Why Rest Is a Radical Act for Mothers

In this episode of the Woo Woo Mum podcast, Alexandra and Tamu Thomas delve into the challenges of modern work culture, exploring themes of burnout, spirituality, and the pursuit of a balanced life. Tamu shares her personal journey of overcoming workaholism, the impact of societal pressures, and the importance of spiritual practices in achieving personal growth and fulfillment. The conversation also touches on the intersection of politics, activism, and spirituality, offering listeners practical insights and actionable tips for navigating life's complexities.

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Transcript

Alexandra (00:04)
Hello, hello, and welcome to the very first episode of Woo Woo Mum podcast, the show for moms who want to reconnect with their inner magic. As this is the very first episode, it's probably best I introduce myself. My name is Alexandra Sheppard. I'm a children's author and I became a mother nearly two years ago.

And like every mom, it radically shifted every facet of my life, including my spiritual routine. Pre-baby, I was a big fan of meditation, journaling, sound baths, yoga classes, et cetera. But hours of breastfeeding a day and a baby who slept like crap made it impossible to engage with the routines that really kept me grounded and sane.

and that's why I started the podcast really from my attic because I wanted to connect with other spiritual mums who were trying to juggle everything and still keep track of the routines that kept them grounded.

Each week I'm going to speak to other spiritual mums to find out how they bring a bit of magic into their hectic lives. And I'll be sharing everything I've learned that I think will help other mums too. And I'll be so honest, the podcast isn't just for me, it's also for my inner child.

So if you were the type of kid who looked under the bed for monsters, checked their horoscope religiously in Sugar Magazine when they were 14, or desperately wished there were fairies at the bottom of the garden, then hit subscribe because I have a feeling you'll want to stick around.

every week I hope to bring you conversations and stories that remind you you're not alone and you already have the power to shift the way you live, love and work. And I can't think of a better way to kick that off than with a guest who embodies that message so powerfully, Tamu Thomas.

Tamu is incredible. She is a burnout prevention and productivity specialist. She's trained in somatic coaching and polyvagal informed practice. She also has a 16 year background in social work.

So connection, belonging and behavior change have been at the heart of everything she does. She's such an inspiring speaker, thought leader and her latest book, Women Who Work Too Much, which is published by Hay House, is a must read. It's described as a soulful manifesto for reclaiming self-worth, joy and power in a world addicted to productivity. And as a former girl boss, it was so helpful for me to read this book.

and realize that having it all, it's not only a myth, it is actually harming women and mothers around the world.

In our conversation, we talk about what burnout really looks like for mothers, why rest is radical, and the tiny practices that can help you reconnect with yourself, even in the middle of chaos. And when I say tiny, I mean tiny. We're talking two minutes a day. And these are the techniques Tamu herself used to ground herself as a single mum. So if you enjoyed today's episode, don't forget to hit subscribe so you never miss a new conversation.

You can also follow the podcast on Instagram and TikTok. Just search for woo woo mum podcast and don't forget to follow Tamu at Tamu Thomas on Instagram And of course, check out her brilliant book, Women Who Work Too Much, which is available wherever you buy books. All right, let's dive in.

Alexandra (03:25)
So Tamu, thank you so much for coming onto the show. Welcome to Woo Woo Mum podcast.

Tamu Thomas (03:32)
Thank you for having me, Alexandra. I'm looking forward to where our conversation is going to take us.

Alexandra (03:36)
Me too, me too. So my first question for you is, when did you realise you were a woman who worked too much?

Tamu Thomas (03:43)
my goodness. I think I consciously realized I was a woman who worked too much when I ⁓ was going to court, which was a standard part of my job as a children and families social worker. And I had, I didn't know at the time, I thought I was dying on my way to court, but I had a panic attack on my way to court. And it was a contentious court case, yes, but I was used to those.

and I was very seasoned, I was very professional. I could pride myself on being balanced and fair. So it wasn't to do with the court case I was about to take part in, evidence in. It was about how I was living my life. And as I reconciled with how I was feeling, so I had my panic attack, I thought I was gonna die. I managed to get myself together. I went to court, I gave evidence, I bossed it.

The judge commended me on my work and on my evidence, but I knew something was very wrong and I didn't even call the GP. On my way home from court, I stopped in at the GP to make the appointment and I met with the GP, had a conversation and the first thing they were talking about was anxiety, depression and I'm not denying those things. I definitely was low mood for a long time. I definitely was experiencing anxiety and when I traced back

My first memory of anxiety was when I was seven. So that's something that's been present in my life for a very, very long time. And when I thought about it, I just thought, I don't stop. Like, I do not stop. And when I feel like I'm doing too much, I kind of, because of the culture we live in, learnt to invert that.

and decided that I wasn't doing enough so I would find more things to do because I thought, well, I need a new productivity planner, I need to start working out and go to a boot camp at 6am. So I was never ever able to look at the fact that I was just doing too much and I needed more rest. So it was when I had that panic attack.

and my memory won't let me remember properly whether it was 2016 or 2017. I think it was 2016. Yeah. That's when I realised.

