Women in healthcare are burning out in droves, not just because

of the workload we can see, but because of the load that we can't.

And until we name it, we can't change it.

I'll be honest, today's episode is one I've hesitated to release,

partly because what we talk about feels very personal and very live for

me, and partly because I want to be clear, this is not about man bashing.

It's about something deeper, much more human, and something

that affects all of us.

I am joined by Tamu Thomas, former social worker, coach, and

author of Women who Work Too Much.

Tamu has spent years helping women unpack toxic productivity over responsibility

and the invisible emotional labor we take on without even realizing it.

And what she shares in this episode is full of honesty, truth and insight

that we don't talk about nearly enough.

We are talking about the emotional load, the invisible work that keeps homes,

families, teams, and relationships going.

The noticing, planning, remembering, anticipating, and while many men

carry this load too, the reality is that it still defaults to women far

more often, not because we choose it, but because many of us have been

socialized to carry it since childhood.

I want to share something a bit personal here.

A few years ago, I said to my husband, sometimes I just wish I

had a wife, and he turned to me and said, yeah, I wish I had one too.

Which made us both laugh, but it also stopped us in our tracks because even

in our family, even at the time when I was earning more, even with ADHD

making the invisible labor genuinely harder for me, we still fell straight

into those old gender roles, not intentionally, just automatically.

And that's the experience so many women in healthcare and other

professional women are living with.

Doing a demanding job.

And holding a whole second unseen job at home.

And here's why this matters.

This isn't good for women and it's not good for men either.

Most men aren't avoiding responsibility.

Many simply weren't taught to see the emotional load.

And when something's invisible, nobody can share it and it

creates frustration on both sides.

Women silently carrying far too much, and men feeling criticized for something

they didn't even know was happening.

And because this is our final episode before the holiday season, and some

of you'll be listening in January and into the new year, I want to say

really gently that there are some hard truths in this conversation, but they

are the kind that can shift something really important if we let them.

So whether you are heading into the holidays or stepping into the new year, I

hope that this episode gives you space to pause and reflect and then maybe share it

with somebody who really needs to hear it.

As you listen, notice what lands with you.

Notice what really feels familiar.

Notice where you might be carrying more than people realize, or

where someone you love might be carrying more than you realized.

And if this resonates, I'd genuinely love to hear your thoughts.

So leave a comment on the YouTube channel or join the conversation in

our You Are Not a Frog Facebook group.

Your reflections and your thoughts will really shape what we talk about next.

And finally, do ask yourself, what is one thing I could do this week

or this year to share the load?

Let's dive in.

If you're in a high stress, high stakes, still blank medicine, and you're feeling

stressed or overwhelmed, burning out or getting out are not your only options.

I'm Dr. Rachel Morris, and welcome to You Are Not a Frog.

I'm Tamu Thomas.

I am the author of Women Who Work Too Much, Break Free From Toxic

Productivity and Find Your Joy.

I am now a TEDx speaker and I do lots of speaking with corporates

about women and work and culture and productivity, and I also work with

service-based professionals who want to start a thought leadership brand.

One of my main passions, and I think it might be my mission for this moment in

my life, is to support women to feel and be powerful in every area of their lives.

Amen to that, and Tamu, wonderf, wonderful to have you on your podcast.

I'd just like to dive straight in.

What do you mean when you talk about toxic productivity?

So I describe toxic productivity as the obsessive compulsive

need to be productive.

So when I talk about this, people often think about work, about over-functioning

at work, but I look at it through an intersectional feminist lens and

through that lens I identify women.

And then when you include the intersection of race, over-functioning all the

time to prove their worth, whether it's at home, whether it's at work,

in friendships, in every area of our lives, women are engaging in toxic

productivity because we've been taught that making ourselves useful, pleasing

people, being quote unquote good and selfless is what makes us good women.

Let me just ask right at the beginning, Tamu, because we have, um, male

listeners as well, and people that sort of identify as gender neutral.

Is it a female problem or can toxic productivity be experienced by, by

other people, particularly perhaps people in, in doing certain roles?

Um, toxic productivity doesn't discriminate, but we do.

So there are lots of men and people who are gender expansive

who will relate to that relentless productivity, something I refer to as

the more monster, being more and more ambitious, wanting to do more because

we are socialized under capitalism.

And capitalism is about growth for the sake of growth, and we are only worthwhile

when growth is on an upward spiral.

So it's all of us, but there are extra layers for women and people

who are socialized as girls.

And when I say women, I'm including trans women in that as well.

So if you are a woman or somebody who was socialized as a girl, part and parcel

of your upbringing told you that as a girl to be good, you had to be selfless.

So if you look at children playing, for example, girls are always

encouraged to be nice, to share.

Whereas look at children in playgrounds.

Girls invariably are doing nice things.

Boys are crashing around doing whatever they want, and oh, he's a boy.

And you will also see things, for example.

In, uh, mixed gender families, quite often, not all the time, the way

girls are socialized within that same household is very different to boys.

Case in point, uh, my daughter's recently gone to university and I was

having a conversation with a friend of mine who's got children of a similar

age, and we were talking about the way.

Our, uh, children have gone to university and boys are finding it

much harder to cope, because all of those domestic self caring tasks

that girls are socialized into, they haven't had the same level of input.

And then there's the double whammy of I'm Gen X, so I was part of that, uh,

or maybe xennial, whichever one you're looking at, at the particular time.

But part of my socialization was that I had to be domestic, I had to

be able to run a household, and I needed to be, um, demure enough to not

make a man feel insecure because men need to feel like they're the leader

within a heterosexual relationship.

And I also had to kill it at work.

But whilst I was killing it at work, getting qualification, making great

strides, I had to do it in a way where I wasn't threatening because as

a black woman, I might be seen as a aggressive, I had to be strong because

there's a strong black woman archetype.

I had to be nurturing and caring because I am a woman, but I still had to try and

excel with all of those things going on.

And then when I came home, I had to play down those things because I did.

It was, um, imperative for me not to make a man feel insecure.

So to sum up, toxic productivity impacts us all.

But when you look at the intersections of womanhood, of race, of disability,

it makes it even more compounding.

And because we live in a patriarchal society, the way women experience toxic

productivity is much worse, let's say.

And the final thing I'll say is there has been so much research done on

heterosexual relationships and the fact that men's quality of life improves

in marriage and women's goes down.

