Why A Former Journalist Read A Thousand Self-Help Books

Your job title can feel like armour, right up until it disappears and you’re left asking a scary question: who am I without it? We sit down with Toni, a bibliotherapist and founder of the Shelf Help book club, to talk about burnout, identity, and the moment self-help stops being something you roll your eyes at and becomes something you genuinely need.

Toni shares how years in high-pressure tabloid journalism fuelled a relentless pace, and how stepping away brought an unexpected crash in confidence and self-worth. From her first self-help read at 38 to building an online community that discusses personal development books and interviews authors, she's learned that the goal is not “fixing yourself”. It’s getting to know yourself, building self-compassion, and making choices with intention rather than habit.

We also dig into the structure behind his pocket-sized book, You, The Beginner’s Guide: looking back at what shaped you, looking forward at who you’re becoming, then supporting your present with habits, routines, rituals, and boundaries. Along the way, we explore three powerful quotes that anchor the work, the hidden cost of hyper-independence, and why doing this in community can change everything, including how your nervous system feels day to day.

If you enjoy honest conversations about self-help, bibliotherapy, burnout recovery, and building a healthier relationship with yourself, press play. Subscribe, share with a friend who needs a gentler start, and leave us a review so more people can find the show.

Order Toni's book https://www.poundproject.co.uk/you

If you've enjoyed this episode, please leave me a review and subscribe! And if you want to learn more from me, come and say hello on Instagram @thecompletioncoach or via email at wendy@thecompletioncoach.co.uk or find out more about working with me on my website, thecompletioncoach.co.uk.

Transcript

Welcome Back And Meet Tony

SPEAKER_01 0:03

Welcome to And What Else, the podcast with me, Wendy Obern, also known as the completion coach. And we're back after quite an extended break. And I will cover that in a solo pod coming up. But for today, we have a guest, we have someone with us. So I'd love you to introduce yourself, Tony, and just tell us who you are and why you're here today.

SPEAKER_00 0:24

Hello, Wendy. Hello, everybody. Thank you for coming out of a semi-retirement for me, it sounds like. I really appreciate it. So my name is Tony, and I am a bibliotherapist, and I'm the founder of the world's first self-help book club. And I've met you, Wendy, through a lovely friend Claire, that we have in common. And you've invited me here to talk about my first book. So I have spent 10 years reading and sharing and doing self-help. And so I've read, I worked out over a thousand self-help books myself. And so I thought it was time I write my own. So You, The Beginner's Guide, is my first book. And it's a pocket-sized guide to self-help, and it really is what I wish I'd had, I suppose, 10 years ago before. I mean, I've loved the journey. It's been, it's been intense at times. It's been a bit of a wild ride. But I feel, as somebody who, as we'll go through, I'm sure you'll realize I like a plan. I like homework. I like things to do. And so when I started my self-help journey and I was meeting therapists and coaches and was told quite often, um, no homework, just sit with how you're feeling, just sit with what you're uncovering. I feel like I wish I'd had a bit of a plan as well. What it led up to me was jumping off and reading all these books, which has been amazing. And I now teach self-help as my job. So I have an online community, an online book club, and I interview authors every other week at least. So constantly learning, constantly a work in progress, I think.

SPEAKER_01 1:47

So you've got a really popular podcast. Is that linked into the authors and going through exactly what their book was trying to convey?

SPEAKER_00 1:54

My podcast is The Bibliotherapists, and I host that on Substack. So that's a little bit different. That's a bit more about writing craft, I suppose, and writing and reading and words as a way to support our well-being. Whereas with shelf help, I'm getting into the theories and the research and interviewing experts and authors generally about the books and about their stories. Whereas the bibliotherapists, quite often it's people who are creatives or writers or podcasters and how they use words to support their life. So they might be an author or they might not, but they're definitely a writer or a creative in some capacity.

SPEAKER_01 2:31

I love that. And through your history, just for the people that don't know, just take me to who you were before you tipped into self-help.

