Finding Your Way Home; The Secrets to True Alignment

Podcast Short - The secrets to truly aligned eating, with Nutritional expert Phoebe Liebling

• Anthea Bell

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Gorgeous Listeners, welcome to this week’s episode of Finding Your Way Home,

On this week's Minisode, we sit down with one of my favourite people and a veritable font of knowledge on all things Functional Medicine, Health and a Holistic approach to well-being. She needs little introduction to my regular listeners but for those of you that are new to us - welcome to the insight and wisdom of Phoebe Liebling. 

Phoebe has been dedicated to the art and science of functional nutrition for over a decade, supporting thousands of clients toward truly personalised wellness. Through her thriving clinical practice "Liebling Health", her recipes, published writings, speaking events and extensive social media offering, she stewards a next-generation of informed and astute consumers. An audience guided by the desire to live well, in equilibrium, from a place of ease rather than overwhelm. 

In this juicy excerpt from her first episode on the Podcast, Phoebe and I dive into the manifold links between mind and body in the realm of nutrition; how to assess and adapt ones food habits for improved function; and why there really is no "right" or "wrong" where eating is concerned. Phoebe speaks about her own passion for the craft, what her life has experience taught her and how each and every one of us can come home to a more nourishing relationship with food.

To find out more about Phoebe Liebling:

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Anthea x

Phoebe:

so one of my favorite phrases, I guess, to explain this to people is that dissociation drives disease, and we often label it as sort of hyperstimulation or overuse of the stress response, but we live in a world now which is designed to overstimulate our entire being. but also completely rip mind and body away from each other.

Anthea:

Welcome to Finding Your Way Home, the secrets to true alignment. I'm your host, Anthea Bell, movement teacher, mind body coach, and lifelong spiritual seeker. This is a podcast about the depth, weight, and profound healing power of connection between mind and body, spirit and soul, and from one human to another. Together with an incredible range of inspiring guests, we'll explore just what connection and alignment mean. How to get there in a world full of the temptation to conform, and how great challenge ultimately can lead to life changing transformation. Get ready for groundbreaking personal stories, conversational deep dives, and a toolkit of strategies to build not just your inner knowing, but your outer world. Let's dive in.

Phoebe:

within health, exercise, nutrition, we are fed this constant barrage of ideals. And no one fits an ideal. Whether it's that you see these, I always laugh about this because people put me in this bubble of influences on social media, and I literally just kind of like raise an eyebrow because I say, well, I have a job. Influencers, their job is to do stuff on social media. So if you see their morning routine, They jump out of their beautifully made bed, which they then make again. They spend 45 minutes meditating, go for a lovely long walk, have a matcha, prepare a beautiful breakfast. It takes them four and a half hours, but they are this wonderfully glowing individual, and this is how. We should be doing things, or you have the other extremes of people who all the time and you don't have that time, you don't have that storage, if you don't have all of your meals for the entire week perfectly prepped and they're all exactly the same and identical and they look aesthetically beautiful, you've failed, so there's this constant thing of if you can't fit one of those people's molds You've got it wrong already, so why would you try? Or, you should feel like You should be constantly apologizing for not meeting what society is expecting of you. So the other thing that I spend a lot of time saying to people is, it really doesn't matter what anyone else is doing. The most liberating thing you can give yourself is the freedom to be unique. Just enjoy that. You are your own person. I, I used to be not a people pleaser, but I grew up in a central London girl's school. Everything is quite. Rigid in terms of how you fit in and there's all this judgment and the moment I went to university up in Leeds I left all of that behind and I have never felt So good when I sort of went I literally don't care What do you think? I'm going to be me in my own skin and That's gonna be weird some days. It's gonna be combative with some people It's not gonna gel but by being me I will find You Those people who actually support me in my life. I'll find my own path, which gives me a life that I'm proud of and I enjoy doing. I'm going to stop trying to do stuff for other people. But again, we often would label that as selfish, which it isn't. understanding what you need in order to be whole, which from that point, you can then be everything to everyone else rather than being fragmented and having weird interactions with people in the world around you.

Anthea:

So a lot of the practices that you guide people to take up in their day to day existence, they're actually very somatic based practices, going out for a walk, getting morning light, and you'll always explain the why. And I love that because again, you're arming people with the motivation. It's, it's inbuilt. so you give the reasons, but my sense is it's much bigger than that. It's actually to do with, Can I really value myself enough to live a life where I'm truly enriched in every sense that I need to be, nutritionally, natural exposure, in terms of even the way that I treat my skin, what products am I bathing myself in, what do those products have within them?

