Mama Glow founder Latham Thomas is a renowned doula, yogi, author, and wellness maven (and mama!) and her second book, Own Your Glow: A Soulful Guide to Luminous Living and Crowning the Queen Within hits shelves on September 26! This must-read for NYC mothers is packed with lifestyle tips, calming rituals, and meditations, all with the aim of “illuminating your path to examining life’s challenges, helping you curate your path to greatness, while embracing your uniquely feminine attributes.” It’s all about guiding readers in practicing self-care in order to empower and discard self-destructive habits.
To learn more about this empowering read, we caught up with Thomas this summer to get the scoop.
What inspired you to write this book? Why the topic of “owning your glow”?
When I wrote this book—it took me years to write it, just because there’s so much to say and there was so much life experience that needed to happen to put into it—I wanted to write something that could feel like a companion for women, to feel like I was holding their hand as they made this life journey and life transition into claiming their power, the same way that I hold someone’s hand during a doula journey. Much I the way that I wrote Mama Glow, it’s like a friend talking to you but it’s also really firm and knowledgeable. The voice is very similar in how I speak to people, but the feeling of being held by someone as you take this journey to transform into your very best self was a through-line that I wanted to have, to help people feel very supported in this path to claim their power.
If you had to describe one goal with this book, what would that be?
My primary goal is for women to embrace self-care as a pathway to empowerment, to learn to love their bodies, and to really appreciate the magic and wisdom their body has to teach them, and to really explore the dimensions of their genius and get to the bottom of what they want to be doing in their lives—whether that’s professionally or creatively. Some of us want to give birth to babies, and some of us have dreams of career paths or different creative exploits that we want to explore—and some of us die with that inside of us because we don’t let that come out. I believe that we have this gift that’s a light inside of each of us—and it’s relentless and shining and it wants to connect. I think that Own You Glow is about owning that light and letting it lead you through the world. I want women to take with them that they are capable and they are powerful and they’re awesome—no matter what it is, they can get it done—but our culture sets up to think that we need to move through life in a certain way, and it’s mostly by pushing and hustling, but we really need to slow down and be intentional and nurturing of our ideas and all these potential things that are growing within us. I’d rather see that kind of energy embraced by women—“let’s nurture, let’s slow down, and let’s cultivate,” rather than “let’s hustle, let’s push, and let’s force.” But that’s kind of what we’re doing in New York City, we’re pushing.
It’s divided into sections called Evoke, Ignite, and Embody. Why did you structure the book that way?
I see it as the progression where you’re inviting an energy in and stirring it up, and that’s like evoking and awakening. Then igniting is once we realize that we have this energy within us, it’s about setting it ablaze. And embodying is about becoming. So it’s a progression of awareness to becoming awakened to becoming activated and then becoming a power source, where you are the starting point in the beginning of a movement. For us to claim that for ourselves, we first have to turn it on to begin with. I also wanted people to know there was a flow—we’re headed some place as we read it, so that’s also why I did it—so people wouldn’t skip ahead. I want readers to do the exercises and the meditations and the rituals and get all of the information. And once you get to the end, you can come back to the beginning and do it all over again. But I wanted people to go through stages and grow from it.
I loved the emphasis on rituals and ritual objects. What are some rituals that you have?
All of us have things we hold dear and creating spaces to explore personal growth—you have to create space for that—and for me, it’s about setting up little altars throughout the house to remind me of the support I have in the world, like people who are here with me or who have passed, as well as energy that I’d like to drum up. I feel powerful and there might be people in life whom I’ve known or whom I’ve never met [who contributed to that] and I want to evoke that energy in myself. I also use a lot of crystals or sage…fresh flower and things that remind me of nature and joy and love and safety and security. Things that remind me of a life of abundance? I’ll keep those things all around! I also find that part of my ritual includes things like essential oils and scents. I use things like that in practice, whether it’s meditation or birth. I also find that choosing a time of day to do something and doing it over and over is very helpful. For me, it’s a morning ritual and an evening routine that makes me settles down into the night. It can be meditation or deep breathing or a movement exercise; or it can be prayer or journaling or running a hot bath. Rituals extend into my self-care practice, which I call Glow Time… A big thing I talk about in this book is putting yourself fist. And people say “but that’s selfish”—and it is, but you can’t give to others if you don’t give to yourself.
Is there anything that moms specifically should know about the new book?
For moms, I have a great section about food—it helps you structure how you can create powerful meals really quickly. I also have some guidelines for how you can become better in the kitchen and take more responsibility in that area. In my work, I see so many women who are on the precipice of change…there are so many women who are right there and they’re becoming, and I watch them deliver their babies and then launch businesses. What I think is really beneficial to moms is the whole first section that talks about “what is it that you’re dreaming of? What do you want to achieve? What are things that are impediments to that?” It also goes into how you can own your glow. I think owning your glow is also owning your story and what your story is today.
To learn more, visit mamaglow.com!