Burnout From Deadline Driven Work

SPEAKER_00 2:39

Sure. What kind of person needs to read a thousand self-help books? Which I I don't know if I I don't know if I recommend it, everybody, but I do love self-help and I want you to read self-help, maybe not that many. Yeah. So pre- my in a previous life, I was a journalist for many years, so 15 years or so. Um and I was a tabloid journalist. So I worked for some of the world's biggest newspapers and websites, and that brought with it many highs and many amazing relationships and many amazing teachers and learnings, but also lots of lows. And it was a very intense deadline-driven, pressure-driven cooker, pressure cooker, I suppose, of just producing and delivering and being on that high deadlines and high alert constantly. So I think well, I did I burnt out, and that's when I discovered self-help. So I didn't, I read my first self-help book when I was 38, and I'd already been writing and reading, but reading news more for a job since I was like 22. So uh I think I'd kind of fallen out of love with reading for myself because I just had to read all the newspapers and all the news stories constantly every day. And writing was just something I did on demand, so it was done to deadline and to someone else's agenda, as with all news outlets and news publications, and so I think I got to a point where I was just churning out this work, not taking any kind of care of myself. Like I did work for very notorious news sites, which are hard to work for, anybody would say that, but I also didn't do myself any favours because I also went out hard, so I wasn't looking after myself at all. So I got to a point of 38 and I was in proper, like I suppose, self-sabotage mode. I didn't take care of myself in any way. I didn't take care of anyone else that I was in my life properly, and I and I didn't even really know that it was a thing. I think I just had spent so long and like with hindsight and looking back, I feel it kind of feels mad, but also I feel a bit sad about it. But it's just I know lots of us live like this, and people who listen to to you and who work with you are probably a bit further down a self-aware path than I was at that point. But it honestly took me burning out having to leave my job because it was making me ill and having to just sit by myself with myself for the first time ever in my life, like at the age of 38, and pick up this book. My first book was by Paul McKenna, Change Your Life in Seven Days. And the joke is it's taken me 10 years to really finish and do all the work in that book. But I think previous life, very hectic, very high-pressured, very lots of needing lots of external validation. You know, it's it's and when I stopped working for The Sun, I worked for a long time, and they were the biggest newspaper in the world at the time. And then I moved to the Mail Online, biggest website in the world, probably still actually. So those, whatever you think about those titles, they give you a certain kind of identity, don't they? So and anyone who works for any big company, I think, probably will feel that. So moving away from that is when things actually got really difficult for me because although it was difficult going to work every day and kind of keeping up with this relentless pressure, take that away. And who who was I? A nobody. And so that was a that actually was a time when I would say it's my was the darkest time. It was it was after choosing to leave the job because then there was some kind of, I suppose, I had some agency and empowerment over it. So I'm like, I've made this decision, I'm leaving this career that I've worked at for 15 years. I don't know what I'm gonna do, but I need to do some, I just needed to do something else. And we'll talk about this hopefully in it shortly. The idea of like I think I love the quote, pain pushes until vision pulls, and it's by Dr. Michael Bernard Beckworth. And the idea that I I was just, I don't know what I was pushing against, but I I didn't ever spend any time strategically thinking about my life or what I wanted to do or how I was taking care of myself. So taking myself out of the job and out of that life gave me for the first time, I suppose, the opportunity, which isn't easy, as you know, as the as I'm sure listeners know, being by yourself and doing that the thinking and the reading. And then I started therapy. And so that's when 10 years ago is really when that all started.

SPEAKER_01 6:46

What's really interesting, there's a couple of things that stood out for me that I'd love to go into a little bit further. But usually this will resonate with people listening, the identity being so entwined with what I do for a living, because a lot of the people I work with are hyper-independent, type A, have a plan, but also get lost in this identity of work and what I do and who am I without it is a lot of the work that I end up doing with people. But I am fascinated that the title you picked was How to Change Your Life in Seven Days because you can see within that, as I've got to turn this around, right? There's that whole seven days, something within maybe that I'm always fascinated by what book people pick up first because it shows you so much in the world and what you were seeking at that time. And your job previously, your life had been so adrenaline-based that even the first element of self-help there was like, How can we do this and how can we turn this round? Like, it's almost a deadline, right? This seven days, this best work, and the iron being ten years.

The Question That Starts Change

SPEAKER_00 7:52

I know that's hilarious. I've never thought about it like that, but you're right, it's a plan. It's like do this every day for seven days, and you will you will receive. I don't know what I was looking for, I think peace is was my man was what would just went round in my head. I just need peace, I just need peace. So, but yeah, you're right. And I I suppose the idea of everything that I learned in that book is what then set me off in in all these other directions, but it was stuff that anyone in any kind of personal development, or anyone who knows anything probably about mental health or emotional health, might know. But just the idea that you don't need to pay attention to everything you think, like that to me was it was the first thing I learned and it blew my mind. Like I didn't understand that there was there was an option that I could just be like, thanks for the memo. That's not useful to me today, moving on, or I wonder where that's come from, or why do I always talk to myself like that? And why is it so horrible? So all these things are big, big things to discover when you're 38, I think, or anytime. So yeah, I didn't really think about the fact that it did have a deadline. That is funny. And I've I've since interviewed Paul McKenna, the author, several times for the book club and also for my book. And he he loves it, he loves the idea that he loves the fact that the first question in the book is what sent me on this whole journey. And that question is you woke up it you wake up tomorrow in your dream life, what does it look like? And that's supposed to be a nice question, it's supposed to be a lovely, juicy question where you can get expansive and visualize and start daydreaming about how you want to be spending your time and who you want to be with and all that kind of stuff. But for me, someone who'd never thought about, I think I just reacted to life and hustle had got me quite far. I did have a good job, I did have a good relationship. Well, I had I had a relationship. I I still have the same relationship, thank God, because he's an amazing person, but I don't know how good it was at the time for him or me. Um, but yeah, I'd never I'd never really kind of daydreamed about anything. I just sometimes I knew what I wanted. I knew what I wanted to get to London, I knew I wanted to work in journalism, I knew I wanted to go out with this dude. So some things did happen, but the idea of sitting down and just daydreaming and and and thinking about nice things for me was very foreign. So that's so that's the question that kind of started it all.

