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EMPOWERED WOMEN WE LOVE: LATHAM THOMAS
At barre3, we’re on a mission to help people feel empowered from within—but what does this mean, and how do you get there? Just like our class, there’s not a one-size-fits-all answer. Discovering your inherent strength can happen in a million different ways, but no matter how you get there, the end result is the same: When you’re empowered from within, you look within for answers and trust that you are your own best teacher.
In our Empowered Women We Love series, we talk to inspiring women from our diverse community who have tapped into their inherent strength to lead a life that’s empowered from within. Today we’re talking to Latham Thomas, founder of Mama Glow. Find more Empowered Women We Love interviews here, here, here, and here.
As the founder of the wellness company Mama Glow, Latham Thomas is dedicated to helping women stand in their power through all the stages of their lives—particularly during times of change. Whether they’re on the precipice of motherhood, looking to make a career transition, or seeking self-care support, women turn to Latham for expert guidance and her signature holistic approach.
Read on to learn how Latham helps women find their personal route to empowerment, why she says vulnerability is critical to good leadership, and why we should take cues from nature when charting our own course. And don’t forget to join the empowerment conversation by posting on Instagram with the caption: “I feel empowered from within when _________.” (Be sure to use the hashtags #barre3 and #bempowered to enter to win our weekly giveaways!)
BARRE3: Your company is called Mama Glow, but you offer support to women in all stages of life, regardless of whether or not their mothers. Can you give us the overview of the services you provide, and how your teachings are incorporated into your latest book, Own Your Glow?
LATHAM: My work has always been about supporting women at the threshold of change in their lives. Sometimes that’s during the journey to motherhood, other times it’s helping women launch businesses or creative ventures. Mama Glow is our women’s wellness company that is home to a globally recognized doula program welcoming women from around the world, and we offer services to support people along the childbearing continuum. Our women’s space in Brooklyn, NY, is a center that welcomes women of all ages and backgrounds to explore wellness, spirituality, and self-care.
I was inspired to write Own Your Glow to help women access their dreams and tap their power source. Own Your Glow is an inspirational, actionable, and wildly enriching companion for change. It contains soulful principles that offer an illuminated path for examining life’s challenges, helping you curate your path to greatness while embracing your uniquely feminine attributes. I wanted to create a blueprint for finding a clear framework for harnessing your passion, developing spiritual fitness, and embracing true vulnerability.
BARRE3: Who is the target audience for Own Your Glow?
LATHAM: This guide is for anyone who wants to witness her own life transform and contribute to the positive change of the world around her.
BARRE3: Instead of urging people to do more, go bigger, work faster, your book champions slowing down, being intentional, and practicing self-care as a pathway to empowerment. Can you talk about, first, how you define empowerment, and second, how your approach is more likely to get you there than the traditional western edict of go-go-go, more-more-more?
LATHAM: Empowerment is a sense of self-determination and actualization that is dictated by self. Our culture has long promoted the perceived values of hustling, acceleration, fast-paced living, instant gratification, and the pursuit of such. If we look at nature, we see that everything takes time and that slowing down actually allows us to move at a pace that is more natural and health-supportive. The consumption model, a Pac Man style approach to life, consumes the one pursuing it. When we have more, we want more, and we don’t appreciate what we have while we have it. When we apply a mindfulness frame and embrace self-care, the idea of slowing down, moving intentionally, paying attention, isn’t daunting. I’m inviting people to choose what feels good and listen to their internal compass instead of forcing themselves to adjust to a lifestyle that has poor impacts on our health and mental wellbeing.
BARRE3: One of the tenets of your approach includes embracing vulnerability. Can you talk about why this is an important step in the journey to empowerment?
LATHAM: Your vulnerability is a crown of glory, an honest embrace of who you truly are and a stamp of resilience. Vulnerability is the one true thing we can give of ourselves. It allows us to become better people, better leaders. Lean into vulnerability. Be open about your hopes and your failures. There is peace in being open and honest about who you are—your hopes, your triumphs, and your challenges. The most profound moments of inspiration happen when we get honest and allow ourselves to be naked. Whether you are giving a presentation at work, speaking on a stage, accepting an award, or calling in the love of your life, it requires vulnerability—a softness of the heart and gaze—that you might see the world through warm eyes. We can not be truly great if we create blocks where our weakest points are.
BARRE3: Can you give examples of some of the ways this approach has helped people transform their lives?
LATHAM: Speaking your truth in a world of judgement and creating safe spaces where you can be vulnerable is so critical for leaders. Being able to own when you have caused harm, and honoring other people’s feelings are both so valuable. One of the ways I help people harness vulnerability is by helping them envision what is possible for themselves. Round up your vision doulas for support. Create a support system for where you are right now. In the birth tradition, the doula is a woman whose role is to “mother the mother.” She is to serve as a grounding emotional and spiritual support for the woman who is transitioning, crossing a threshold into motherhood. Your vision doula holds the same role—to be an emotional and spiritual support for you while you hold space for something greater that is coming through you. This is a big part of the work I do with women who aren’t giving birth to babies but have something else very powerful they are giving rise to.