So the, the evidence is there.

My book is very data-driven.

My background is social work.

We have to be evidence-based.

And whether it's because I had that background or that's how I

am naturally, there is so much research, there is so much data

to support this, we can't deny it.

When I, uh, speak in different arenas, men will always come up to me and

say they relate to what I was saying.

And men who are hashtag doing the work will say they relate to what I'm saying

and they didn't realize all of the things their female partners were carrying or

the women in the workplace were carrying.

It's really confronting, isn't it?

Uh, as you were saying that, I was just thinking all the examples of

when, you know, a woman at work has to, you know, has a childcare

emergency and has to leave.

And notice it is the women that have to leave the childcare emergency.

If the man has to leave for childcare emergency, oh, please drop everything,

yes, go, your child needs you.

But if the women has to, it's like eye rolling ting and doing that.

And in fact, I was reading, reading your book in bed yesterday

and I was reading bits out to my husband going, listen to this.

It's so unfair.

It's so unfair, the emotional load and the evidence and all this and, quite

rightly, he got a bit defensive, I think, 'cause he wasn't, you know, I didn't

really give much a chance to talk back.

But he said to me, but Rachel, a lot of what you do at home is a choice.

You've chosen to take that on.

And I was like, is it a choice or has it just been defaulted to me?

It's been defaulted.

Absolutely.

But I wanna go back a step where you were talking about men taking

time off when there's something going on with their children.

I recently went to the um, uh, parenting Out Loud Summit and by Elliot Ray, and

uh, he is on a mission to support men parenting out loud in their organizations.

He's advocating for men taking parental leave and all of that kind of stuff.

And overwhelmingly what men were saying and what their research shows is that

when men do say, I've had a call from school, I need to go and pick up my child.

Quite often what will happen is people say, well, where's your wife?

Where's your partner?

So men are not being patted on the back in the way we think they are unless

they work for an organization that is actively supporting men taking time

off work and being active parents.

And we are the default.

And I remember watching, um, what's her Paloma Faith?

She was being interviewed on a program and she said if men see that there are

things, and, and it's generally speaking, it's in heterosexual relationships,

which is why I'm talking about men and women, if men see that there are things

women do on a routine basis, it's not a choice if you are not stepping in and

saying I can see that this happens on a routine basis, so I'm gonna join in.

When people position it as well as a woman, you're making a choice.

I think it's not helpful because what you are saying is you are choosing to do that.

It doesn't have to be done.

No.

If I don't do it, it won't be done and the household won't run.

So all of this quote unquote invisible labor, labor, it's not invisible.

You can see it, but you don't think it's your role, or you can see it

and you think that a woman gets some kind of satisfaction or again, you

just think that's what she does.

She does it better than me.

So as women, we have to get better at advocating for ourselves and having

kind, compassionate, and I don't mean babying men, but having the conversation

where you are saying, this is what our household, and if you have children

or other caring responsibilities, this is what our household and our

caring responsibilities require.

This is what I do week in, week out, month in, month out.

I can't continue in this way.

So let's divide, let's pick what are we best at and then

the rest we take turns in doing.

So rather than going in nagging, which is quite often what happens because we are

so fed up by the time we're advocating for ourselves and saying, you do this,

and you do that and pointing the finger and blaming what you are doing is you are

calling your male partner in to be part and parcel of the partnership that keeps

your household, your family life running.

It's very, very different.

Quite often, uh, when I work with women, I'll get pushback, oh, he won't

do it or he can't do it properly.

And I have to say, well, you are not giving your partner the

opportunity to be a partner.

What's going on there?

And invariably, there have been a few things that have happened

which have ruptured trust.

And sometimes it's because the woman hasn't been clear, she's kind of hinted

and hoped that the man will take it on.

Or there's some very deeply ingrained conditioning so everybody's acting

on autopilot rather than making conscious decisions about how

to run their lives, basically.

Yes.

'cause uh, it has been said to me, oh, Rachel, you just get a lot more

anxious about things than I do.

Therefore, you take it on.

But I'm thinking, yeah, I get anxious about what the childcare's gonna be in the

school holidays because if I don't have childcare, I'm the one that is affected.

That's why I get more anxious because of the consequences, yeah,

they, they, they, they fall on me.

And I think that's what happens for a lot of women.

But I, I do agree we need to let the consequences happen in order for things

And there was one day I was working with somebody and there were things they

needed to do and they hadn't done them.

And I was like, well, what's getting in the way?

Let's look at the barriers so we can identify and put some support around that.

And because it was so deeply ingrained and she didn't realize what was running

the show, she would say things like, well, I do all of the household this, I

do the shop, I do the this, I do the that.

I'm like, well what about your, your husband?

Why is he not like, you know, what is his role?

And there was an element of over control in there.

So there was an example she gave about the way he Hoovers.

And I was like, he doesn't have to do it the way you do it.

It just needs to be done.

And I think because so much have been taken out of the control of women

and we have been controlled by the systems and structures that have

been in society for goodness knows how long, we have a tendency to over

control things that add to our burden.

So, uh, not too long ago I saw a post on social media and it said, it's not

your fault, but it is your problem.

So for my thing is we didn't create it, but it's our

problem so we need to solve it.

So I think there's not even any point staying too long in it's not fair.

We have to focus most of our attention on how do we redress the balance and how

do we do it in a way that isn't making excuses for or molly coddling men, but it

is saying, this is what our family needs are, this is what our household needs are.

Let's look at how we operate as a team.

I just wanted to read a bit of your book because I highlight, I,

I said to Tammy when I first, uh, spoke to her, your book is one of

the ones I've highlighted the most.

But honestly, I read this last night.

I was like, ooh.

Women strive to excel in their careers, businesses and in their

roles as caregivers and homemakers.

This looks like taking on the majority of household duties while

simultaneously navigating the complexities of the workplace.

You tirelessly juggle deadlines, meetings and presentations, all while

ensuring the smooth functioning of your households and trying not to be a nag,

because you have been gaslighted into believing that nagging is the issue.

And I was like, OMG, that is the problem.

We're expected to do all of this, and actually, when I say expected,

we expect ourselves as well through all the conditioning and everything.

And, and I think it probably, it's a generalization, probably fair to say,

that women are judged more than men on the state of their children and homes

and food and all that sort of stuff.

