Friendly Reminders: Lessons from a Self-Care Savage

Tatum, the host of the podcast Self-Care Savage, posts regularly on Instagram (@ucanoutdoors); the book is basically an extension of his IG posts—giving a little background about his life and how walking in nature and putting self-care first helped him get out of a deep depression. Each chapter has friendly reminders (“It’s okay to not be okay. It’s just not okay to stay that way”) followed by general self-help guidance (setting goals; letting go of trauma). Nicely illustrated, and often blunt, this is not a self-help book that comes with statistics or summaries of studies; rather, it kindly yet firmly repeats the mantras that most self-help books boil down to: taking responsibility for one’s life, forgiveness, taking care of physical health, letting go of bad habits, and more. As with nearly all self-help books, it does not address how inequalities in society impact emotional well-being. This title, while differing in style from Matt Haig’s The Comfort Book, provides the same snippets of small truths for looking at things in a new way.