Episode 9: Dr Anthea Todd: What’s My Body Telling Me?

Content note
This episode explores symptoms and the body through a therapeutic lens and includes discussion of emotional eating and weight. Please listen or read with care and take what feels supportive for you.

What if your body was never the problem, but the wisdom you have been missing?

In this episode, I am joined by Dr Anthea Todd, chiropractor, women’s health educator, and author of the bestselling book What’s My Body Telling Me? for a powerful conversation about symptoms, safety, and the intelligence of the body.

Anthea shares why she believes symptoms are not something to fight or fix, but meaningful signals from a body that is trying to protect you. We explore how the body communicates through weight, digestion, skin, hormones, energy, and eating patterns, and why so many women feel like they are doing all the right things while their body resists.

This conversation gently unravels the idea that emotional eating, weight gain, or chronic symptoms are failures of willpower. Instead, we look at how the nervous system adapts to stress, unmet needs, boundary violations, and disconnection, and how true healing begins when we slow down enough to listen.

Listen to Episode 9

Why symptoms are often the solution, not the problem

Anthea’s core message is simple and powerful.

Your symptoms are your body communicating with you.

Not punishing you.
Not betraying you.
Not proving you are broken.

Your body is constantly trying to keep you safe and in balance. When something is off, it sends signals. Sometimes those signals look like bloating, acne, headaches, exhaustion, painful periods, irregular cycles, emotional eating, weight changes, or a nervous system that feels like it never fully switches off.

The problem is that most of us were never taught how to listen. We were taught to override.

You get a symptom and you outsource your power. You search. You numb. You hustle. You try to fix it. You try to control it.

But the body is not asking to be controlled. It is asking to be understood.

The slow voice is intuition
The fast voice is fear

One of the most helpful parts of this conversation is how Anthea describes the difference between intuition and fear.

Fear is usually fast.

It rushes.
It spirals.
It throws a hundred what if thoughts at you.

Intuition is slower.

Steady.
Clear.
Grounded.

And you cannot hear the slow voice if your life is moving at a pace where your nervous system never gets to land.

Slowing down is not a luxury. It is a skill. It is a practice. It is often the beginning of healing.

The medical system is brilliant at emergencies
But it is not built for nuance

Anthea shares her own story, including serious health events where she is deeply grateful for the medical system.

The medical system can be life saving when you need immediate intervention.

But where many women get lost is in the gap between symptoms and answers.

You go to the doctor.
You get the tests.
You are told everything is fine.
You go home with the same symptoms.

And then you start questioning yourself.

But your body was still speaking. It just was not being listened to.

This is why Anthea created a framework to help women interpret what the body is asking for through multiple lenses.

Medical, functional, and energetic.

Not one dimensional. Not a single pill solution. Not a single protocol. A more honest approach.

Your body is a system, not a project

One of the themes that runs through this whole episode is how we relate to the body.

Many women approach their body like a project.

Fix this.
Control that.
Make it behave.

Anthea shares a powerful story about adult acne and how years of chasing solutions only kept her in a relationship with her body based on frustration, urgency, and self criticism.

What shifted things was not a new piece of information.

It was listening.

She slowed down and asked, with real curiosity, what is my body trying to tell me?

What came up was not a perfect diagnosis. It was a truth.

I am irritated.

And the irritation was not just physical. It was about micro choices. Shoulds. Pressure. Living out of alignment. Overriding what she actually needed.

When she began choosing what made her feel most alive, her skin changed.

Not because she forced it.

Because the body finally felt heard.

Autonomy, safety, connection, meaning

Anthea shares the four energetic fundamentals she is working with right now.

Autonomy.
Safety.
Connection.
Meaning.

This part of the conversation is such a mirror for emotional eating patterns too.

Because when autonomy gets weakened, we stop choosing.

We say yes when we mean no.
We override our needs.
We abandon our limits.
We live on should.

Then the nervous system compensates.

Food becomes relief.
Scrolling becomes relief.
Wine becomes relief.
Overworking becomes relief.
Perfectionism becomes relief.

Not because you are weak, but because you are trying to regulate a system that does not feel safe.

The smallest shift is remembering this.

I have a choice.

Even a tiny choice.

And every time you choose from the body, you rebuild trust.

Why insight without action can keep you in the loop

Anthea explains a brain framework called the triple brain network.

A part that detects what is important and scans for threat.
A part that makes meaning and tells stories about the past and future.
A part that helps you take action and make decisions.

The part that makes meaning does not understand time. It will replay old stories as if they are happening now.

This is where IFS fits so beautifully.

Because parts of us get frozen in time. A part can still think you are seven. Or twelve. Or in that relationship. Or in that moment you learned it was not safe to speak.

When we help parts update and feel safe in the present, the body starts to change what it needs to do to protect you.

And that is what creates real change.

Not just awareness, but new action from a new internal state.

If the body could speak uninterrupted

My final question to Anthea is one of my favourites.

If the body could speak without being interrupted, what would it most want people to hear?

Her answer is immediate.

I love you.

That might sound simple, but it is huge.

Because so many women have spent years in a relationship with their body that is critical, controlling, or disconnected.

To hear the body through the lens of love changes everything.

It does not mean you ignore symptoms.

It means you stop treating symptoms like enemies.

Reflection prompt

If you want to sit with something after listening, try this.

What is my body asking me to pay attention to right now?

No pressure to fix it.
No urgency.
Just honesty.

And if feeling is too much, go gently. Titrate. Slow it down. You do not have to force your system into depth.

About Dr Anthea Todd

Dr Anthea Todd is a chiropractor, women’s health educator, and author of the bestselling book What’s My Body Telling Me? She helps women build a completely different relationship with their body, one where symptoms become meaningful signals rather than problems to fix.

You can find Dr Anthea Todd on Instagram at @dr.antheatodd and explore her work at femalefundamentals.com.au.