We don't have enough time to do it.

We are judged differently, and then we get anxious about the childcare and the

holidays and who's picking up stuff.

And then we are told that we are nagging and that makes me incredibly angry.

Which is why, I used to do a lot of life coaching.

I don't do that anymore, but even with the women I work with, and I work mainly

with, uh, women, one of the barriers is that domestic and emotional load.

And because we have been programmed to carry it all like Stepford wives,

so don't complain about it because one of the rules of womanhood is

you've got to be convenient, if you're inconvenient, then it's a big problem.

So one of the things I do is help them to develop language and ways of being

able to articulate it so they are not nagging their inviting in partnership.

And I know I've said that in various ways, uh, in the conversation we've

had so far, but it's really important.

Because of the way we are all socialized, the moment what you are saying appears

to be nagging, the focus then is going to be your nagging, as opposed

to the issue you are talking about.

And it is very frustrating.

I remember when I first read the book Fair Play by Eve Rodsky, I was livid

at the back flips and contortion women have to do to be able to

get their male partners on board.

But if you don't do that, they're not gonna be on board.

And women love their partners.

They want to be in long-term relationships, but they want

the relationship to feel like a supportive partnership.

And thinking about the fact that we are all socialized.

In this water, like we're all swimming in this same water, if

we want to have loving, nurturing relationships, we need to give men

the opportunity to get on board.

Now, what I've identified is that on many occasions, women don't do that

because they know that the conditioning in their male partners are so deep that

the men will refuse to come on board.

These are relationships where men get stuck in, why have you changed?

You didn't used to be like this.

I want things to be like the way they were.

Uh, you are a different person.

Of course I am.

We got together when I was 26.

I'm not the same person now that I'm 46.

But what women avoid.

Is the reality that sometimes men benefit so much by their over-functioning.

They're not willing to budge and then they will have to make a painful

choice, and I refer to this in my book of whether or not they are going to

leave because it's very clear that the relationship is never, ever going to

include them, nevermind meet their needs, or they're going to have subconsciously

choose their own demise and oppress themselves to maintain that relationship.

And the sad truth is that many women will not even do that consideration

because they would rather unconsciously autopilot and continue that cycle

of oppression so they can maintain a relationship with a man in the hope

that one day, at some point, he will change and be the partner either they

first met or the partner they desire.

And I wanna say that the first sentence or the first chapter of

my book is, it's not Your fault.

By no means in any way, shape, or form.

Am I saying that in a victim blaming, accusatory way, this is part and

parcel of how we've been conditioned.

I'm just reflecting.

There's quite a few women that I know of around my age who, who are really good

jobs, like really senior, but they are taking on all the emotional load at home

and probably more than they ever have.

Why?

Because their husbands are so stressed, so anxious.

They might be, you know, borderline depressed, but not sorting themselves

out despite people having said, why don't you go and do this?

Why don't you go, go and do that?

So they're, it almost feels like they're frightened of, of not doing

this in case their husbands fall apart or they're sort of, you know, they're

not demanding that they sort themselves out and, and how long to women.

Just keep going with someone that's refusing then to actually

do the work on themselves?

Cause I, I've noticed that women do a lot of work on themselves and, and I

think men do as well, but they seem to have to like experience quite traumatic

burnout before they, before they do.

But a lot of people I know are sort of protecting these, these guys that, that

aren't doing anything to help themselves.

And they know.

So women have been conditioned to be the emotional shock absorbers for men.

We have been conditioned and men have been conditioned also to see women

as their external nervous system.

So men are constantly borrowing our nervous systems, depleting us, and

we think that's how it needs to go because the backstory within that

is what I was speaking to just now.

If I say to this man, you need to sort yourself out, I am not going

to continue to engage in this death by a thousand cuts, 'cause I'm the

one that's getting most of the cuts.

If you crash, you crash, whatever happens, happens.

Lots of women don't want to do that because either they're going to be in

a position where they're like, I can't continue anymore, this marriage has to

end, or men will crash so significantly that the marriage will have to end.

So what a lot of women are doing are trying to, it's almost like

um, they're trying to, uh, preserve something that is rapidly decomposing.

And what they're gonna do now is run around trying to hold onto all

of those dust particles so that they can preserve this marriage.

Why?

Because they have been conditioned to believe that part and parcel of

their role is to mother their partner.

So it's not a partner anymore.

So you'll see that there are lots of heterosexual relationships that,

um, if we think about transactional analysis, you have like the,

uh, it's like the parent child.

So the woman is the overbearing parent who are sometimes is the

nurturing parent and the husband, the man is the tempestuous teenager.

As long as I'm getting my way, as long as you're doing the things I need,

as long as I feel like you are sort supporting me the way I need to be

supported, then we can, like with this mothers son, business can continue.

But the moment you challenge me and ask me to step up, now you are the overbearing

parent, you are nagging me, you are emasculating me, you are handpicking

me, and all of these things come up.

So it's, it is very, very challenging, but you have to ask yourself what

quality of life do I want to live?

Will I be able to live that quality of life if we continue in this way?

And again, what I will say is If you are in a relationship where you have

boundaries and you have a cutoff point, and you don't have to speak it, I'm not

talking about idle threats, but if you have got boundaries that you uphold,

because boundaries are for us, they're not for other people, that's trying

to put impose rules in other people.

But if you, you are upholding your boundaries and you're doing that from

the beginning, you're much more likely to enter into a relationship and blossom in a

relationship where people understand there are boundaries and honor those boundaries,

and people have their own boundaries.

And again, another bit from your book I'd love to read out, and this hit me as well.

The patriarchy prefers younger women because they're seen as

more malleable and less likely to question their conditioning.

But as we approach midlife and experience perimenopause and menopause,

we become more discerning and no longer want to use our energy to do

everything that's projected onto us.

As many of us enter this new phase, our mortality becomes more apparent,

and wisdom refuses to be denied, making itself known through resentment and

frustration when we abandon ourselves in favor of coping strategies.

And.

What I've observed in, you know, particularly doctors and senior healthcare

professionals, is what has happened to us is, yeah, fewer of us have, have given

up our careers for our, our partners.

Although, you know, I, I didn't go into the specialty.

I would've gone into because I, at that point knew I wanted a family and

I wanted to be a good, a good girl.

But what we do is we have those careers and become more senior in our career.

