The Lulu Essey Podcast

Nonfinite Grief: Grief for the Life You Thought You'd Have

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 not look the way you expected, this is for you. This is not about healing from grief through strategy or mindset. It is about what shifts when you finally call this feeling by its real name. This is the fourth episode in The Lulu Essey Podcast's May series for Mental Health Awareness Month where I am asking the question: What should we be talking about that we are not talking about? IN THIS EPISODE YOU WILL DISCOVER * What nonfinite grief is and why finding this language changed how I relate to what I have been carrying * What most of us have been calling this grief instead, and the cost of that mislabelling * What happened at graduation ceremonies across the US this month when speakers mentioned AI, and the one speaker who got a completely different response * Why the Gallup data on Gen Z and AI is not a tech story * What opens up when grief and gratitude are allowed to sit in the same place at the same time * One practice using music and intention that meets grief where it actually lives RESOURCES MENTIONED Gallup survey on Gen Z sentiment toward AI, April 2026 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 💛

Connection: Why We Would Rather Talk to a Machine

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. AI is meeting emotional needs we did not know we were carrying, in moments we thought were efficient. That is the layer this episode is about. According to research by the RAND Corporation published in JAMA Network Open, one in five 18 to 21 year olds in the United States now uses AI when they feel sad, angry, or lonely. Nine in ten say the advice feels helpful. The question this episode asks is not whether AI helps in the moment, because many times it does. The question is what it is quietly costing us in the moments we are not paying attention. This is the third episode in The Lulu Essey Podcast's May series for Mental Health Awareness Month. This week's question: what should we be talking about that we are not talking about? The answer is the layer of the AI and human connection conversation that lives underneath the surface debate, the unconscious ways AI is becoming the easier substitute for the people in our lives, and the one small practice this week that nothing on a screen can replace. If you have ever opened AI to think something through and found yourself comforted before you had even finished the question, this episode will speak to you. IN THIS EPISODE YOU'LL DISCOVER: * The moments AI starts meeting emotional needs you did not know you were carrying, even when you opened ChatGPT or Claude for something practical * Why this is not a conversation about whether AI is good or bad, and what the binary debate about AI and mental health is missing * What AI gives us before we have even asked, and why that quiet substitution is the layer that deserves our attention * The difference between real comfort and real continuity, and why one cannot replace the other no matter how good the AI response feels * What young adults using AI for emotional support are actually carrying that the wider personal development conversation has not named in their direction * Why your nervous system can tell the difference between a human voice and AI, even when AI says the more beautifully crafted words * One small practice for this week that does what AI cannot, and how to take the first step even if it feels too vulnerable RESOURCES MENTIONED RAND Corporation research published in JAMA Network Open, November 2025 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 💛

Functional Freeze: Why You Feel Nothing Right Now

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, the struggle does not look like a breakdown. It looks like a completely ordinary day. You go to work. You answer emails. You show up. And you feel nothing. It is called functional freeze, and it is your nervous system's way of protecting you from an overload it cannot process. It keeps the function running but shuts down the feeling. This is the second episode in a May series exploring the conversations we need to be having. If you have been functioning on autopilot and wondering why you cannot access the tools you already have, this episode names what is happening and offers one neuroscience-backed step to start coming back to yourself. IN THIS EPISODE YOU WILL DISCOVER * What functional freeze actually is and why it is not laziness, not burnout, and not a lack of motivation * Why 81% of people are aware of mental health but more than half have not accessed any support, and what that gap really means * What functional freeze looks like in everyday life, and why it is invisible to the people around you * The connection between functional freeze and self-abandonment, and why your body shuts down feeling to keep you functioning * Why experts are calling this moment a polycrisis, and what happens when your nervous system never gets the signal that it is safe to rest * Why you cannot think your way out of a body state, and what neuroscience says about the way back * One simple sensory practice backed by polyvagal theory that takes 30 seconds and gives your nervous system the signal to come back online RESOURCES MENTIONED Dr. Stephen Porges, Polyvagal Theory Rula, 2026 State of Mental Health Report 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 send this episode to people you love. And follow while you are here 💛

Self-Advocacy: Why Mental Health Awareness Isn't Enough

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 week is self-advocacy, the active practice of being on your own team, not just in a doctor's office but in your relationships, in your inner dialogue, and in the moments where you already have the tools but forget to reach for them. This is the first episode in a May series exploring the conversations we need to be having. If you have ever had the tools and the knowledge but needed a bridge between knowing and doing, this episode is that bridge. IN THIS EPISODE YOU WILL DISCOVER: * Why awareness alone has not closed the treatment gap, and what it takes to close the distance between knowing something needs to change and actually taking action * The difference between self-abandonment and self-advocacy, and why they are two sides of the same coin * What self-advocacy looked like in my own healthcare journey, including the advocacy that happened before IV ketamine assisted therapy became an option * Why advocating for yourself in a doctor's office or therapist's room is an act of Self-Love, not an act of defiance * What self-advocacy sounds like in your closest relationships, especially when keeping the peace has become more important than telling the truth * What happens when you start examining your own thinking, and what to do when your mind builds stories and presents them as facts * One question you can ask yourself in any moment to interrupt the pattern and start being on your own side 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 💛

Overthinking: Why Your Feelings Are LYING to You

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 sits unread. A call doesn't get returned. And instead of staying with what we actually know, we start to believe things we have no evidence for. In this episode I share a tool I learned from Dr. Susan David's work on emotional agility, the practice of separating facts from feelings, and what happened when I finally used it in a moment I really needed it. This episode is about the space between learning a tool and remembering to reach for it when your chest is tight and your mind won't stop spinning. IN THIS EPISODE YOU WILL DISCOVER * Why overthinking escalates, how small stories become elaborate certainties over days and why your mind builds them so convincingly * The real reason silence is so unbearable, your brain would rather have a painful answer than no answer at all * Dr. Susan David's Facts vs Feelings practice and how to use it in the moment without a journal, an app, or perfect conditions * What I found when I separated the facts from the feelings, and why the disproportion between the two columns changed everything * Why forgetting your tools in the middle of the spiral is not failure, it is being human * How the distance between the spiral starting and you remembering you have something to reach for gets shorter over time * Why "no response is a response" might be true but attaching a story to what no response means is where the damage can happen * What it looks like to not abandon yourself in real time, not through a big gesture, but through choosing what is actually true over what your mind has built 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 💛