What does it take to stop judging yourself and truly see yourself? Self-Love through the eyes of Zanele Muholi, the South African visual activist who turned photographing themselves into a practice of Self-Love This episode opens a new series, Self-Love Through Their Eyes, where I introduce you to artists who reshaped how I understand Self-Love and Mental Fitness, and the window each one opened for me.

We begin with Zanele Muholi. Their exhibition toured Europe to record audiences before returning to Tate Modern in London in 2024, over three hundred photographs strong. In December 2024 I stood in those rooms with my niece, two South African women far from home, and what happened there is where this episode begins.

This is not art critique. This series is about how art and creativity have moved me deeply, how they helped me understand Self-Love, and my hope that they will do the same for you.

And in Zanele's own words, the words I have not stopped thinking about since: For once, take a look at yourself, and give thanks for living.

IN THIS EPISODE YOU WILL LEARN

• Who Zanele Muholi is, and why they call themselves a visual activist, not an artist
• What happened when two South African women met Zanele's work in a London gallery
• Why choosing not to analyse a powerful moment can be an act of trust
• The story behind Somnyama Ngonyama, Hail the Dark Lioness
• Why Zanele set a goal of 365 self-portraits, and why its being unfinished changed how I see Self-Love
• A small witnessing practice for looking at yourself without judging

Explore Zanele Muholi's work:

Tate Modern exhibition, with the room guide and Zulu sound baths: https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/zanele-muholi
The portraits at Tate, including Bester I: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/zanele-muholi-18872/yes-but-why-zanele-muholi
The Muholi Art Institute: https://www.muholiart.institute/
Zanele in their own voice, on film at Art21: https://art21.org/artist/zanele-muholi/

Sources for this episode:

The 2020 exhibition closure and 2024 return: Tate Modern exhibition page above
Zanele's quote, for once, take a look at yourself: Attitude interview: https://www.attitude.co.uk/culture/zanele-muholi-interview-466960/
Zanele on Somnyama Ngonyama and founding the Institute: Juxtapoz interview: https://www.juxtapoz.com/news/magazine/features/zanele-muholi-the-bronze-age/
The 365 self-portrait goal, begun 2012: https://lampoonmagazine.com/article/2022/01/20/zanele-muholi/

Connect with Lulu:

Website: https://www.luluessey.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lulu.essey/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucille-marie-essey/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lulu.essey

This is an inside job. Please share this episode with people you love. And subscribe while you are here 💛

The Lulu Essey Podcast is a proud member of the ALIVE Podcast Network: https://alivepodcastnetwork.com/

Does self-help leave you feeling like the problem? Like you did the work, followed every step, and your life still did not change, so the failure must be you? If self-improvement is not working for you, I want you to hear this: I reached the same conclusion about myself once, and it took me years to see that the reasoning was broken, not the woman doing the reasoning.

There is a shouty conversation happening in the self-improvement world right now, about what gets promised and what gets sold with the promise. Underneath the noise there is something more important: so many of us are measuring our lives against those promises, coming up short, and deciding that we are the problem. So this week I am not weighing in on anyone else. I am telling you plainly who I am, who I am not, and what you can count on me for in this space.

I will never hand you my life as a template, only as company. Blame and agency have been mushed together in this space, and we pull them apart. And we sit with the question that follows the words you are not broken: then where am I? The answer changed how I see this path.

This is Season Two, where we explore the space between knowing the work and living it. This conversation is the foundation everything else this season stands on.

IN THIS EPISODE YOU WILL LEARN

• Why doing everything right and still feeling stuck was never proof that you are the problem
• The difference between blame and agency, and why confusing them leaves us feeling worse
• What it means to be whole and becoming at the same time, and that both can be true
• My honest take on the wounded healer: why wounds give you a lens, not a license
• What fluid, not flimsy looks like in practice
• Why I chose the words Mental Fitness for this show, and never self-help

Connect with Lulu:

Website: https://www.luluessey.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lulu.essey/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucille-marie-essey/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lulu.essey

This is an inside job. Please share this episode with people you love. And follow while you are here 💛

The Lulu Essey Podcast is a proud member of the ALIVE Podcast Network: https://alivepodcastnetwork.com/

Do you feel guilty every time you rest? Like rest has to be earned, and you have not earned it yet and you definitely don't deserve it? I know that voice well. It showed up this summer, big time, when I took my first break in 88 episodes.

Welcome to Season Two, Beauties. I am opening this season with the truth about that break. For weeks before it, a voice in my head listed all the reasons I hadn't earned the right to rest. I didn't fight that voice. I didn't obey it either. I sat down with it.

In a workshop with Elizabeth Gilbert, I heard her describe fear as a passenger that rides sidecar. I loved it, and I do not drive. So I did it my way. I invited fear in for a coffee, let it say everything it had to say, and then asked it one question.

This episode names what Season Two is really about: the gap between knowing this work and living it, and what it takes to truly embody the work. We have never consumed more of this content, and so many of us are still stuck. Closing that gap is uncomfortable, sometimes painful and often awkward. That is exactly where we are going together.

