Speaker 1: Oh, Hello, Welcome to healthy Ish. Thanks for joining us
Speaker 1: on the Body and Soul podcast. I'm your host of
Speaker 1: Felicity Halle, best selling author and CEO of independent news
Speaker 1: platform Cheek Media. Co Hanna Ferguson joins us in the
Speaker 1: studio today to unpack wellness culture, the good bits, the
Speaker 1: bad bits, and everything in between, a topic she writes
Speaker 1: about in her new book Taboo. Now make sure you're
Speaker 1: listening to our sister pod, Extra healthy Ish, where Hannah
Speaker 1: shares her own struggles with vaginismus. She's open and honest
Speaker 1: and that one is worth a listen. You can grab
Speaker 1: it wherever you get your podcasts. Had A Ferguson, Welcome
Speaker 1: to healthy Ish.
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: It's nice to well have you across the table rather
Speaker 1: than next to me on the plane life.
Speaker 3: I'm almost agreeed. You was an old friend when I
Speaker 3: came in. Once you've been on a flight with someone.
Speaker 3: I think everything's changed.
Speaker 2: I agree, I agree, have great conversation. Yeah, fly, I
Speaker 2: think we fixed everything.
Speaker 1: Actually absolutely actually no, your book fixes everything seamless, seamless.
Speaker 1: I wanted to pick up on one of your themes
Speaker 1: in this around self care self improvement. You wrote a line,
Speaker 1: we become slaves to our own self improvement. The reason
Speaker 1: you don't feel well is because you're not investing enough money.
Speaker 2: I just unpack this, Yeah, and that's a lot to unpack, right.
Speaker 3: I think that what I've seen time and time again
Speaker 3: with young women but also women my mum's age, my
Speaker 3: grandma's age, is that a lot of the time we're
Speaker 3: being sold by different companies, by different like beauty, the
Speaker 3: beauty industry, the wellness industry, all of those together like
Speaker 3: collectively things that we're told are going to make us
Speaker 3: feel better fundamentally, like really fix us at our call.
Speaker 3: There's some sort of healing of some sort of community
Speaker 3: in spending to invest in polates classes, cold plunges in
Speaker 3: a bubble.
Speaker 2: Bath, in a candle.
Speaker 3: And obviously there is a lot of science to a
Speaker 3: lot of a lot of elements of the wellness industry.
Speaker 3: But my concern deeply is that it's sold as the
Speaker 3: big fix when actually the reason you feel exhausted, the
Speaker 3: reason you feel burnt out, the reason you have high
Speaker 3: cortisol is not because you haven't had a bubble bath
Speaker 3: this week or done enough yoga classes, but because you're
Speaker 3: doing a lot of unpaid labor in your household, you're
Speaker 3: not being paid enough for the work that you do,
Speaker 3: You're not being treated appropriately in your relationships, and those
Speaker 3: struggles and the cost of building crisis we exist in.
Speaker 3: The political sort of arena we exist in right now
Speaker 3: is probably more to do with the reason you don't
Speaker 3: feel well. The industry you're being sold is the all
Speaker 3: curing fix.
Speaker 1: I feel like the wellness industry really boomed when women
Speaker 1: came to a point where they realized they couldn't have
Speaker 1: it all.
Speaker 2: Yes, like we tried for so long to have.
Speaker 1: It all, to keep it all up, to have I've
Speaker 1: got to be everything and do everything, but we came
Speaker 1: crumbling down, and then all of a sudden, the wellness
Speaker 1: industry came along and said, we have a fix for this.
Speaker 2: And it costs money. And it costs a lot of
Speaker 2: money too.
Speaker 3: And I think it's also like women were taught to
Speaker 3: have it all, but to have it all in a
Speaker 3: visual public way, like a lot of the women that
Speaker 3: are projecting the habit all mentality, that have cleaners, that
Speaker 3: have cooks, that have a lot of help behind the scenes,
Speaker 3: and that's just not the case for everyone.
Speaker 2: It's a very privileged position. I see, exactly, it's not.
Speaker 3: And I think we're sold this lie that other people
Speaker 3: can do it and look so beautiful and perfect whilst
Speaker 3: it's happening, when in reality we know that's a lot
Speaker 3: of time out Instagram feeds feeding us a lie or
Speaker 3: telling us that we need to earn a million dollars
Speaker 3: in order to have that lifestyle.