Alexandra (05:57)
Wow, and you

describe that so vividly in the book. ⁓ And I know you're touching this in the book as well, but for anyone who hasn't read it, there obviously must have been warning signs leading up to that panic attack. What were they and why do you think you ignored them?

Tamu Thomas (06:03)
Mm.

yeah.

So the warning signs, the first time I was really conscious and thought this isn't right was in 2009. And ⁓ I thought, well, it must be that I'm not eating well. So I went to see a nutritional therapist and she was also a psychologist. So she combined the two. I didn't realize this. And as soon as she moved on from the nutrition and started trying to do the psychotherapy, I was like, excuse me, I'm a girl boss.

You want to slow me down? would come here to talk about all that and I hot-footed it out of there and I didn't go back. But that's when the constant lethargy began and I started having symptoms like ongoing headaches, sinus issues, like lots of physical health symptoms. But I was a social worker. That was normal. If you weren't burnt out, you weren't doing your job properly. If you were not complaining and running yourself ragged and

constantly doing mental gymnastics about how you're going to look after your child and also navigate the work you were doing. You weren't doing your job properly. And everybody I knew, even outside of that sector, if you were a professional, if you had a career, so your job didn't end the moment you left your organization, because everybody was working in offices at that time, if your work was knowledge-based, which meant you could bring it home on a laptop or on your smartphone,

you were constantly working, that was normalized and it was glamorized. That's how you were important, that's how you were valuable, that's how you were worthy. So I had, and that wasn't just within my immediate circle, it was also being reflected back in the media, on social media, it was everywhere. So.

I saw it projected all around me and I internalised it big time.

Alexandra (08:02)
Yeah, as a reformed girl boss myself, that hits so hard. You know, I wouldn't have done things like meditating or journaling, because I would have thought it was unproductive and a waste of time. Therapy was navel gazing. I couldn't bear the thought of going to speak to a stranger about feelings. Yuck, feelings. Exactly, exactly. And of course, all of that is gonna lead to us feeling.

Tamu Thomas (08:13)
Exactly.

Exactly. What are feelings? I do. I don't feel. I do. Yeah.

Alexandra (08:29)
so disconnected from our bodies and what I love about your book is you give all these really beautiful, simple and effective ways that we can tap into our body and I wanted to ask how you came up with those? What are they based on?

Tamu Thomas (08:46)
So, I experienced burnout and when I was, you know, doing the inner reflection and all of that, I had very strong memories of my auntie. She was in my life for a short period of time, but she had a huge impact. She was an international businesswoman.

I didn't know what an international businesswoman was when I was six years old, but I knew she was very different to the women I was around all the time. And I looked at her and I thought, if being an international businesswoman makes you look like that and your energy feel like that, when I grow up, that's what I want to be. I want to be an international businesswoman as well. So when I experienced burnout, I thought I'm going to set up my own social work practice.

because I had assumed that I would have a social work business after ⁓ working as an employee and as a freelancer. And I thought that would give me this mythical work-life balance we talk about, because I'd be able to choose my work and how I work and all of that. So I had my own private practice for nearly two years, but I was still feeling the same. I was still exhausted before I'd even done anything. I thought something's wrong.

And so I remembered the book, Alchemist by Paulo Coelho and I revisited that. I read that book maybe early twenties when I read that book and I revisited it and it opened me up to personal development and spirituality. And so whatever I started watching on YouTube, YouTube then started suggesting videos about positive psychology and I love

I, you know, for me, spirituality is the science we can't quantify. And I love it all. I love the science we can quantify and I love the science that's a bit of a mystery. And I think some things are supposed to be a mystery. I think life is far too beautiful for us to understand and know everything. I think there are some things we just shouldn't, we don't need to understand. We can feel it. We understand that we need to work with it and that's more than enough. So I found positive psychology and it gave evidence.

to lots of things that previously I would have just considered to be spiritual, for example, gratitude and the science of gratitude and having a growth mindset. getting involved in, and I came from a psychological background because social work is very heavily influenced by psychology and as social workers, it's our responsibility to put into action the recommendations by psychotherapists, psychologists, et cetera.

And sometimes it was our job to say, actually that might work in theory, but it's not going to work in practice. So we would create something that people could actually apply to their lives. And so I recognized how the psychology model was based in the biomedical model, which is about going from being ill to being okay.

