Speaker 1: Welcome to healthy Ish fans, friends, listeners of this podcast.
Speaker 1: How are you Hope you are feeling well healthish of course,
Speaker 1: this is the daily podcast from Body and Soul. I
Speaker 1: am the host of Felicity Harley. Now. I first spotted
Speaker 1: our guests on the bestseller list. It was a few
Speaker 1: weeks ago. Her book is called What's My Body Telling Me?
Speaker 1: And Ah, I think it was number one or two. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I thought we have to get her on this podcast.
Speaker 1: Dr Anthea Todd I tracked her down. Yes, she is
Speaker 1: here today. She joins us from the Gold Coast to
Speaker 1: discuss her concept of health attachment style, how to identify
Speaker 1: yours and boost your health today. Now. She's also a
Speaker 1: chiropractor who holds a double Masters in Women's health Medicine
Speaker 1: and reproductive Medicine. She knows ther stuff. You'll enjoy this chat.
Speaker 1: Make sure you're also listening to extra health Ish, where
Speaker 1: she shares her simple formula for better body and mind balance.
Speaker 1: You can catch that where we get your podcasts Anthea,
Speaker 1: lovely to have you on Healthy Today. Congratulations on the
Speaker 1: success of your new book.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for listener. Great to be here.
Speaker 1: Now let's talk about this health attachment style, which actually
Speaker 1: caught my attention when I was reading your book What
Speaker 1: Is This All About? You write about this whole idea.
Speaker 2: Well attachment style. I'm not sure whether you've heard of it,
Speaker 2: but a lot of people refer to it in terms
Speaker 2: of relationships. So there's basically four main types. You can
Speaker 2: have an anxious type, an avoidant type, and anxious avoidant.
Speaker 2: If you're really lucky, you get both, and also a
Speaker 2: secure type. So in relation to your body, if you
Speaker 2: have an anxious attachment style, it's like you don't trust
Speaker 2: your body and you trust other people more than you
Speaker 2: trust your body. So a classic example of this is
Speaker 2: that you are like any little thing, You're like, I've
Speaker 2: got cancer, or you're like always googling things thinking or
Speaker 2: worse is going to happen. But also this can also
Speaker 2: show up in ways where you thinking I have to
Speaker 2: meet a certain step count, or you feel guilty if
Speaker 2: you don't go and exercise that day, or you're always
Speaker 2: counting calories. You're doing those things because you just feel
Speaker 2: like underneath the surface, your body is fragile and you
Speaker 2: don't trust it. So that's an anxious type. Then we
Speaker 2: have the avoidant type, which is the complete opposite. It's
Speaker 2: like my body will be fine. I'm going to ignore everything.
Speaker 2: She'll be right type of attitude, just like ah nah,
Speaker 2: I'll get on with it. But we can also have
Speaker 2: that as mums, where we put everyone else before ourselves
Speaker 2: and we just ignore, ignore, until eventually we get a
Speaker 2: big whack and we get some form of big symptom
Speaker 2: that knocks us out. Yes.
Speaker 1: I think we've all had one of those.
Speaker 2: Yes. And then the anxious avoidant is you can sort
Speaker 2: of think of this like you go from one to
Speaker 2: the other. So avoidant is you trust yourself over other people.
Speaker 2: Anxious is you trust other people over your body. The
Speaker 2: anxious avoidant you switch between. This is often where you're like, oh,
Speaker 2: I feel like something's wrong. You go and see some
Speaker 2: form of health practitioner. You do the thing for a
Speaker 2: couple of weeks, and you go they didn't know what
Speaker 2: they're talking about. That didn't that didn't work. No one
Speaker 2: knows what's going on. My body's my body will be
Speaker 2: fine or my body's broken. You sort of like ying
Speaker 2: and yang between them. You don't really know what's going on,
Speaker 2: and that can be really frustrating as well. And then
Speaker 2: the secure type is where you trust your body, you
Speaker 2: know that it can look after itself. It's very robust,
Speaker 2: but you also know when to reach out for help,
Speaker 2: and you seek help when you need it. So that's
Speaker 2: what I mean by the health attachment styles.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I like that. Is there any one that you
Speaker 1: see more of with you know, your clients or people
Speaker 1: that come to you for help?
Speaker 2: Is there?
Speaker 1: I mean I feel like probably every listener was thinking, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's me. Definitely me.
Speaker 2: Well, I often I see a mix, but probably the
Speaker 2: anxious avoidant people are the people that I see. The
Speaker 2: most avoidant people I don't see as much of because
Speaker 2: mostly don't reach out for help until they really need it.
Speaker 2: But yeah, the anxious avoidant type, which is that typical
Speaker 2: you've been searching for answers and you're lost in that
Speaker 2: space between I call it. We've gone and seen typically
Speaker 2: a medical practitioner, which is great, it's a great first
Speaker 2: port of calls to go and see. But if you
Speaker 2: don't have anything significant enough to need medication or surgery,
Speaker 2: then often we're told there's nothing wrong with us, and
Speaker 2: then we sort of go into that loop of anxious
Speaker 2: and avoidant space where we're like, okay, well, is there
Speaker 2: actually nothing wrong with me? Maybe I should just ignore
Speaker 2: these symptoms and it's in my head or we're being
Speaker 2: medically gas lit and all those things. But then we
Speaker 2: can also go into the avoidant state of like, oh
Speaker 2: my gosh, I've tried to go and get help and
Speaker 2: no one can help me, so I may as well
Speaker 2: just ignore it. So's we go through that cycle when
Speaker 2: we're lost in that space.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that rumination, And I'm presuming secure is the place
Speaker 1: we want to get to.
Speaker 2: Yeah, ideally, and how we do that, Like, you're not
Speaker 2: destined to stay stuck in any of these I should
Speaker 2: preface that so you can always change. And that's the
Speaker 2: same when they talk about attachment style in relationships as well.