BARRE3: Part of our mission at barre3 is to help people feel empowered from within.This feels perfectly aligned with your approach. Where you’d suggest people start as they embark on empowerment journeys of their own?
LATHAM: Well, my book Own Your Glow, provides a pretty clear map for what I see as a pathway to empowerment. And I encourage people to do the guide together with a companion to help keep each other accountable. I have used mindfulness tools, meditation, journaling, yoga, and self-inquiry to support my self-reflective practice. And I have to say the biggest piece is embracing where you are. I know January is the month of new beginnings and resolutions, but I find that if we align with the phases of the moon, we can tap renewal energy every month with the new moon. We can access our goals, examine our failures, and move with the energy of the ambient landscape. I make space for clarity—this is important—to constantly unload and examine our baggage and release what we don’t need so we can move with levity. It’s not a place I arrived at, but a place I show up to all the time as part of my practice. Always evolving and always becoming.
Thank you, Latham, for sharing your approach to empowerment with us! You can learn more about Latham and Mama Glow here, and you can find her latest book, Own Your Glow, here.
Latham Thomas, aka Glow Maven, is a celebrity wellness/ lifestyle maven and birth doula, transforming not only how women give birth to their babies, but how they give rise to the best version of themselves. Named one of Oprah Winfrey’s Super Soul 100, Latham is helping women embrace optimal wellness and spiritual growth as a pathway to owning their power. She is the founder of Mama Glow, a lifestyle brand and highly regarded website and women’s center in Brooklyn, NY, offering inspiration, education, and holistic services for expectant and new mothers. Mama Glow boasts a DOULA IMMERSION program that is globally recognized and attended by women from all corners of the USA and 6 continents. A graduate of Columbia University, Latham serves on the TUFTS University Nutrition Council as well as their board for Entrepreneurship. She is a two-time best-selling author, and she released her first meditation album with Sounds True this April called BEDITATIONS: Guided Meditations for Rest and Renewal. With clients including Alicia Keys, DJ Khaled, Rebecca Minkoff and more, Latham is shifting the conversation about birth. Latham is leading a revolution in radical self-care teaching women everywhere to “mother themselves first.”
At barre3, we’re on a mission to help people feel empowered from within—but what does this mean, and how do you get there? Just like our class, there’s not a one-size-fits-all answer. Discovering your inherent strength can happen in a million different ways, but no matter how you get there, the end result is the same: When you’re empowered from within, you look within for answers and trust that you are your own best teacher.
In our Empowered Women We Love series, we talk to inspiring women from our diverse community who have tapped into their inherent strength to lead a life that’s empowered from within. Today we’re talking to Latham Thomas, founder of Mama Glow. Find more Empowered Women We Love interviews here, here, here, and here.
As the founder of the wellness company Mama Glow, Latham Thomas is dedicated to helping women stand in their power through all the stages of their lives—particularly during times of change. Whether they’re on the precipice of motherhood, looking to make a career transition, or seeking self-care support, women turn to Latham for expert guidance and her signature holistic approach.
Read on to learn how Latham helps women find their personal route to empowerment, why she says vulnerability is critical to good leadership, and why we should take cues from nature when charting our own course. And don’t forget to join the empowerment conversation by posting on Instagram with the caption: “I feel empowered from within when _________.” (Be sure to use the hashtags #barre3 and #bempowered to enter to win our weekly giveaways!)
BARRE3: Your company is called Mama Glow, but you offer support to women in all stages of life, regardless of whether or not their mothers. Can you give us the overview of the services you provide, and how your teachings are incorporated into your latest book, Own Your Glow?
LATHAM: My work has always been about supporting women at the threshold of change in their lives. Sometimes that’s during the journey to motherhood, other times it’s helping women launch businesses or creative ventures. Mama Glow is our women’s wellness company that is home to a globally recognized doula program welcoming women from around the world, and we offer services to support people along the childbearing continuum. Our women’s space in Brooklyn, NY, is a center that welcomes women of all ages and backgrounds to explore wellness, spirituality, and self-care.
I was inspired to write Own Your Glow to help women access their dreams and tap their power source. Own Your Glow is an inspirational, actionable, and wildly enriching companion for change. It contains soulful principles that offer an illuminated path for examining life’s challenges, helping you curate your path to greatness while embracing your uniquely feminine attributes. I wanted to create a blueprint for finding a clear framework for harnessing your passion, developing spiritual fitness, and embracing true vulnerability.
BARRE3: Who is the target audience for Own Your Glow?