So it doesn't really, like when you think about psychology in its purest form, it's not about living your best life. When I discovered positive psychology, it was like, if psychology was about getting you from surviving to being okay, positive psychology was about getting you from being okay to thriving. And I just lapped it up and applying some of the principles really helped me.

heal my relationship with myself far more than if I'd taken medication or gone for CBT as my doctor was recommending. And then from positive psychology, I don't know how it was, I don't know if it was a book or a podcast or what, that then started talking about somatics because positive psychology is very closely linked to somatics and somatics is looking at

your lived experience is looking at how your body interacts and responds to life basically. And when we think about things in positive psychology, even if we think about something I mentioned just now, the gratitude practice, when you're doing a gratitude practice, one of the things you're invited to do is not just think about things you're grateful for, it's connect with that feeling of gratitude. So when we think about manifestation, people often talk about the law of attraction.

The law of attraction, really it's the law of like radiation. You attract what you emit, you attract what you're radiating. And so it's very much about that sensory experience, about being engaged with your senses, understanding how your thoughts impact your emotional landscape. And what I learned with somatics is that somatics takes it a level deeper. It shows you how your physiology acts and responds.

below the level of consciousness. So with the kind of spirituality side of things and mindset and all of those others, we're really using conscious thoughts and we understand that our subconscious is what shapes our beliefs and your nervous system impacts your subconscious. So when you're able to understand the interplay between those, you're then able to navigate

differently. So rather than thinking about I've got to fix my mindset, you understand that your mindset is shaped by the reactions of your autonomic nervous system, which is constantly, even when you're asleep, scanning the world for signs of safety or danger. And if your nervous system is called neuroception, it's the way we detect things. If your nervous system, neurocepts,

detects danger. It doesn't matter what you think consciously, all of that is going to fall by the wayside because your body, your biology, your physiology is going to be dedicated to protecting you, dedicated to helping you survive. Now our body doesn't know the difference between whether or not we're trying to survive a sabre-toothed tiger coming to kill us or we're feeling really scared.

because we're about to do something new and it's bigger than things we've done before. It's different to things we've done before. Therefore we don't have certainty. So our body doesn't know the difference between I'm feeling really uncertain about this new thing and I'm about to get killed by a saber-toothed tiger. So when we bring all of that together, we recognize I want to launch my podcast.

I've got a whole load of jiggery-pokery because of perfectionism and I'm thinking about comparison and all of these other things. Your body is like, my gosh, that's a threat to our safety. In the same way, my gosh, that's saber-toothed tiger. It's just that we're not having the same visceral outward reaction. So we don't realize on a somatic level, we're perceiving that as a threat. When we have this information, rather than saying, my goodness, I've got to work on my mindset, you appreciate, okay.

I need to help myself feel safe and train, repattern my nervous system so it recognizes that this is a threat I need to move towards because when I move towards that threat, I'm going to build the skill, I'm going to build the strength, I'm going to expand my capacity and I'm going to be able to hold that uncertainty while I grow. But when you don't know that, you will start criticizing yourself. I'm not ambitious. I'm not motivated. I don't want it enough. Why does Sarah...

Why can she just think about something on Tuesday and launch it on Wednesday? And then we start to, it's almost like a self-fulfilling prophecy. We start to add all of these reasons why we're not good enough. When, when you understand it from a somatic perspective, you can simplify all of that. ⁓ right. I'm scared because it's something new. My biology recognizes that. So it's trying to protect me, but this protection mechanism is actually causing me more harm.

So now I know I need to make myself feel safer, I need to be in community with people who are doing similar things to what I'm doing, and that's going to help me with my growth. And it helped me recognise that a lot of the criticism I had of myself was not genuine criticism, it was almost manufactured because it was stuff I was inheriting from society and applying to myself, which then added to the feelings of me not feeling safe.

So I already had these signs of danger from society. You're not doing enough, you're too busy. As a black woman, you need to do that. As a woman, you need to do this. So all of these things were adding to me feeling unsafe and then I was applying it to myself. So on top of having all of those societal messages, now I'm making myself an unsafe place for myself.

Alexandra (17:45)
honestly, that is such a game changer because you can be in the spiritual space, know, doing your gratitude list, doing your affirmations and you think you're working on your mindset and you think that's what we are because we live, I think a patriarchal society values mind over body for sure. And all along you're feeling anxiety and brushing it away and thinking you can affirm it away but you can't, you have to, you can't avoid the body and...

Tamu Thomas (18:10)
Yep.

Alexandra (18:11)
coming to that realization, reading it in your book and also realizing that gratitude lists, I've been doing them every day for years, it's not always enough by itself, the affirmations aren't enough, sometimes you actually have to feel your feelings in your body. It almost feels too simple and if it's simple then it can't be effective.

