E054 | Chronic illness & healing burnout: Why over-efforting keeps you stuck

 Struggling with chronic illness or autoimmune symptoms—even after doing everything “right”? 

You’re not alone. If you're following every protocol, tracking every symptom, and pushing yourself to stay positive—but you're still exhausted, inflamed, and frustrated—it’s not because you’re not trying hard enough.
 It’s because you’re trying too hard.

In this episode, we uncover the hidden cost of over-efforting—a trap so many smart, committed women fall into when navigating chronic illness or autoimmune healing. You’ll learn why constant “doing” is actually keeping your nervous system stuck in survival mode—and what your body truly needs to start healing.

It’s time to ditch the hustle, tune in to your body’s wisdom, and embrace a calmer, more intuitive path to wellness.

By the time you finish listening, you’ll discover:

• Why more effort is sabotaging your healing—and what to do instead
• How chronic stress and symptom micromanagement keep you stuck
• The first step toward healing from within without burnout or restriction

🎧 Listen now and take the first step toward sustainable, body-led healing.

 
 OTHER LINKS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

🌿 Join our free Facebook group: Embrace Your Healing Journey
📖 Learn more about the Body Wise Healing™ framework
🌟 Check out the Body Wise Reset programme
💌 Write to me at anindita@aninditarungta.com — I’d love to hear from you!

Book "The autoimmune solution" by Dr Amy Myers

Chapters

• 4:31 The problem of disconnection
• 7:38 Shifting your focus in healing
• 8:30 The Importance of "safety" in healing
• 10:41 Try this: A simple "Body awareness practice"
• 12:05 Body Wise Healing Framework

Transcript

You are doing all the things. The meal plans, the supplements, the diet, the protocol. But what if I told you that all this effort is slowing down your healing? Because maybe it's not about what you're missing.

 Maybe it's about what you're doing too much of. And today, we are uncovering why this relentless effort might be the very thing that's keeping you stuck. And what to do instead. 

So welcome to embrace your healing journey I am. And today's episode is going to speak right to the heart of the woman who's trying so hard, putting in so much of effort and still not seeing results. So you're doing all the things. Meal plans, meditation supplements, diet protocol. And what if I told you that these efforts might be slowing down your healing? 

I am bringing awareness to a pattern that I see so many sensitive and smart women and driven women, actually, uh, you know, follow the belief that healing comes from doing more. But the truth is, your body does not need another taskmaster or a critic. It needs a partner. And let's talk about why pushing harder isn't the answer, and what actually moves the needle or brings you results when everything else has failed. This is what Dr Amy Myers and she is the author of The Autoimmune Solution and a few other books on thyroid. She is the best selling author. She's also a very well known functional medicine practitioner. She faced this before her autoimmune diagnosis of graves disease that she successfully reversed. 

In her book The Autoimmune Solution, she described lying in bed, clutched in the grip of a panic attack, desperately wanting to continue her second year of medical school. But her body had other plans. Her heart never stopped racing. Her mind wouldn't slow down. Her legs were so weak that they shook going down the stairs. She couldn't even hold a pen without tremors. And worst of all, her symptoms were brushed aside. She was made to feel like she was just overwhelmed or imagining it. But she trusted her instincts and she didn't push harder. She paused. She listened. And finally she got answers. That moment when she stopped over trying and started tuning in was the beginning of her healing. And finally she was able to get her diagnosis of of graves disease. She did have to get her operation at that time. This was many years ago, I believe it's early 2000 and get a thyroid gland removed. But she learned from that. She educated herself in the realm of functional medicine, which is about finding and addressing the true root cause of disease. And then she's gone on to help so many. She's helping so many other women. And she's written several books. I'll put it down in the show notes. 

