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

Group Chat Gone Quiet? What Their Silence Really Means

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? Stop Measuring, Start Living

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 💛

Why Everyone Else's Summer Looks Better Than Yours

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: What Really Hurts

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 Age? How to Feel Seen

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 💛