The Lulu Essey Podcast

Summer feels too short, so we grip every warm day and demand that it counts. Make every moment count sounds like such good summer advice, and it is also one of the fastest ways to miss the season entirely. This episode is about the moment the review begins, and the two small questions that keep us from throwing our summer away without realising it. This is not a conversation about doing more with...

The summer comparison trap is one of the most diabolical things we do to ourselves, and it bites hardest when everyone else's summer looks better than ours. One minute you are scrolling through other people's summer escapades, the next your own summer feels insignificant, grey, and just not enough. This episode is about what is really going on in that moment, and the small shift that bring...

Summer body image is a powerful struggle so many of us carry without always acknowledging it. Warmer weather, smaller clothes, and it can be so much harder to feel beautiful in our own skin, so easy to feel measured against everyone around us. This episode is about what's really going on underneath that feeling. The pain so many of us feel about our bodies in summer may not be about our bodies...

Feeling invisible as you get older is something a lot of women experience and it's complicated and doesn't feel good or fair. In this episode I discuss how I approached this during a recent experience that shifted things in a meaningful way. It usually happens somewhere ordinary. You ask for help, or you say how something made you feel, and you get a disinterested shrug and sometimes the p...

How to ask for help and get what you need is a skill most of us were never taught. Asking for help is hard, and the way you ask for help changes what comes back to you and lifts the weight off the person you are asking. When many of us reach out, we often unknowingly hand over the whole problem and a silent hope that someone will give us a solution. It is heavy to carry and heavy to receive. There...

f you love and support someone who is struggling with their mental health, this episode is for you. Mental health support is for the supporters too: the partner, the parent, the child, the friend who shows up every day for someone they love. You deserve to be seen, heard, and cared for as well, and that is exactly what this conversation is here to do. I am usually on the other side of this convers...

Nonfinite grief, mental health, and the emotional grief of feeling stuck, feeling behind in life, and grieving the life you thought you would have. This episode is about processing grief that has nothing to do with death, and why so many of us have been calling it failure instead of calling it what it is. If you have been doing the inner work, showing up, pushing through, and your life still does...

This is not a conversation about whether AI is good or bad. This is the more subtle, nuanced layer of AI and mental health that the binary debate is missing: are we getting AI emotional support without even realising it? Many of us are. We open ChatGPT or Claude for something practical, a question to think through, a strategy to plan, an email to write, and we leave having been soothed by software...

Functional freeze is why you feel nothing, and nobody asks if you're okay. This week's Mental Health Awareness Month question: what should we be talking about that we're not talking about? 81% of Americans now recognise the importance of mental health, and yet access to services actually dropped this year. We are more aware than ever and more stuck than ever. For millions of people, th...

Self-advocacy is a mental health conversation we need to be having. We have more awareness than ever, and yet more than half of adults experiencing a mental health condition are still not getting help. This Mental Health Awareness Month, instead of repeating what everyone already knows, I am asking a different question: what should we be talking about that we are not talking about? The answer this...

Overthinking doesn't always start with a bad thought. Sometimes it starts with silence, and your mind filling that silence with stories so convincing you forget they are stories. If you have ever spiralled over an unanswered message, an unreturned call, or a silence you could not explain, you will want to be a part of this conversation. We all do it. A text goes unanswered. A WhatsApp message...

Nervous system regulation, co-regulation, polyvagal theory, somatic practices, vagal tone, sympathetic activation, parasympathetic activation, window of tolerance, neuroception. The wellness world is drowning us in terminology. But is the language actually helping you, or is it giving you one more thing to feel like you are not doing correctly? The science is real. The science is valid. That is no...

The Self-Love and Mental Fitness lie that you can't love anyone else until you love yourself is hurting people who are already loving beautifully. If you have ever doubted the love you give because you believe you have not yet learned to love yourself, you have been told something that is not true. This line is one of the most repeated in the Self-Love and personal development space. It sounds wis...

