Bullet Points | I'm not sure you want to 'hear' this and is there a better way to unwind than simply relaxing?

I'm reading two snippets from the internet to you today. One, from the brilliant Holly Tucker about podcasts and why she believes they are so strong as an audio-only medium and secondly something I read on Substack about how to properly relax. I'd love to hear your thoughts on both of these.Hey! Why not share your thoughts and insights to make your listening experience even better. Complete this listener survey to tell me what you want to hear: http://bit.ly/theemmagunsshow-survey Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It’s handy to look on the bright side of life, right? Who doesn’t love an optimist? But, what if by always looking for a fix or the silver lining, you’re actually invalidating perfectly reasonable and logical emotions.More than that, what if being positive is actually making you toxic?In this conversation with Whitney Goodman, the radically honest psychologist, we explore how always being hopeful or trying to be helpful can actually be confusing and dissatisfying.It’s something we’ve seen creep into our vocabulary more and more with things like manifesting, but actually all this ‘looking on the bright side’ can make you vulnerable to failures and make you wonder what you’re doing wrong. Fear not though, in this conversation, we explore some valuable tools to help you eradicate toxic positivity, the ways in which you can be helpful and constructive and why a little negativity isn’t actually a bad thing…This conversation with originally published in 2022.Hey! Why not share your thoughts and insights to make your listening experience even better. Complete this listener survey to tell me what you want to hear: http://bit.ly/theemmagunsshow-survey Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sure, I may be a little late to the party on this one but when Rylan Clark spoke about immigration on This Morning, why did no one in government use the opportunity to state facts and finally put to bed some of the falsehoods and misconceptions around asylum seekers and immigration? I'd love to hear your views on this.Also, why are women so judgemental about what other women eat? And I'm being specific here because it's a women-on-woman crime...This is brilliant feature Polly Vernon wrote on the subject that you may find interesting.Hey! Why not share your thoughts and insights to make your listening experience even better. Complete this listener survey to tell me what you want to hear: http://bit.ly/theemmagunsshow-survey Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Raphael Rowe has every right to be the most bitter man in Britain. Convicted for a crime he didn’t commit, despite eye-witness evidence that couldn’t have possibly put him near the scene of the crime, Raphael spent 12 years in prison with no hope of parole. While his story is jaw-dropping, it’s actually Raphael’s resolve, how he maintained hope and how he has been able to make peace with what happened to him and more forward positively. If you listen to our conversation, you can’t hear an ounce of hate, regret or bitterness in his voice and I wonder if I’d be able to be the same if I had walked in his shoes. Could you?Hey! Why not share your thoughts and insights to make your listening experience even better. Complete this listener survey to tell me what you want to hear: http://bit.ly/theemmagunsshow-survey Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

You could be fooled into thinking Keeley Hazell’s memoir, Everyone’s Seen My Tits, would be a nostalgic romp through the Noughties, featuring salacious gossip and saucy behind-the-scenes insights from a time when the Red Tops - the tabloid newspapers - loomed large. What you actually get is a soul-bearing account of what it was like to grow up in a tough environment, both behind closed doors and on the streets of South East London, navigating revenge porn before people really knew was revenge porn was and what it was like to have the world open up to you in ways you could have never imagined only for the way you’d made that happen be the reason that all the doors you wanted to open, seemed firmly locked to you.As soon as I started reading Keeley’s book, I found it a challenge to put it down. I was hooked. I was stunned by the honesty and, more than once, was waiting for the bit at the end of the chapter where she either apologised for her feelings or somehow minimised them to make her real feelings more palatable for an audience. Spoiler alert - that moment never came. And it was this that made me admire her and enjoy the book even more. She welcomed me, the reader, into her circle of trust. So, I couldn’t wait to interview her and, as you’ll hear, she’s as unedited and unreserved in person as she is in the book. Buy Keeley's book here: Everyone's Seen My Tits.Hey! Why not share your thoughts and insights to make your listening experience even better. Complete this listener survey to tell me what you want to hear: http://bit.ly/theemmagunsshow-survey Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I recently stopped watching TV in the mornings, and it surprised me how much calmer and more spacious my day felt. It made me realise how many little habits quietly drain our time and attention, often without us noticing. In this episode, I’m exploring the hidden ways our hours get pinched, and sharing small, gentle swaps that can help us feel like the day belongs a little more to us.Hey! Why not share your thoughts and insights to make your listening experience even better. Complete this listener survey to tell me what you want to hear: http://bit.ly/theemmagunsshow-survey Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The world feels pretty divided right now, doesn’t it? I’m convinced the mere fact so many people feel comfortable listening to music without headphones on public transport is a sign of the apocalypse.When it can often feel as though we’re surrounded by conflict, injustice and hatred, we are all people who fundamentally want the same things. That’s what Anjali Kumar discovered when she went on a search to find God. In her book Stalking God: My Unorthodox Search for Something to Believe In, she stumbled across something truly fascinating about what human beings want, need and desire. How she came about this was, as you’ll hear in our conversation, a happy accident but it was the beginning of a truly inspiring journey.Hey! Why not share your thoughts and insights to make your listening experience even better. Complete this listener survey to tell me what you want to hear: http://bit.ly/theemmagunsshow-survey Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On a global scale, we can probably all identify that people such as Donald Trump and Meghan Markle polarise opinion to such an extent that they are the subject of millions of social media posts, podcasts, Youtube videos and media column inches.But what about your regular local emotional vampire? The friend, colleague, neighbour, acquaintance who somehow manages to occupy your thoughts, always be front of mind and somehow manipulate you without being anywhere near you.In this episode, I ask if someone is living rent-free in your head. (Quite possibly) Plus, how you can break their spell and focus on the people who deserve your mental, emotional and physical attention.Hey! Why not share your thoughts and insights to make your listening experience even better. Complete this listener survey to tell me what you want to hear: http://bit.ly/theemmagunsshow-survey Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Recently, I’ve had a few of those awful dark nights of the soul. The ones where you can’t sleep because your brain is on that setting where it’s showing you all the mistakes you’ve made, all the things you did and are doing wrong and all the ways in which you are screwing up. Spoiler alert - your thoughts are not facts.However, that’s not to say that life’s experiences don’t all add up to series of lessons and while it can be unpleasant to revisit the parts of yourself riddled with error, that can often be where you find the really helpful, enlightening and magical stuff.I was on the brink of being drowned by my negative thoughts when I remembered my conversation with Daniel Pink. You may have heard him on one of the many huge podcasts lately, but back in 2022, Daniel and I unpicked the many ways in which regret leads to growth. It was a helpful conversation then and I believe it is just as helpful now.Don’t fear regret, embrace it. It might be an unconventional view, but it sure beats staring at the ceiling at 2am feeling rubbish about yourself…Hey! Why not share your thoughts and insights to make your listening experience even better. Complete this listener survey to tell me what you want to hear: http://bit.ly/theemmagunsshow-survey Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this week’s Bullet Points, I take a look at the incredible ‘come back’ of Lindsay Lohan. She once was troubled but now she’s the most poised star you’ll find on a red carpet. It struck me that no one is asking about what happened for her to be able to come back from the brink and that perhaps, because she’s now arguably more beautiful than she’s ever been, that’s enough for people to assume she’s well and fully recovered. Also this week, how I’m sad about the demise of And Just Like That, despite everything I’ve said. Why the Idaho Murders, which were brilliantly covered here on Redhanded, got under my skin and a little trailer swap with my friends over at the Straight Up podcast. Hey! Why not share your thoughts and insights to make your listening experience even better. Complete this listener survey to tell me what you want to hear: http://bit.ly/theemmagunsshow-survey Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.