The Space Between Who You Were—and Who You’re Becoming (with Embodiment Coach Anthea Bell)

What if the control that once kept you safe… is now keeping you small?

In this intimate and powerful conversation, I’m joined by embodiment coach Anthea Bell to explore the shift from perfection to presence, from survival to self-trust, and from control to love.

Anthea supports those she works with in building profound mind-body connection—and beyond that, into transformative self-knowing and embodied empowerment. Tune in to flow with us.

Together, we unpack:

• Why it’s safe (and often necessary) to begin before you’re “healed”
• The trap of control—and how it shows up in work, wellness, and creativity
• What happens when structure becomes a cage
• The mind-body connection: chronic patterns, pain, and emotional residue
• How to meet yourself in the liminal space—when you’ve left the old life behind, but the new one hasn’t fully formed
• The power of support in showing you what else is possible

This one’s for anyone navigating a personal pivot, unraveling old strategies, or rewriting the story of who they’re here to be.

You’re not behind.
You’re just becoming.

Let this episode hold you in the in-between.

Connect with Anthea:
Instagram: @ab_embodiment
Podcast: Finding Your Way Home - the secrets to true alignment
Website: https://www.ab-embodimentcoaching.org

Chapters

• 3:15 The Power of Starting Before It’s Perfect & Becoming Visible
• 6:01 Embodied Wisdom: What We Learn by Living, Not Just Studying
• 11:52 Real-Time Growth: Building Adaptability Through Experimentation
• 18:55 What If This Chapter Needs New Questions?
• 24:07 When Structure Becomes a Cage: Control as a Safety Mechanism
• 30:31 Are You Holding or Being Held? When Coping Strategies Become Your Identity
• 35:25 Support as a Portal: Seeing New Possibilities Through Others
• 38:58 When the Body Speaks: Chronic Pain as a Messenger
• 48:13 Living in the In-Between: The Dance Between Old and New

Transcript

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Adriana Douglas: Hi, anthea welcome to the we are all artists. Podcast.

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Anthea: Thank you for having me. It's so nice to be here.

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Adriana Douglas: It's so nice to meet you. I'm so glad that we have finished the

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Adriana Douglas: course that we were in

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Adriana Douglas: which brought us together, and I'm so excited to hear how your journey has been throughout. And and since finishing.

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Yeah, it's been it's been a real ride. I mean, I loved it. I

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Anthea: I had such a strange knowing in about August of this year that I was going to make a podcast come win service year.

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Anthea: It was just so, so searingly clear. And then I was already listening to Kathy's meditations, and I was walking around LA. And

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Anthea: sort of sticking up the atmosphere there, and just one day, as I was going from one studio to another.

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Anthea: I saw that she was doing a podcasting course.

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Anthea: And I just had this, oh, okay, there we go. Well, that's the that's my end. And then and since then it's happened at the same time, is quite a pivotal moment in my own developments.

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And this thing around, finding a voice and allowing that really to be quite visible.

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Anthea: to be public in what you believe in, to be public, in the things that fire you up that that's sort of the journey that I'm on right now. After a good, a good few years of of deep dive development. It's now really coming to the surface. And so yeah, it's been the most amazing experience. And I've met so many of you amazing Americans and learned a lot about

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Anthea: people's passions within this industry, because actually, a lot of us. it's been fascinating to see the spectrum. A lot of people are working within the holistic space within the creative space. And these are the sorts of people that want to sit behind a screen or sit in a podcasting room and and find out about other people's stories.

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Adriana Douglas: I love that I love, that you followed your intuition, and that that was so clear, and also I completely completely resonate with the

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Adriana Douglas: allowing your voice to be visible like in public.

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Adriana Douglas: I feel like I myself have been, you know, last few years, like a bit of a hermit in a way going in this inner journey, and to finally start to see it in the outer see, it present itself in the outer world and see it

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Adriana Douglas: come to life and also allow others to experience it with you. I feel like it's so transformative because it's almost

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Adriana Douglas: in a way, there is some sort of manifestation or validation of of all that

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Adriana Douglas: needed to come together in order to get us here today.

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Anthea: Yeah, very much so. And II think what you are referencing almost is this difference, and both of these are really valid. This difference between book learning, let's say, and experiential learning.

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Anthea: And there's so much that one has to do in this really beautiful generative process that you do behind the scenes like you were talking about the artists way earlier, and I was thinking about my experience with that. And then you're sitting down doing morning pages every morning, right every morning, every morning every morning, and the idea is that eventually that will lead to your creative outpouring.

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But you're you're taking these tiny incremental steps within your daily.

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Anthea: And I think that that's really key in terms of learning how to relate to yourself in different, more nourishing, more self caring way.

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Anthea: And you can't only do that because if you only do that. You stay relatively insular, and you never allow

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Anthea: experiences in your externals and people in your externals to begin to cocreate with you. And so it has to be the both. And my experience was I had quite a lot of bravery in doing the inside job

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Anthea: and doing that behind closed doors and making my life a lot about other people's growth. So I was comfortable, being

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being being seen

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Anthea: publicly for being a support structure for another person in championing other people's messages. And then there was this point where I was like, Okay, well, I actually have to

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Anthea: start backing myself as much as I back other people. and I have to start doing that in a way where more people can be reached by the things that I have been lucky enough to experience and learn over the journey. So I think both are really, really supportive.

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And this has given us all the platform to do both of those things

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Adriana Douglas: I so agree. The the book learning versus the experiential learning has been something that is is huge. I in

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Adriana Douglas: and and end of 2,020. I finished a master's and an Mba. And there were a lot of components that were experiential in that in that experience. But what I did notice was.

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Adriana Douglas: you know I will always be a lifelong learner and lifelong searcher of more knowledge if you will. But

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Adriana Douglas: the the pausing to go live out. live out what what you've learned and put it into practice has been.