Tamu Thomas (18:30)
Yep, yep. And that's by design. Our society, to keep us preoccupied with nonsense, we have been taught that anything that is intelligent, sophisticated, any of those things, is complex. And if something is simple, even if you think about things like our needs, our needs, if you think about ⁓ a model like Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs,

Alexandra (18:33)
Hmm.

Tamu Thomas (18:59)
It's the triangle and you've got your physiological needs at the bottom. We have been taught that these are basic needs. When we're calling things like that basic, they're easy to dismiss. Now actually, they're foundation, they're foundational needs. They're fundamental needs. Everything about us and that self-actualization we want to reach at the top rests on our physiological needs being met. But that seems like it's too simple.

Society will say no, it's because you haven't got a masters. No, it's because you don't have this complex morning routine or whatever the case may be. Whilst a lot of the ⁓ issues we experience create complexity, what our nervous system needs is simplicity. But knowing that, and this is one of the things that I'm mindful of in the wellness spiritual space, a lot of it has been co-opted by capitalism.

So you will be convinced that it's not simple. You need to pay and go on this retreat. You need to go to Ayahuasca. You need to go to Peru. I mean, you need to go to Costa Rica. You need to go to Peru to do Ayahuasca. I'm not saying don't do those things, right? If you want to do those things, go and do it. But the things you do every day, day by day, over and over again, they have a much greater impact than these random expensive things we do here and there.

And that is why in my book, all of the practices I shared, everything is within you already. There is nothing there that you have to go out and buy. Even if, ⁓ so I, ⁓ like, you know, music and dancing, I love all of that. It's very good for somatics, very good for somatic releasing all of that connection. And if you haven't got a Spotify premium, get the free one.

There are so many ways we can support ourselves on a spiritual, psychological, somatic ⁓ level. But what it requires, and this is the one that we really grapple with, is time. And in a society that is all about urgency and scarcity, one of the commodities we never think we have enough of, similar to money, is time.

So I work with people and if they're feeling really dysregulated and stressed, they feel like they've already wasted the day when they've just woken up first thing in the morning. There will be people who will be like, oh my gosh, we're halfway through the year. Like that, yeah, we've got half the year left. What are you going to do with that? So in our society, we are programmed for quick fixes that cost money. And it's like, you're starving hungry, but instead of having a meal,

you're just having Haribo, then you're having Snickers, like it's constant. And why? Because capitalism benefits when we're like that. Capitalism benefits when we're in a state where we are commodifying ourselves so that we can consume and we think that consumption will make us feel better. We get that momentary high from that consumption, but then we need to commodify ourselves again to keep it up. And it's a nonstop loop. I invite people

to pause, slow down and think what is important? What are the things, the experiences, the qualities, the relationships that make life feel sumptuous and satisfying to me? And then build what you're doing around that. You will find that you're not caught up in all of these gimmicks and hacks and this and that because you will realize that the things that are important to you,

don't necessarily come with a hefty price tag.

Alexandra (22:44)
think that's a really beautiful sort of framework for interrupting like that loop that you talk about of always being in a hurry. And I really want to leave our listeners who are moms, maybe moms of young children and who are in the height of that, you know, school run in the morning, all the responsibilities on me. I have the majority of the mental load in my household. I can't take five minutes to meditate. And I've spoken to people and they tell me I do not have five minutes to meditate, which.

Tamu Thomas (22:57)
Hmm.

Alexandra (23:13)
I don't necessarily agree with because you probably brushed your teeth, but that's okay. You found time to brush your teeth. You could probably find two minutes to sit in that silence for a bit. But for people who genuinely believe that they just do not have the time they're too relied on and they're just at breaking point, how can they work that into their day? What would you recommend?

Tamu Thomas (23:36)
I knew that when I journaled, I felt better. It was a bit like a tidying up for my brain. So I started to wake up 50, just 15 minutes earlier to be able to do that.

And then it's like my daughter honed in and realised what I was doing and so she would wake up earlier as well. What we do as parents, we feel like, right, we've got to chuck everything we're doing to the wayside because now the child is awake, therefore we've got to because that's what constitutes being a good parent. Actually, no, you don't. So she was three. I think we have to be honest with ourselves.

There is a period of time when they're very little and totally depend on you for everything. You're just not going to be able to do it unless you've got childcare support where people are taking your child off your hands. So you've got that time. And if you have got that time, my suggestion would be to rest. So we have to recognise that there are seasons for everything. When my daughter was very, very little, I'm a single parent. There was a period of time where I lived above a gym. I could never get to the gym because the operational

who-heart it required to be able to go to the gym, I could just never do it. And I didn't get into, it's so unfair, it's so hard. I recognized that this was a season of me not being able to do that. And that was that, took it on the chin. But when she was three and she started waking up when I would wake up and I would do my journaling, I didn't think, all right, she's awake now, so I can't do it. my goodness. And all of the psychodrama that goes along with it, I would make her a hot drink.