And some news that means the world to me: The Lulu Essey Podcast is now part of the ALIVE Podcast Network, founded by the incredible Angel Livas.

In This Episode You Will Learn

• Where the belief that rest has to be earned comes from, and why it gets louder the harder you work
• What happened when I stopped arguing with fear and let it speak instead
• The Coffee Invitation, a practice for hosting a feeling without letting it decide
• The one question that reveals what a feeling is really trying to do for you
• Why knowing this work is not the same as living it, and why that gap is the heart of Season Two
• What joining the ALIVE Podcast Network means for this community

Next week on Season Two: trust. I tell you plainly who I am, who I am not, and what you can count on from me in this space.

Explore the ALIVE Podcast Network: https://alivepodcastnetwork.com/

Connect with Lulu:Website: https://www.luluessey.com/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lulu.essey/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucille-marie-essey/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lulu.esseyThis is an inside job. Please share this episode with people you love. And follow while you are here 💛

When group chats go quiet and friends stop reaching out, the silence can start to feel like a judgment. Researchers are now talking about the friendship recession, adult friendships fading with no argument and no goodbye, and it is happening everywhere. This episode is about what that silence does to our sense of worth, and the one question that stops it.

What makes a fading chat so painful is seldom ever the absence of messages, but rather the meaning we attach to those missing messages. And somehow we always seem to reach for the harshest explanation and treat it as fact.

This conversation feels personal because I am almost always the one who messages first, so I know this silence from the inside. What years of being the one who reaches out has taught me about what the silence has meant, and what it has never meant, sits at the heart of this episode.

This is a short summer episode, honest and practical, made to fit inside the season you are living. And it is the last one before my four-week summer break. I will be back on Thursday the 13th of August, and there are 88 episodes waiting for you in the meantime. If a silence has ever told you a story about yourself, join me. Let's stop that story together.

In This Episode You Will Learn

• What the friendship recession is, and why adult friendships now fade instead of ending
• Why the person who never replies almost certainly is not thinking what you fear they are thinking
• What being the one who always texts first taught me about what silence does and does not mean
• The moment the silence starts talking, and how to recognize whose voice it really is
• The one question that stops the story mid-sentence
• The one message worth sending, and the two reasons never to send it

Connect with Lulu:Website: https://www.luluessey.com/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lulu.essey/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucille-marie-essey/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lulu.esseyThis is an inside job. Please share this episode with people you love. And follow while you are here 💛

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 your summer. It is about the invisible standard so many of us hold our days to, where that standard came from, and why someone else's measure leaves us feeling behind in a summer meant for joy. There is a scorecard involved, a ruler that was never ours, and yes, a gorgeous sundress. The sundress will make sense, I promise.

I share the two questions I use when the pressure to make the most of summer starts humming, a small piece of Mental Fitness that turns the season from a test back into a life. To me, this is Self-Love in practice, choosing our own measure of what counts and letting the rest go.

These summer episodes are short, honest, and made for the season you are living right now. If your summer has started to feel like something you are performing instead of something you are in, join me. Let's put the scorecard down together.

In This Episode You Will Learn

• Why making every moment count is the opposite of what it promises to be
• The invisible standard we hold our summers to, and the surprising thing you find when you go looking for its origin
• Why the same habit that has us measuring our bodies in summer also has us measuring our time
• The question that catches you mid-review and brings you back into your own evening
• What adapt, not adopt looks like when you apply it to time itself
• How to write your own measure of a summer that counts, and the case for letting one moment count for nothing

Connect with Lulu:Website: https://www.luluessey.com/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lulu.essey/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucille-marie-essey/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lulu.esseyThis is an inside job. Please share this episode with people you love. And subscribe while you are here 💛

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 brings you home to the summer you are living.

This is not about where we are or are not going this year. It is about how fast a screen can lift us right out of our own life and place us in the middle of someone else's. And the longer we linger there, the more of our own summer slips by while we are looking the other way.

I share one simple question you can reach for the next time the scroll starts to sting, a piece of Mental Fitness that gently calls you back to your own life. And yes, there is a caftan involved. It makes more sense than it sounds. To me, this is where Self-Love begins, in coming home to the summer you are standing in and deciding to enjoy the hell out of it.

These summer episodes are short, honest, and this one made me laugh more than most. If comparison has been running off with your summer, join me to find a lighter way to hold it.

IN THIS EPISODE YOU WILL LEARN

• How an ordinary scroll can talk you into believing your whole summer is a write-off
• The slightly absurd thing we all do the moment someone else's summer looks better
• What it truly costs us to go and live in someone else's summer instead of our own
• One simple question that gently calls you back when the scroll starts to sting
• Small, gloriously ridiculous ways to celebrate the summer you are actually in
• Why coming home to your own summer is something you do, not something you wait for

Connect with Lulu:Website: https://www.luluessey.com/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lulu.essey/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucille-marie-essey/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lulu.esseyThis is an inside job. Please share this episode with people you love. And follow while you are here 💛

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, but rather how we constantly measure them, weigh them, size them. How we compare and size ourselves up against the people and the images around us. The measuring is the part that hurts.