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Adriana Douglas: It's a it's such a gift, but it's also

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Adriana Douglas: it comes with its own challenges because you're like, how do I put, you know all these words into practice? Or how do I actually

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Adriana Douglas: a

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Adriana Douglas: take the learnings into my life in real time.

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Adriana Douglas: So I really resonate with that because

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Adriana Douglas:  it.

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Adriana Douglas: it's like, why are we doing all this work? If we don't get to

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Adriana Douglas: go live? A joyful, you know, abundant, full life with with other people that we love and want to to be around, you know.

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Hmm! And I think there's there's something in how much edge it brings up

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Anthea: to be doing more of that experiential thing, because

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Anthea: the wonderful thing about brick learning is that. And we talked about this a little bit, you and I, before we started recording that you can completely cultivate a finished product before it then becomes visible.

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Anthea: and so the fear that we will have of being seen in a particular way that we don't want is is really soft. And that's how most exam systems base, you know, you study and study and study new study, you perfect, whatever it is that you're focusing your energies on, and then you pass the exam. And then, as far as everyone else is concerned. The only thing they've seen is the grade. They haven't seen all of the blood, sweat, and tears that have gone into it.

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Anthea: And the terrifying thing about experiential learning is that quite often your blood, sweat, and tears are being exposed like right there live in the moment.

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And so all of our stuff comes up.

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Anthea: and it's all the stuff that needs to be brought to the surface in order that we start to develop a more self compassion. Way of relating to ourselves. It's part of that.

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that theme of trusting a little bit the people around you, and a little bit the universe around you more than maybe you thought you could. that they can hold

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Anthea: your flaws, and they can hold your vulnerability, and they can hold the fact that you're going to get it 50% this time, 60%. The next time 80% the third time. And you know.

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Anthea: in 5 years time you'll be pretty slick at this. But in the period in between, it's scary and really useful

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and very humbling. And that's what this whole experience of creating the podcast is also

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Adriana Douglas: completely, completely agree that

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Adriana Douglas: sort of studying and performing for a grade. Right? It's like this whole sort of

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Adriana Douglas: depending, I guess.

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Adriana Douglas: on what school you went to, or what school system, or what sort of method you

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Adriana Douglas: you did growing up. But like this idea of like the performing and intaking memorizing. I remember for me a lot of tests was memorized, memorize, memorize. put it onto the test and like, wipe your mind.

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Adriana Douglas: you know, after the test.

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And so

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Adriana Douglas: what you were mentioning of of us, putting, like, for example, these podcasts into the world and allowing for the testing to happen in real time and be like, Oh, that maybe that topic didn't hit. Or let me change the title of this podcast or, you know, let me see how I can connect with somebody better when I'm pitching

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Adriana Douglas: for a guest

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Adriana Douglas: interview. And so II love that you're bringing that up because I feel like we're so conditioned to

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Adriana Douglas: be like I would do this thing, and then I get this great or I get this mark, or I get this exact feedback back. That tells me exactly what I need to do to like. Take the next step, and we've sort of gone into

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Adriana Douglas: a more ambiguous territory by.

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Adriana Douglas: but also more clear by getting real-time feedback and allowing ourselves to revise along the way. And I think that's something that I learned so much from this course was

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Adriana Douglas: really about the clarity coming from taking action, you know, you hear, is, I feel like, sometimes we hear this stuff on the cell

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Adriana Douglas: self-help. self-discovery.

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Adriana Douglas: self love, self feeling. We hear some of these like typical phrases.  and so for me, the clarity comes from action is kind of one of those phrases that

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Adriana Douglas: I understood, I kind of believed. Sometimes I would take action and feel no clarity, but something like the podcast. I really feel like.

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Adriana Douglas: there was no way, not to get clarity like, once things started happening. What has been your experience with that?

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Anthea: Yeah, I completely agree. I completely agree on

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Anthea: I've really had to be very patient with myself when it's not been perfect.

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So it's sort of learning a level of adaptability that I didn't didn't know that I had in me before.

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Anthea: And I'm just reflecting on on what you're talking about generally, because

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Anthea: that approach to life, of having it perfect before it is visible. It's really, really pernicious.

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Anthea: And in my experience, my my literal lived experience. Because that was a strategy that I applied. Yeah, from my 300 person. All girls North London School

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Anthea: for that, you know. 2 decades right through university. I got a high first right through my early careers. I applied that strategy again and again. And

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Anthea: what of course, it leads to is is work on it, of course.

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Anthea: because the more things that you're presented with that are out of your control, the harder you, your mind, your body, and nervous system are going to work to desperately bring those things under your purview again.

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Anthea: and if you're doing that like I was a corporate fundraiser.

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Anthea: So if you're doing that with a massively unrealistic financial target

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as someone that loves people but doesn't so much love the hard sell.

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Anthea: and you know you just end up

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Anthea: sort of butchering yourself with work. And and I did that with with my job. And I did that with

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Anthea: how hard I tried it at

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Anthea: family relationships, and how much effort I would put in. And and I did that with how I looked after my body, and you know I did all of the right things from this place of it has to be perfect. It has to be perfect.

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Anthea: And of course, the entire time you're in so much effort that you couldn't possibly have any freedom, any creativity, any any real authentic clarity, because you're living your life according to. Should.

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Anthea: You've decided that there are these moral rules about how you should live your life, that you you absolutely need to obey, otherwise your success will crumble, or your

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Anthea: relationships, or crumble, or whatever. It is, quite a lot of time. We're not even particularly clear on the exact fear. But we just know that we have to survive in the exact way that we're doing it.

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Anthea: And so I did that for a really long time.

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and it got me a load of things, a load of numbers after my name, and

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Anthea: you know all of that stuff.

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Anthea: and I was utterly gray inside, and and totally numb

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and

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Anthea: really really unhappy. And I used to

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Anthea: went through a period of time when I started to to do the kind of work that you were describing, where I would get asked a lot about my story because I am. I had quite a quite an impressive physical collapse.

