I tried to live like Chelsea Winter

Early Thursday, I began receiving the same screenshot over and over. It was from influencer chef Chelsea Winter's Instagram Stories, which described her morning routine. It was so relatable that about 150 mothers sent it to me.

I don’t really know Chelsea Winter beyond the fact that we share a publisher, Penguin Random House, and that one of her cookbooks has probably outsold all three of my books combined. She’s wildly popular.

Do I want to be wildly popular? Of course. Every writer does. Anyone who says otherwise is lying.

So I decided maybe I should be more like Chelsea Winter, starting with her incredible morning routine.

Chelsea Winter can’t do alarms. Fair. I’ve never needed one either because I have a child who wakes at dawn.

Instead of a sunrise clock, which creates a “soothing sunrise simulation,” I relied on my children.

Unfortunately, my sunrise simulation started at midnight.

My son’s blood glucose alarm went off. I treated the high and went back to bed. It went off again. I corrected it again. Then he went low, so I gave him juice and waited beside his bed. My youngest needed the toilet. I took him and waited outside the loo while he listed every Batman actor in order of height.

Finally back in bed, the dog made a weird squishing sound beside my head.

She was eating a mouse the cat had brought in.

When I tried to get her off the bed, she growled and swallowed it whole like a duck.

I put on a sleep story and tried to go back to sleep, but all I could think about were dead mice.

Chelsea Winter probably doesn’t start her mornings watching her tiny dog swallow a mouse whole. I bet if she has pets, they don’t work together to bring dead animals into the house every single day.

Eventually, I slept for about an hour and a half before my son woke up.

It was 5.45am. Pretty close to Chelsea Winter’s wake-up time.

Time to start the routine.

First: visualisation and gratitude.

I try to visualise Alexander Skarsgård carrying me out of my house, straight into a car, and off to the airport where there’s a private jet waiting to fly us to one of those islands with huts over the water. I try to visualise him saying: OMG, you're so hot, Emily. I am going to [redacted] your [redacted] on your [redacted] with your [redacted].

I squeeze my eyes shut, desperately trying to visualise Skarsgård.

Instead, I just visualise my dog swallowing the mouse.

Fine. Gratitude.

I am grateful for… I guess I didn’t have to put the mouse in the bin.

Next, I’m meant to “connect in” and “set the tone for the day.” I’m not entirely sure what connecting with the day involves, but I have already yelled four times for my son to pick up his towel off the floor. Is that my tone? Exhausted mother who just wants you to pick your fucking towel up?

Next up: coconut oil pulling.

Apparently, coconut oil pulling is when you swish coconut oil around your mouth for....health benefits?

Unfortunately I have no gallbladder and have learned through trial and catastrophic error that coconut will almost certainly make me shit my pants.

So I skip this step.

Now it's time for electrolytes and 'intention-infused water'.

Chelsea Winter writes her intentions on paper and rests them over a glass of water overnight.

Last night I wrote:

• More sleep.
• More money.
• David Seymour moves to another planet.

This morning I discovered I’d knocked the glass over and my intentions were stuck to the carpet.

Not a good sign.

Do I have electrolytes? I look in the medicine cabinet and find some old Hydralyte left over from when we all had the runs. It tastes terrible.

By 9am I’m starving.

Time for breakfast: one single egg.

I eat the egg.

I am still hungry.

My cortisol levels feel exactly the same i.e. through the roof and out the ceiling. I am a fountain of cortisol, a geyser, an entire Rotorua's worth of stress juice.

Affirmations and Invocations

I have to take the kids out to buy them new shoes. As we drive, I practice affirmations.

“I am capable and in control and I am not a mess,” I say.

“I want chips,” my son says.

“That’s not an affirmation,” my other son tells him.

“YES IT IS,” he shouts back.

Then they start shouting at each other, and I shout at them to stop shouting.

Invocations are next on the list. I associate invocations with evangelical Christianity, so that feels inappropriate to do in the car with the children. I am sighing quite a lot though, so maybe that counts as breath work.

I’m supposed to meditate for thirty minutes, but I can’t see how that’s going to happen this morning. I’ll come back to it later.

Morning sunlight and grounding outside

It’s Wellington. It’s raining.

I assume grounding means putting your feet on the ground, so I walk around outside in the rain for a bit.

And you know what? It’s actually quite nice. I feel like a little kid.

I invite the boys to join me.