Speaker 2: Which is just not possible for people.
Speaker 3: And then the wellness industry came along and said, yeah, exactly,
Speaker 3: if you do enough saunas this week, I'm sure that'll
Speaker 3: be fixed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all those soners are nice.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm a sauna goer. Like I think, it's just
Speaker 3: it's not about saying you don't do these things. It's
Speaker 3: about saying, have the awareness that this isn't going to
Speaker 3: fix deep rooted issues that aren't your fault.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. So how do we dismantle this wellness to be?
Speaker 1: Because I feel like wellness is such a loaded term. Yes, now,
Speaker 1: because I kind of want to feel well, but then
Speaker 1: I also don't want to feel shame and guilt because
Speaker 1: I'm not doing everything.
Speaker 2: All of those things.
Speaker 3: I think we need to separate, like what is good,
Speaker 3: the good and healthy and genuinely scientific backed parts of wellness,
Speaker 3: but also how that actually relates to mental health and
Speaker 3: physical health. So, like I'm someone when I'm looking at
Speaker 3: conversations around like self love and self care, trying to
Speaker 3: separate what is a commodity from an industry that's actually
Speaker 3: not engaging in like scientific backed research. What is just
Speaker 3: like a bath bomb versus actually going to the doctor
Speaker 3: or going to see a psychologist regularly and all of
Speaker 3: these things. Like, wellness is a holistic term, and I
Speaker 3: think it has an important role to play, but what
Speaker 3: sits under it now is very fake, very aesthetic, very
Speaker 3: surface level. And my concern is that we're falling into
Speaker 3: the trap of believing it's all equal and it's all
Speaker 3: the same, And I think we need to separate out
Speaker 3: what is actually constructive mental and physical health and what
Speaker 3: is wellness with the bow on top and a hefty
Speaker 3: price tag.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I almost think we need to lose the term
Speaker 1: wellness and just call it go back to well being. Yes,
Speaker 1: you know, twenty years ago it was just well being. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there was no wellness, and then suddenly it's almost the
Speaker 1: ness the price tag, yes, absolutely.
Speaker 2: Like you walk into any store and you actually.
Speaker 3: Have this like sage experience of you know, something smells lovely,
Speaker 3: something looks lovy, and you're like, okay, this pair of slippers,
Speaker 3: how is that now come under like a form of
Speaker 3: self care?
Speaker 2: This certain mat that I have to get? Oh, you
Speaker 2: can buy cars around wellness?
Speaker 3: Yes, everything has the world and it's thrown around so
Speaker 3: much that it means nothing anymore.
Speaker 1: How do you navigate or perhaps what's the word protect yourself?
Speaker 1: For when you walk walk into somewhere and something sold
Speaker 1: as wellness versus something genuinely science backed helps your health,
Speaker 1: how do you mentally kind of work out what's legit
Speaker 1: and what's not.
Speaker 3: I honestly think it's about having a hard conversation with
Speaker 3: yourself in the moment. Like I'm someone who go in
Speaker 3: and go This bar of soap does look fantastic, right,
Speaker 3: This candle looks brilliant and it smells lovely.
Speaker 2: But why do I want it?
Speaker 3: Do?
Speaker 2: I want it because it's.
Speaker 3: Lovely and it's gonna look pretty in my home and
Speaker 3: it's gonna make me feel good for a day, and
Speaker 3: I want to get it? Then sure, Like what am
Speaker 3: I willing to pay? But don't expect it to change
Speaker 3: your life? I think my approach is always just like,
Speaker 3: have a reasonable expectation for yourself as to what this
Speaker 3: can do for me and why I'm buying it, interrogating
Speaker 3: the why behind my actions there.
Speaker 2: I'm allowed to have lovely things. I'm allowed to want
Speaker 2: beautiful things. Do you have a candle? Yes? I have
Speaker 2: lovely things.
Speaker 3: I love buying nice things for myself on a whim
Speaker 3: when I'm going on a shopping day with my mum
Speaker 3: or something.
Speaker 2: There's nothing I mean, I love a candle too, I'm
Speaker 2: not here.
Speaker 3: And then the point is not to shame the individual,
Speaker 3: it's to attack the structure above it that goes I'm
Speaker 3: going to get this. I'm going to make someone a
Speaker 3: victim of this price tag and sell it to them
Speaker 3: as as as a cure.