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Anthea: and that really forced me to reassess how I was approaching things, and

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I quit my job and

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Anthea: took some time off, which no one was able to understand, because it's so uncharacteristic of me. And

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Anthea: moved to cities and and changed careers, and did all, did all the things. And while I was doing that.

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It did a lot of spiritual

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Anthea: deep diving.

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Anthea: and I would get asked about what had changed, because people wouldn't necessarily know the ins in the outs because I'd also become extremely private, which is what you do when you're very controlled.

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You don't really let anyone in.

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Anthea: because that would be releasing too much

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which doesn't feel safe at the time. so I'd get asked about it. And

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Anthea: you know I used to say it wasn't that I didn't want to be here. It wasn't anything dramatic in the sense of, you know. I never got to to any stage like that. But if you'd really honestly ask me, do you want to be living your life?

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Anthea: Do you put it in those terms? Would I have said yes.

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I think so. I don't think I really had any sense of what life could be.

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and

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Anthea: how rich it could be, and how curious and how beautiful, and and how

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deeply, profoundly you could support other people, and J. Just what it feels like to. So I'm an embodiment coach now, mind and body

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Anthea: on my terrain a lot of the time, one on one, and then sometimes in groups, and you know he would try to disguise to me then what it would feel like for a client to be able to

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Anthea: leave their job, for example. having felt totally trapped

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inside it.

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Anthea: And so, if you try to have to produce a certain amount of finance every month or every year, because otherwise all of the people that they believe are dependent on them would would crumble.

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you know, seeing that growth is unimaginably abundant.

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Anthea: And so, you know, when Kathy talks about

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this idea, that abundance is a feeling

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Anthea: in my book, she's

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totally correct.

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Anthea: and I feel it in in my body in the life that I'm allowing to emerge now, and have been investing in the last 10 years. And

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and it's what I see in you creating this resource for people.

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Anthea: this amazing tool where

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your podcast is so oriented around, how do we bring you use the word earlier, like microjoy.

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Anthea: those little moments of magic. Magic. How do we bring those into people's lives? And that's what the sound of somebody's voice in conversation can do. It's so powerful.

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so human connected.

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Adriana Douglas: I remember to your point with what Kathy was saying about abundance. Another note that I had that stuck out to me so much, which is kind of some, a little bit of what you're just mentioning. It was like, you can either control your life or be in love with your life

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Adriana Douglas: like, but they can't. But like you can't

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Adriana Douglas: have both. It took me a while to to unravel that one, so I think it's so important for those listening

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Adriana Douglas: to ask themselves that that question. Kind of that sounds like you.

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Adriana Douglas: You're vocalizing of really either. Do you want to? Or do you like

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Adriana Douglas: the life that you're living, and and I think that that's something that I asked myself as well. After I was telling after I finished this

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Adriana Douglas: master was like, I don't. I don't know if that's what I'm gonna do. It's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's not

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Adriana Douglas: and

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Adriana Douglas: was like. What? What's changed? You know what's changed after you get this additional certification or additional knowledge as we were talking about in the beginning, like performing, performing, got the degree got the thing like.

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Adriana Douglas: and then

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Adriana Douglas: sort of like crickets like, what? What's next? What? What's gonna actually fill that void? If I don't, you know, I'm not completely in love with this life that I've created. How can I create a different one? And then also kind of coming full circle with something you're talking about a few minutes ago was

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Adriana Douglas: the kind of the strategy from the old way of being doesn't work for the new reality you're creating.

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Adriana Douglas: Understand that there's like a new strategy required

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Adriana Douglas: for this new embodiment versus this old.

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Adriana Douglas: old ways. And obviously, as we are all human, like old patterns and habits come up like, and we

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Adriana Douglas: deal with them like head on as they come up. But as as a general statement like, how do we

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Adriana Douglas: walk ourselves compassionately into the new reality that we're creating, that we want to live and are excited to live.

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Anthea: Hmm! Such a beautiful question. What you had me thinking was that this previous way of living that we were describing, you know, if you were given real freedom of choice right from your earliest years.

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Anthea: And some one said, Okay, well, here's the model of what this next 10 years will look like with this attitude.

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Would you readily adopt it? Probably not.

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Anthea: And so it isn't often until we have a fracture. Let's say something that really breaks the mold of our current existence.

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Anthea: that we give ourselves permission to even ask the question. So a lot of the people that I'm working with day to day. they haven't even asked the question, Does this work for me? But what they have identified is that they're in chronic back pain, or they're in chronic anxiety or they can't get on a plane.

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Anthea: You know, they're identifying that. The real heightened heightened fear.

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And that phrase that you gave earlier.

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Anthea: You know I really live by the principle that we have 2 choices, fear or love. and it's something that Marianne Williamson, you know, said so beautifully in return to love. And

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and and actually, Marriott, that book was one of the first ones that I was given after my after my sort of

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Anthea: yeah, my micromot of a fracture.

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Anthea: And although I didn't believe in God in any in any Christian way I really really understood, had a felt sense of understanding of what she was talking about.

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Anthea: that there was this place where it was possible to start making decisions on the basis of love. And so, in answer to the question, sort of How how does one begin to do that? Practically, I think the thing that's really important to

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to start to tune into is as an individual.

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Anthea: What are the experiences? What are the moments, what are the elements of lifestyle that are genuinely supported for me at this moment in my life. because it's usually applying generalized rules or generalize aspirations to ourselves as unique people. That doesn't work.

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Anthea: And a lot of the time when I see that happening, it's because people are wanting to make themselves into a better version than they currently think themselves to be so. Let's say I have to start eating a certain way, because I want to be the sort of woman that looks like this, and gets this kind of partner, etc. Etc. And we all do that in different areas where we have greater levels of vulnerability

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transmensity.