My thirteen-year-old stares at me and says, “Are you alright Mum? You seem weird.”

My youngest stands silently in the rain for a moment before announcing, “This feels horrible.”

Next: light stretching.

I lie face down on the carpet.

Immediately, I fall asleep.

Twenty minutes later my son pries my eyes open.

To be honest, I feel great. But I'm starving. Do I really only get one miserable egg all morning?

Full-body dry brushing.

Google says it's a "pre-shower exfoliation technique using a stiff-bristled brush to sweep skin upward toward the heart, enhancing circulation and lymphatic drainage".

I don’t own the correct brush, so I use my hairbrush instead. It actually helps with the weird itchiness I’ve been having.

Friends keep saying it’s menopause. At a certain age, you can say anything, and someone will blame menopause.

Itchy skin? Menopause.
Wanting to join a biker gang? Menopause.
Double chin? Menopause
Inexplicable attraction to Gordon Ramsey? Menopause
Signing up for a DJ course? Menopause.

Next: a facial massage.

I don’t own one of those flat stones — a gua sha — so I use my pounamu instead. It’s… nice, I guess.

The final step is rebounding, which is jumping on a mini trampoline.

I don't want to jump on a trampoline. My boobs are too big. And even though my pelvic floor is doing much better than it used to be, I’m not taking any chances. Whenever I think "pelvic floor" I visualise a sheet of tinfoil holding up a bowling ball, so bouncing is out.

I do have a workout in an hour, though, so I’m counting that.

The morning routine is technically over.

So how did it make me feel?

First: this seems like an enormous amount to do before breakfast.

Second: I am still extremely hungry.

Maybe Chelsea Winter just cycles through everything very quickly, and I’m simply a slow intentions-setter.

But I also suspect this routine might happen before any children wake up.

Most mornings, I wake already exhausted. My little boy is reciting Adam West’s filmography, my big boy is asking where his jacket or wallet is (or his shoes, his jumper, his school bag), the dog is chasing the cat, the cat is screaming for food, my husband is filling lunchboxes, and the day has already begun.

It feels like a race I’ve started ten minutes late.

It’s tempting to think there must be some perfect morning routine that would fix everything. Something that would make me calmer, more organised, more like the mothers on Instagram.

Their hair is always perfect, their bodies slim, their teeth dazzling white and straight (and my god, they always have so many teeth). They're always leaning into their square-jawed husbands, laughing when I know no man is that funny. Their children are happy, quiet, and somehow matching, like Russian dolls...

Do I want a life as smooth as a botoxed forehead?

Maybe?

I can't help but wonder if the Instagram mothers are kept up at night wondering if they do enough for their kids, their partner, their friends, their family, their community... Surely?

Surely their complicated morning routines don't remove those midnight fears? No amount of coconut oil pulling could possibly quiet the voice in your head, wondering if you're ever going to get on top of it all?

Later, I finally attempt the thirty minutes of meditation.

I sit down, close my eyes, and immediately my brain starts:

• I need to move money for Eddie’s orthodontist appointment.
• Am I going to sell enough tickets for the fundraiser?
• What if nobody comes?
• What if I let everyone down?
• I should put up more posters
• When will I have time for that?
• What planet would best suit David Seymour? Venus is symbolic of women and its atmosphere crushes down with the force of a hydraulic press and it is hot enough to melt lead. Let's crowdfund for a rocket flight.
• Petrol is getting expensive.
• Why are people unsubscribing?
• Is it because of the price of petrol?
• Am I posting too much?
• Am I posting too little?
• Am I meditating properly?
• Would my pelvic floor be better if it was made of wood, like the floor of my house?
• Why does my dog not have a gag reflex?
• Should a dog have a gag reflex?
• I’m bored.

My meditation ends abruptly when my son bursts through the door and spear-tackles me into a hug.

He kisses my forehead and my hair and my ears. I pull him into my lap and rock him. He’s far too big for this now, but we both like the ritual.

For a moment he is a baby again, and I am a young mother again.

After a while he wriggles away and runs off.

My older son wanders over and stretches out beside me on the couch. He’s taller than me now. He rests his head on my shoulder and tucks himself under my arm.

I yawn.

Then he yawns.

The dog curls up at our feet.

The day is almost over.

I’m too tired to write a note for my water tonight, but I already know my intentions for tomorrow.

They’re the same as every day.

I’m just going to try to do my best.

My best isn’t influencer-perfect.

But it’s good enough.

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