I would give her a yogurt so she wasn't hungry. I would get out her colouring book and her colouring pens. She would colour whilst I would journal. I now have an 18 year old who has a regular journaling practice. So we mustn't do this martyrdom thing where we're like, I can't look after myself because my child is around. We role model for our children and we can teach our children. It's different if you've got a child that's got additional needs.

But if your child doesn't have additional needs, there is no reason whatsoever why you cannot wake up 15 minutes earlier, give yourself that time. And if they wake up, you say, mommy, daddy, parent is doing whatever thing. Here's yours. I'm doing mine. That's how we do it. It's things like

when you are, and I believe in like adding things into your day as it is, rather than adding things on top so it feels like a to-do list. So it's things like when you're making a cup of tea or whatever drink you're like, just do that. Just do that. Don't have one eye on your phone. Don't have another hand on the keyboard. Just take that moment because it has a compounding impact. The things we do, even if you, even if you do, you make

Alexandra (26:16)
you

Tamu Thomas (26:27)
three hot drinks in a day and you give yourself five minutes just to make that drink even if you don't drink it in silence or whatever that's 15 minutes a day over a week that compounds over a month that compounds over a year that compounds so we need to start looking at things with a long-term approach rather than wanting an instant salve immediately that's just not going to happen and when we do things like this you teach your body that you're going to have micro moments of connection

and your body starts to trust, it's okay that you're gonna do all of this output, but there's gonna be a little bit of time that you can have for yourself. And the other thing I would say, I didn't even know this existed until I started working as a coach. A lot of the mothers I was working with that had small children, small children are touching you all the time, they were kind of like all touched out. They would do things like go to bed late because they needed to have that time for themselves.

That means you're then depriving yourself of sleep. Sleep is one of the best, like we talk about biohacking, you don't need to do half that biohacking if you're getting adequate sleep. So my recommendation would be to go to bed earlier and wake up earlier so that you can have that alone time at the beginning of your day, because one, you're prioritizing yourself and you've done it now, you've had that time, and two, you're not interrupting your ⁓ sleep at night.

Alexandra (27:53)
I particularly love the micro moments idea because you're not actually doing anything differently. You're just, you you're going to make a cup of tea anyway. You may as well just be mindful and make that cup of tea and focus on it. And you know, I think you talked about it either in your book or on another podcast I heard you on about the myth of multitasking and how actually women aren't necessarily, multitasking is not good for us and no one is actually doing it effectively anyway.

Tamu Thomas (28:03)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Alexandra (28:19)
and I really fell into that trap of if I can do three things at once, I am girlbusting it and actually I'm just depleting myself at far faster rate and probably not doing any of those tasks particularly well.

Tamu Thomas (28:23)
It's on.

There is a time where in your parental journey, when you've got no choice but to multitask, but that's for a finite period of time. This myth that women are better at multitasking, that's very patriarchal. It keeps us doing everything.

and it keeps us in a cycle where it's normalised and more importantly it keeps us knackered. When we're knackered, we're dysregulated, we don't make powerful choices for ourselves. And instead of stating what our needs are, we hint or hope or we're passive aggressive with our partners instead of stating what our needs are. So Eve Rotsky has got a book called Fair Play and it's a great book but it also really frustrated me at the painstaking levels women have to go through

to break down to their partners the things they do all day, every day in order for their partners to recognize there's not a fairy that comes in and loads and unloads the dishwasher, sorts out whose birthday's when, makes sure the person's abort, makes sure everybody know what's going on in the PTA. But when you are operating in that way, where you're like, okay, these are the things I need to do, I can't do these three things at once, you can from a place of power say,

Partner, these are the three things that need to be done today. I've got these two. Can you do this one? Or which of these can you do? Because I can't do all three. Something along those lines. multitasking, it really erodes our brain. Because you're using your brain in such an inefficient way. That's why we're tired all the time, anxious and all of this sort of stuff. Our brains are not designed for that on an ongoing basis. For a finite period of time, yes.

But to just say that women are good at multitasking, that's the way patriarchy keeps us knackered and shattered and scattered.

Alexandra (30:27)
and shattered and scattered, that is a bar. ⁓ I love it, no, and you're completely true. And it makes me so sad that the solutions you outline are so simple and accessible and readily available. And I know so many moms who could benefit from doing this, but I know some of them, if I told them, they would just be like, what? No, I need a two week holiday, that's what I need. And yes, you might also need a two week holiday, but there are tools within our reach. And I guess...

Tamu Thomas (30:28)
Yes, all of those.

Yeah.

