Dial Emma

Merry Christmas from Best Friend Therapy!

Or not. Because, however your festive season has been this year, and however you chose to celebrate, you’re welcome in this conversation. So join us, as we ease our festive hangovers together (both literal and metaphorical).

Special occasions and holidays can be a flashpoint for emotions, and expectation can be the thief of joy. We’re not responsible for other people’s enjoyment of Christmas and yet the pressures to shop, socialise, cook, dress, eat and drink in festive form, can overwhelm even the most hardened people-pleasers among us.

Emma and Elizabeth share their best and worst Christmasses and offer advice if you’ve had a tough one this year. And we look forward by looking back, because the Christmas run-up can be one big set-up, and it’s something we can learn from for the future.

*genuine hangover advice also provided*

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Best Friend Therapy is hosted by Elizabeth Day and Emma Reed Turrell, produced by Chris Sharp. To contact us, email [email protected]

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Social Media:

Elizabeth Day @elizabday

Emma Reed Turrell @emmareedturrell

Best Friend Therapy @best.friend.therapy

You’ll never be left out from Best Friend Therapy, but if it’s a feeling you know elsewhere in your life, this week’s episode might be for you.

We’re talking about FOMO, not being invited to the party, or sitting at home in your pyjamas while everyone else is out having fun (although, this sounds like Emma’s idea of heaven).

Born into the world dependent on others and racked with self-consciousness throughout puberty, it’s no surprise that humans are sensitive to feeling left out. We’re here to help you feel more grounded and better able to build connections by becoming the most *you* version of yourself, and starting from a place of self-belonging.

We talk about the joy of being left out and the importance of saying no to some invitations, to be able to say yes to the ones that count.

Elizabeth admits that she hates Glastonbury and Emma finds her spiritual home in the M&S café.

They both also lose the plot when trying to talk about a rustle in the bush and will endeavour to be more professional in future.

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Best Friend Therapy is hosted by Elizabeth Day and Emma Reed Turrell, produced by Chris Sharp. To contact us, email [email protected]

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Social Media:

Elizabeth Day @elizabday

Emma Reed Turrell @emmareedturrell

Best Friend Therapy @best.friend.therapy

It’s a bit of a different episode this week, as Emma takes Elizabeth through a live therapy process of dream analysis.

Listen along while Elizabeth unpacks her deepest subconscious, meet her happy-go-lucky island and her all-seeing sky, and hear what Emma has to say about the meaning behind the dream. And learn for yourself how to interpret your own dreams, so that you too can unpack the valuable insights that your night-time mind has to offer.

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You can read more on Carl Jung here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Jung

And "Dreams" was sung by Gabrielle, not Annie Lennox. But she did sing "Sweet Dreams", so Elizabeth was on the right track.

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Best Friend Therapy is hosted by Elizabeth Day and Emma Reed Turrell, produced by Chris Sharp. To contact us, email [email protected]

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Social Media:

Elizabeth Day @elizabday

Emma Reed Turrell @emmareedturrell

Best Friend Therapy @best.friend.therapy

This week, on Best Friend Therapy, we’re talking about feeling anxious (and we're feeling quite anxious while we’re doing it).

Anxiety can take many forms, be it seasonal, situational, or a post-pandemic hangover. As a diffuse term, it's not always helpful, so we’re here to break it down and challenge some of the assumptions attached to those sensations we get when we’re living with ambiguity, coping with life outside of our control or, dare we say it, even a bit excited?

Emma shares her blissful morning moments and liberates us to journal in whichever way we want.

Elizabeth calls out the anxiety attached to our anti-anxiety efforts and tells us why reality TV is her wind-down go-to.

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Alain de Botton on pessimism: https://youtu.be/Aw1oLtuJOXQ

And in case you didn’t recognise Emma’s rendition, here’s the real Minnie Riperton, singing Lovin’ You: https://youtu.be/9I3UTG1dSTc

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Best Friend Therapy is hosted by Elizabeth Day and Emma Reed Turrell, produced by Chris Sharp. To contact us, email [email protected]

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Social Media:

Elizabeth Day @elizabday

Emma Reed Turrell @emmareedturrell

Lots of our lovely listeners have asked us what it’s like to work with your best friend, so this week we’re here to spill the tea. It’s take your bestie to work day.

We talk about what we've loved, from sharing a joint purpose, to finding out more about each other (and sneaking off for lovely recording weekends!)

We talk about what we’ve learned, including our fear of letting each other down, what our different metrics of success can teach us, and how to keep the relationship at the heart of everything we do.

And we talk about how to do it if you want to give it a try yourselves - with boundaries, clear communication and tons of mutual respect.

Whether it’s co-parenting or partnering in a business, working with a loved one can be so rewarding and we’re here to share our top tips for making it a success.

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Best Friend Therapy is hosted by Elizabeth Day and Emma Reed Turrell, produced by Chris Sharp.

To contact us, email [email protected]

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Social Media:

Elizabeth Day @elizabday

Emma Reed Turrell @emmareedturrell

Best Friend Therapy @best.friend.therapy

This week, on Best Friend Therapy, we’re talking about attachments.

No, not the Velcro and poppers kind, but the way we *emotionally* attach to other people. We look at the work of psychologists like John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth, to get a better understanding of the way we develop expectations of other people, and how we might have created emotional defences to protect our vulnerability.

We explain how strategies that set us up for safety in childhood might actually get in our way as adults, when it comes to making successful friendships, romantic relationships and professional connections.

Emma tells us a story about a picnic blanket and Elizabeth reminds us of those mice and their cheese machines that we first encountered in Season One.

