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Dial Emma

Emma Reed Turrell

If you’ve ever wished you had a therapist in your back pocket, Dial Emma is here. Each week, I’ll be answering your dilemmas with honesty, empathy, and a few therapeutic truth bombs to help you make sense of life’s stickiest moments.

Got a tricky situation, emotional tangle, or just need a fresh perspective? I’d love to hear from you. Please do get in contact via my online webform here: forms.gle/gSE8Pa8HnqU2B2c59

For more trusted advice, please do give the show a follow on Instagram @dialemmapodcast
(https://www.instagram.com/dialemmapodcast)

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  • 23 episodes
  • weekly
  • Avg 23 min
  • English

Episodes 23

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  • S8 · E85
    Monday · 32 min

    Why do I feel lonely in my relationship? Dial Emma: What Am I Missing?

    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 often and we parent well together, but somewhere along the way, I started feeling invisible. We spend every evening in the same room, usually both looking at our phones or watching television, and weeks go by without us really talking. It's not that we're unhappy, it's that I feel deeply alone. How can I feel lonely when I'm lying next to the person I love?" In this episode, I explore why loneliness isn't the absence of people, but the absence of feeling known. Relationships don't protect us from loneliness - connection does, and connection needs tending. I also introduce my Four C's model, built on the transactional analysis framework of parent–adult–child ego states, to map where connection can live, and where it can quietly go missing, in a relationship. Dial Emma is hosted by Emma Reed Turrell, produced by Lauren Brook. --- Book my 2027 women's retreat at Bliss House in Crete: https://bliss-house-experience.replit.app Social media: Emma Reed Turrell @emmareedturrell Email: contact@dial-emma.uk

  • S8 · E84
    August 24 · 27 min

    "Why doesn't my partner understand me?" Self-differentiation, love languages and curiosity in relationships

    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 straight to solutions - but I just want to feel understood. He gets frustrated when I reject his help and we both end up feeling unheard and unappreciated." In this episode, I unpack three blind spots behind the feeling of being misunderstood: 1. Confusing being understood with being agreed with. I introduce the concept of self-differentiation - the ability to stay standing in your own experience while remaining open and connected to someone else's. 2. Giving the help we'd like to receive. One partner offers solutions because that's how they show care; the other needs empathy first. Neither is uncaring, they're just speaking different emotional languages. I revisit Gary Chapman's five love languages (acts of service, physical touch, words of affirmation, gift giving, quality time) not as boxes to pick from, but as a starting point for becoming "bilingual" in how we give and receive love. 3. Certainty quietly replacing curiosity. Early in relationships we ask endless questions; years in, we assume we already know the answers. It's important to return to curiosity in relationships - to ask about who your partner is now, not just who they've been. Dial Emma is hosted by Emma Reed Turrell, produced by Lauren Brook. --- Book my 2027 women's retreat at Bliss House in Crete: https://bliss-house-experience.replit.app Social media: Emma Reed Turrell @emmareedturrell Email: contact@dial-emma.uk

  • S8 · E83
    August 17 · 28 min

    Why do we keep having the same argument? Dial Emma: What am I Missing?

    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 often walk in asking one question, and walk out realising they needed to ask a different one entirely. That's the idea behind this new season of Dial Emma, named after my second book, What Am I Missing? The book grew out of watching clients circle the same obstacles, the same patterns, the same kinds of people, again and again, until they'd finally say: I don't get it. There must be something here I'm not seeing. This season asks that same question of the internet's biggest relationship dilemmas, one a week, each one run through a therapeutic lens. This week's dilemma: Our listener has been with her partner for eleven years. Two young kids, no huge rows - but the same disagreement every week. She carries the mental load, and he's stopped offering to help because he "can't win." Suddenly, they're no longer arguing about housework, but questioning whether the other person cares. Dial Emma is hosted by Emma Reed Turrell, produced by Lauren Brook. --- Book my 2027 women's retreat at Bliss House in Crete: https://bliss-house-experience.replit.app Social media: Emma Reed Turrell @emmareedturrell Email: contact@dial-emma.uk

  • S8 · E82
    August 10 · 33 min

    How do I know if this relationship is right? Dial Emma: What am I Missing?