So we're mothering the entire department or the entire practice center.

And there's a lot of evidence that women take on the emotional load

at work as well for their teams.

So we, we are working our arses off at work and then having the, the extra stuff

in the family, it's often at the time when the, the men are also having, you

know, issues they are at, at the point where they are senior in businesses and

having to deal with significant stuff.

And so it's this, this thing where we're women.

Burning out at work because of the way they're having to, to work at home as well

and, and teenagers as well, you know, the emotional load that comes with teenagers.

So it's, it's really, really hard.

I think also people are really worried because the men are often,

the main breadwinners are often earning more, although that, that's

getting less and less common.

But the woman has this idea that, well, I need to protect him and I can't ask

him to change or do anything because he's the one where the, the burden

for the finances fall on the family.

I bet you've heard that excuse a lot as well.

And you know, it's a very valid reason.

However, it doesn't mean that your needs don't matter.

So I remember during the pandemic, so at that time I was working

with lots of business owners.

And these business owners, they weren't necessarily the

secondary income in the house.

Sometimes they were earning the same, sometimes they were earning more.

And during the pandemic, they would come onto calls and there were

children clambering all over them.

And they would literally say, my husband's on a call.

So are you.

Or like, it was always my husband's work is more important.

And it didn't even cross their minds that they could look at their diary

across the week, identify when they had calls, and then split between

their husband or their male partner in themselves so they were taking turns.

It was total abandonment of my ambition, of my things, because his work is more

important, i've got to protect his ego.

So there are lots of men who are very different.

My brother is a millennial dad, and he is as involved as his fiance and he is

seeing that he's not an anomaly anymore.

He has, uh, begun a dad's group.

So quite often dads would comment on all the adventures him and my nephew

go on, whether it's bike riding, hiking, whatever the case may be.

And so now they're starting to do that together as a group.

So things are changing.

The change is very, very slow.

It's not happening rapidly enough.

But the more men who get actively involved from the beginning,

the more we as we listen.

If they put on the Wellington boots with the wrong jacket and

the wrong trousers, who cares?

It doesn't matter.

As long as it's not the Sunday best and they're going crashing

around the skate park with that on, let them do their thing.

If dad relies on a diet of tuna sandwiches and apples,

your child is not going to die.

Tuna sandwiches are quite healthy actually, and so are the apples.

Maybe let's get some brown bread instead of some white bread.

But I can see like I don't want to, I don't want to be here like I am.

Like engaging in missionary and that I don't have any faith in men.

What I am seeing is that things are changing and I think that the only

way, especially in the political, like the global political situation we find

ourselves in, where there are men in power who are actively trying to strip women of

rights, we need to bring our men on board.

Because as I wrote in my book, patriarchy doesn't serve anybody.

Nobody benefits from patriarchy.

I had a post on social media, I can't even remember what it was.

And a man was saying, well, uh, it's because, uh, women see men as providers.

All they want men to do is be the breadwinner.

And I said, well, actually, it's very interesting you say that.

That is actually something that's been set up by patriarchy.

Women didn't set out saying, we want men to be the breadwinner, we want to sit

down idly having this soft girl life that people are posting about on social media.

That was a patriarchal thing.

Patriarchy said that men have to be strong.

Patriarchy said that men shame their emotions is effeminate.

Patriarchy said that men should be out doing the working all day long to provide

for the family, and that women and children should be dependent on that man.

So patriarchy doesn't, surver doesn't support any human being.

and feminism is good for everybody.

Feminism is good for everybody.

Yeah.

If men have daughters, you, you want that.

You want feminism for your daughters and it's just asking

for things to be equal, isn't it?

So when I'm hearing about all this tamu, there's a bit of

me that's going, yes, but yes.

But because when you say, yeah, we should be inviting the men into partnership,

I'm going why should we be doing that?

Why shouldn't they be inviting us into partnership?

Why is it always me that has to sit down and go, can we do the diaries?

Can we just check the arrangements?

Why isn't it the men that are saying, darling, can I just

make sure that childcare is covered over the summer holidays?

Darling, can I just check that they, but it doesn't seem to be, it seems

to be us, and that strikes me as being unfair, and that makes me really cross.

However, that's outside our control, isn't it?

Uh, it's, it's outside, again, the fact, it's unfair, the shoulds,

that gets us stuck in frustration.

So what we are talking about is what is in a control, just accept that we

have all been conditioned, like this, the whole of society, not just men.

The women have been conditioned like this as well.

Therefore, it is reality.

Let's not deny reality.

Nor do I think the whole let's throw the baby out with the bath water and the only

option we've got is to, is to totally leave, you know, that's the whole frog

in the boiling water thing, isn't it?

And we see this in medicine, you know, people think I, the only, the only option

I've got is to leave or to burn out.

That's the only options.

There are other options.

So you talked about resetting and asking for what you need

and redressing the balance.

How do you do that?

'cause whenever I try and do it, I end up just sounding

cross, resentful, pissed off.

and that's a really good way to make somebody really defensive.

When you are in a situation where you are repeatedly having to say something along

the lines of the half term holiday is coming up, can we have this conversation?

What you are doing, you are still, you are parenting, because you're

having to do these constant reminders.

What you need to do is think about how do we set up a system

for our household to run?

Everybody as human beings has occasions where we need reminders.

We are not machines, we're cyclical, we have various things going on in

our lives, but it's things like, for example, having a family calendar.

I, I've got ADHD, I need the physical reminder, I need the digital reminder.

I need it all.

So it is those things like having the year calendar in a communal

area where everybody's gonna see it.

So maybe that's the kitchen and you mark out the holidays in advance.

Let's use these school holidays as an example 'cause

that's always the tricky one.

Not only are you putting it on that physical calendar, you are

putting it on the digital calendar and you are assigning who's doing

which part of the holiday when.

So that's in everybody's calendar.

You need to take responsibility for that.

We can put reminders in whatever the case may be for the year you are set

and then you have a, um, agreement.

Because a lot of us work by expectations rather than agreement.

So the agreement is.

If you have got something on, which means you are not gonna be able to do your part

of the holiday agreement, you need to let me know with at least two weeks notice so

that contingencies can be put in place.

If there is something that is out of our control, those things do happen,

but we have got to be proactive and create systems and work on

agreements rather than expectations and working one holiday at a time.

