazine

I loved working on the latest issue of BEAST magazine – not only because it’s our first one dedicated to food (East London’s #FoodHeroes to be specific), but also because I got to work with, and interview, some brilliant people for it, including cover stars Liam Charles (of GBBO fame), fellow Northerner Leon Rothera and the gorgeous Sara Kiyo Popowa. I’ve never been on a shoot where everyone had such great chemistry – we all got on so well that we decided to go boozy bowling together a few weeks later on Brick Lane! The issue is hot of the press, so if you’d like to subscribe (please do!) you can here for £20/year until April 1st (UK p+p included). Worth noting too that each subscription gives you a chance to win a pair of tickets to our upcoming gig with model-singer-songwriter Sam Way. I highly recommend giving our Insta @beastmag_london a follow (but I would say that wouldn’t I!).

Cover stars: Liam Charles, Leon Rothera and Sara Kiyo Popowa.
Photography by Jamal Thomas, location Ridley Road Market.

The Hungry Hearts Club

I mentioned my matchmaking article in YOU magazine above, as well as its overwhelming response. But what I didn’t go into was the nature of lots of those responses – namely: people wanting to be ‘on my books’. I now have over 130 people unofficially on said books, and it’s struck me that, with the best will in the world, I’m not going to be able to devote as much time as I’d like to individually matching people (how I wish I could). The motivation behind my piece was always to encourage a more ‘community spirit’ around romantic love for those who want to find it, and that’s why I’ve decided to make my books ‘official’ with The Hungry Hearts Club. Currently just a mailing list, I’m working behind-the-scenes to make this something more – both an online platform and an offline community. So, if you’d like to be kept up to date as this project develops, please do sign up and spread the word. The main theme in my inbox seems to be a real disillusionment with dating apps and a frustration that there aren’t enough ways to meet people IRL in a way that isn’t too forced or ‘cringe’. I hope to do something about that, whilst also creating a space that not only brings people together, but also celebrates love in all its forms. It’s all in very early stages and I’m currently working on a website, but please do drop me a line or an Insta DM if you’d like to get involved, be on my books or have any ideas about the sort of thing you’d like to see!

Side note: if you are a single man, or know any, please get in touch as I have a shortage and need to, you know, balance the books!

I N S T A G R A M

Find me over on @hungryromantic sharing stories, illustrations and recommendations, as well as the occasional pic of my handsome boyfriend 😉.

You can also find me on Twitter @Hungry_Romantic, where I went semi-viral (it’s all relative ok?!) for a tweet about Mum ☺️❤️👇 Just reading the replies under this tweet still makes me feel all blubbery and reminds me of the power of connection to heal, as well as how social media can, just sometimes, be a force for good!

Emma Winterschladen is a freelance writer, editor and illustrator based between Wiltshire and East London. She is also Editor of BEAST, a print magazine dedicated to all things East London, and Food and Travel Editor of Liz Earle Wellbeing magazine.

If you would like to commission writing, illustrations or recipes, or enquire about any other project, please email e.j.winterschladen@outlook.com.

Copyright © 2019 The Hungry Heart, All rights reserved