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Anthea: And so the the question is actually much more pertinent is me as me.

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Anthea: what lights me up. And so clearly for you creating podcasts, lights, you up right.

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Anthea: and and there'll be other things, you know, working in a secure job that gives you a certain sense of safety in your financial wherewithal. Probably quite important.

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Anthea:  so there'll be elements of structure that are really beneficial. The problem is when the structure becomes so tight that it becomes a form of control that doesn't let anything else in

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Anthea: and the way that I navigate that is, I go back to the practices that I have within my own repertoire, and within my coaching with as well, that are fundamentally quite grounding.

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Anthea: and that allow me to clear a lord of the superficial frontal lobe, thinking

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Anthea: that gets in the way of deeper aligned intuition. That's not to say that I don't do my tax return, and you know I don't do the grocery, shopping and prep food, and all of those things.

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Anthea: But what it is saying is that that's kind of a separate part of my brain.

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Anthea: and it's got a separate motivation. Let's say that's the broadly speaking, self care, practical motivation, that that's a separate energy, let's say, energy system, even from the part of me that connects to the heart the part of me that connects to other human beings the part of me that connects to my

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Anthea: expansive spirit, soul, creative vision. And so I set aside time to do both of those things. But my gateway is well. I'll come back to a somatic practice, or I'll come back to a meditation, or

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Anthea: like in the artist's way, I'll journal.

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Anthea: I'll just free journal, I mean, I send graphic lists lists to one of my best mates every morning, just by what's up.

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Anthea: and even that is enough to break the chain of habitual thinking

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and to get me into.

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Anthea: So when I appreciate, and I'm also then beginning to fire up my neurons, to think about the things that I also love and desire. And once it begins to welcome into my life. And so it's a very linked practice to manifestation appreciation.

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They go really well hand in hand.

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Adriana Douglas: I think something that Was coming up for me as you were sharing. That was about the structure, and the control and kind of

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Adriana Douglas: structure is a great thing, and it's a wonderful thing. And then also there is a spectrum where, like it, it can turn into this control mechanism. And something that

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Adriana Douglas: happened to me a few months ago was

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Adriana Douglas: I for the last few years had been tracking my food, my macros, because for me it was really important to learn. Learn nutrition in a bigger way, and also

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Adriana Douglas: just II always have loved health and wellness. And so that was something that I enjoyed and loved doing and thought was great, and also just helped me stay on track.

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Adriana Douglas: But what I noticed a few months ago was, my creativity was sort of stalled a little bit.

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Adriana Douglas: and I couldn't kind of figure out why. And it dawned on me one day that

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Adriana Douglas: that that level and that mechanism of tracking was like a control function where I was so

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Adriana Douglas: able to control. You know my intake right? What I was eating, how much of it to the you know, to the Gram, and and it was killing my creativity. I couldn't do it anymore. I was like, this structure has now become like a prison.

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Adriana Douglas: And so I went. And I'm now on this road of more intuitive eating.

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Adriana Douglas: But I share that to say like, that's a practical example of a day to day, of something that was really like. I was clinging to the structure.

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Adriana Douglas: and I was clinging to that control of like I get to decide what you know comes in my body and out, and what I'm and what I'm doing with my food, but the minute I allowed myself to just make a wonderful recipe without counting anything that was like really nourishing for the body and soul. My creativity was like it was like a big exhale. It was like, Let's go. Let's go do something and then flow again. But it's just such a

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Adriana Douglas: II feel like that's a a practical sort of application of, you know, not necessarily blowing up all the structures in your life, but like noticing these places where you don't think you think it's fine or like you. You don't. You're like, oh, no, that's fine. That's just the way I have my structure for my diet.

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Adriana Douglas: But like, it can really impact you.

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Anthea: Yeah, so huge, such abuse, for example, to bring up because it's also so common. And especially, you know, when I was in California this summer I had a real contrast of cultures, because I came from a a quite sleepy part of England. I wasn't living in London at the time I was living in Bristol.

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Anthea: I went from there

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where no one dresses in nice clothing.

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Anthea: and no one gives a toffee about what they look like, and everyone, you know is that kind of imagine a quaint old country place in England, and that's you've got it from there to Costa Rica.

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Anthea: which is Latin, and so, and spicy and

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and fiery and sensual. And then I went from there straight to LA. And oversee. I landed in LA. And LA. Was

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Anthea: just rose just wide rows. No one walked anywhere which was ironic.

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Anthea: It was last, and and I was saying in Santa Monica, right by the water, and so, being the British person that I was, I would go and jump in the sea at 6 in the morning, because that's just sort of my jam

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Anthea: but it was really a very. It was a very pressurized artificial environment that I also loved. I love la.

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Anthea: but I did notice that edge. And I think what you're talking about is the edge point. So we get to think a little bit about motive is the motive that I had initially. Still, the motive that's driving me. It's a really important one.

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Anthea: Cause. We can find ourselves in the same place from 2 very different emotional intentions.

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yeah, yeah.

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Adriana Douglas: that's maybe a podcast in and of itself. I don't like pause there, I'm like the motive behind the decision, the motive behind the structure, the motive behind the change, the intention.

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Anthea: It's sad, and it's like the fear or love thing. And you know, am I doing this from a place to fear that if I stop doing this, something bad will happen, because that's kind of where it can get to a control is a really good strategy.

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Anthea: It's not even really a physical thing. It's it's an approach that gives you something.

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What it gives you is a feeling of safety in the world like, if we go right back to the nervous system, it's the nervous system's hard wiring to serve the safety in context where it doesn't feel safe.

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Anthea: So

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quite a few of my clients come to me around body stuff around food stuff. And and you know

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Anthea: what's the likelihood that they're going to get a flare up in whatever behaviour it is on a series of weeks where they're having intense family trouble, or one of their kids is having difficulties at school, or whatever it might be. And so I think it's also so beautiful. And I just really want to honour the fact that you noticed

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Anthea: you notice the point at which it was beginning to to cross over, because actually, that is the hardest thing.