This is not a new conversation. But consider holding beauty differently. Not as something we have to earn or put on show. As something we already are. I share a simple question you can carry into any moment this summer, one that helps you tell a choice that's caring for you from a choice that's working against you. To me, that's where Self-Love begins.

These summer episodes are short and honest, and this one's close to my heart. If summer has ever left you feeling measured and somehow not enough, I'd love for you to join me in this conversation, and to find a kinder place to rest your eyes.

IN THIS EPISODE YOU WILL LEARN

• Why summer body image can be one of the hardest things to make peace with
• Why the deepest pain here may not be about your body at all
• What the constant measuring costs us, and how often we do it without even noticing
• How to hold beauty as something you already are, rather than something to earn
• One simple question that shows you whether a choice is on your side
• What to do with all the noise, without fighting it or making it wrong

Connect with Lulu:Website: https://www.luluessey.com/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lulu.essey/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucille-marie-essey/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lulu.esseyThis is an inside job. Please share this episode with people you love. And follow while you are here 💛

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 person even looks straight past you. And it is easy to decide that this is just what aging is going to feel like, and that there is no point trying to shift it.

I don't think it has to be that way. And I feel we can all do better. This episode is about being seen as something you can claim instead of wait for, and how much it matters when women decide to really see each other. It is short and honest, the way I intend these summer episodes to be.

It's hard to feel like you're not seen, it's painful and I invite you to join me in this conversation to find another way.

IN THIS EPISODE YOU WILL DISCOVER

• Why feeling invisible as you age is so common, and why it does not have to stay that way
• What it means to claim being seen, instead of waiting for someone else to give it to you
• Why what you choose to do next can matter more than whether anything changes
• Why seeing each other, woman to woman, is a choice we get to make
• What to do when you feel overlooked, without firing off something you will regret
• Why being unseen is a moment, not a life sentence

Connect with Lulu:Website: https://www.luluessey.com/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lulu.essey/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucille-marie-essey/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lulu.esseyThis is an inside job. Please share this episode with people you love. And follow while you are here 💛

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 is a different way, and it is smaller than you think.This week I share what happened when I reached out to three friends on three different continents and asked each of them for one simple thing. Not advice. Not a solution. Just a few words. What came back did not take the tiredness away, and was never meant to. It did not "fix" the situation, and was never meant to. What it did was remind me that none of us has to carry it all alone, and that support does not have to be in the room to reach you.For anyone who finds asking for help hard, or who has never stopped to think about how they do it, this is a small and practical place to begin. It is a short, concentrated episode on purpose. It is summer, and many of you are out living the full, fabulous lives we keep talking about building, so take it on a walk or in the quiet between everything else, and carry one question with you. What does my heart need right now?

IN THIS EPISODE YOU WILL DISCOVER

• The one small thing I did differently that changed how it felt to ask for help, almost immediately
• Why a broad, open ask quietly lands as a burden on the person you are reaching out to
• The exact request I made to three friends, and the two things I made sure to leave out
• Why being specific when you ask for help is a gift to the people who love you, not a weight on them
• Why solutions feel impossible to find when you are overwhelmed, and what to reach for instead
• The single question to ask yourself before you reach out, especially when you do not know what you need

Connect with Lulu:Website: https://www.luluessey.com/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lulu.essey/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucille-marie-essey/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lulu.esseyThis is an inside job. Please share this episode with people you love. And follow while you are here 💛

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 conversation. I have been the person being supported, held by people who love me, and from that closest seat I saw how much they were quietly carrying. This is the episode that finally asks how you are doing.

It is the final episode of the Mental Health Awareness Month series, landing in June on purpose, because these conversations do not end when the month does. This week's question: what should we be talking about that we are not talking about? The answer is the people who hold the people who are struggling: the realities they live with that rarely get said out loud, the guilt that does not mean what they fear it means, and one small, doable practice that gives the weight somewhere to go.

If you have been the strong one for someone you love, this is the moment someone turns to you and asks how you are.

IN THIS EPISODE YOU WILL DISCOVER

• Why the people supporting someone through a mental health struggle are so often unseen, and what changes when they finally are
• What it really feels like to love someone who is struggling, said out loud so you no longer have to carry it silently
• The guilt so many supporters know well, and the reframe that reveals it as evidence of how much you care
• Why being tired, frustrated, or in need of a break does not mean you love them any less
• What Lulu learned from being the person who was held: what the people supporting her truly needed
• One small, doable practice that lets you be supported too, and why a single honest sentence is enough to start
• Where the whole five-episode series lands, and why this conversation was always for you too

THE MENTAL HEALTH AWARENESS MONTH SERIES

Episode 78: Self-Advocacy

Episode 79: Functional Freeze

Episode 80: Connection and AI

Episode 81: Grief for the Life You Thought You'd Have

Connect with Lulu:Website: https://www.luluessey.com/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lulu.essey/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucille-marie-essey/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lulu.esseyThis is an inside job. Please share this episode with people you love. And follow while you are here 💛