    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 asking one question, and walk out realising they needed to ask a different one entirely. That's the idea behind this new season of Dial Emma, named after my second book, What Am I Missing? The book grew out of watching clients circle the same obstacles, the same patterns, the same kinds of people, again and again, until they'd finally say: I don't get it. There must be something here I'm not seeing. This season asks that same question of the internet's biggest relationship dilemmas, one a week, each one run through a therapeutic lens. This week's dilemma: A listener has been with her partner for six years. He's kind, dependable, trustworthy - everyone tells her she's lucky. But the butterflies are gone, she sometimes imagines other lives, and she can't shake the question: is nothing wrong the same as this is right? Is she settling? Dial Emma is hosted by Emma Reed Turrell, produced by Lauren Brook. --- Book my 2027 women's retreat at Bliss House in Crete: https://bliss-house-experience.replit.app Social media: Emma Reed Turrell @emmareedturrell Email: contact@dial-emma.uk

  • S8 · E82
    August 3 · 14 min

    Voicenote Therapy Ep 4: You don't have to earn the right to rest

    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? Why do we so often push rest to the bottom of the list, after everything and everyone else? How can we begin to recognise the subtle but important differences between 'stopping' and 'resting'? And why are so many of us keeping an invisible scoreboard, knowing that the game will never end? A thought to sit with: "You are not a machine that occasionally deserves maintenance. Your wellbeing is part of the work, not something you squeeze in afterwards." This week's practice: Rest without earning it first. Finish one thing less. Go to bed with a job still undone. Dial Emma is hosted by Emma Reed Turrell, produced by Lauren Brook. --- Book my 2027 women's retreat at Bliss House in Crete: https://bliss-house-experience.replit.app Social media: Emma Reed Turrell @emmareedturrell Email: contact@dial-emma.uk

  • S8 · E82
    July 27 · 15 min

    Voicenote Therapy Ep 3: What if you don't actually need to become strong?

    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 carrying too much, for too long? A thought to sit with: "Perhaps you don't need another book about resilience. Perhaps you need permission to put something down." This week's practice: Not becoming stronger. Becoming lighter. Dial Emma is hosted by Emma Reed Turrell, produced by Lauren Brook. --- Book my 2027 women's retreat at Bliss House in Crete: https://bliss-house-experience.replit.app Social media: Emma Reed Turrell @emmareedturrell Email: contact@dial-emma.uk

  • S8 · E82
    July 20 · 12 min

    Voicenote Therapy Ep 2: You're not asking for too much

    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 other people, the tendency to shrink our needs and preempt our own disappointment rather than asking for what we need without apology, and how we can begin to rewrite the script by telling our truth. Dial Emma is hosted by Emma Reed Turrell, produced by Lauren Brook. --- Book my 2027 women's retreat at Bliss House in Crete: https://bliss-house-experience.replit.app Social media: Emma Reed Turrell @emmareedturrell Dial Emma @dialemmapodcast Email: contact@dial-emma.uk

  • S8 · E82
    July 13 · 13 min

    Voicenote Therapy Ep 1: What if the problem isn't actually the problem?

    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 something else - and why therapy often seeks to shift the focus from, “how do I stop this?” to “what is this trying to tell me?” Dial Emma is hosted by Emma Reed Turrell, produced by Lauren Brook. --- Book my 2027 women's retreat at Bliss House in Crete: https://bliss-house-experience.replit.app Social media: Emma Reed Turrell @emmareedturrell Dial Emma @dialemmapodcast Email: contact@dial-emma.uk

  • S8 · E81
    July 6 · 16 min

    The Truth about Family: "I love my aging parents, but I also want my life back."