And we can apply that to anything.

You've got to run it almost like, especially when your children are young,

almost like a military operation where things are being allocated because

then there's no confusion and you have that, agreement in your household, not

just in your, uh, partnership, that we work by agreements, not expectations.

From six 15 to 6:30 AM I'm not here.

I don't exist because I'm having my 15 minutes.

Over time, that compounds, and your system, your nervous system, your

subconscious mind starts to trust that you are gonna give yourself that little

bit of time to regulate yourself, to give yourself some nourishment, and it is

your, your nervous system is gonna be so grateful you're gonna get a huge return

on investment by having a bigger capacity.

So, how would you answer this, Tamu?

I have a friend who, um, has teenage children living with them, um,

who've finished their A levels doing gap years and things like that.

Um, they have tried to put an a rotor in for housework.

They've tried to say, can I have some help with this?

They've tried to say, how about we have a different day to do,

um, uh, different, uh, meals.

They've tried to say, um, okay, someone if, if, if I cook, someone

else clears up or whatever.

And their husband said, oh no, it's not.

Let's not just be prescriptive about it.

That's too prescriptive.

It's too rules-based.

That's not fair on people.

Let's just, we'll just rely on everyone to see what needs doing and help.

We don't want rules in this household, and it's just completely sc in

terms of trying to make things fair.

What would you say to that person?

I would be saying that you need to have a one-on-one conversation with

your husband, a, that is hugely undermining, it's not supportive.

And b, I would recommend them reading the book Fair Play by Eve Rodsky because Eve

Rodsky has got like frameworks and stuff they can use to be able to articulate.

So it's like what I was saying earlier on in the conversation, you need to be

very clear about all the things that are required to run the household.

And you need to be very clear with your husband that not only is it

unfair and unreasonable, it's actually compromising my health and wellbeing.

Now if you want a wife that has got energy and can be fun and is available

to have sex and all of these sorts of things, you need to be getting on board.

Because if all of my energy is directed outward to serving people who are more

than capable of being able to do that, you are gonna get a fraction of a wife.

And then the two of them need to meet with their young adults in the household

and say, this is how it's going to be.

Now for the woman, this is where it's really tricky because when people don't

follow through, the people you live with don't follow through, you are actually

going to have to leave things so they see the consequence of their actions.

Because if you continue to fill the gaps, they're never going to see what

the consequence of those actions are.

Let's be real.

You are going to be full of rage when you are seeing the dishes in the sink piling

up, the dishwasher never being emptied, the dryer becoming a substitute wardrobe,

but you are going to have to hold onto that so that you can show people this is

what happens when things don't get done.

And I'm not prepared to be the person that is sorting out the dishwasher,

sorting out the sink, cleaning the bathroom, sorting out the toilets, doing

the shopping, all of those sorts of things, and then distribute that labor.

As long as you keep behaving like the invisible cleaning fairy, people

are not actually going to feel the consequence of their actions.

I think sometimes the pushback, um, women get as well is that the husbands do help,

but they help on a very ad hoc basis so they'd ever say when they're going to, or

they, or if the kids refuse to clear up, the husband will just martyrly do it all.

And, I know I, I've been accused by my kids of being really lazy when I've cooked

and I've said, no, I'm not clearing up.

They're like, well, mum, you're so lazy.

You're so lazy.

And then it, they're like, well, everybody should help clear up.

Depends, doesn't matter if they've cooked or not.

I'm like, mm. Not quite true.

But, um,

In the words of James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, we don't rise to our goals,

or I'm, I'm, I'm probably butchering this, we don't rise to our goals.

We fall to the level of our systems.

So all of those things are symptomatic of not having a system in place.

And I talk about agreement rather than expectation because you need

to create the system as an ecosystem so everybody knows what's going on

and we are all working by agreement.

Otherwise, it will default to the level of the system that's in

place, which is mom's gonna do it.

She might moan, but we can zone out of mom's moaning and she'll

It just becomes like, wait, wait, wait.

Doesn't it in the end?

Yeah.

What do you do when there isn't a power imbalance in the relationship?

And I think a lot of women do have themselves in this situation

because they have neglected their careers, or kept at a low level in

their job to have gone part-time.

And then the, the husband does end up in a very responsible, very high paid job.

And so it's like, well, I can't possibly miss that board meeting or this

meeting, or, I can't possibly do that.

And, and the, the job is always the Trump card.

I think that we need to start reconsidering what power is.

The reason your husband is able to be an executive on the board of whatever

he's on the board of, and have a family is because you've done all of the things

domestically, emotionally, which has freed him up to be able to create that career.

If he wanted to have a family and have that career, you've made a lot

of sacrifice to facilitate that.

So when we think about power in that way, actually you have

contributed a lot to his career.

Furthermore, if you weren't doing the things in the household, he wouldn't

be able to have that career, have these beautiful children that look

so great in the family photographs.

There's been lots of research done into the, um, if, if women or the

people that do the domestic and emotional labor, if they were paid

for their LA labor, it would be, um, the equivalent to a six figure salary.

So just because you're not being paid physical money, it doesn't

mean that the work you do doesn't yield a huge return on investment.

If we just think about children only, so you talked about a scenario

with, uh, children who are doing A levels, the return on the investment

in all of that labor is children who have been able to do A levels.

Is children who are going to grow up and be contributors to our society.

So not only our family benefits, society benefits as well.

So we need to really reconsider what power is.

We cannot reduce power to only being the money that goes into the bank account,

because there are a whole load of people that are making a whole load of money and

they're not even enjoying or seeing that money because every time their income

goes up, their life expands, so they're, they're asset rich, maybe they've got

quite a lot of experiences, but they don't actually have money in their hands.

So we need to redefine power.

We need to redefine success.

A lot of the times when we think about power, we think about this

authoritarian power having power over.

But when we look at power, especially, um, power in a society that is

more equal, it is much more about giving power to sharing power with.

What about considering that that man who is in this ex-co position, you

two are a power couple, because all of the stuff you do has facilitated him

being able to have that relationship.

The fact that you are able to do the food shopping and create the experiences

in your home, you are able to because he's working and bringing in that

money, you are taking that money and creating a meaningful life with it.

That money on its own doesn't create this beautiful quality of, well,

sometimes it's not even a beautiful quality of life, but that money that

man earns, you take that money and you create a life that your family enjoys.

that's a power couple.