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And if you don't notice what happens is it becomes so ingrained that then the fear of letting it go really outgrows

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Anthea: the behavior, and it becomes a driver in and of itself, and then it's very difficult to step back without some kind of intervention from from an external source.

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Anthea: you know, and that's where things then get into addictive behaviors, and

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Anthea: although we talk about food and dieting as though it's a light, breezy topic, I can promise you. Addiction is where it goes, it's no different from any other behaviour in that respect.

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Anthea: You get just the same addictive kick from restriction as you do from drinking.

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Anthea: It's a different tone. But it's the same stuff that's happening.

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Why, it's so so hard to come back from

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Adriana Douglas: what's so interesting. because it really

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Adriana Douglas: can either

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Adriana Douglas: support you. You know these these sort of structures or rules really support you, or completely take you out of flow and take you out of

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Adriana Douglas: center for equilibrium. So I'm glad I'm glad you you named that because ex, exactly, it's that growth, that growth edge or that that edge. And the self aware first of all, the self-bornness is key. It's second of all

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Adriana Douglas: going to that edge. And then knowing

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Adriana Douglas: where it is, I think sometimes that can. That can be the hardest part is what you're saying is like

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Adriana Douglas: knowing the edge and also not. I'll say, not going past the edge. But

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hmm.

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Anthea: yeah, use the word equilibrium, and that's really beautiful, because what happens is is you lose your sense of priorities. The more extreme the behaviour becomes, or the more required the behaviour becomes.

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it dominates everything else.

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Anthea: it becomes impossible to live a normal, balanced life. And so, of course, no creativity can happen there.

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Anthea: because you're in a fear response. You just don't know it.

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Anthea: The other danger around addictions is that that denial of it

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Anthea: is sort of inbuilt in the mechanism.

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Anthea: That's again what they're noticing is really critical.

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because once you're too far down the line, you won't be able to see that what you're doing is a problem

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Anthea: because it becomes something that feels self-preserving when, in fact, it's self-destructive.

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Anthea: It's it's a whole world of really fascinating study. I've digressed us slightly. But yeah, but I'm thinking about the the self preservation piece, and

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Adriana Douglas: just knowing

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Adriana Douglas: for for those listening that all of these functions

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Adriana Douglas: played such an important role in protecting us. You know, as we

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Adriana Douglas: have gone through through the world throughout our whole life. So it's like just that that compassion piece that we were naming before.

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Anthea: and also understanding that

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Adriana Douglas: they're there because they served a function or are still serving a function right and and understanding that function

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Adriana Douglas: with the support of another person like, you know.

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Adriana Douglas: once you get into some of these like bigger patterns or deeper patterns. It's so helpful to have a support system to help you unravel them because it can feel quite overwhelming when you

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Adriana Douglas: start to see the intricacies, and how all these things are working together or against each other. So I'm glad you. I'm glad you brought it up, and and

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Adriana Douglas: and how much space these take up in the mind and the body. So maybe we could. Maybe we could go into that a little bit with the mind body, that the the space that yeah, that these thoughts, or that these behaviors, or that that they're taking up in in various places in your mind and body.

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Anthea: Yeah, it's a really beautiful topic.

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I think, just to reference what you're talking about in terms of support, because it leads on really visibly.

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Anthea: it is really critical. And and in my experience there's a couple of reasons why. The first reason is that I need to be able to see that there's an alternative.

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Anthea: one that's actually compelling. not one that represents a life that I really wouldn't want to live.

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Anthea: but one that represents the life where someone has experience of what I've gone through, whether it's as a an experience or as a practitioner, or both.

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Anthea: And they can show me, just by virtue of their being

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and their their being in a place that is centred, and their being in a place of love and compassion. They show me that there's an alternative that there's another way of living

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Anthea: that's really key. All of us need models. It's like we do when we're at school, you know, we look up to the girls in Sixth form, and you know, It's it's actually quite fundamental. It's what we do with our parents. It's why it can be so devastating when you realize that they're human beings with

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Anthea: horrible flaws

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Adriana Douglas: and wonderful traits at the same time. Yeah,

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Anthea: but I think.

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Anthea: beyond that, there's also something not just in the expertise of your practitioner, but in them giving you permission not only to change, but also to let go of the self blame of where you find yourself to be.

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Anthea: because 90 95% of the people that I work with, I would say. are to some degree blaming themselves for the situation that they find themselves in.

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Anthea: whether they come to me to do bodywork because they're in chronic pain.

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Anthea: or whether they come to me because they're desperately unhappy. and they want to learn some embodiment strategies or some mental strategies to

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Anthea: begin to find peacefulness and to begin to find center. Almost always they have a story that they're bad, like almost always. It's it's almost a story. As always, time.

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Anthea: I am bad. It's my fault.

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Anthea: I'm I'm not enough. I'm way too much. I am to blame for XYZ. If I was better then I mean, the list goes on, and you know, certainly in in talking about headspace.

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Anthea: those beliefs go hand in hand with all of the behaviors that we don't like that we do.

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Anthea: And and the frustrating thing is that those beliefs are actually oftentimes underneath the surface, deriving those behaviors.

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Because if you live in a context in your mind where you're self-punishing

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Anthea: almost unconsciously, all the time

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you have to find a way of making life feel palatable.

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Anthea: And so you have to control, or you have to eat, or you have to drink, or you have to have frightfully inappropriate lovers, whatever it might be. That is your way of numbing the pain. and I say pain, and it sounds like quite a dramatic word, but

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Anthea: ongoing, subtle self-criticism is very painful. and it lives in people a lot of the time, not just in their minds, but it absolutely lodges in their tissues.

