Dial Emma

This episode has been on my mind for a while, so I want to talk about something I think about a lot: concern. Specifically, the kind of concern that gives us a sense of permission to involve ourselves in somebody else's life. Being attentive to the people around us is a good thing. But I've been thinking about what happens when concern starts to carry an expectation - when the person expressing it begins to feel entitled to an expl...

Today's question is one I hear all the time, from clients and in ordinary conversation. Why am I so tired all the time?

I don't mean the tired where you went to bed at 1am and the alarm went off at 6. I mean the tired where you wake up already calculating how long until you can get back into bed - where the weekend arrives and somehow doesn't restore you, and by Sunday evening you realise you're starting another week without ever re...

Hello and welcome back to Dial Emma! Today I want you to think about the last time you felt guilty. Maybe you actually did something you regretted. But I wonder how many other things make you feel guilty too - saying no, cancelling plans when you're exhausted, buying something for yourself, resting on a Sunday, or even feeling happy when someone you love is struggling.

We use the same word for all of these very different experiences...

This week on Dial Emma, I'm tackling a question I suspect most of us have asked ourselves: why do I care so much what other people think?

We're often told we shouldn't. "Stop caring," "you do you," "other people's opinions are none of your business." But I'm not convinced that's actually the goal. I care what my children think of me, what my friends think, whether the people I love feel respected in their relationships with me. Othe...

This week on Dial Emma, we're stepping slightly outside of relationships - although, as you'll hear, they find their way back in anyway. I'm tackling one of the internet's most Googled questions, and one I suspect a lot of you already know in your bones: why do I overthink everything?

Maybe you send a message and read it back six times. Maybe you get home from a meeting and start conducting a full forensic investigation into a two-s...

This week on Dial Emma, I'm delving into a relationship question people often feel ashamed to even ask out loud - because surely loneliness is something we feel when we're single, not when we're sharing a bed with someone who loves us? And yet, some of the loneliest people I've ever met are in long-term relationships.

Our listener writes: "I've been married for nine years, and my husband is a genuinely good man. We don't fight very ...

This week on Dial Emma: What am I Missing?, I'm exploring a relationship question that sounds simple but carries real weight - one that's less about disagreement and more about the loneliness of feeling unseen inside a relationship.

Why doesn't my partner understand me?

Our listener says: "My partner and I have been together for four years. We rarely argue, but there's a recurring disconnect. When I've had a hard day, he jumps straig...

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...