Depends on definition of power, doesn't it?

And I guess it's giving back that woman some power of her own.

And also her seeing her role, like, they're not, it's

not gonna be given to us.

The systems and structures we live in do not benefit from women feeling powerful.

So we need to recognize our power.

We need to go off and do the research so that we feel empowered, so that we don't

feel like, I don't contribute much, I work part-time, or I've just got this

little business and I don't make that much money, or, um, because our children are,

are young, I've decided to stay at home.

We need to recognize ourselves as powerful.

Sometimes this phrase really gets on my nerves, but sometimes we are

giving our power away and it's not necessarily because of the individual

man we are with, it's because of the patriarchal society we live in.

So we need to, it's our job to recognize ourselves as powerful.

I just wanna ask you about this, um, whole thing about self-care because it, you

know, when you do end up totally exhausted 'cause you've got a very, very busy,

very senior job and you are doing the emotional load at home and, and, and, you

then I think go well yeah, I do need to, to have this sort of soft self-care life.

You know, there have been times in the past where I'd be like, I just

wanna stop doing everything and sit in the garden and work in the garden.

And I think a lot of women, that feels like their only option.

So they do end up then just, just giving up and saying, right, I am

gonna do this soft self-care stuff.

And there was a line in the book that really struck me, which was, um,

self-care is not a productivity tool.

And I was like, Ooh.

Because actually, you know, all the productivity tool, they're like,

look after yourself so that you can do your work more effectively.

And that I was like, ooh.

So can you just explain what you mean by that?

When we think about how we care for babies, babies have needs.

If our baby cries, we don't think, oh, you are just crying for nothing.

We'll think there's something wrong, there's something up, or you're trying

to communicate some kind of need, let me investigate so I can meet that need.

We are still that baby.

We might be in an adult body, but we still have that same level of need.

So self-care is the way we meet our bids for connection.

It's the way we meet our needs.

It's the way we fuel ourselves and fill ourselves up.

It's the way we build trust with ourselves that we are not gonna neglect

and abandon ourselves all of the time.

We are actually gonna take time to replenish ourselves.

And when I talk about these things, people think I'm talking about, you

know, bubble bath and all of that.

I love all of that stuff.

Not knocking it.

But actually you were talking about sitting in the garden.

You are a busy senior professional, you've got loads of things on.

Your version of sitting in the garden may be you don't accept back-to-back meetings.

So a lot of us have online meetings and people just book things in our calendar.

And sometimes we think we are being efficient by having maybe two days a

week where we have back-to-back calls.

Actually, that's overwhelming.

That's too much for our nervous system.

So it's about treating our self-care is treating ourselves

like human beings instead of treating ourselves like machines.

So that looks like whatever your calendar booking system is, you make sure that

you have a buffer of 15 minutes, so you're not having back-to-back calls.

And in that 15 minutes between your calls, you are doing your own

version of sitting in the garden.

So if you work in an office where you've got a window.

And you can see the sky.

It could be just literally taking some time to mindfully breathe, feeling

your feet on the ground whilst you're looking at that exp expansive sky.

Looking at nature like that is very regulatory for our nervous systems.

Feeling your connection to the ground beneath you automatically

brings your focus and your energy back into your body after you've

had a lot of expending outwards.

And that mindful breathing enables us to breathe in a way that is

nourishing for our nervous systems.

Breath.

Like without breath, we haven't got anything.

Lots of people think, oh, it's some really woo woo spiritual thing.

No, actually our breath is a huge indicator of how safe or unsafe we feel.

So if you are giving yourself, if you've got that 15 minutes buffer and you take

even two minutes, five minutes, to be at that window, mindfully breathing, feeling

your connection with the ground beneath you, all of that is regulating yourself.

All of that is nourishing yourself.

If you have three meetings and you have three 15 minute windows between meetings

and within that 15 minutes, you are taking five minutes to do that breathing,

you have given yourself 15 minutes of very good nervous system nourishment.

Amplify that over a week.

Amplify that over a month.

It all compounds.

And what you are teaching yourself is that you are gonna have periods of a

lot of output, but you're gonna have a pause where you are able to input.

And over time that helps to nourish yourself, that's your

equivalent of doing the garden.

It's things like not having meetings.

Like I don't have meetings on my calendar before 10:00 AM.

And people say, it's all right for you.

You are self-employed.

You can do what you want.

No, actually, when I was a local authority social worker, my child hated

breakfast club, after school club, all of that, it was far too stressful.

So I said to all of my employers at my, even before I went for

an interview, I thought, I'm not gonna waste any of our time.

I need to st on these days.

I need to start at 09:30, but I can work longer on these days, so if

there are things that come up on duty or whatever, I can do those things.

There were some employees that said, Nope, I need you at this desk at

9:00 AM But there were far more that said, yeah, that's absolutely fine.

So we need to check in with how powerful we are and advocate for ourselves.

If the organization you work for doesn't have any flexibility like that whatsoever,

you need to start looking for other opportunities that align with you.

We have to stop this thinking, well, they're my employer and acting

like we can't get another job.

I know that the, um, job market is tough right now, but you need to be

actively looking for organizations that align with your values.

Because the stress and the emotional guilt that we will frivolously call

mom guilt is too expensive to carry.

When we are on our deathbeds, none of us are going to be proud that we

prioritized being at some stupid meeting that could have been an email instead

of picking up our child from school.

And you know, I have n never known stress, like the stress of having a deadline to

pick up my child and being on call at the practice, and it was just orphan.

When I look back at what I just accepted and did as a young mum with three

kids, I was taking all the emotional load in terms of childcare for, I

was like, that, that was not fair.

I would've negotiated that on my days on calls i, I never picked up the child.

Or, you know, I think a lot, a lot of doctors, we think we are completely tied

into the timetable of, of where we work.

So we haven't even asked for anything different.

We haven't even asked could I do my surgery over a lunchtime?

You know, surgery could quite easily do that.

There are might be some barriers, you know, there are some things that maybe

can't be changed, like the timing of the emergency surgery list or you

know, in theater, the theater list.

But there are things that could be changed and, and we don't ask

because we feel too guilty to ask or we feel, we feel they might say no,

but that's literally the worst that can happen is they say no, right?

I had a coaching client once and we talk about this and she

was like, she came back to me.