Phoebe:

so one of my favorite phrases, I guess, to explain this to people is that dissociation drives disease, and we often label it as sort of hyperstimulation or overuse of the stress response, but we live in a world now which is designed to overstimulate our entire being. but also completely rip mind and body away from each other. So, a lot of the time with stuff like the somatic thing, so stuff that's lodged internally, is I will get people who have chronic headaches, or they've got chronic acid reflux, and I listen to what they're saying, and I look at the dietary patterns, and I say, the thing is, can you actually touch your diaphragm? and this could be on a Zoom call, and I'll just be kind of looking at their posture, and I'll say, Okay, right, so if I get you to like test by touching that central bit of your diaphragm, where your lower esophageal sphincter would be, which is where people are going to get that heartburn sensation, and they literally can't touch it, and I say, Okay, right, so how do we feel about touching the rest of your abdomen? And they can't do it. And I say, okay, well, so if we investigate that a little bit, tell me about what your childhood was like in terms of eating habits. And they'll say, oh, yes, no, I, I lived in a very normal family and we just had the normal thing of, you had to finish your plate before you left the table. And sometimes like mom and dad would be a little bit. stern with each other around the table, or that's how we had big family discussions. And I say, and if you think about that now, where do you feel that sensation? And I go, yeah, actually, it feels like I've got a little bit of reflux. then, is it? It's a diaphragmatic spasm due to the fact that you've lodged all of that emotional trauma in and around there, which is also what we refer to as the solar plexus. those, I guess, are the more complex things where I'm trying to actually get somebody to understand how impactful their emotional health is on their physical health, but also it's a bi directional conversation. Because if your physical health isn't good, it's going to impact your emotional well being. But also. Your emotional health is going to directly impact what's going on physically and physiologically. when I am forming a relationship with somebody, you've got to have those little tools when you can solve the minutiae in order to be able to get them to do the big stuff. If somebody works for eight to ten hours on the screen every single day, even if their ergonomics are beautiful, so they've got their screen at eye height, and they're sitting in a wonderfully supportive chair, and I say, okay, well, just tell me about what's going on in your body. Like, do you get neck pain? Do you get eye ache? Do you have back pain? What are you doing for your physical activity? And very common that people will do an office job. And then they'll go to the gym once a day, maybe walk to and from work with a backpack on. and they've got terrible back and neck ache, and headaches as well. And I say, right, do you use a chest strap for your backpack? And they go, no. And I'm like, okay, well, all of a sudden, that's your shoulders all over the place. And what are you doing for physical exercise? And they'll say, oh, I am spinning or cycling and I run and I lift weights. And I go, Is there any mobility going on there? And they go, no. And I go, okay, right. So now we've got all of those structures that are very forward facing, just tightening up and curving your body over. And then you're staring at a screen where your eyes are fixed in space and all the words move rather than you moving your eyes. When you're reading a book, because the text is static, because we've now created this convenience for ourselves, where we don't have to try for anything. So I'll get them to do very simple eye exercises, like looking up to the top corner without moving their head, and they'll go, Oh my god, it feels like you're ripping my eyes out, and I go, okay. You don't actually have an issue with your neck or your, shoulders necessarily, that's not what's causing the headache. You're focusing muscles and your eyes have just got really tight and they'll go, oh, okay. And I'll go, right, so simple eye exercises. That's something we can solve in 8 to 10 days. And that's, I like those little ones because then the next time I'll ask them and I'll go. I haven't had a headache since we spoke last. And I was like, and did you do the exercise? And they're like, yeah, I do them every night. I was like, great. That's what I like. I like the fact you've forgotten that they were even there.

Anthea:

people really like little tiny actions. It's so motivating. It allows them to come to the next session feeling as though they've really achieved something, which of course they have,

Phoebe:

when I've come to see you in your magic wonderland of trying to sort out my ever falling apart body, you've done exactly the same thing for me. And then I go, Oh my God, I've been doing those exercises. And then I've realized that my performance in all of the other lovely sporting things that I do is now completely different. And I feel really pleased with myself because I get a little gold star because I've done my homework. But it's also worked and it's those tiny little things that we both give everyone that just means that they build that confidence internally and they go, can do it, and I am doing it. And that's what we as educators and carers and clinicians and teachers, That's what we're giving people, that little hint that they are in charge. which is something that pretty much everything else in the world tells you that you're not.