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So if you want a really simple example of that.

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Anthea: I've done quite a lot of work on low back pain, which, as pretty much every study will confirm, is is one of the biggest physical epidemics that we're currently experiencing. And I know what industry you're in? And if we think about the medical insurance industry, the medical insurance industry spends enormous amounts of money trying to solve this problem.

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Anthea: Now, this problem is is definitely a physiological problem. So I'm not disputing that.

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And

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Anthea: what the biggest, most most applauded studies have shown is that

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Anthea: the body experiences 2 types of pain.

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Anthea: It experiences pain that is externally or internally, physiologically prompted

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Anthea: slip disc displaced vertebra trap nerve running right through your pyriformous muscles. So every time you fold at your hip you experience tingly sensations all the way down your leg, which are a nightmare to live with.

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Anthea: So you have that kind of pain. Now the body cellularly regenerates. It can fully rebuild, rebuild itself at peak, at peak, rebuilding phase fully rebuild itself within about 7 years. So we know that the body is hardwired for healing.

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Anthea: They say, in terms of soft tissue, your average. If the head is working well, it's gonna be about 6 months.

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Anthea: So if I have a client coming to me and they say, Well, I have chronic back pain. I've had it for 10 years. I can't sit down. I can't get in. The car. Lying about is really uncomfortable. I have to be on my side, etc. And I say, and they'll say I want to give you my scans. I will show you the disk.

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Show the disc that's protruding backwards and out through the lights.

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Anthea: Because this is my problem, this disk no way if it's happening.

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Anthea: And if I say to them, when was when was the rupture? And they'll say, oh, it was about 15 years ago.

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Anthea: Okay, it's really interesting.

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So 15 years ago there was an insult to the body.

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Anthea: Now we know that if a disc.

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Anthea: If a disc bulges, let's say that some of the liquid will, over the course of time, be redistributed within the body.

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Anthea: so the likely it is that that degree of bulge won't still be the case later on down the way. Now, there will be other physical readjustments a little bit like Tetris, you know, that are that are taking place. And again, I don't want to diminish the fact that there is physiology involved.

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Anthea: But what we also know happens is that the body in the brain and the body in the brain are doing this all the time. Up and down, and up and down. The the mechanism of feedback goes.

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Anthea: And so my body can send the signal to my brain. That says there is danger somewhere in my lower back, because I'm back in an environment where previously, once upon a time, I had danger.

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Anthea: I had a physical negative response.

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Anthea: and it was strong enough that I'm now telling you we're back in this context.

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So I'm going to send a signal to the brain.

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Anthea: and the brain is then going to send a cortisolic signal right back to the spine that tells it. Oh, yes, okay, be be in fear. Be in a physiological state of fear. Come right into your sympathetic nervous system.

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Anthea: and what they've shown is that the lower spine, particularly, there's a very close relationship between our emotional brain, let's say, and the lower spine. And you've got more. Propose up to fibers in your lumber spine and on the skin of your feet.

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Anthea: in the soles of those feet than almost anywhere else in your body, which means it's a mechanism that is constantly gathering data about the outside world.

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Yeah.

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Anthea: now, if you combine that with the fact that a lot of us spend a lot of time ignoring the back of our body.

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Adriana Douglas: Very rarely do you go for some kind of aside from a massage. Very rarely do you go for some kind of styling for the backboard. People are looking at your face the whole time. They're looking at your front body.

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Anthea: So we're a bit numb about that area. I mean, in a sense, you could create a simple there about being a bit numb about what's behind us. The past? But we're a bit numb about that, because it's much easier to live forward motion in our adrenal system.

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Anthea: But what happens with with pain? That lasts for sort of a year 2 years, plus, which is, broadly speaking, when they start to consider it chronic

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Anthea: is that the proprioceptive fibres that are receiving data and interpreting the data and sending a signal back up to the brain that tells the brain what that

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Anthea: exterior is that their ability to distinguish between different sensations becomes very, very blurred.

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Anthea: so heat will be experienced as pain.

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Anthea: or a rough texture will be experienced as pain, or a very small movement

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Anthea: will be experienced as pain.

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Anthea: And the problem is that we have such a low level of physiological understanding of even that. We're not taught this stuff at school or at university, or even by adults. Because, I mean, I have a lot of doctor clients. I have a lot of psychotherapist clients.

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Anthea: Yeah, we're taught certain things that are very useful for the practices, but not necessarily for the practice of living.

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Anthea: And so, because people don't know this, then they believe the signal. Oh, I'm fearful that there's danger here. Okay, well, I'm gonna believe that. And I'm now gonna start to live my life according to that belief

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Anthea: which brings us right back to full circle to what we were talking about before.

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Which is that we start to restrict, you know, like you were saying about the the micros and the macros

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Anthea: will. Your creativity is then massively restricted, or your social life is massively restricted, because you can only go out to 3 restaurants in your local city

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Anthea: more same with the body. People stopped driving

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and they stopped walking

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Anthea: and they stopped playing tennis. They stop seeing people because they get themselves into such a pickle where life feels so hard.

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And

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Anthea: that really is. is what got me deeply exploring the mentality that was part of this puzzle. and that really started to send me down this route of well, what can we do about it?

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Anthea: How can we help people to come back from this? Because I was seeing that so often because I started out as a Pilates practitioner.

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and so often people are sent to Pilates because they are in pain

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that they don't understand. And all that really happens is, the physio will say, Go and do, Pilates, to strengthen your call.

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Anthea: and that's what we'll say. What their client, the support unsuspecting client doesn't realize is that they're going to start to actually have to face themselves as they

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Anthea: re educate how to move their body. They're also going to have to come into contact with their content and with the words that they use. You know, there's a lot of support for the fact that in terms of neuron linguistics, if I say pain often enough, I'm going to start feeling what that feels like.