She said, I got exactly what I wanted.

She said, I, I asked the unaskable, it was amazing.

They said yes to it all.

I was like, there you go.

And if it, if they don't say yes, that is an opportunity for you to start looking

for something that is more aligned.

And this is the thing.

We work for human beings and sometimes those human beings are under so much

stress that they don't even consider what you need and who you are outside of work.

So sometimes we do need to advocate for ourselves.

And part of the reason that 09:30 came about, I too, was trying to

do some assaults and back flips, flips, trying to make things work.

And I wrote about it in my book.

I was in my boss's office for supervision.

And she asked, she said, oh, what's up?

You're not your usual self.

And I'm not a crying type person.

And I don't say that to show off.

It's, it's not healthy.

But I couldn't help it.

Tears just started rolling down my face and I, I can even feel remnants

of the emotion I felt at that time.

I was riddled with guilt and I was also furious because I said it felt like, it

feels like my child is having to work full time so that I can work full time.

And my boss said, you must never do that.

Let's have a look at how we structure your week so that

you are not having to do that.

And that's where the 09:30 came from.

Because I showed my boss, I was a human being and they

responded to me as a human being.

And that's why that became my role, that wherever I go, the 09:30 is gonna happen.

And during the beginning of the pandemic, one of the people I worked with, she

was just talking about how exhausted she was, how guilty she felt because her

son was going into school, and she just said, I feel like I'm going to break,

but I can't afford to do that because there are so many people who aren't

working, we won't be able to fulfill our child protection duties if I'm off.

And I said, have you considered how you work best?

Like bearing in mind the circumstances we are in, how do you work best?

And so she talked about how she would structure her day, how she would organize

her home visits and doing her admin work.

And I said, well, you are, you are here with me with a lot of emotional

charge, which is fine, but let's look at the, um, reality, the facts

of the situation, so you can go to your manager and say, I'm not coping.

I don't want to be another person who's phoning in sick, but working in the

way I am right now is unsustainable.

So, she was really nervous, but she went and did that and her and her manager

worked out a way that she would work, and then the manager rolled that out across

their team, because they recognized that if she was feeling like that and she

was one of the more robust members of the team, other people would be feeling

similarly, and that is part and parcel that became part and parcel of their,

um, working protocols during LA lockdown.

So we've got to advocate for

And actually advocating for ourselves also ends up being advocating for

other people, doesn't it as well?

Asking for what we need, and because the pressures on us and what we expect

of ourselves, we expect to be able to do more than we can possibly do.

We expect to take on the load for everybody more than we can

possibly do, then we feel guilty.

If, if anyone's impacted by, by the fact that we can't do everything.

And so we, you know, it's just this, this vicious cycle really.

I did want to talk about something else that I, that's very, very well

connected, but it really struck me in the book, and this is the

stuff that you write about resting.

Cause I'm, I'm really bad at resting.

I've tried to, on a Sunday, sit down and read a magazine

for an hour just sitting down.

But I find it hard.

There have been comments about me doing it.

and I love the phrase that you, that you use in the book,

which is Rest is rebellion.

Well, if you think about the fact that women are measured on how much

they do, especially how much they do at the expense of themselves

for other people, it is rebellion.

I think that part of the reason why our society, our patriarchal society

is so invested in women being exhausted is because when we are exhausted, we

are much more likely to au autopilot and sustain the systems we exist

within, and we are less likely to consider ourselves as powerful and we

are not gonna advocate for ourselves.

There are so many conversations I have with people and they're saying

variations of that's just how it is.

No, that's not just how it is.

We can do stuff about it.

And I want us to reconsider rest.

Especially if you are an over-functioning, high functioning

type, a high performing type person sitting around doing nothing is gonna

be a shock to your nervous system.

Our nervous systems are very adaptable and they adapt to the way we operate.

So our normal can be over-functioning.

So operating in a way that's different to that is gonna feel like danger zone.

So it's about looking at it as a journey, taking it slow and being creative.

So one of the things I refer to in my book is Dr. Saundra Dalton's, Dr. Saundra,

Dalton Smith's, seven types of rest.

And, and a lot of us do knowledge work, so we are not moving around

the way our bodies need to move.

I always say we've got loads of hinges because we're supposed to

be moving, we're supposed to be moving on a regular basis, right?

So it's like, actually, is it that magazine I need to be sitting and reading,

or do I need to be going for a walk?

And some people will say, you've got to raw dog your walk.

Don't go with listening to a podcast because that's, that's not the same,

but to a brain that's used to being ac um, occupied with something, one

of the things I recommend is to listen to a fiction audio book, for example,

not necessarily a personal development book or a personal development, um,

podcast, so that you are walking.

You might live in a city, but there's still nature around, you know, there are

trees planted that we've got the sky.

So that your brain is entering that imagination zone because you are picturing

what is going on in that fiction book and you are also taking in your surroundings.

So that is a, a great form of rest.

It could be that you decide that you're gonna take yourself off on an artist date.

Uh, you don't have to go into, uh, I live in zone fives, suburban London.

I don't have to always go into Central London to go to the

Tate or something like that.

I've got cute, local museums.

They're not always, um, sharing and showing things that I'm particularly

interested in, but it's different stuff.

I'm using my mind in a different way.

Dr. Saundra Dalton Smith talks about spiritual rest

as one of the forms of rest.

Uh, for me, I'm not a religious person per se, but I do have spiritual practices

and I can feel the difference when I'm not engaging in my spiritual practices.

So is it that you're gonna do one of those things?

It's about looking creatively at the type of rest you need and making time for that.

The other day I was talking to a friend of mine, um, he's a

fitness and nutrition coach.

Shout out Greg Fearon, uh, for busy women.

And he was talking about how these women never have blank space in their calendar.

Yeah, when you are used to over-functioning,

blank space is the enemy.

So what I do with women who operate like that, it's not a blank space.

It is, we love doing, so it's an action word.

So the space is go for a walk, do some mindful breathing and breathing.

Breathing, breathing.

So these things act as a command.

I was listening to Grace Beverly on her podcast.

Um, she's got like multiple businesses.

She's a very successful, um, entrepreneur and she was talking about how sometimes

she really doesn't want to, and she can be like quite annoyed, but there's

a park bench near where she works and uh, she has to go and do a circuit

round that park bench and back to the office, 'cause that's about 15 minutes.

