The Shelf Help Podcast

Psychotherapist and author Natasha Page joins Toni Jones on The Shelf Help Podcast to ask: what amazing future have you already decided isn't for you?

In her book Believe You're Made for More, Natasha shares a seven-step approach to building self-esteem, challenging the stories we tell ourselves and developing the confidence to imagine a different future.

For Natasha, the subject is personal as well as professional. Having once struggled with her own self-belief, she knows how easily low self-esteem can shape our choices, limit our experiences and stop us pursuing things we might secretly want.

And in this practical, workshop-style conversation, Natasha explains why improving self-esteem isn't about becoming a completely different person. It's about understanding where our beliefs came from, questioning the ones that no longer serve us and learning to treat ourselves with more compassion.

In this episode, you'll discover:

• How low self-esteem can quietly shrink your world and stop you imagining a future that's actually possible.

• Why the stories we tell ourselves often aren't facts, and how to begin questioning the beliefs that hold us back.

• A guided journalling exercise to identify a negative story you've been carrying, explore where it came from and consider whether it's really true.

• How the experiences of our past can influence our self-worth without having to define our future.

• Why self-compassion matters, and how to recognise when you're speaking to yourself in ways you'd never speak to a friend.

• How assumptions about what other people think of us can fuel anxiety and undermine our confidence.

• A higher-self reflection practice to help you connect with the person you're becoming and make more intentional choices.

And you'll learn that building self-esteem doesn't mean suddenly becoming fearless or endlessly positive. It's about developing a kinder, more honest relationship with yourself, and recognising that your past doesn't have to dictate what's possible next.

Whether you're struggling with self-doubt, feeling stuck in an old version of yourself or ready to explore what might come next, this conversation offers practical tools to help you design your next chapter with intention and joy.

Get Natasha's Book > Believe You're Made for More

📚 Join the Shelf Help Book Club on Substack

Clinical psychologist Jeremy Stevenson joins Toni Jones on The Shelf Help Podcast to ask: beneath all the books, theories and advice, what actually helps us change?

Jeremy and his co-author Spencer Greenberg examined more than 100 self-help books and 23 therapeutic approaches, gathering hundreds of techniques before finding that they could be grouped into 12 broad “levers”.

Jeremy's interest in self-help is personal as well as professional; in his twenties, a self-help technique helped him challenge the thoughts that were making him miserable and ultimately inspired him to become a psychologist.

And in this conversation, he explains how we can all use the levers as tools to ease our suffering and support our wellbeing when we start by understanding what’s happening, then choose a technique that fits.

In this episode, you’ll discover:

• How to break down an anxious experience using the ABC method and spot what you may be able to change.
• Why gradually approaching something you fear can help with social anxiety, and how our unconscious 'safety behaviours' might actually be getting in the way.
• What 'parts work' means, and how speaking kindly to an anxious part of yourself might help you take the next step.
• Why self-compassion can support change without letting you off the hook.
• How to decide when to work on a feeling and when acceptance may be the more helpful response.
• Why doing more activities you’re glad you did afterwards can lift your mood, even when you really don’t feel like starting.

And you'll learn that you don’t have to master all 12 levers or use them in order. Whether you’re navigating anxiety, feeling a little flat, or simply curious about how to put self-help into practice, this conversation offers a place to begin.

📚 Join the Shelf Help Book Club on Substack

🔎 Find out more about The 12 Levers and Jeremy Stevenson

TV presenter and bestselling author Andrea McLean joins Toni Jones on The Shelf Help Podcast for a raw and revealing conversation about shame, identity and what happens when the life you've built falls apart. In the publi eye.

After more than 20 years in television, Andrea publicly left her successful career to start a business, telling viewers she wanted to find out whether she would "fall or fly".

She fell. The business failed, Andrea became seriously ill with Covid, she and her husband Nick lost their money and had to sell their home, and the former Loose Women presenter found herself unable to even get a job in a coffee shop.