SPEAKER_01 10:13

Yeah, and I completely resonate with that. Um again, age-wise, we're on quite a similar track. One of the things that tripped me the most was somebody asking me, I'd come out of a relationship some years before, and in that time somebody just asked me in the car one day what music do you like? And I was like, Oh, I don't know how to answer this because I don't know you well enough. And it really just showed me that I had a brilliant ability to match wherever I was.

SPEAKER_00 10:43

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 10:44

By knowing them, by knowing what they liked, so that I could in some way fit and belong within that. And in that one question in that car journey, I was just like, oh, I don't know anything about myself, I don't know what food I like, I don't know what music I like, I don't know why I'm dressing like this, I don't know why I'm in the career I'm in. Once you put me on a ladder, rather smash a ladder. But who I was, my identity was completely aligned with what it needed to be. And that was the one question. That car journey was the thing that stopped me in my track. And like, I can't answer this. Um, and so I do think again, we're not generationally, we certainly weren't given any exposure to this is what your mind is about, this is even what emotional health is. None of these things have been discussed. I think it was a general get on and get on with life. And it's a really interesting thing now. I've got such a fascination with how our language and our words influence certainly our life, and I'm banging on about it a lot recently. And I love that language and words have always been in your life in some way or another, and just how they've taken you on such completely different journeys based on what you were reading and what you were saying and what you were writing and what you were creating, just how big an impact that alone can have in somebody's life. Because at one point, if I'm not my job, if I'm not doing anything, I'm nobody. And that just so many people can I identify with that. I think so many people know who they are and what they do. But if you ask them anything outside of that, is when they start to go, I don't know, to stop asking me questions. So for you that first question I get I get that. Like if people asked me at the time, what's my vision, I'd have been like, What are you on about? Like, what do I need to do? Just tell me what I need to do and I'll do it. But I don't know how to think beyond this box because I've never done it.

SPEAKER_00 12:48

Yeah, and am I allowed to do it? There's there's all that, isn't it? When you actually dig into it. So I think for you, it's like it sounds like you were almost saying, What do you want? What music do you want me to like? And I'll tell you, right? And for me, it was like, um, well, I don't think I really deserve a nice life, so I'm lucky to have the one I have, maybe. I don't think I even knew what gratitude was then. But yeah, it's just the idea of being able to give them permission, isn't it? Almost like I think we both needed that, which is a bit sad, but at some point you get you give it to yourself, don't you? And then you give yourself permission to start thinking differently and maybe wanting different things and accepting that you might not know the answers, but to start to find the answers is the start of this this journey, isn't it?

Why Writing Your Own Book Is Hard

SPEAKER_01 13:33

Yeah, to really give in space and time. And even in this, you being a writer in a sense in all realms, how how easy was it to tackle writing your own book?