Self-abandonment is why Self-Love does not stick. If you keep saying yes when you mean no, staying quiet when you have something to say, or pushing through when your body is begging you to stop, this episode names exactly what that pattern is, where it comes from, and what it is costing you. Self-abandonment disguises itself as kindness, humility, and being low-maintenance. Most of us never questi...

How to love yourself when you don't like who you are - and why you don't have to like yourself to start. If self-love messaging has ever felt impossible from where you are standing, this episode is for you. This is probably one of the most honest conversations about Self-Love. Because there is a place a lot of us know but rarely talk about and is where being told to love yourself doesn&#39...

How to stop waiting for the perfect moment - and show up anyway. Mental fitness, self-love, and what imperfect action actually looks like in real life. I just got back from Japan. I have the flu. My luggage - including my microphone and my concealer - is somewhere between Tokyo and my front door. This is not the episode I planned to make. Last week's three-part ketamine series brought in new l...

IV ketamine treatment for bipolar disorder changed my brain - and this is the honest, unfiltered story of what happened after. If you have ever fought your own mind and wondered if it could ever feel different, this episode is for you. Mental health, mental fitness, and self-love are all inside jobs. In this final part of my three-part ketamine series, I share the daily practices that anchored my...

IV ketamine for bipolar depression: what my first treatment actually felt like. After 30 years, 20+ psychiatric medications and ECT, I walked into my first ketamine infusion with no fear and no hesitation. This is what happened inside that room. This is Part 2 of a 3-part series. This is my deeply personal account of what IV ketamine treatment actually feels like from inside the chair, not from a...

Bipolar depression, 30 years of medication, and then it wasn’t working. I tried IV ketamine. After 20+ psychiatric drugs, ECT, and a crisis that terrified me, a treatment I found through my own research that my psychiatrist hadn't suggested but supported when I suggested it. This is the story of what happened. This is Part 1 of a 3-part series. This is not medical advice. This is my deeply per...

You can doubt yourself and still trust yourself, and understanding this changes everything. If you've been stuck in a loop of knowing what to do but not doing it, beating yourself up, pushing through exhaustion, or repeating the same patterns, this episode explains what's really going on and what to do about it. This is the finale of an 8-part series exploring the questions people are real...

Personal growth and breaking unhealthy patternsstart with understanding why your brain keeps pulling you backinto old patterns. If you keep ending up in the same place - same relationship, same burnout cycle, same self-sabotage - this episode explains what’s actually happening and gives you a practical 4-step tool to break the cycle. Your patterns are proof your brain is doing exactly what it was...

Nervous system regulation, Self-Love, and emotionalresilience are at the heart of this episode. If everything is okay but you still feel anxious, on edge, or like something bad is about to happen, this is for you. Backed by neuroscientist Dr. Stephen Porges' Polyvagal Theory and Brené Brown's research on foreboding joy, this episode explains why your nervous system can flag calm as a threa...

Mental fitness and burnout recovery start with understandingwhy rest isn't working. If you're exhausted all the time, even after sleep, vacations, and self-care, this episode explains what may be going on - and gives you a simple tool to address it. Two out of three workers report burnout, it's not because we are working more hours. It's about having a nervous system stuck in survi...

Self-criticism isn't something you were born with. Thisepisode explores why we're so hard on ourselves, why self-compassion can feel uncomfortable, and how to begin updating that critical voice to something kinder. That harsh inner voice - the one that tells you you're not good enough, judges everything you do, and speaks to you in ways you'd never speak to someone you love - is le...

You're taking action, building self-worth, doing the hard inner work - so why don't you feel confident yet? This episode explores the quiet self-sabotage that steals your confidence and blocks your transformation. Learn why confidence, self-compassion and Mental Fitness depend on counting your evidence instead of dismissing it. In this episode you will learn: Why confidence comes AFTER act...