In this honest conversation, Andrea shares what it was really like to lose the identity and lifestyle she'd worked decades to build, why she eventually decided to stop hiding and write her fifth book, Shameless, and how confronting her shame has changed the way she thinks about failure, money, marriage, parenting and herself.

In this episode, you'll discover:

• Why Andrea says the best financial advice she received was to "panic early", and why shame can keep you hanging on when it's time to change course.
• What happened when Andrea's financial struggles became national headlines, and why she cried on the morning Shameless was published.
• How losing their financial safety net unexpectedly brought Andrea's blended family closer and taught her children about money and resilience.
• The "ugly truth" conversations Andrea and Nick use to navigate conflict and difficult conversations in their marriage.
• Why guilt says "I did something bad" while shame says "I am bad", and how changing the language you use about yourself can change the story you carry.
• Andrea also talks candidly about ageing in the public eye, being told just 12 weeks after having a baby that "no one wants to see a fat weather girl", Botox, hair extensions, menopause and why, at 56, she feels very differently about her face, body and age.

Whether you're dealing with failure, financial pressure, a changing identity or simply a life that hasn't turned out quite as planned, this conversation is a powerful reminder that you are not the mistake. You may have made the mess, but you are also the person who can start cleaning it up.

📚 More about the Shelf Help Book Club (hosted on Substack)

📖 Get the book: Shameless by Andrea McLean

Journalist, campaigner and bestselling author Milli Hill joins Toni Jones on The Shelf Help Podcast to celebrate the publication of her empowering new book, The Body Myth.

Together they explore the stories women inherit about their bodies, from menstruation and motherhood to menopause, ageing and body image, and ask what might change if we understood our bodies with more curiosity and compassion - and celebration! - instead of criticism.

From the concept of matriflux - the continual cycle of change throughout a woman's life - to the power of body literacy and self-acceptance, this is a thoughtful conversation about challenging old myths and building a kinder relationship with yourself.

In this episode, you'll discover:

• Why so many of us inherit and internalise beliefs about our bodies without ever questioning them.
• The concept of matriflux and what it teaches us about change, resilience and reinvention.
• How our first experiences of puberty can shape our relationship with our bodies for decades.
• Why body and hormonal literacy is about far more than fertility.
• How wwareness is 50% of transformation.

Whether you're navigating puberty, motherhood, menopause or simply learning to feel more at home in your own skin, this conversation is a reminder that understanding yourself includes understanding the body you live in.

📚 More about the Shelf Help Book Club (⁠hosted on Substack⁠)

📖 Get the book: The Body Myth by Milli Hill

World-renowned therapist and bestselling author, Marisa Peer, joins Toni Jones for the first episode of the new Shelf Help Podcast.

Together they explore Marisa's latest book, Your Mind, Your Rules, and the hidden beliefs that shape our confidence, relationships and everyday decisions.

From understanding why your brain is a "proof-making machine" to learning how to reframe challenges and rewrite limiting beliefs, this is a practical conversation full of ideas you can start using today to support your self-discovery:

• Why your brain looks for evidence to support what you repeatedly tell yourself (good and bad).
• The power of repetition and changing your inner dialogue.
• Why your problem might be somebody else's dream (and why reframes like this can change everything).

• How your psychology influences your biology.
• Simple ways to replace limiting beliefs with more empowering ones.

Your Mind, Your Rules is the current Shelf Help Book Club pick for July and August 2026, and we'd love for you to read along with us.

📚 More about the Shelf Help Book Club (hosted on Substack)

📖 Get the book: Your Mind, Your Rules by Marisa Peer

Welcome to The Shelf Help Podcast, a weekly conversation with the world's leading personal development authors.

Hosted by journalist and bibliotherapist, Toni Jones, each episode explores one self-help book and the ideas behind it to help you understand yourself a little better, and to support self-help as an everyday practice.

Some of these conversations are recorded live with our global Shelf Help community. Others are intimate one-to-ones.

But they all have one thing in common: they're designed to help you use and apply self-help, not just read or listen to it.

New episodes every Friday.

Watch the videos and join the conversation at the Shelf Help Book Club over at Substack.