Speaker 2: You can always move to a secure So secure is
Speaker 2: where you really learn how to listen to your body
Speaker 2: and trust it and just know that it is always
Speaker 2: looking out for you. Like if you are listening to
Speaker 2: this podcast right now, I know your body is working
Speaker 2: for you because you're alive. So it's doing all of
Speaker 2: these things, trillions of reactions every single second to keep
Speaker 2: you alive, to make sure you can listen to this
Speaker 2: and you're not defecating at the same time when you're
Speaker 2: driving your car and like you can eat your breakfast
Speaker 2: on the way to work, and you're doing like you're
Speaker 2: doing all of these amazing things. And then sometimes we
Speaker 2: go like, oh, but like, but this is happening with
Speaker 2: my body, or that's happening with my body. But it's
Speaker 2: like underneath the surface, it's actually looking out for you.
Speaker 2: You have no idea of the amazingness that it's full of.
Speaker 2: So when we can actually lean into that and learn
Speaker 2: how to listen to our body and then learn how
Speaker 2: to get the type of care that we need when
Speaker 2: we need it, that's when we move to a secure attachment.
Speaker 1: Why do so many of us miss the signals our
Speaker 1: bodies try to tell us.
Speaker 2: Well, I think it's sort of twofold in that we
Speaker 2: miss it because we don't we normalize common symptoms. So say,
Speaker 2: for instance, something like stretch marks, not a big deal,
Speaker 2: not life threatening, but it's actually your body telling you something.
Speaker 2: Depending on the color of them, are they purple or
Speaker 2: are they white? It can tell you a significant nutritional
Speaker 2: deficiency in copper or sorry, an excess in copper and
Speaker 2: a deficiency in zinc, which can tie into why you
Speaker 2: have heavy periods. And then your heavy periods can tell
Speaker 2: you why you're losing a lot of blood and why
Speaker 2: are I indefficient? But then what's really underneath all of
Speaker 2: those surfaces. But what happens is we go, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: your friend has heavy periods and you go, oh, so
Speaker 2: do I. It's like, oh, well, then that must be normal.
Speaker 1: You just carry on and then I think you know
Speaker 1: what I really like about your book is that so
Speaker 1: many of us just carry on and think, oh, this
Speaker 1: is normal, or we go and seek medical attention, which
Speaker 1: we should, and then we're put on something, but we're
Speaker 1: not really addressing why it's happening.
Speaker 2: And that would be great if we were all healthy,
Speaker 2: but we're not. One in two of us have a
Speaker 2: chronic health illness, so that just doesn't work. Not listening
Speaker 2: to your body is never going to work. So it's
Speaker 2: always paying attention to Okay, what is this symptom telling me?
Speaker 2: And I'm not telling everyone now to go like, oh
Speaker 2: my gosh, I've got stretch marks and I've got these
Speaker 2: little symptoms that aren't life threatening. It's just going, ah, interesting,
Speaker 2: my body is telling me something with this, what might
Speaker 2: that be? So it's just having that curiosity, but also
Speaker 2: remembering your body is really robust and it's looking out
Speaker 2: for you. So knowing that you have that safety and
Speaker 2: trust in your body and being able to connect to it,
Speaker 2: is that that first, like, when we can have that,
Speaker 2: that's really really powerful. And then when we come from
Speaker 2: that space, we can go, ohh okay, I wonder what
Speaker 2: this symptom is telling me, whether it's something as small
Speaker 2: as stretch marks or white spots on your fingernails. But
Speaker 2: then it can get louder. It can be like, oh,
Speaker 2: I'm losing hair. There's comps of hair coming out in
Speaker 2: the shower. Does that mean I need different shampoo? Or
Speaker 2: is it telling me that maybe I'm not eating enough
Speaker 2: calories or I'm deficient in different proteins or micronutrients. Like,
Speaker 2: it's just listening to our body in a different way
Speaker 2: as it gets louder and louder. Hopefully not, but if
Speaker 2: it does, we know that our body is looking out
Speaker 2: for us.
Speaker 1: There's a sentence in the book that I really liked,
Speaker 1: and you wrote a society or system that often makes
Speaker 1: our bodies out to be the enemy, when really there's
Speaker 1: the solution. If we could do one thing today to
Speaker 1: better tune into our body. What can we do?
Speaker 2: Oh, that's a.
Speaker 1: Great one One thing.
Speaker 2: One thing, Okay, one thing. It's really just about paying
Speaker 2: attention to the small things and doing what your body
Speaker 2: is telling you. So say, for instance, you need to
Speaker 2: go to the toilet, Go to the toilet, you're cold,
Speaker 2: put on a jumper. The more you pay attention to
Speaker 2: the small signals of your body and you actually go
Speaker 2: through with them, you don't ignore them, you don't treat
Speaker 2: them as like inconveniences, you will develop a deeper connection
Speaker 2: with your body.
Speaker 1: Great advance, Anthea, Thank you for coming on Healthish.
Speaker 2: No worries. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: My friends. If you do want to read Anthea's book,
Speaker 1: I'm thoroughly enjoying it. I'm about halfway through. It's called
Speaker 1: What's My Body Telling Me? And it is out now.
Speaker 1: If you did enjoy this chat, tell us we love
Speaker 1: all feedback. You can rate and review this episode, or
Speaker 1: of course subscribe. Then you know exactly when we drop
Speaker 1: a new app. Bodyandsoul dot com dot you is a
Speaker 1: place to go. If you want more info, make sure
Speaker 1: you're following us on socials. Our print edition, of course,
Speaker 1: is out in your local Sunday paper. Grab that for
Speaker 1: a good read, and until tomorrow's stay ol fish