Speaker 2: But that's my problem.
Speaker 1: How do we dismantle that big questioning that yeah, a
Speaker 1: couple of minutes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think again, it's about and part of that
Speaker 3: is the individual approach of when you walk into a
Speaker 3: store understanding that often this isn't research driven, this isn't
Speaker 3: data driven, this is something pretty and again, having that
Speaker 3: honest conversation with yourself, I think is the first step
Speaker 3: to dismantling it in your own personal life, because when
Speaker 3: you're buying things and trying to find things that make
Speaker 3: you feel better and they're ultimately not, there needs to
Speaker 3: be a bigger probe, a bigger interrogation as to why
Speaker 3: and actually looking at well, what are the things that
Speaker 3: make me more mentally and physically better healthy? That well
Speaker 3: being peace again. I think it's the personal interrogation that
Speaker 3: ultimately will lead to reduce sales for those faux wellness
Speaker 3: marketing strategies.
Speaker 2: What do you do to feel better? Honestly, go for
Speaker 2: a walk.
Speaker 3: I have a really good set of playlists that are
Speaker 3: defined by mood yeap. I've sort of rookie runner. I
Speaker 3: run five k's and I look like a tomato and
Speaker 3: I have to lie down for an hour afterwards.
Speaker 2: But it makes me feel really rundy. Yeah, I did
Speaker 2: pretty well. I did a half marathon last year, my
Speaker 2: first one. It was really good. Hello, you are not
Speaker 2: a rookie runner if you do a half marathon.
Speaker 3: I mean it was rough, it was tough going, but
Speaker 3: I'm just someone who's like very I love my alone time.
Speaker 3: I love having my own space, and I love just
Speaker 3: setting aside a lot of time during the year to
Speaker 3: like have a weekend away. Like I'm someone who invests
Speaker 3: in bigger pieces of well being rather than smaller pieces
Speaker 3: of wellness.
Speaker 2: What do you do when you go away?
Speaker 3: Read books, turn off my phone for twelve hours. I'm
Speaker 3: actually planning on going a holiday where I put my
Speaker 3: phone in a safe in the hotel for at least
Speaker 3: a week. That's what I want to do in the
Speaker 3: next year at some point as the biggest challenge to myself,
Speaker 3: because my phone is the barrier between me and well being.
Speaker 3: Like that's what I truly believe. And it's also my job.
Speaker 3: My phone is my job in a sense because I
Speaker 3: work on social media. So I think that going for
Speaker 3: a walk, touching grass quite literally, going outside, being in
Speaker 3: places aren't my home. Taking time for myself truly by myself,
Speaker 3: which not everyone has the luxury of at all times,
Speaker 3: are the things I do. You know.
Speaker 1: I interviewed Liz Gilbert this week and she actually locks
Speaker 1: her phone in a safe for a day, really and
Speaker 1: we actually laughed about it and it's laughable.
Speaker 3: But you have to actually do that, No, because I
Speaker 3: find myself going I'm gonna put my phone down for
Speaker 3: six hours and then I actually open my phone. When
Speaker 3: I delete like Instagram or something for a day, I
Speaker 3: opened my phone and I forget why I was there.
Speaker 3: And that's how I know that it's so mindless and
Speaker 3: it's so addictive, and it is it's a drug addiction, genuinely.
Speaker 3: But when I justify that it's my work, I struggle
Speaker 3: to break that tether.
Speaker 2: So I think the safe rule. That's my goal for
Speaker 2: twenty twenty five. Okay, we look forward to hearing more
Speaker 2: about that. Thank you for coming on healthy, Thanks having me.
Speaker 1: I do have a lot of time for Hannah. I
Speaker 1: think she has done incredible things in the media space,
Speaker 1: so make sure you grab her book. It is called Taboo.
Speaker 2: Of course.
Speaker 1: She talks about wellness culture, among many other feminist ideas
Speaker 1: and arguments.
Speaker 2: That she has.
Speaker 1: If you did enjoy this tell us you can rate
Speaker 1: and review of this podcast of course, DM me at
Speaker 1: Felicity Halley. If you have any other feedback, head to
Speaker 1: Body and Soul dot com dot you follow us on socials,
Speaker 1: grow our print edition which is out in your local
Speaker 1: Sunday paper. Thanks again for listening, and stay Healthy is