Anthea:

Well, it's really fascinating because what I was about to ask you, which perfectly ties into this, is this distinction that you're making between agency and control. I definitely would hold up my hand and say that I'm someone that has used control to fantastic effect, for, for periods in my life. And They've overlapped with massive workaholism. And you do in our society get very applauded for the degree to which you are able to display your invulnerability and your ability to achieve. I'm wondering if you'd be happy to just talk a little bit about that distinction because when you were explaining earlier that you have some clients that come to you and, you know, they'll be very regimented in their meal prep I'm picturing that sometimes that is from a motivational perspective, the most wonderful gift that you give yourself. I have this afternoon that I spend on a Sunday, and I've got all of my ingredients from the local farmers market and it's a delight the actual process of getting the food right to. making the food and you've got, you know, the archers on in the background. I'm envisaging my perfect Sunday afternoon. but you've kind of got that, that image and that's one way of approaching it. And then going back to your point about compare and despair and the ideals that we're fed, even just aesthetically, you know, in the school that we went to, girls attention to their bodies was rife to such awful consequence for pretty much every year in our school, I would say. And that's, typical. but there'll be some people that go into that meal prep and it becomes this very rigid, I have to do this. Otherwise my health is at risk or my value within society is at risk.

Phoebe:

the way that I would decide how to approach something with somebody clinically is when I listen to how they talk about their food. like when we're talking about prepping meals, similarly, For me, it's an incredibly important part of my life to eat well, I don't do it because I have to, I do it because I want to, I get a real sense of enjoyment from going to the fridge and finding that I have got the components of something that is going to be delicious and nourishing, but also I can feel the difference when I don't do that for myself and I realize now, it's actually a form of not caring, the moment I start not eating well or I don't allocate time outside walking the dog or going and doing a workout. I know that for whatever reason I've turned my back on myself. And so for me, there's, that's the language I use towards it. It's actually a positive form of investment. Now, if somebody were to come to me and they are meal prepping, but they are literally prepping exactly the same thing every single week, then I start to pick apart and I'm saying, Is the reason that you're doing the same thing every single week because you don't have the skills or the knowledge to cook something else. So you have highlighted broccoli, brown rice, and chicken as healthful foods that you know how to cook. And so that's what you do. If in that's the case, absolutely fine. We're going to do broccoli, brown rice, and chicken for three days of the week. And then the other four days of the week, we're going to do quinoa, turkey. and cauliflower. So simple swaps and you gradually build on adding pesto into the grains. Or adding spices onto the meats or using another vegetable, and that's just about an education process. Then you have people who won't budge because they've attached an emotion to it. And whether that is that it's restriction, because they are calorie counting, or they are fearful of other foods because they're not sure of what... What they should be eating, we had a period of time where we talked a lot about orthorexia, which was this fixation on clean eating. And this comes down to sensationalist headlines in the media, where people are told that this is the absolute rigid ideal. And it wasn't focused so much about calorie restriction, but it was about certain foods are good and certain foods are bad. And that then starts to get people in situations where they are fearful of consuming, say, fats or carbohydrates or certain kinds of proteins or eating in a social situation where they're out of control. And that is something. different and it has to be pulled apart very, very gently. So what I would tend to do there is offer up different situations and watch somebody's face as they respond, because they can say words and they can mean something totally different. And when you're going down behavioral and control issues with food, I won't say that people lie. But they will manipulate the truth a lot of the time because they're scared and it's you have to approach it as a form of true fear and semi almost as a form of addiction because it's, it's, it's neither of the two completely, but it's a combination. So what I would tend to do is find what somebody's boundary is and do a chaining effect. So I would ask them to change maybe one or two elements. across the period of two to three weeks and see how they work with that. And once you've broken the back of it, often people will kind of tumble and they will be happy to do that. Or it might be that those habits are so ingrained, they need additional help it's a really difficult one because it's such a huge question after 10 years of doing this, I've seen so many different things. but I would say that I have seen probably in the last couple of years a really promising change in the way that people talk about food generally since we've had the slow food movement kind of coming back through since probably the pandemic, when people were cooking a lot more, there is a sense of people looking at food as nourishment, as opposed to as a bargaining chip. Now, it's not for everybody. There are still a significant amount of people who look at food as a stabilizing element because they have lack of control or frustrations in the rest of their life. but I would say there is a shift somewhere that the education around how to look after ourselves is happening and I, I live in a lovely dark green bubble. what I am trying to do with a lot of the projects I do now is provide access. To everybody because I feel that everybody deserves that

gorgeous listeners. Thank you. So. So. much. For your ears. I hope. You enjoy today's. today's. episode. To find. More about our. Featured guests. Have a look in the show. Notes.