LATHAM: This guide is for anyone who wants to witness her own life transform and contribute to the positive change of the world around her.
BARRE3: Instead of urging people to do more, go bigger, work faster, your book champions slowing down, being intentional, and practicing self-care as a pathway to empowerment. Can you talk about, first, how you define empowerment, and second, how your approach is more likely to get you there than the traditional western edict of go-go-go, more-more-more?
LATHAM: Empowerment is a sense of self-determination and actualization that is dictated by self. Our culture has long promoted the perceived values of hustling, acceleration, fast-paced living, instant gratification, and the pursuit of such. If we look at nature, we see that everything takes time and that slowing down actually allows us to move at a pace that is more natural and health-supportive. The consumption model, a Pac Man style approach to life, consumes the one pursuing it. When we have more, we want more, and we don’t appreciate what we have while we have it. When we apply a mindfulness frame and embrace self-care, the idea of slowing down, moving intentionally, paying attention, isn’t daunting. I’m inviting people to choose what feels good and listen to their internal compass instead of forcing themselves to adjust to a lifestyle that has poor impacts on our health and mental wellbeing.
BARRE3: One of the tenets of your approach includes embracing vulnerability. Can you talk about why this is an important step in the journey to empowerment?
LATHAM: Your vulnerability is a crown of glory, an honest embrace of who you truly are and a stamp of resilience. Vulnerability is the one true thing we can give of ourselves. It allows us to become better people, better leaders. Lean into vulnerability. Be open about your hopes and your failures. There is peace in being open and honest about who you are—your hopes, your triumphs, and your challenges. The most profound moments of inspiration happen when we get honest and allow ourselves to be naked. Whether you are giving a presentation at work, speaking on a stage, accepting an award, or calling in the love of your life, it requires vulnerability—a softness of the heart and gaze—that you might see the world through warm eyes. We can not be truly great if we create blocks where our weakest points are.
BARRE3: Can you give examples of some of the ways this approach has helped people transform their lives?
LATHAM: Speaking your truth in a world of judgement and creating safe spaces where you can be vulnerable is so critical for leaders. Being able to own when you have caused harm, and honoring other people’s feelings are both so valuable. One of the ways I help people harness vulnerability is by helping them envision what is possible for themselves. Round up your vision doulas for support. Create a support system for where you are right now. In the birth tradition, the doula is a woman whose role is to “mother the mother.” She is to serve as a grounding emotional and spiritual support for the woman who is transitioning, crossing a threshold into motherhood. Your vision doula holds the same role—to be an emotional and spiritual support for you while you hold space for something greater that is coming through you. This is a big part of the work I do with women who aren’t giving birth to babies but have something else very powerful they are giving rise to.
BARRE3: Part of our mission at barre3 is to help people feel empowered from within.This feels perfectly aligned with your approach. Where you’d suggest people start as they embark on empowerment journeys of their own?
LATHAM: Well, my book Own Your Glow, provides a pretty clear map for what I see as a pathway to empowerment. And I encourage people to do the guide together with a companion to help keep each other accountable. I have used mindfulness tools, meditation, journaling, yoga, and self-inquiry to support my self-reflective practice. And I have to say the biggest piece is embracing where you are. I know January is the month of new beginnings and resolutions, but I find that if we align with the phases of the moon, we can tap renewal energy every month with the new moon. We can access our goals, examine our failures, and move with the energy of the ambient landscape. I make space for clarity—this is important—to constantly unload and examine our baggage and release what we don’t need so we can move with levity. It’s not a place I arrived at, but a place I show up to all the time as part of my practice. Always evolving and always becoming.
Thank you, Latham, for sharing your approach to empowerment with us! You can learn more about Latham and Mama Glow here, and you can find her latest book, Own Your Glow, here.
Latham Thomas, aka Glow Maven, is a celebrity wellness/ lifestyle maven and birth doula, transforming not only how women give birth to their babies, but how they give rise to the best version of themselves. Named one of Oprah Winfrey’s Super Soul 100, Latham is helping women embrace optimal wellness and spiritual growth as a pathway to owning their power. She is the founder of Mama Glow, a lifestyle brand and highly regarded website and women’s center in Brooklyn, NY, offering inspiration, education, and holistic services for expectant and new mothers. Mama Glow boasts a DOULA IMMERSION program that is globally recognized and attended by women from all corners of the USA and 6 continents. A graduate of Columbia University, Latham serves on the TUFTS University Nutrition Council as well as their board for Entrepreneurship. She is a two-time best-selling author, and she released her first meditation album with Sounds True this April called BEDITATIONS: Guided Meditations for Rest and Renewal. With clients including Alicia Keys, DJ Khaled, Rebecca Minkoff and more, Latham is shifting the conversation about birth. Latham is leading a revolution in radical self-care teaching women everywhere to “mother themselves first.”