Alexandra (30:55)
It's really finding a fine balance because you outline so articulately in your book how our society is the root cause for so many of these things. you know, when it's a societal issue, our individual power is stymied. We can't always express ourselves in the way that we need to. And so I don't want to blame moms or blame women for why they are.

this is happening, but also I think it's important that we do reclaim some power and say that, okay, there are things we can do to make our lives a bit easier and healthier.

Tamu Thomas (31:32)
⁓

On social media once I saw a post and it said it's not your fault but now it's your problem and that's it. Right? So in the first chapter of my book the first sentence is it's not your fault because it's not but when you know what you know you then have to start to make powerful choices so that you are not... when you don't know you don't know what you don't know.

Alexandra (31:41)
Woo, yeah.

Tamu Thomas (31:59)
My angel who told us when you know better you do better. So when we know that the systems and structures we live in are designed to keep women exhausted, to oppress groups and marginalise them, we then have to say, right, okay, I can see how I was conditioned to believe that this is the way I need to operate. Now I need to make a conscious choice to step away from that.

Alexandra (32:47)
I think we hear in the spiritual community a lot about spiritual practices for transcendence, know, like meditating to connect with your past life or meditating to connect with your Akashic records. And there's nothing wrong with that.

But I really, really love, because I'm a deeply practical person, I really love hearing how spirituality and the things we do daily can have a knock-on effect on our health and happiness and, as you say, your life purpose as well.

Tamu Thomas (33:12)
Yeah.

Yeah. And also the happiness. When you've experienced burnout, burnout conditions you to numb. So you cope by being in your freeze response, you numb everything because feeling feels really dangerous. So my spiritual practice helps me to feel and it helps me to, you know, we're living in a time where there is so much going on in the world. So much going on that can make you feel.

Alexandra (33:22)
Hmm.

Tamu Thomas (33:44)
guilty or ashamed for those moments of happiness, for ⁓ doing the things you love. And having a spiritual practice reminds me that everything, that it's everything. So lots of people, years ago somebody asked me whether or not I consider myself to be a shadow worker or a light worker. And I was like, you can't be a shadow worker without being a light worker. You can't be a light worker without being a shadow worker. Like it's all of it. If it's not all of it, it's bypassing.

Alexandra (34:08)
Exactly.

Tamu Thomas (34:13)
And for me, my spiritual practice enables me to hold the complexity and also the bliss. One doesn't take away from the other. In fact, it fuels me. And where people might think about things like rage, or ⁓ some people might talk about ⁓ social justice as being divisive, for example, for me, that's not the case at all. It's a radical act of love.

What enables it to be that radical act of love is how we utilise it. So in my book, ⁓ one of the core themes is I look at how what I call the trinity of oppression, so that's capitalism, white supremacy and patriarchy, how they come together to create environments where women, and then it's added difficulty if you are a woman of colour, somebody with disabilities, all of that, how it creates an environment where we feel like we've got no choice but to over function.

I wasn't talking about individual men, wasn't talking about individual white people, I wasn't talking about people who have got thriving businesses, I'm talking about systems that have a huge impact on how we relate. a couple of the two, literally two Amazon reviews were like, if you're a white woman, don't read this book because it's racist. And I was like...

You do not have the skills to zoom out and see the bigger picture. Whatever guilt or shame you're carrying has made you internalize this message as if I'm saying that individual white people, individual men, individual people who are wealthy are quote unquote bad. What I'm saying is that there are systems that support them at the expense of everybody else. And when you can get your head around that,

you will see, actually what I'm talking about is love and abundance for the many as opposed to the few at the expense of the many.

I don't care what anybody says to me. You can have all the money in the world. As a human being, it cannot feel good when you're driving down an A road in your Bentley and you stop at a traffic lights.

and somebody scurrying to wash your windscreen so that you can give them a few coins so they can go and buy a sandwich. Your wealth doesn't protect you from you feeling what a human being will feel. Now, what we can do to mask that feeling is say, that person didn't try hard enough, that person should have done this, that and the other. But when you strip that away, more often than not, people adopt those views to protect them from the

abject grief and sorrow they will feel if they actually ⁓ feel in to their humanity and recognize that it's very hard for humans to see other humans suffering.

Alexandra (37:12)
Yeah, I'm so glad you said that because I feel like it's a real frustration of mine within the spiritual community that things like activism are seen as separate from spirituality. I've even heard people on spiritual podcasts say like, I don't really get involved in politics because it lowers my vibration. And for me, spirituality and politics like.

Spirit and spirituality, one of the main tenets for me is that we're all connected and in radical activism, you're protesting, you're fighting because we know that we're all connected. My struggle is your struggle. And it's such a shame that that isn't seen as, they're not seen as more cooperative concepts rather than two distinctly different sides you can be on. And I think maybe if you're a person of color, if you're a black woman, if you're disabled, you have no choice but to see the link between the two.