Three Steps To Know Yourself

SPEAKER_00 13:47

Really hard, like really, really hard. Because I've spent 10 years, so I I've been doing the the shelf help club for eight years. So that is my self-help book club and now online community. And there we choose, I choose, well, I choose the books, and I choose a different book every two months now. But I'm always we're always talking about someone else's words, and we're all talking about someone else's ideas and someone else's theories. And I suppose as a journalist, I love interviewing people, I love talking to people, I love telling other people's stories. Um, so my writing previously has always been, or anything I created has always been based on that. And I think even though I am sharing this book and asking my community to read it, or talking about it on social or writing about it and telling people I believe in it, and it's helped me, it's still it's still, I'm still kind of hiding behind, maybe not hiding behind, but I'm I'm platforming someone else, and I feel really comfortable doing that. Like, and I'm really happy to and I will continue doing that because that's what I love to do, and it's how I learn myself. So being given my own opportunity to talk about my own story. I mean, I'm quite comfortable talking about my story, like if people are interested. I don't feel I don't get nervous about that anymore. But I think saying this is what I think and this is what I recommend to do, that's that's harder for me than sharing a story about what happened when I was, I don't know, a teenager or but that I used to drink too much or whatever. I'm really comfortable talking about all that stuff because I feel like I'm at peace with it and it's helpful to people. But me saying self-compassion is where you should start if you're wanting to find out like about yourself. And even the title, so it's just we called it you, the beginner's guide. I had all these kind of different titles in my head, like work in progress, who are you becoming? And my publisher was like, Is it is it a beginner's guide? Like, do who are you talking to? So it's very much getting into that mindset of, yeah, who is this book for? Who do I want to help? And I think understanding that and kind of the title then made it easier because it's like bring it all back to what did what would I have liked or what would I have needed 10 years ago. So even though the therapist is right, you do need to sit with these feelings that come up when you start, I suppose, digging into you, but also that first book helped me so much because it introduced me to lots of different concepts and ideas and strategies and topics. And so, for anyone who likes to be guided a little bit, that's kind of what I want to be and what I want this book to be. I've come to the conclusion that it's not about fixing an aspect of yourself or fixing yourself, self-help is really about getting to know yourself. And I remember when I first started reading this stuff, and when I started Shelf-help, the club, the reason I started it is because I couldn't believe everybody didn't know this. And also I needed other people to talk to about it, right? Because this is all kind of new concepts. And I remember thinking, I think we all just need to like ourselves a bit more. Like, I think I need like I don't why don't I like myself? Like, why don't I like myself enough to think about a nice daydreamy morning in my miracle life? And then I realized from doing these meetups and connecting with people kind of really organically on social, and I was realizing that lots of us don't really have a relationship with ourselves. And so I think this book, like the idea of improving your relationship with yourself, that language doesn't necessarily speak to people who are at the very beginning, right? You and we love these questions now. And if I said to you, how's your relationship with yourself today? even if it wasn't great, you could answer it. Like we like I I know I have a relationship with myself now, you do too. At the time I didn't, I was, like I said, just reacting to life, as lots of people do. So I think what I want this book to give people and to show people is that there are ways to investigate that and to improve that. So a method that I use on myself and what the book is an intro guide to is as I've said, because I like a plan, it's like great, get to know yourself. Who are you? Do you like yourself? Like and I I ask authors actually every time I interview them a self-help author, I will say, How would you describe your relationship with yourself? And it's their favorite question always. Sometimes it takes them a while to answer, and usually it's things like curious or kind or playful. And it's like they've generally quite positive if they're a self-help author. But I thought I need something that helps people who don't understand that this is even a thing. So let's break it down into a plan and just three steps, but make it really simple. And I feel like most of us spend our time either in the past or the future, and so let's harness that. I want people to be able to connect to their past versions of them and with self-discovery and with the some compassion into what has shaped them into who they are today. I want people to be able to connect with their future version of themselves and give themselves a bit of direction. So there's three questions throughout the book. The first question, what has shaped you? The second question is who are you becoming? Because the idea that we're becoming someone, whether we're intentional about it or not, like who I was becoming when I worked for the mail 10 hours a day and spent all weekend in the pub and didn't pay any attention to myself or anyone who cared about me is very different than who I'm becoming now based on things that I've changed. So that's about connecting with the present self, right? So I've looked at maybe my dream morning or just maybe what I don't want to become. I quite often used to look at my bosses at the newspaper and think, I don't think I want to become you. So how do we stop that happening? And then it's about connecting with our present self and how do you run your days? What are your habits? What are your routines? What are your rituals? What are your boundaries like? So I think a lot of the work that I do with shelf help and with the stuff I share is probably in step three, which is life support. So what do you need right now? Because that's about things that we can introduce into our now to make us feel healthier and happier and move us towards that version. But for anyone who's just starting on this journey of getting to know themselves and like themselves more, I feel like the self-discovery part is important, the life design part is important, and using the information that we get from those two explorations, then we can start shaping what our life is today. So that's probably quite a long-winded way of saying it's a three-step guide to to understanding yourself better.

SPEAKER_01 20:14

Yeah, but I think again, for people that haven't explored that, like a relationship with yourself, for me, once upon a time, was just like, what are you banging on about? Like, I am me. And that was all I could figure out. The idea of again, that reflection was probably in my relationships as well of just get on with it. Rather than how are we together? What is like, what do we value? Where are we going? What would this look like? That hadn't crossed any part of my mind when I started this, and these first questions and this kind of process again is quite similar. I did read the same book, by the way, which is why I I also know I was like, How quickly can I turn this round? What can I do with this? But I remember those books being still quite alien to me at the time. I was just like, I kind of get it, and I kind of think, is this all nonsense? Should I just be cracking on with what I was doing? I was so disassociated from the idea of liking myself in reality, andor having any real input into my day-to-day, like choice being something that was in there, and aligning to what I was saying yes to, what I was saying no to. I was out all of the time, and that character of the drinker, the party girl, the person that can be at everything was also just another form of identity to hide because I didn't know who I was. But when I look back at that version of me, I have so much compassion that was doing the best she could with what she had because she didn't have much by way of tools whatsoever. And so just from you saying out that that's the way that people Are going to start and explore themselves. I think it's so necessary. And we may call it a beginner's guide, but I'm like, the basics are never basic. They're what I come back to all the time. We did this on Saturday. I came to a retreat day where you were speaking and did this exercise and got so much value from going through the questions, from going through the quotes you're going to reflect on as well. And they just struck chords still in so many ways. And so I would again urge, although we may call this a beginner's guide, and that's certainly yeah, I would have needed this book without doubt. But also the basics are never basic. There's such important questions, there's such important reframes. And I think sometimes we think we're on this journey that we forget to do the basics that are so important as a regular reflection.

unknown 22:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:51

But for those quotes, could you just go through that one for me?