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Anthea: And if I change that word to sensation

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or even discomfort, is softer than pain.

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Anthea: It's it's much easier to be able to take it in a neutral way.

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like if I were to ask you to to to write a Ph. D.

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Anthea: Verses, to say to you will do your morning pages for a year. You'll have the same amount of content

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Adriana Douglas: at the end of it. Probably gonna be even more beautiful if it's free journaling, right?

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Adriana Douglas: So it sounds like. in a way

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Adriana Douglas: we don't want to experience pain. We as humans like pain. No, don't want it. So we avoid it right.

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Adriana Douglas: But we already are in pain

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Adriana Douglas: unconsciously, and we just are living our life according to, or in avoidance of it. and so like. What you were saying, coming into contact with the content

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Adriana Douglas: is like just so transformative in and of itself, because

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Adriana Douglas: the content is what? Yeah, what we tell ourselves every day, how we're living, how we're we're designing our life according to the pain until we visit it, or sit with it, or the sensations right?

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Adriana Douglas: So I love. I love that you brought that up about the content of the body, because

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Adriana Douglas: I think. as

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Adriana Douglas: we live very much from the neck up, and our very mental, and especially in especially in many of our day jobs, just the amount of thinking, the amount of output that we have to

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Adriana Douglas: put in there. It it even gives more sort of validation to the avoidance cause you're like, Oh, I have to work.

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Adriana Douglas: I get to avoid it because I have to work, or, you know, insert whatever other behavior. But, generally speaking, I feel like we're a culture where work is very rewarded like that's that's a part of the artist's way. A huge part of one of the chapters of like this like badge of honor, like I have to work.

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Adriana Douglas: you know, and so then you don't then have to question any of the other pieces of the puzzle. but, like what you were.

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Adriana Douglas: you know you shared a little bit about your story and your example, and

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Adriana Douglas: and I share, you know bits abusive. My story as as the podcast goes on. And it's like you.

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Adriana Douglas: Once, like one domino falls. it's like kind of like, there's no turning back, at least for me. There was no turning back. It was like, I can't go back to that old

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Adriana Douglas: way. It hurts too much, but I'm scared about going forward. So you're kind of in some ways. It feels a little bad, at least for me, like a limbo

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Adriana Douglas: in the beginning, until you've sort of

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Adriana Douglas: I don't know, reached a certain point where you're like, okay, I know this work is worth it. And even if I have 90 s of a disc of an uncomfortable feeling.

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Adriana Douglas: I'm better on the other side, like there's definitely this

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Adriana Douglas: dance, and

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Adriana Douglas: between old and new, between old behavior and newer, or between, you know back pain. And then feeling better. Right?

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Anthea: 100%.

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Anthea: You use the word limbo and the word that pops into my mind is you using. It is the word liminal

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in in, in art, history, which is which was my first love.

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Anthea: And it's what I did for for a good long time.

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Anthea: one of the areas that I specialized in was illuminated manuscripts like twelfth century thirteenth century. Some of them were even seventh century.

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Anthea: and a lot of them have borders.

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Anthea: So they're sacred texts, right? They're Christian, or they're Islamic

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Anthea: and a sacred. And so you've got the physical edge of the page, and the the physical edges of the page depending on the value of the book were gilded with gold.

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Anthea: And then inside, you've got the Scripture and the Scripture will often be decorated with ornate illuminations. Why, they're called eliminated manuscripts.

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but there's always a border. and the border is often called the liminal space, and they use this phrase in in energetic work and in in practitioners of magic. They talk about the liminal

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Anthea: and and it's essentially what we in modern terms consider to be transitionary periods, or, you know, the space of the corridor. But in

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Anthea: in in ancient folklore, ancient mythology the liminal space actually had a really important function.

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Anthea: It was protected

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of the sacred content inside.

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Anthea: And I think what we can

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Anthea: lean to often if we go back even to that idea of control is.

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it feels very destabilizing to let go of an old vision, even if we know that it's not aligned.

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Anthea: and it feels very, very scary to be moving towards an ill defined vision.

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Anthea: And so this liminal space world, where going out and gathering data and coming back and integrating and going out, gathering more, and coming back, out and in, and out, and in and out and in, until we can really, truly say, give ourselves fully to the vision of this new thing. That liminal space is so important.

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Anthea: and I sometimes feel as though we rush it a little bit.

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Anthea: You know, that was so keen to get to the next thing. But if you were ready for the next thing, you'd have it right now. So you're not ready for whatever reason, either there's stuff in the way. or you haven't met the person yet. You haven't. You haven't got all of the support that you're gonna need all of the foundations that you're gonna need. You know, you were talking to me a little bit about

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Anthea: how your podcast is growing and it's like that is all really gorgeous, generative stuff. We don't put someone in kindergarten and then expect them to go and do their graduation at Uni.

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They have years.

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Anthea: and we respect that educationally, but somehow we don't respect it. When we become adults, where we're meant to

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Anthea: secure our job and get married and have little ones all by the age of 30. I don't know anyone that's been able to do that, and now has a truly truly fulfilling successful life that looks exactly as it did at 30.

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They've all evolved.

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Adriana Douglas: I love that you mentioned the the liminal space and what it

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Adriana Douglas: translates to

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Adriana Douglas: in terms of transitionary periods, because I definitely think I had the idea inside this I was laughing. As you were saying, it is that that transitionary period had, like they were really finite, like, oh, transitionary periods! Just a few months, just

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Adriana Douglas: hey? Even a few days. But for me there have been some transitions that are

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Adriana Douglas: multiple years like, I thought the liminal space was just like you drop in and you drop out. But, like, actually, sometimes, the transition period is

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Adriana Douglas: an actual chapter. I think I had this illusion that it was like Chapter one, chapter 2, and the transitionary period was really short in between. But it's actually like the transition period's actually like a chapter like to not discredit it, it gets its own chapter that gets to be written about.