Tamu Thomas (37:45)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Exactly.

And also because our society conditions us to do, do, most of us haven't had the support we need to be able to have the capacity to feel discomfort without wanting to shove it away. So a lot of people in spiritual circles who say they don't do politics more often than that, more often than not, it's because

they haven't had the opportunity to build the skill of holding complexity. Now, if we think about history, politics is what enabled a lot of us to practice spirituality in the way we do. Without politics, there were times where we all had to practice faith in a very prescribed way. Politics gave us these freedoms. You and I, we're both women, we identify as women.

Alexandra (38:35)
Mm.

Tamu Thomas (39:00)
Politics, for example the suffragette movement, enabled us to be operating the way we are. Feminism and the struggles and fights women had enabled us to do things like have a bank account in our own name, have a business in our own name, keep our inheritances where we've got it. The struggle, the fight for racial equality and equity meant that you and I have rights

that were denied to our ancestors previously. So I don't see how anybody could genuinely believe that politics and spirituality are different things. I think that it's much more about spiritual bypassing. And ⁓ one of the things about ⁓ white supremacy culture is that everything has to be nice. So when you look at the history of white supremacy, a lot of what they talk about was we were going to civilise.

We were going to help them. They were uncivilized. They didn't have religion. They didn't have order. So it's all about this thing about being nice, about being good people. And what often happens is, is that the conditioning, the systemic conditioning primes us for being nice over being true. Truth feels uncomfortable. Therefore it's not nice. If you make me feel these feelings that are uncomfortable, you're a bad person. You're causing me harm. Now I don't feel safe.

they're able to be a victim and you're now the bad guy. And we see this a lot, particularly when we're having conversations around things like diversity, equity and inclusion, because it's uncomfortable and because even in this abundant world we live in, people choose to see scarcity. They'll see that as, you're taking things away from me so that you can have it because you want to have power over me.

other than thinking about it like a matriarchy. A matriarchy is not the opposite of patriarchy. Matriarchy is ⁓ cyclical, it's an ecosystem. What we're talking about, something that is equitable and fair is let's share it amongst us all. I'm not saying that as somebody who has worked really hard and amassed wealth, we should take away what you've got and give it to people who haven't had the opportunities you have had.

But what I'm saying is that you should be taxed appropriately so that you can contribute back into the system so that the whole society can benefit. Because contrary to what you believe, nobody's self-made. You've used societal resources to be able to create your resources. So if we're looking at it on the basis of being an ecosystem, you will take pride and pleasure in feeding back in.

Alexandra (41:44)
Yeah, I think it's really incredible

that that is considered a deeply radical concept.

I'm gonna wrap up now with some quick fire questions about your spiritual practice. And I want to start with, how woo are you, Tamu?

Tamu Thomas (42:02)
⁓ I would say that I'm very like when I'm actually listening and I'm not running around doing doing I would say on a scale of one to ten maybe eight and a half

Alexandra (42:14)
Eight and a half, okay. So are you like talking to your guardian angels or carrying around crystals like I do? I've got my carnelian here.

Tamu Thomas (42:24)
So I've got, maybe it's fallen down, I had a crystal there. I've got loads, I've got an array round here. So when I was ⁓ visiting different publishers for my book deal, I had crystals in my bra. So yeah, I will do all of that. I am much more likely to make a change or a decision based on what spirit says or...

Alexandra (42:34)
amazing!

Tamu Thomas (42:54)
You know, I feel like I've got a relationship with my paternal grandmother. I never got to meet her. She died before I like when my dad was a child, but I feel like she gives me a lot of guidance. My granddad, who died in 2015, he will appear sometimes and give me advice. And that advice works way better for me than all of these strategies people are talking about.

Alexandra (43:03)
I love that.

Mmm.

Amazing. I love that. I'd love to talk to you more one other time about ancestral guidance because it's something I'm really getting into myself. When was the moment you realized the universe truly has your back?

Tamu Thomas (43:18)
⁓

Yeah.

Mmm.

There have been varying moments, but I think speaking about ancestral support, in 2022 I went to Ghana and I visited Cape Coast Castle, which was a fort where they held captured enslaved people. And I had a very visceral experience there with our collective ancestors. I was so ill and I had to be because they needed to bring me into my body so I could listen. And I am 100 % certain

that the support I received in that castle is what led me to getting my book deal.

Alexandra (44:09)
Can you elaborate?

Tamu Thomas (44:11)
So I went there, they gave me support. They said to me, all of this struggling I'm doing, I'm not supposed to do it. They've done a sh- Yeah, spirits. Yeah, sorry. Yeah. So in in the, in Cape Coast Castle, I felt very connected to everybody who had passed through there or everybody who had had an experience similar to that. So it was like our collective ancestors. And I got a very profound message.