Self-Compassion And The Quotes We Live By

SPEAKER_00 22:56

Yeah, sure. Can I just say though, Wendy, first, guess what the first quote in the book is? Um, it's the Maya Angelou quote that you basically just paraphrased and quoted, which is do the best you can until you know better and then do better. So that's funny, isn't it? It just gave me goosebumps that you said that. Because so each each step has a quote, and because self-help books love a quote, and I and I just assumed when I was going to write my book that I'll just pick some quotes that like, you know, talk to. And then actually when I started thinking about it, I was like, there are there are three quotes that I love and I use and I live by or have lived by. And the first one, which relates to step one, which is self-discovery, is do the best you can can until you know better, right? Paraphrasing it. And I think it's even paraphrased by Oprah. And I don't know if my Angelou actually said that quote, having researched it now, but I don't really mind because I feel I'm not a purist about stuff like this, as long as we're crediting where it came from and the intention behind it is totally pure, isn't it? And the idea with that is it's very much about self-compassion. It's very much rooted in that. Like I interviewed an author called Kate Northrop, who writes her book is Money, a love story, but she writes a lot about how to disentangle your relationship with money, which also comes down to self-worth, ultimately, self-worth and value, valuing yourself. And I talked to her about a time in my life which I call the lost years or the hot mess years, depending on who I'm talking to about it. And I just said, and and one of the exercises she shares is rewrite your history with rose-tinted glasses. So look back and something, if it's a difficult time, um, then you can rewrite it with a positive ending, or or what did you get from it? And I just said, I can't find anything positive about this. It was a waste of money, it was a waste of time, it was a waste of my energy and life. And then she just said, Well, it's just forgiveness, then it's self-forgiveness and it's self-compassion. And she taught me through this exercise. And this is on a live call with my community as well. But I I had one of those, like as I often have, just those light bulb moments of like, right, okay. So everything can't be fixed, everything can't be changed, even sometimes in your head. So the idea then is self-compassion. And so that my Angelou quote and the understanding around I was doing whatever I was doing for a reason, and it wasn't necessarily the right thing to do based on what I know now and what I understand about my values now and and who's important to me now. But at the time it was some kind of survival and it was some kind of reaction and it was some kind of yeah, it was necessary. And now that I know better, I do do better. And sometimes it's annoying to know better, isn't it? Because sometimes I'd love to just go back to not knowing some of the stuff I know because it's easier, it's sometimes easier, isn't it? But I don't really mean that. I just think sometimes when you don't know, you can just kind of keep sleepwalking through life and then you wake yourself up and then you're like, okay, now I need to try a bit harder at some things or do some things a bit differently.

SPEAKER_01 25:48

I wouldn't touch on that. I think that's the same. I say self-awareness is a pain in the arse sometimes because with self-awareness, you know you've got choices and you know you've got a level of responsibility within it. Whereas previously, who wasn't self-aware, A just thought life happened and this is how you get on with it, but B, numbing it out completely was I'm not happy, but if I go out tonight, I can just ignore that. Yeah, and I can move on. So I was ignoring every problem through the lens of no awareness at all. It wasn't intentional, it's just how I thought people lived. But now I'm like, oh, here's the problem, and I've got the awareness, and now I can't ignore it. Yeah, and not having that ignorance sometimes, that ability to go, do you know what? Oh, let's let's avoid it at all costs. I don't want to, it's easier not to type.

SPEAKER_00 26:47

Have you heard of the model from unconscious incompetence through to unconscious competence, isn't it? So the idea that you don't know there's a different way to be, so and so you're not behaving like that, and then you start to know there's a different way to be, but you still don't behave like that, and then you start to choose a different way and try hard to behave the way you want to, and eventually it becomes unconscious and you just do it. And I think I do really relate to that model and that idea of moving through. Um, but you can't go back to the unconsciousness.

