The Bibliotherapists Ep #8: Tamu Thomas - OUT with toxic productivity and IN with gentle unfolding for 2025

Hello everybody,

This week’s podcast post is here a little later than planned, due to the usual festive shenanigans and schedule interrupts (including a mini NYE trip to IBZ 🙌), but I feel like today’s guest will be ok with that.

It’s no secret that I love new year and all the potential it holds (for me and for you) but I’m also a fan of taking our sweet time when it comes to deciding what we want the next year to look - and feel - like.

Yes, let’s use the magic momentum of a shiny new year to start to create some game-changing shifts in 2025.

But nothing needs to happen right now. So let’s not panic ourselves into making sweeping and abstract resolutions or overwhelm ourselves with all the things we *should* be doing.

Instead, let’s meet ourselves where we’re at, and take the time to get intentional about the change/s we would like to create this year and beyond (more on this coming in Monday’s email).

Hello and how to have a happy new year without the toxic positivity/productivity from Tamu and Toni (Tanya MIA for this episode)

Having interviewed our latest podcast guest before, I knew this conversation would be good, but I didn’t know quite how spot on it would be as a New Year episode.

Tamu Thomas, is a transformational and embodiment coach, workshop facilitator, podcaster and somatic movement practitioner. Tamu helps over-functioning, over-working, high-achieving women to establish boundaries, find their purpose AND make good money.

I interviewed Tamu about her first book, Women Who Work Too Much: Break Free from Toxic Productivity and Find Your Joy, in April last year, and have since recommended and gifted it to many MANY people (you can watch that interview here).

And I think Tamu’s book - and this conversation - is the perfect antidote for ‘new year new you’ overwhelm.

Tamu’s specialist subject is toxic productivity. She’s also an advocate for eschewing toxic positivity and in this conversation we discuss how to create a brilliant and joyous life without either.

“I want people to know it’s okay to pause, to rest, to live with ease and joy,” says Tamu.

Hell yeah to that as a manifesto for 2025!

I want people to know it’s okay to pause, to rest, to live with ease and joy.

• Tamu Thomas

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IN THIS EPISODE:

• Prioritising joy and ease: Shifting the focus from hustle culture to living well.

• Books as tools for transformation: The significance of specific books in Tamu’s personal and professional growth and self-love.

• The joy of sharing words: And using Substack as a platform to authentically connect with others.

• Making peace with what is: Tamu opens up about the process of accepting - and embodying - her late diagnosis ADHD, and adapting to perimenopausal energy levels.

• Supporting women in midlife: Shifting the narrative around aging and productivity and wellbeing for women.

• Writing as therapy and connection: The process of writing a book as an emotional and self-expressive journey.

• Celebrating our 'flow' years: Emphasising the beauty of midlife as a time of reflection and self-discovery.

• The importance of alignment: Living in alignment with one's true self and values.

• Self-awareness and growth: The transformative power of observing emotions and patterns.

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SHOW NOTES:

In this episode Tamu references and recommends so many great books, including several on somatic healing and embodiment. I apologise in advance for the dent this list will make in your bank account (I’ve already ordered x 3 of these books since editing the pod):

1. Women Who Work Too Much by Tamu Thomas

2. Bodyfulness by Christine Cauldwell

3. My Grandmother's Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies by Resmaa Menakem

4. The Somatic Psychotherapy Toolbox by Manuela Mischke-Reeds

5. The Shadow Effect: Illuminating the Hidden Power of Your True Self by Deepak Chopra, Marianne Williamson and Debbie Ford

6. A Return to Love by Marianne Williamson

7. The Body Is Not an Apology: The Power of Radical Self-Love by Sonya Renee Taylor

8. The Wild Edge of Sorrow: Rituals of Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief by Francis Weller

9. The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield

10. Life Visioning: A Transformative Process for Activating Your Unique Gifts and Highest Potential by Michael Bernard Beckwith

11. Mind Magic: The Neuroscience of Manifestation and How It Changes Everything by James R Doty

12. Women Living Deliciously by Florence Given

13. Black Feminist Thought by Patricia Hill Collins

14. Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory by Deb Dana

I can’t wait for you to listen.

Please share with the people you love, let us know what you think, and - of course - what you are reading right now…

Toni (& Tanya, who’ll be back next week for our interview with

Women Are Mad with Jen&Salima

)

xx

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WATCH THE PODCAST

NB while the audio version of the podcast has been polished a bit, we’re definitely not video editors and so the video of the interview is the unedited, unfiltered real thing showcasing the reality of various wifi connections from various (often rural) locations + overexcited book nerds interviewing at least one amazing expert. There may be a couple of bloopers/sneezes/dog barking situations. But there’s something kinda lovely about the real-ness, and it’s a perfect example (I think) of “done is better than perfect.”