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Is that permission thing again. what's it like to really have a Sabbatical from the way that you were living before.

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Anthea: I mean, what is that like?

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Anthea: How how much grace is there in saying yes, to receiving that. and trusting that you'll probably learn more in the freedom, the terrifying freedom of that than you'd learn if you stayed tied to your desk or tied to your husband, or whatever it might be.

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Anthea: It's it's I go back to that word, generative against very generative and exciting and

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Anthea: and and terrifying. And it's even more the reason why we want to start attracting. You know this is something for people to bear in mind that they, you know, they say that a a lot of who you are and and what you feel and how you live is is

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curated by the people that you spend your time with. And so if we were thinking about support structures again, we could say that having a team of practitioners, I have more than one like I have a I have a little team.

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Anthea: And I follow that Brennan brown principle that you have. You have maximum like 5 people. Your 5 people are your judges. They're the people that you go to for counsel.

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Anthea: and they they're allowed to have an opinion. I love that. She said this about this. She's like, if you're not on my list, you're not having an opinion about my life. You can have it. I just not gonna listen

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Anthea:  And and I think when people are approaching that

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Anthea: because the liminal thing starts almost just as an inkling of like, Oh, God.

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gonna have to start changing now, aren't they?

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Anthea: Oh, God, I don't want this anymore. I won't say any different.

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And

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Anthea: and you wanna start just just gathering those people just noticing. Oh, I'm really vibing with this person over here. And oh, this practitioner! There's something in my heart that really opens at the sound of what she does.

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Anthea: you know you just start gathering those people, and they help you to slowly, slowly emerge as the person that you now are. This is maybe the last thing I'll say on this. But

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Anthea: this idea that we cellularly regenerate

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Anthea: in 7 year cycles, you know, they took about the 7 year itch in relationships and in jobs.

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Anthea: Well, we know that the body and the mind are not distinct in the way that we previously thought they were. So we know that my biology is constantly influencing my thinking.

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Anthea: You know they talk about the gut as the second brain, and that's very, very truthful. It

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Anthea: if it's if it's dysregulated, it can create anxiety and depression, and you will believe these things. You will very much feel them, emotionally speaking. And so there is something quite liberating about saying to yourself, well, the me that was 7 years ago

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Anthea: lived this way and chose these things.

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chose these things. We have far more agency than we think that we do. And now, 7 years later. my body is probably very little the poorly that I had then.

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Anthea: And so what would it be like to follow the example of nature.

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and give myself the opportunity

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Anthea: to reinvent in a way that is now more aligned to the cellular structure that I have.

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Anthea: and that takes probably the next 3, 4 years.

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and then you get you started.

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Adriana Douglas: I love that about the reinvention with the cellular structure that we have now cause, I think very much.

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Adriana Douglas: even though we say we play the comparison game outward, of comparing ourselves to

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Adriana Douglas: those around us like what you were just mentioned. The reinvention. I'm thinking, like I could find myself comparing back to me 7 years ago, being like, Oh, is it better or worse, or is I? Am I improved here, and it becomes these like

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Adriana Douglas: it be, it can become this dance of like metrics and of like again, like the metrics that don't matter.

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Adriana Douglas: So I like that. You mentioned that about reinventing the cellular structure with the cellular structure, right? Because that is. it's so different of a narrative even to talk about inside versus, because that's more about the being

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Adriana Douglas: than all the accomplishments. So we go into that. you know, changing your your state and the abundance and and the things that you want to tap into versus

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Adriana Douglas:  to me. Yeah, more of those external, validated.

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Adriana Douglas: externally validated markers

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Anthea: which we know don't make you happy anyway. I mean, the happiness comes from the being. It comes in community.

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and it comes

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Anthea: from within the being, and it's it's a state of mind, and in some respects it's a decision

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you can decide.

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Anthea: We can all decide.

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The question is, are we willing to give up the story

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Anthea: needs.

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That's that's kind of all it comes down to. But it can take a lot to be willing to give up the story.

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Adriana Douglas: So true. I'm as you say that I'm like? Mmm. I think

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I think we may. We may like

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Adriana Douglas: that's such a perfect kind of wrap up. Are you willing to give up the story, and we could also have like 8 episodes about that, because it's such a good, a good, a good one.

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Adriana Douglas: But I would love to know how people could work with you currently, if they can and how to find you.

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Anthea: Yeah, they absolutely can. So I'm on a

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Anthea: I'm on the path for rebuilding the website, because I've just relocated from having a physical studio where I did a lot of this work in Bristol. So that's in process at the moment. In the meantime they can catch me by email. So I'll make sure that you have the details for that.

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Anthea: I'm on Instagram as underscore mind, body, coach.

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and I release a fair amount of of free content there.

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Anthea: And yeah, the the way that I tend to work is I do a lot of one to one support, whether it's in the mind or in the body or in a combination of the 2. It's usually the combination. That's the most effective. I do a lot of that on Zoom, because I've got clients all over the world which is amazing.

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Anthea:  and I anywhere that

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People feel that I could be useful. I'm I'm really happy to be. I also do group retreats. I I speak on

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Anthea: topics like addiction.

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Anthea: So yeah, really happy to be to be reached out to essentially, any way that I can support anyone that's currently struggling.

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Anthea: It's gonna be my job.

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Adriana Douglas: Thank you. I will be sure to link all of that in the show notes, and I can't wait to have you back on the show to talk more. It was such a fun, fun, interesting conversation

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Anthea: I am so grateful to be. It's a really wonderful wrap up to my to my day, to my evening and I'm so excited about what you're putting out. Honestly, I am.

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Anthea: We've met such incredible, inspiring women on the course of this journey. And

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Anthea: yeah, I'm really, really looking forward to to hearing more from you. So thank you so much for inviting me.

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Adriana Douglas: Yes, thank you. Talk to you soon.