Episodes

  • The Truth about Family: "I love my aging parents, but I also want my life back."
    Jul 6 2026

    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.

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    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

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    16 mins
  • The TRUTH about success: "I built the life I wanted. Why do I secretly want to run away from it?"
    Jun 29 2026

    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.

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    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

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    20 mins
  • The truth about relationships: "I'm getting married in 8 weeks. Are my cold feet trying to tell me something?"
    Jun 22 2026

    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.

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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

    Dial Emma @dialemmapodcast

    Email: contact@dial-emma.uk

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    21 mins
  • "I'm pregnant with my second child. I still miss who I was before my first.": The truth about motherhood
    Jun 15 2026

    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.

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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

    Dial Emma @dialemmapodcast

    Email: contact@dial-emma.uk

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    19 mins
  • "Who am I now that my kids don't need me?": Dial Emma Reframes Ep 4
    Jun 1 2026

    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.

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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

    Dial Emma @dialemmapodcast

    Email: contact@dial-emma.uk

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    24 mins
  • "I'm 47 and I've blown up my entire life": Dial Emma Reframes Ep 3
    May 25 2026

    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.

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    Social media:

    Emma Reed Turrell @emmareedturrell

    Dial Emma @dialemmapodcast

    Email: contact@dial-emma.uk

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    25 mins
  • "I'm ashamed that I resent motherhood. Why can't I cope?": Dial Emma Reframes Ep 2
    May 18 2026

    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

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    Social media:

    Emma Reed Turrell @emmareedturrell

    Dial Emma @dialemmapodcast

    Email: contact@dial-emma.uk

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    28 mins
  • "Am I wasting my late twenties?": Dial Emma Reframes Ep 1
    May 11 2026

    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.

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    Social media:

    Emma Reed Turrell @emmareedturrell

    Dial Emma @dialemmapodcast

    Email: contact@dial-emma.uk

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    29 mins