    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, crisis manager. She asks a simple question: am I an awful person, for wanting freedom from the people I love? In this episode, I explore the specific exhaustion that comes from being needed, the feeling of your own middle age being consumed by managing somebody else's later life, and why we can feel grief, resentment, loss and love all at once. Dial Emma is hosted by Emma Reed Turrell, produced by Lauren Brook. --- Book my 2027 women's retreat at Bliss House in Crete: https://bliss-house-experience.replit.app Book a place on my Woodland Wellbeing Day Retreat with Alice Crowe: https://www.alicecroweceramics.co.uk/product/woodland-wellbeing-day-retreat-with-emma-reed-turrell-alice-crowe Social media: Emma Reed Turrell @emmareedturrell Dial Emma @dialemmapodcast Email: contact@dial-emma.uk

  • S8 · E80
    June 29 · 20 min

    The TRUTH about success: "I built the life I wanted. Why do I secretly want to run away from it?"

    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 life that we thought we wanted, but that constantly demands things of us? In this episode, Emma explores the shame that we attach to feelings of dissatisfaction with a life that looks objectively desirable, the midlife audit that many of us go through in our 40s and 50s, and why building a 'successful' life and one that aligns with who you are, are not always identical projects. Dial Emma is hosted by Emma Reed Turrell, produced by Lauren Brook. --- Book my 2027 women's retreat at Bliss House in Crete: https://bliss-house-experience.replit.app Book a place on my Woodland Wellbeing Day Retreat with Alice Crowe: https://www.alicecroweceramics.co.uk/product/woodland-wellbeing-day-retreat-with-emma-reed-turrell-alice-crowe Social media: Emma Reed Turrell @emmareedturrell Dial Emma @dialemmapodcast Email: contact@dial-emma.uk

  • S8 · E79
    June 22 · 21 min

    The truth about relationships: "I'm getting married in 8 weeks. Are my cold feet trying to tell me something?"

    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 relationship doubts, why we experience them, and how we can tell the difference between fear of commitment and intuition trying to get our attention. Dial Emma is hosted by Emma Reed Turrell, produced by Lauren Brook. --- Book my 2027 women's retreat at Bliss House in Crete: https://bliss-house-experience.replit.app Social media: Emma Reed Turrell @emmareedturrell Dial Emma @dialemmapodcast Email: contact@dial-emma.uk

  • S8 · E78
    June 15 · 19 min

    "I'm pregnant with my second child. I still miss who I was before my first.": The truth about motherhood

    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 for an old one, at exactly the same time? Are we allowed to feel more than one thing at once: appreciation for the life we chose, and grief for what was displaced in the process? Dial Emma is hosted by Emma Reed Turrell, produced by Lauren Brook. --- Book my 2027 women's retreat at Bliss House in Crete: https://bliss-house-experience.replit.app Social media: Emma Reed Turrell @emmareedturrell Dial Emma @dialemmapodcast Email: contact@dial-emma.uk

  • S8 · E77
    June 1 · 23 min

    "Who am I now that my kids don't need me?": Dial Emma Reframes Ep 4

    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 and change, the process of returning to the self after decades of existing for others, and how we can learn to see ourselves again in the midst of an emergence. Dial Emma is hosted by Emma Reed Turrell, produced by Lauren Brook. --- Book my 2027 women's retreat at Bliss House in Crete: https://bliss-house-experience.replit.app Social media: Emma Reed Turrell @emmareedturrell Dial Emma @dialemmapodcast Email: contact@dial-emma.uk

  • S8 · E76
    May 25 · 25 min

    "I'm 47 and I've blown up my entire life": Dial Emma Reframes Ep 3

    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 identity as a single mother. Is freedom and autonomy just a false fantasy? Or is that collapse we feel after a big life shift simply evidence that we've stopped trying to maintain a life that doesn't fit? Dial Emma is hosted by Emma Reed Turrell, produced by Lauren Brook. --- Social media: Emma Reed Turrell @emmareedturrell Dial Emma @dialemmapodcast Email: contact@dial-emma.uk