SPEAKER_01 27:19

No, even if you trying to like, I do know, but it's that pain point of do you know most people that come into session with me certainly are only tentative, not about what we're going to explore, but the fact that they are almost in agreement now that they're gonna handle what they explore and there's this part of them before that knows that it's there, but I'm also ignoring it. But choosing to do something about it now feels like such a big step. And I think the thing that most people are apprehensive about is knowing they've got a choice but ignoring it to knowing I've got a choice and choosing it. Um that's a massive hurdle. It sounds like the obvious right choice, but it's such a big one to come over to and actually want to get into because it it handles all of our wounds, but also it's you know, in a world where we're taught almost to be easygoing to get on with things and just not cause problems, you feel like a problem.

Community Beats Going It Alone

SPEAKER_00 28:22

Yeah, because and not everybody's doing it, and that's makes it hard, that makes it harder. So sometimes it's easier to just go to the pub with all your friends like you always did, versus suggesting, can we try to do something like a lunch or could we? I mean, at the beginning of self-help, I tried to make everyone read self-help and until I annoyed everyone way too much, and now I appreciate not everyone's ready, and so I lead by example instead. That's what I try and do. But yeah, when you become evangelical about something, you feel like, why doesn't why isn't everybody waking up to this? But eventually you realize, as I'm sure you know, that yeah, it's the people who want to do the work are the ones ready to do the work and will do it and will reap the benefits from it. But it can be quite a lonely path, I think, can't it? And so finding other people so doing this work in community is it is one of my the big things that I try and celebrate and promote and and communicate because even though self-help obviously is inner work, but the name self-help I say is a bit of a misnomer because actually when you do it with other people, it's much more powerful and it makes you feel less alone and it may and it will make you be more likely to stick stick with it and to still do it.

SPEAKER_01 29:34

Yeah, and again, I think there's irony because just speaking through my own lens, when I was let's say in that sense, more popular, sitting in the pub doing whatever in agreement, I was actually really lonely, but I was surrounded by people, so it didn't look that way. And then when you start to explore this and you go through this curve of feeling quite alone, and then when you do meet people and there's actual connection, you realize that that was for me personally, there was a lot less connection in the rebooked and out all of the time, and now there's genuine connection within things, so it's just seeing that you know, again, words have such power, yeah. But in reality, just because I was in these spaces, booked, busy, and out and constant, actually I was quite lonely because I also didn't know myself terribly well, so I couldn't afford connections and I couldn't um be fully myself, and then coming to here and meeting people as yourself and forming connections gives a completely different level of fulfillment, but it's a bumpy road there.

SPEAKER_00 30:42

Yeah, and there's a level of vulnerability, isn't it? That you're when you're more yourself, because not everybody likes everybody, that's fine, and so I think understanding that you're not for everybody, whether you are writing a book or whether you're just trying to be yourself and choose to live your life how you want to, is a really freeing thing. And understanding you don't like everyone, everyone doesn't have to like you, and that's fine. But when you find the people you really connect with, I think for me, it just I mean, I still am really good friends with lots of my from previous life friends, but that's because they are going on similar journeys. We're like supporting each other. So sometimes Dan, my husband, will say, Don't shelf help me if he's like, I don't know, pissed off about something. And I'll say, You, you know, maybe that person that ran in front of you as having a bad day, and he's just like, I just want to be pissed off for a minute, don't shelf help me. But then maybe later on he'll say, I just think your nervous system's a lot more regulated than mine. I'll say, It is darling, because I read this book last week. So it's more about meeting people where they're at, right? And yeah, you can be surrounded by people, you can have the busiest diary ever and be very lonely. Like there's very there's a difference, isn't there, between like alone versus lonely. I've only started spending time by myself in the last few years because I used to be scared terrified of it. And I used to think that said a lot about me, as well as I didn't really want to just hang out with me because why would I? Because I didn't like me. Like, why would I like I think in the untethered soul he thinks talks about yourself as like being an annoying roommate, like the person in your head that you don't want to hang out with because they're just annoying and mean. So I think surrounding myself by people always has been definitely a way to show everybody and show myself that life's great and I'm okay, and it must be because look at all my friends and look at how busy I am. And now I'm not maybe that version of myself. I still have lots of lovely friends, but we just connect in different ways.

SPEAKER_01 32:36

Yeah, and I think that's the thing, it's just sometimes what we see on paper and the idea that being not at everything or by yourself, again, worrying about what that would look like to other people. I definitely had all of that, which is why I was at everything, even if I was on my knees, like I haven't got any energy, I can't really afford this, and I don't have the time really, but still being there, still doing it, and still just being in this really focused, what does it look like part of my life to coming into this curious era where it's just like, Oh, do I actually want to go? Why would I be going? What's driving my behavior? And that's things that just run through my head quite naturally now. Yeah. That are that constant kind of what are we up to? And what do you want to do? Which is a question never considered, like, what do you want to do?

