"How do I let go of the victim mindset?": What can we do when we feel like life is happening to us?
Dial Emma
Emma Reed Turrell
4.8 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 9 February 2026
⏱️ 23 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Welcome back to Dial Emma! Each week, I'll be answering your dilemmas with honesty, empathy, and a few therapeutic truth bombs to help you make sense of life's stickiest moments. If you've ever wished you had a therapist in your back pocket, Dial Emma is here to help.
In this bitesize episode, I'm responding to two in-the-moment dilemmas: how to escape survival mode, and how to let go of a victim mindset. I explore why survival mode is not a failure but a natural response to overwhelming circumstances, the small, manageable changes we can make to navigate it, and how reclaiming our agency and recognising our influence in the present moment can help us to feel less powerless.
If you have a dilemma for Emma, please fill out this form.
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Dial Emma is hosted by Emma Reed Turrell, produced by Lauren Brook.
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Social media:
Emma Reed Turrell @emmareedturrell
Dial Emma @dialemmapodcast
Email: contact@dial-emma.uk
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Now time to thank our partner of this episode, Alzheimer's Society. |
| 0:05.0 | Dementia affects all of us. |
| 0:07.0 | Maybe you have a parent, grandparent, friend or neighbour living with dementia. |
| 0:12.0 | Well, this summer, Alzheimer's Society wants all of us to grab our walking boots and beat dementia together by signing up to a Trek 26 challenge. All you need to do is walk |
| 0:23.7 | one of their 13 or 26 mile walks at one of their beautiful locations across the UK. You could find |
| 0:29.8 | yourself going along the coast, through a meadow, passing by a huge waterfall or something else |
| 0:35.1 | equally amazing. The choice is yours. The best part is you're raising |
| 0:39.8 | money for Alzheimer's Society with every step you take. And that money you raise will fund |
| 0:45.4 | groundbreaking research as well as give support to people who need it most. To enter, search Alzheimer's |
| 0:52.1 | Society Trek 26 online and use code podcast to save 20% on your |
| 0:57.8 | registration fee. |
| 1:00.1 | Hello and welcome to Dial Emma, the podcast where your dilemmas meet my therapeutic insights. |
| 1:06.9 | I'm Emery Terrell, psychotherapist, author and well-recovering People Pleaser. Each week, I'll be unpacking real-life questions from listeners just like you. The big ones, the small ones, the ones that keep you up at night, offering practical tools and gentle truths to help you find your way through. So if you've got a question, you don't know how to ask out loud. You've come to the right |
| 1:28.7 | place. |
| 1:36.8 | A very warm welcome to this week's episode of Dial Emma, which is slightly different. I wanted to |
| 1:43.7 | take this opportunity to respond, |
| 1:47.2 | well, not in real time, but something a little closer to dilemmas as they're coming through. |
| 1:54.6 | Partly, that's because it feels important to be in the moment, you know, whether that's at this point in February, |
| 2:04.3 | in the midst of a winter that feels like it really hasn't stopped raining this year. |
| 2:10.0 | And partly because I wanted to take that space to connect with you on something that feels |
| 2:15.9 | really relatable to me too. And to bring in a |
| 2:20.7 | kind of, yeah, a sense of immediacy to this conversation. So I've got two dilemmas for you today. |
... |
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