Alexandra (44:17)
So they meaning spirits. Yeah.

Tamu Thomas (44:40)
but I have to stop efforting so much, I have to stop doing all this doing. They did the suffering and I'm supposed to stand on their shoulders, I'm not supposed to lie on the ground. Yeah, it was very, very moving. And they basically said they've done the hard work, I don't need to do that anymore. And that my actions need to be in celebration of them, not trying to be like my modern day version of them. So that was in Ghana.

and I was also doing a manifestation challenge, so it all coincided. And whenever I'm in, well only been to West Africa, but it feels like I'm in a docking station, so it feels like I'm really connected to whatever my source is. So came back from Ghana, I was speaking at MindBodySpirit Festival, the person who then became my editor at Hay House.

She came to my workshop. She said she knew I was going to be speaking. She had been following me on social media. She made sure she got cover so she could come to my workshop. And at the end of the workshop, she asked me if I was writing a book and if I thought about writing. And at that point in time, I was writing my book proposal and my book is, you know, at the intersection of politics, activism, spirituality, all of that. So when she said blah, blah, blah, hey, house, I thought,

Okay, I get my spiritual books from Hay House. I'm not sure that you would want to publish what I write about and talk about. And then fast forward, I met with publishers. Six publishers offered me book deals. Hay House was one of them and they offered me the most supportive and I'm not just talking about financially, but supporting me as a person. They offered me the most supportive book deal. And I know you can't tell me any different.

Alexandra (46:15)
Incredible.

Tamu Thomas (46:27)
ancestors lined that up.

Alexandra (46:30)
Absolutely, that gave me chills, honestly. And I love that the word that came through is stop efforting. I've never heard it being used in that way before, efforting, but all you had to do was relax because they've done the hard work for you. That's incredible.

Tamu Thomas (46:33)
Mmm.

Literally, and I used to have a

membership years ago when we used to play this game sometimes called relax and receive, like to be in that state of relaxation so that we're open to receive and loads of us got like flowers sent out of nowhere and this and that. But it was very much about being in that kind of like, you know, it's not just about expansion. It's about that constant expanding and contracting and expanding and contracting and being able to hold like, you know, when you're giving birth.

and the baby's about to crown and you've got to hold. That's the time you've got to hold because if you try to do anything, you're going to suck that baby back in and you're going to be like back to square one. Like that's literally, was like, hold yourself steady, hold the stair because it's coming. You just need to hold. ⁓

Alexandra (47:33)
amazing. And my

last question for you, how has motherhood changed you?

Tamu Thomas (47:40)
I think the latest iteration of motherhood has shown me how important it is for me to be who I'm supposed to be. So my child is now 18. She's about to go to the North of England to go to university. And what I am seeing in her is that how I am

has had much more of an impact on her than who I thought I should be or who I thought she should be.

Alexandra (48:10)
Can you explain what you mean by that?

Tamu Thomas (48:12)
So it's basically being a role model and actually showing up for holding myself accountable to how I want to live my life and how I want to role model for her. So one of the reasons why I left my ⁓ role and went freelance as a social worker ⁓ before setting up my business, I didn't want to role model for her what had been role modeled for me, which was women depleting themselves.

Alexandra (48:16)
Mm-hmm.

Tamu Thomas (48:41)
I wanted to show her that you can create work that enables you to live a really good life. That was really important to me. And so now I've seen that in other ways in how I interact with other people, how I hold myself to the standards I set for myself. Like who I am as a person is so important to who she believes she can be and what she accepts from other people.

Alexandra (49:08)
Yeah, amazing. almost like the more you step into your authentic self, the better it is for your child, which yeah.

Tamu Thomas (49:14)
And

the more powerful I allow myself to be, the more I normalise her being powerful, rather than normalising playing small.

Alexandra (49:21)
Yeah.

I can see that in my own relationship with my son as well, the more I prioritize the things that bring me joy, such as his podcast, I know I'm going to go downstairs and pick him up from his dad and just be so excited to be with him and so present because I've just had my heart filled in this way. So on that note, I'd like to thank you so much, Tamu, for taking the time out to join me. This was so much fun and I would urge anyone listening to read Woman Who Work.

Tamu Thomas (49:27)
Yeah.

Exactly, exactly. Yeah, yeah. Thank you for having me.

Alexandra (49:52)
because chances are all of us listening are working too much and don't know how to get out of that loop. And there are such practical, simple, actionable tips that can really change your life.

Tamu Thomas (50:04)
I agree wholeheartedly Alexandra, thank you very much.

Alexandra (50:05)
Thank you.