Dial Emma

Hello lovely listeners and welcome to Dial Emma: What am I Missing?

There are some relationship questions that get typed into Google more than almost any other - often late at night, often after a hard conversation or moment of disappointment.

Why do we keep having the same argument?

I've asked it myself. Most of us have. And after years of sitting across from couples and individuals in the therapy room, I've noticed something: people...

Hello lovely listeners and welcome to a brand new series of Dial Emma!

There's a question that gets typed into phones more than almost any other relationship question - often late at night, often after a hard conversation.

How do I know if this relationship is right?

I've asked it myself. Most of us have. And after years of sitting across from couples and individuals in the therapy room, I've noticed something: people often walk in as...

Hi! It's me. This is the last bonus Voicenote Therapy episode of Dial Emma, combining my love of long voicenotes with therapeutic insights to create something new and, hopefully, helpful.

This week, I'm sitting with something I thought was about rest, but turns out to be about permission. That moment at the end of a long day when you finally sit down, and instead of resting, you think: what have I forgotten? What else should I do?

Wh...

Hi! It's me. For the next four weeks, we're trying something a little different on Dial Emma - this is Voicenote Therapy, combining my love of long voicenotes with therapeutic insights to create something new and, hopefully, helpful.

Today, in episode two, we're exploring resilience. We're taught that resilience means toughening up, coping better, becoming stronger. But what if the problem was never you? What if you've simply been c...

Hi! It's me. For the next four weeks, we're trying something a little different on Dial Emma - this is Voicenote Therapy, combining my love of long voicenotes with therapeutic insights to create something new and, hopefully, helpful.

Today, in episode two, we're exploring a question I hear a lot, in life and in the therapy room: "am I asking for too much?"

I delve deeper into why we tell ourselves that we're expecting too much from o...

Hello! It's me. This week we're trying something a little different on Dial Emma - this is Voicenote Therapy, combining my love of long voicenotes with therapeutic insights to create something new and, hopefully, helpful.

Today I'm exploring the idea that the feeling causing us the most distress is not always the real root of the problem - whether it's anxiety, overthinking, people-pleasing, recurring relationship patterns, or somet...

Welcome back to Dial Emma, and to the last episode of our latest miniseries, The Truth. This week, we're exploring the unsayable truths about family, and the caregiving roles that we never signed up for.

Our listener, a woman in her fifties whose parents are now in their seventies, wrote to me about the feeling of losing herself while taking on multiple roles in her parents' lives: administrator, technical support, taxi service, cri...

Welcome back to Dial Emma, and to our new miniseries, The Truth. This week, we're exploring the uncomfortable truths about success, that most of us are feeling but not saying out loud.

Our listener is 44 and finally has the life that she spent the last decade working towards - a long marriage, healthy children, a senior job, a nice house. So why does it feel like a trap, instead of a victory? And how do we find ourselves living a li...

Welcome back to Dial Emma, and to our new miniseries, The Truth. This week, we're exploring the uncomfortable, illicit truths about relationships, that we often feel like we aren't supposed to say out loud.

Our listener is 34 and getting married in eight weeks, to a wonderful man who everyone in her life loves. So why is she waking up at 4am, convinced that she can't go through with it?

This is a dilemma that gets to the heart of rel...

Welcome back to Dial Emma! I have a new miniseries for you, lovely listeners, that I'm calling The Truth - exploring the uncomfortable, illicit truths that we often feel like we aren't supposed to say out loud.

In this first episode, we hear from a listener who is pregnant with her second child, but still mourning the version of herself before she became a mother for the first time.

Can we love the life we have right now, and long fo...

Welcome back to Dial Emma and to the fourth and last episode of our mini-series on reframes. Thank you so much for joining me, and please do let me know what you thought of the series!

This week, our listener is in her fifties, wondering who she is now that her grown-up children no longer need her in the same way they once did.

In this episode, I dive deeper into what happens when the conditions that we place on our self-worth shift ...

Welcome back to Dial Emma and to the third episode of this mini-series on reframes.

This week, we hear from a listener who wonders if she is having a breakdown...while I wonder whether it's the first honest version of her life.

In her own words, our 47-year-old listener feels as though she has 'blown up her life,' after ending her marriage of twenty years, moving into a rented house and trying to navigate midlife, dating apps and new...

Hello, lovely listeners! Welcome back to Dial Emma and to our mini-series on reframes.

This week, our listener is a mum of two in her thirties, who feels as though she is disappearing amidst the demands of modern life, career and motherhood. She has a good husband and two children who she loves, but in private, she fantasises about escaping to a hotel room where she can be alone, not needed by anyone. Why, she asks, can't I cope, wh...

Hello, lovely listeners! Welcome back to Dial Emma and to my brand new mini-series on reframes.

This week, we hear from a 27-year-old listener who feels as though she missed the life handbook that everyone else got. Her peers are getting married, having children, buying houses: meanwhile, she lives in a house share, with a mouldy bathroom and one shelf in the fridge to call her own.

Does everything need to feel certain in our twentie...

Hello, again! Welcome back to Dial Emma and to a new mini-series: all about reframes.

Before I bring in the voices of my lovely listeners to explore this theme, I wanted to start somewhere personal - because reframes have shaped almost everything in my life, professionally, therapeutically, and in the very particular chaos of the last few years. And if I'm going to ask you to go there, it felt only right that I go first.

This isn't a...

In honour of International Women’s Day, Dial Emma presents The Unsaid – a four-part mini-series exploring the emotional realities many women are living with, but rarely have language for. Each episode features two listener dilemmas and twenty minutes of thoughtful, compassionate reflection on the inner work women are doing beneath the surface of competence, independence and survival.

This is the fourth and final episode ...

In honour of International Women’s Day, Dial Emma presents The Unsaid – a four-part mini-series exploring the emotional realities many women are living with, but rarely have language for. Each episode features two listener dilemmas and twenty minutes of thoughtful, compassionate reflection on the inner work women are doing beneath the surface of competence, independence and survival.

In this episode, I explore a powerful...

In honour of International Women’s Day, Dial Emma presents The Unsaid – a four-part mini-series exploring the emotional realities many women are living with, but rarely have language for. Each episode features two listener dilemmas and twenty minutes of thoughtful, compassionate reflection on the inner work women are doing beneath the surface of competence, independence and survival.

In this week's episode, I explore the...

In honour of International Women’s Day, Dial Emma presents The Unsaid – a four-part mini-series exploring the emotional realities many women are living with, but rarely have language for. Each episode features two listener dilemmas and twenty minutes of thoughtful, compassionate reflection on the inner work women are doing beneath the surface of competence, independence and survival.

This first instalment explores a them...