SPEAKER_00 33:29

Yeah, being intentional. Like so the exercise we did at the retreat was looking at our like our time, energy, and money as resources that we have, but that we have choice over how we spend them, even if it doesn't feel like it sometimes, but they all run out. So if you're saying yes to something, what are you going to be saying no to in the in the short term or sometimes in the long term, you don't know yet. But it's I loved your, I think you talked about you do things to 70% these days, and I think I love that. And it was like that's quite a new idea to me that you don't have to be, yes, I've got this much money and time and energy, so I'll I'll obviously run them all to zero and then start again. But it's like, oh no, the idea that I can just go to I can do 70% of something, and isn't that quite a nice soft place to be?

SPEAKER_01 34:14

Yeah, I think it's interesting, but actually that response was only something I figured out on that day. So I hadn't put language to the fact that I was doing it until the question was asked. And I think that again putting language to things, coming back into those words, and these quotes that have had such a driving impact for you to reflect by and constantly give yourself guidance through them. I think it's really beautiful because I know the ones that I repeat to myself are often the same ones all of the time. One of my favourites being that like the definition of madness is doing the same thing on repeat and expect a different outcome. Yeah, but myself doing it, and I'm just like, oh, you are in the phase of madness here, Wendy. Like, what what are you expecting to change here?

SPEAKER_00 35:02

But you say at least I'm self-aware though. So that's fine.

SPEAKER_01 35:05

But it it just shows me where I'm at. Yeah. So I know you've got three, and I know I keep interrupting them, but what are those?

SPEAKER_00 35:14

Okay, so we've got Maya Angelou for step one. So that's self-discovery and giving yourself the compassion to to look back and we yeah, with kindness. And so for step two, I think I mentioned it earlier, which is but that's life design, that's looking forward. So the quote that I reflect on there a lot is pain pushes until vision pulls. And that is yeah, Dr. Michael Bernard Beckwith in his life visioning book. And the idea there is what are you running away from? What are you running towards? And for most of us, or for lots of us, and for me previously, it was very much a running away from being with myself because I didn't really think I wanted to spend much time hacking around understanding her, and so I think the idea that you're being pushed to behave or live a certain way until you're able to be craft a vision for yourself or craft an understanding of where you want to go, and that will become at some point stronger. And there is very much, and I think I felt in my own life a tipping point from I'm just running, running, running, and I'm just gonna keep busy and keep doing that till I want to create this thing now. And I think you took you mentioned the word responsibility. So, although it's not really a sexy word, it's very motivating when you feel a responsibility to create something good because you can see it's impacting people and it's impacting you. So for me, running this the shelf help club became as something I just needed. I just needed some new people to talk to about self-help because my friends and my husband were like over it. So I started connecting with people and then I started realizing the impact of doing this the work together with other people, but also that I was I was by accidentally leading this thing that people were finding and gravitating towards and getting a lot from. And so I I started to feel and I now feel very much like I want to make this great and I want it to be successful and I want to scale the community and the idea of shelf help and my work because then I can impact more people and connect more people. So when I'm a bit bored of hearing myself on Instagram or when I don't want to write the book because it's hard, I have to be intentional as to your point earlier. Like, why am I doing these things? And so that idea of vision pulling you towards something, it's like, well, to be pulled towards something, you have to have the vision in the first place, which means going back to the original question, what does dream life look like? For most of us, it isn't I just wake up on my yacht and count my money all day. I mean, that'd be fun for a day, right? But actually, the dream life for me, and I imagine for lots of other people, is doing something that lights you up, living with value, living in integrity, sharing your time and your money and your energy and being able to make a difference in the world. So I think crafting that is then able to influence my behaviour in the now. So that's why that I love that quote for that. And I just love the whole visioning process of again, I think that's step two for a reason. So the step one is looking backwards, and and that would be all that kind of self-reflection that most of us don't ever do. Once we feel comfortable doing that and we've got more of a handle on who we are, then let's get excited about who we can become. And that kind of sense of possibility and who are you becoming to me is just delicious and huge and wonderful. And then um, the third quote, I'm just gonna make sure I get it exactly correct. So this is for step three, and step three is life support. So this is what do you need right now? So, what do you need in the moment to be healthy and be happy? And the quote is from Brene Brown, and it says, We don't have to do all of it alone, we were never meant to. And this quote is all over my website. It's the first quote that I started sharing with people, and I still stand by it as being one of the most important concepts to me and to shelf help. The idea that we think we have to do all this by ourselves, like we think we have to do life by ourselves, no matter how many contacts and friendships and all that kind of stuff we have, and ultimately you are your own responsibility. But the idea that you don't have to do the hard stuff on your own and you shouldn't be expected to, it's not what we're built to do, like it's not what your nervous system needs, it's not what your mental health needs. So the idea that you can start learning about yourself, but also doing that in community and with other people, and that you can ask for help. And even if help is just like, yeah, can you help me not drink this week? And can we do something else? So I was terrible at that before. I would never talk to anyone about anything important. I'm a I'm a good listener, I'm a journalist, I ask good questions, and I've always been, I think, in my friendship group and my family dynamics, generally the uh silent and bossy older sister is my kind of, I suppose, role. But when I've actually started saying to people, I find this hard, or I need help doing this, or did you know this about me and what could and what shall I do? That was was a game changer. So, from the point of all the things that we can do to help ourselves in the now, and there's there's thousands of things, and that's very much what I want people to take away from the book, I think, and from my work is there's always something you can do to change your life. It could be a very small thing now, like get outside, listen to a song, speak to someone you care about. And for me, the connection and the community and the social health side of side of things has been huge in a like I've always known that I like people, but I didn't really appreciate how nourishing and valuable and important the connections are, and also how important that and how negative they can be as well if you have the wrong ones. So the idea that we don't need to do it on our own, but also to be maybe intentional about who you're inviting in and who you're spending your energy on.