  • S8 · E75
    May 18 · 28 min

    "I'm ashamed that I resent motherhood. Why can't I cope?": Dial Emma Reframes Ep 2

    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, when everyone else seems to? Dial Emma is hosted by Emma Reed Turrell, produced by Lauren Brook. The OK Corral in Transactional Analysis: https://changingminds.org/explanations/behaviors/ok_not-ok.htm --- Social media: Emma Reed Turrell @emmareedturrell Dial Emma @dialemmapodcast Email: contact@dial-emma.uk

  • S8 · E74
    May 11 · 29 min

    "Am I wasting my late twenties?": Dial Emma Reframes Ep 1

    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 twenties? Do we need to have a five-year-plan? Or can we find ways to intentionally inhabit a life that feels joyful right now, without a clear destination? Dial Emma is hosted by Emma Reed Turrell, produced by Lauren Brook. --- Social media: Emma Reed Turrell @emmareedturrell Dial Emma @dialemmapodcast Email: contact@dial-emma.uk

  • S8 · E73
    April 27 · 29 min

    Dial Emma Reframes: The personal reframes I didn't see coming

    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 polished story with a tidy conclusion. It's a real account of how perspective has shifted for me - sometimes gently, sometimes with a force I didn't see coming. I talk about how I ended up in therapy, retraining as a therapist, navigating the COVID pandemic and, of course, my personal reframes: divorce, single parenting, losing my mother to Alzheimer's, perimenopause and a diagnosis of autism. Dial Emma is hosted by Emma Reed Turrell, produced by Lauren Brook. --- Social media: Emma Reed Turrell @emmareedturrell Dial Emma @dialemmapodcast Email: contact@dial-emma.uk

  • S8 · E72
    March 23 · 17 min

    "I'm grieving a life I never had" Dial Emma: The Unsaid

    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 of The Unsaid mini-series, and this week we're talking about grief - but perhaps not in the way you might think. We hear from two listeners who are both struggling to navigate their unique experiences of grief. One is experiencing the loss of the person she thought she would become and the life she thought she would live, while the other survived something traumatic and is now grieving for the parts of herself that she lost in the process. How do we move forward in the wake of survival, knowing that it came at a cost? Can we ever make meaning from the chaos of the grief experience? --- Dial Emma is hosted by Emma Reed Turrell, produced by Lauren Brook. --- Social media: Emma Reed Turrell @emmareedturrell Dial Emma @dialemmapodcast Email: contact@dial-emma.uk

  • S8 · E71
    March 16 · 17 min

    “I don’t need anyone, but I’m lonely” Dial Emma: The Unsaid

    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 paradox: being strong and independent while still feeling lonely or unseen. While many of us pride ourselves on being capable and self-sufficient, that sense of independence can sometimes develop as a form of protection, often from early experiences that shape the way we relate to support, vulnerability, and connection. Our two listener dilemmas uncover the psychological patterns behind defensive independence and the fear of being a burden, and how both can quietly lead to isolation. --- Dial Emma is hosted by Emma Reed Turrell, produced by Lauren Brook. --- Social media: Emma Reed Turrell @emmareedturrell Dial Emma @dialemmapodcast Email: contact@dial-emma.uk

  • S8 · E70
    March 9 · 19 min

    "The weight I didn't agree to carry" Dial Emma: The Unsaid

    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 unseen emotional burdens women often carry for others. Many of us become “emotional regulators,” constantly soothing, managing, and fixing for family, friends and even colleagues, but it's often at the cost of our own wellbeing. I dive into why this pattern forms, how resentment and guilt signal crossed boundaries, and the crucial distinction between being present and being responsible for others’ feelings. I also share some practical strategies for caring without carrying, including setting boundaries, tolerating discomfort, and how to let relationships wobble without collapsing. --- Dial Emma is hosted by Emma Reed Turrell, produced by Lauren Brook. --- Social media: Emma Reed Turrell @emmareedturrell Dial Emma @dialemmapodcast Email: contact@dial-emma.uk

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