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This week's references include:

"A Short Introduction to Attachment and Attachment Disorder" by Colby Pearce: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Short-Introduction-Attachment-Disorder-Second-dp-1785920588/dp/1785920588/ref=dp_ob_title_bk

The work of John Bowlby: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bowlby

And Mary Ainsworth’s Strange Situation experiment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strange_situation

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Best Friend Therapy is hosted by Elizabeth Day and Emma Reed Turrell, produced by Chris Sharp.

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Social Media:

Elizabeth Day @elizabday

Emma Reed Turrell @emmareedturrell

Best Friend Therapy @best.friend.therapy

This week's episode of Best Friend Therapy *cue gravelly trailer voiceover* tells one woman's courageous journey through the world of online dating, and what it took to survive on the apps...

Only joking, Elizabeth, it wasn't that bad! We do discover how good she is at succession planning, however, and we offer our advice for how to navigate all the different dating advice that's available (see what we did there?).

Rejection may be one reality of dating but we also look at its potential for data acquisition and self-discovery. We explore how online dating has made meeting people seem more disposable and Emma proposes a new dating app that kicks you off the platforms and into real life.

Elizabeth tells us how she went from a definition of eligible as “not creepy”, to being married to the lovely Justin, and brings a voice of hope and understanding to anyone still looking for their Happily Ever After.

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Elizabeth references:

“The Age of Innocence” by Edith Wharton
https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-age-of-innocence/edith-wharton/lionel-shriver/9780099511281

https://www.sosyncd.com

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Best Friend Therapy is hosted by Elizabeth Day and Emma Reed Turrell, produced by Chris Sharp. To contact us, email [email protected]

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Social Media:

Elizabeth Day @elizabday

Emma Reed Turrell @emmareedturrell

Best Friend Therapy @best.friend.therapy

Welcome back to Season Three of Best Friend Therapy!

We are so delighted to be with you for another season of conversations and this week we’re talking about something that gets a bad rap in our society and is often misunderstood – it’s the feeling of anger and it’s one of Emma’s favourites.

We talk about the difference between anger management and anger expression, understand why Elizabeth shut herself in a cupboard and gave herself a good talking to, and we explain why guilt and anger are so often muddled up.

We take a magical mystery tour through female rage from Rosa Parks to Lorena Bobbit, stop off with Michael Douglas in Falling Down, and end up at the dog park with Emma and Betty (her golden retriever), to hopefully bring you a better understanding of what anger is, and what it isn’t.

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Elizabeth's understanding of anger was informed by:

"Anne of Green Gables" by L. M. Montgomery
https://www.waterstones.com/book/anne-of-green-gables/l-m-montgomery/9780349009308

and:

"Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women's Anger" by Rebecca Traister https://www.waterstones.com/book/good-and-mad/rebecca-traister/9781501181818

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Best Friend Therapy is hosted by Elizabeth Day and Emma Reed Turrell, produced by Chris Sharp. To contact us, email [email protected]

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Social Media:

Elizabeth Day @elizabday

Emma Reed Turrell @emmareedturrell

Best Friend Therapy @best.friend.therapy

Season Three of Best Friend Therapy is coming very soon!

We can't wait to be back with you next week, for more conversations about the topics that get us all talking... starting with the things that make our blood boil.

Subscribe now and make sure you don't miss a single episode!

Welcome to Best Friend Therapy, where we chat about what's on our minds, to get deeper in our minds, and we've come to end of Season Two already!

So we're throwing in the towel, we're giving up, we're admitting defeat - oh no, wait a minute, we're not actually quitting, we're just *talking* about quitting this week. Phew!

We would never abandon our lovely listeners because quitting is a bad thing... it's an admission of failure... it's a sign of weakness. Right?

Well, it turns out we're not so sure and this week we'll be exploring whether quitting gets a bad press it doesn't deserve. Whether quitting can also be an active way to end something with agency. Whether fear of the unknown keeps us doing what we know, even when that unknown could be a better job, a happier relationship or an outcome that feels right.

We explore how to quit aspects of a situation if you aren’t ready or able to quit altogether, and we ponder whether, if something quits you, was it even right for you in the first place?

Elizabeth wrestles with how to quit therapy and Emma quits trying to save everybody else.

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Elizabeth references 'Adapted Child' from Eric Berne's P-A-C model which is brilliantly explained in this text: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Today-New-Introduction-Transactional-Analysis/dp/1870244028/ref=sr_1_2?adgrpid=52680008869&gclid=Cj0KCQjw9ZGYBhCEARIsAEUXITUSzQNTHrxFAt0SFN2S32O6YIlGcfQ533iG6z_dqO5i5w2s9oBuMdYaAmnUEALw_wcB&hvadid=259035468682&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=9045783&hvnetw=g&hvqmt=e&hvrand=9682401238517000128&hvtargid=kwd-298703266987&hydadcr=3222_1824632&keywords=ta+today&qid=1661272526&sr=8-2

You can listen to Eckhart Tolle on Super Soul Sundays with Oprah Winfrey here: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/eckhart-tolle-session-the-awakening-of-consciousness/id1264843400?i=1000443295402

Elizabeth Kubler Ross on the Grief Cycle: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Grief-Grieving-Finding-Meaning-Through/dp/0743263448

Emma uses the Gestalt terms, 'figure' and 'field' and a great introduction to Gestalt psychotherapy can be found here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Gestalt-Counselling-Helping-People-Change/dp/0863881335

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Best Friend Therapy is hosted by Elizabeth Day and Emma Reed Turrell, produced by Chris Sharp. To contact us, email [email protected]

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Social Media:

Elizabeth Day @elizabday

Emma Reed Turrell @emmareedturrell

Best Friend Therapy @best.friend.therapy