SPEAKER_01 40:47

So in the audience that listens to my podcast, that you don't have to do it all alone is going to be sending you all into gulping, closing your eyes, retracting, mainly hyper-independence, mainly very capable and mainly built such a defense around being helped because at some point in life they very much felt like they weren't helped, and so they've built this identity around being the strong one, being the being the caretaker, being the one that can help everybody else, but never asks for help and feels like asking for help is being a burden because that's it imprinted within them. And I know certainly it was me, hence that's become such a big part of this work for me, and it still makes me chuckle. Uh in the gym, somebody offered to fast me my weights the other day, and I was like, No, I'll do it. And I was like, Oh, you know, just couldn't just say yes, thank you. There was a bit like no, let me struggle.

SPEAKER_00 41:43

I'll show you. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 41:46

But it is down to struggle, and even that second quote, which was that pain pushes, the pain for me was still the identity of suffering, which I didn't know I had because I hadn't done the first step. So I didn't know what was pushing me was actually just this constant feeling of it, you suffer, just get on with it, you're gonna suffer, you're gonna be the one that's then the fixer, and losing the identity of pushing forward with suffering to looking at a vision of what do I want and opening myself to it meant I had to open up to other people, I had to open up uh different support, asking people things, being vulnerable, which felt like a weakness. So it was always like, be strong, stay strong, surface level it, get out of here. So I just think this it's such a beautiful order of practice, and one that I again really recommend everybody sits with at least once or twice a year as a reflection of like, where am I? Where's this taking me? And is that the direction that I've set this vision to? Am I still on that course or has the vision changed? Like, what's the self-honesty within all of this? Because I think it's a real practice to be honest with yourself because it's really easy to kid ourselves, especially in a world of distraction, that we are doing our best or that we are opening up or that we are trying to change when we're just leaving it to roll over to the task we'll do tomorrow or the thing we'll look at next week.

SPEAKER_00 43:16

So I know it's on sale from now until the 26th is 26th of May, so it's limited edition, it's done with an independent publisher, so it's very much uh yeah, three weeks and then we're out. So my first book project. I'm excited because it means that I can put proper energy behind it and be for three weeks ask for people's help, as we just talked about.

SPEAKER_01 43:37

So for this first book, I'm gonna ask what's your vision for where this goes and where it takes you?

SPEAKER_00 43:47

Well, I th I really want this book to uh to be an entry level guide for people who might not before have considered self help for them. So I think that's what I wanna do. I'm just gonna show you my book actually. So it's only it's only very Little. It's a pocket guide and it's yellow and white. So it's very non-threatening and non-self-helpy. So the the Paul McKenna book, it's got his lovely face on the front, but quite a few people, when we read it, said, I don't want to be reading that on the tube. I don't want everyone to know that I'm trying to change my life with Paul McKenna. So I just specifically designed this book with that kind of minimal, non-threatening gift it. Anybody, it could be, you can read it anywhere, it could be on the side, and it's not, you're not sharing too much of your deep dark secrets with the world. But yeah, it's available at poundproject.co.uk forward slash you until the 26th of May. And yeah, I think what I want people to take from it is the curiosity that you just touched on beautifully there. The idea of ask the I think we've we've realized in this conversation, and we both know it anyway, is that questions are so important. So I'd love people to come away and be able to answer some of those questions with of like the dream morning or what has shaped you or who are you becoming, or start answering them and then probably have more questions as a result of that, which is really, which is really probably the best, best outcome.

SPEAKER_01 45:07

Thank you for coming and sharing that. Everybody, I will pop in the show links exactly where you can find Tony, where you can order the book. And yeah, just congratulations on doing that, overcoming all the self sabotage that stops us from sometimes putting our our actual point of view. And I'm really excited to read it and see where it goes.

SPEAKER_00 45:28

Well, thank you. Thank you for having me. Thanks for buying as well. Appreciate you so much. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 45:33

I brought the the autographed copy, so I'm ready for this to become the first of many.