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 explanation, a response, or a change in somebody else's behaviour, and the person receiving it experiences it not as kindness but as intrusion.
There isn't a single listener dilemma at the centre of this one. Instead I want to pull apart a psychological distinction I think we confuse constantly: the difference between caring about somebody and feeling entitled to influence them.
Dial Emma is hosted by Emma Reed Turrell, produced by Lauren Brook.
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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

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 really feeling the last one ended.
A quick note before you listen to this episode: persistent or unexplained tiredness can have physical causes. If this is new, severe, or getting worse for you, please speak to your GP. What I'm interested in today is the tiredness that comes from how we're living psychologically, because we tend to count the visible workload (work, exercise, the school run, the shopping) and rarely count the work of simply being ourselves.
Today's dilemma comes from a listener I'm calling Claire. She's 42 and a mum to two children, works four days a week and sleeps reasonably well. But by the end of every day, she's drained. She doesn't want to see anyone, doesn't want another question, and even deciding what's for dinner can feel like too much. She looks at people who seem to do twice as much as her and wonders: what's wrong with me?
Dial Emma is hosted by Emma Reed Turrell, produced by Lauren Brook.
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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

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. And once we've called it guilt, we tend to assume it's telling us something true. If I feel guilty, I must be guilty. But feelings aren't verdicts. So perhaps the more useful question isn't why do I feel guilty, it's what is this particular guilt actually trying to tell me?
Today's dilemma comes from a listener I'm calling Rachel. She feels guilty about almost everything - saying no, not seeing her parents enough, working instead of being with her children, being with her children instead of working, resting, spending money on herself. She doesn't think she's a selfish person, and she knows rationally she can't keep everybody happy. But knowing that doesn't make the feeling go away. She wants to know how to tell when she should actually listen to her guilt.
I don't think the goal is to become someone who never feels guilty. I think it's to become someone who knows what to do when guilt arrives. Sometimes you listen and repair, and sometimes you recognise an old rule knocking at the door and decide it doesn't get to run the house.
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

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. Other people matter to us, so their experience of us matters too. The more interesting question is why, for some of us, other people's opinions become so powerful that they start to override our own.
Today's dilemma comes from a listener I'm calling Sophie. She's 38, confident by most measures, with a good job and a lovely group of friends - but she constantly monitors how people respond to her. If someone's quiet, she wonders if she's annoyed them. She struggles to say no without a lengthy explanation attached. She asks everyone's opinion on everything, and once someone questions her choice, she loses her own sense of it. She thinks she should be past this by now. She wants to know how to stop.
Dial Emma is hosted by Emma Reed Turrell, produced by Lauren Brook.
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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

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-second pause that nobody else even noticed. If any of that sounds familiar, you're not alone - and I don't think you're overthinking because your brain is faulty. I think your brain has taken on an impossible job.
Today's dilemma comes from a listener I'm calling Lucy. She's exhausted by her own mind. She analyses conversations, messages, what she said and didn't say at work, and even after she finally makes a decision, she starts worrying she's made the wrong one. She wants to know why she does this, and how to make it stop.
I don't think Lucy is really asking why she thinks so much. I think she's asking why she can't ever feel certain enough to stop. And that's a much more interesting question.
Dial Emma is hosted by Emma Reed Turrell, produced by Lauren Brook.
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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