And as much as when she's first going off, she's like, oh,

I don't wanna be doing this.

I don't know if you've seen like sometimes on the social medias,

like on the stupid mental health walk for my stupid mental health.

But by the time she's come back round that park bench, her

nervous system is more settled.

She's expended that energy.

So we need to find the rest we need at that time.

Rest isn't just sitting in stillness, it's whatever is

going to fuel and replenish us.

Yeah.

And certainly someone with ADHD as well.

I, I do find that just sitting or just watching telly is like Ugh, but yes.

Yeah, absolutely.

Walking or me being in a sauna helps, you know, that sort of

Oh my gosh.

And that is so good for you in so many ways.

I, I bought a walking pad so that when I'm watching programs, I'm not

rotting, I'm choosing to indulge, but I will be on the walking pad and

watching an episode AVAs an hour.

Tamu, there's so much in there.

If you were sort of, just to sum up, out of all of our discussions, the top three

things that you would be advising, let's say an a very overworked senior partner,

female GP, or a clinical director who's working full-time and has teenage children

and a, a, a partner who, who, who works a lot and is very senior, but is just

feeling that they're like firing at 200% on all cylinders and can't do it for

much longer, what would be your top tips?

My top tips would be, uh, years ago I had a mentor who sh who said,

um, a lot of overwhelm comes from having too much unplanned to do.

And when we think about mental load, a lot of the things we are carrying,

we are carrying it in our heads.

So I love a bit of flip chart paper.

I need it big.

I wanna see it all.

Brain dump, all of that stuff onto the flip chart paper.

And then you separate it into what, what are the non-negotiables?

These have to be done regardless what's urgent, what's a priority.?

And then I also have a column busy.

I wrote a book about toxic productivity because I'm addicted to being busy.

And once you've been addicted to something, you are in recovery forever.

So I'll write down the busy, 'cause there were some things that just keep

me busy and spinning my wheels because I've got that addiction to busy.

And quite often those things are not important at all.

So you've got to see what you are doing.

So this is where that, um, it's not your fault, but it is your problem comes in.

You need to start looking at what you're prioritizing on those, on that list.

So that's number one.

That is gonna enable you to number two, ask for help.

So you're very clear about what you've got.

Now you're gonna need to ask for help.

A lot of us don't want to, like when we're thinking about an employment

situation, we don't want to go into a manager and say, I need help, because we

automatically think they're gonna think you are useless and you are lazy, as soon

as we can fire you, we are gonna fire you.

But actually a decent manager, part of their role is to help

you manage your workload.

So you are going in, in a pa place of power.

You are saying I recognize that I am not operating at my

usual level of productivity.

I can feel it within myself.

I brain dumped all of these things I've got going on professionally and at the

moment I can't see the wood for the trees.

Can you help me organize this so that it is still meeting the needs

of the organization, the needs of my role, but I'm able to do it in a

way that's a bit more sustainable?

When you have that on a piece of paper, your manager might be like, bloody hell,

we've got to, delegate some of this stuff.

It's too much, or they might say, we can't at the moment, but

let's look at what we can put in place to be able to support you.

So you're looking at what you can delegate, what you can

automate to take you out of that.

That's the same thing you're gonna do at home.

And you're gonna be saying to your partner, I'm struggling.

These are all of the things I've got going on.

So you are able to ask for help in a way that like, I wanna be my best, I

need your help to be able to do that.

We are hardwired for connection.

We are the most pro-social creatures on this planet.

We biologically need help.

It's not because you're not robust, it's not because you're not

resilient, actually as a human being.

You need that help.

And then what that is gonna enable you to do is to create a system

that is gonna enable you to have the capacity to do that stuff.

I say it in my book.

In my book, I say, our nervous system is a reflection for the

system of the system we live within.

It's also a reflection of the system we create for ourselves to live our lives.

So number one, get clear about all of the things you are carrying.

Identify what is important, what isn't.

What is the stuff you are doing because you wanna appear to be

nice, you wanna appear to be good.

Let people think that you are a villain that's better than you

being the villain in your own story.

Number two, this is gonna enable you to ask for help from a place of power rather

than sheepishly or when the wheels fall off, so it's a case of your male partner

reluctantly doing things 'cause you're not coping at the moment or your manager

feeling like they need to put you on some kind of improvement plan because you're

not operating the way you usually do.

And then number three, what is the system that is necessary to uphold all of that?

Because just taking time off ain't gonna do it.

You're just gonna come back to all of

Yeah.

You come back to more because of all the stuff you didn't

do when you took the time off.

Exactly.

Exactly.

And um.

Side note, I was thinking when I've seen people have the most success in going

to their managers, is not going into the managers going, oh, I'm overwhelmed.

You know, can you sort it out?

It's, I'm overwhelmed.

Can you help me manage my workload or whatever?

Not what can you do to sort it out?

'cause that immediately puts 'em into defense as well.

That's victim consciousness.

You wanna go in there, you wanna be valiant,

If people wanted to get in touch with you, find out more about what

your work, where could they go?

Uh, the best two places to go would be LinkedIn and Instagram.

Um, my website is www.live360.com.

Uh, so I've got a lot of information there, but the most up to date, the most

engaging places would be social media.

Um, and I am Tamu Thomas on LinkedIn and also Instagram.

and do check out that book Women Who Work Too Much as well.

It's fabulous.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh, we also have a tool called the Thrive Week Planner, so

that helps you have questions to actually plan your ideal work week.

You know, what would it look like if you could put in all the breaks, all the,

all the rest and all that lot, you know, you'll probably never get to it, but

actually even just having some idea about where you wanna be, um, will be in this.

We'll put that link in the show notes.

And uh, we've also got Frog Fest coming up talking about boundaries, which is one

thing that we do really badly as women.

Um, and I'm sure you've got a lot more you could say about that as

well, Tamu, so will you come back on the podcast another time and

I would love to.

I would love to.

Thank you.

Wonderful.

Thank you so much for being with us and all the best with your work.

It's really important stuff that you're doing.

Thanks for listening.

Don't forget, you can get extra bonus episodes and audio courses along with

unlimited access to our library of videos and CPD workbooks by joining

FrogXtra and FrogXtra Gold, our memberships to help busy professionals

like you beat burnout and work happier.

Find out more at youarenotafrog.com/members.