Now, when a patient comes to her, she tells them, you know your body better than I do. And it's the same for you, too. You know your body better than anyone else in this world. But you need to start trusting it again, just like you did when you were a young child. See? You know what exhaustion feels like. But it's not just tiredness. It's the kind of fatigue that doesn't go away. No matter how much sleep you get, like you wake up feeling like you've run a marathon and your limbs feel heavy, or you may be feeling bloated after every meal. Even when you're eating clean, you've cut out gluten, dairy, sugar, nightshades, but you still have the belly pain, the diarrhea, the constipation, the brain fog and the gas. And it's, you know, it leaves you feeling uncomfortable. And you may keep having flare ups, random joint pains, skin breakouts, migraines, cramping that seem to come out of nowhere. And you keep tracking everything you're trying. You're doing all the right things. You're tracking your cycle, your food, your sleep, your supplements. There's no clear pattern, so you don't have any answers. And emotionally, you feel like you're constantly on edge, wired but tired. And you might look calm on the outside. But there's this undercurrent of stress on the inside, and you are bracing for the next symptom, the next flare up and the next bad day. 

And through it all, you keep trying harder and you think to yourself, maybe I missed something. Maybe I need to tweak my routine again. Maybe I need to try another cleanse. Diet protocol. Lab test supplement. I want to offer you something very different today. Very radical today. What if the solution isn't more? What if the solution isn't out there, but in here, inside your body, inside your intuition? Not another to do list, but a completely different approach to healing. It's not just the food, it's not your hormones. It's not even just your diagnosis. 

The real problem is disconnection.

Disconnection from your body, disconnection from your inner voice, disconnection from the messages your symptoms are trying to send you every single day because you've been trained by your doctors, wellness influencers, diet culture, and even your survival instincts. To ignore your body, to doubt your body, to override what you feel, to push through. But your body was never the enemy. It's not broken. It's responding. It's responding to the environment that you're asking it to live. And it's trying its best. It's responding to years of stress, inflammation, unprocessed trauma, emotional suppression, toxins, people pleasing perfectionism. 

So all the symptoms that you're dealing with like the bloating, chronic pain, fog, fatigue, flare ups, they are not random. They are not failure. They are feedback. And your body isn't asking you to try harder. It's asking you to listen deeper. And in just a few minutes, I'm going to give you guide you through a very powerful but short body awareness practice to help you start reconnecting with your body. So you don't need to add another thing to your to do list. You have to just listen to the sound of my voice. If you've been feeling stuck, frustrated, or like your body is is speaking some other language, stick around. This is going to help you shift how you approach your healing starting today. 

So you've done the food sensitivity testing. You've cut out gluten, dairy, sugar and maybe nightshades and some other and grains as well. You've tried going keto, then paleo, then anti-inflammatory at, you know, at various points in time you've stocked up on supplements. Maybe it's magnesium, omega probiotics, adaptogens, and you take them regularly and you've tracked your symptoms in three different apps. You have journal, you've meditated, you've seen different experts. And none of that is wrong. Because you may need medication. A lot of us, it's not about either or. I don't believe that it's either this approach or a more holistic approach that I am talking about. A lot of times it's both. So you may still need to see doctors. You may, you know, still need to see take medications, but you should not be stopping there because some many times people are told that it's just in your head. So you're doing everything right and you should be feeling better by now, but you're not. 

And if you're not, then you need to listen to what I have to say because you're so used to solving problems through effort that your brain goes, maybe I need to try harder. Maybe I haven't found the right mix yet. And here's the thing. As I said, all these tools can help, but not when they're used from a place of fear, not when they come from the belief that your body is broken and you need to fix it, and you've been trying to heal by finding the perfect routine. 

But what you really need is a better relationship. A relationship with the part that has always been ignored, overridden, or criticized for years. Your body's wisdom, your body's inner guidance system. So instead of trying to outwork your symptoms, start by learning to work with your body instead of chasing the next protocol. Begin by creating the space to listen to your body. And instead of focusing on what to cut out people food triggers. Ask yourself what needs to be nurtured because healing does not start with more control. I

t starts with curiosity. So it starts with asking, what is my body trying to tell me? Instead of what? What do I need to fix? So what you need to do is shift focus. Shift focus from protocol to partnership. Self doubt to self trust. Constant doing to intentional being. And that's when things begin to shift. When your body does not feel micromanaged or silence, it starts to heal. It starts to do what is necessary to, you know, to repair itself. And safety is where it all starts. That does not mean or giving up on structure or support or seeing doctors or taking medications. As I mentioned, it's not always an either or situation, certainly not in the face of complex chronic health conditions like autoimmune disease. It just means leading with reconnection, not restriction. 

So let's take a moment together. And if you're doing something else driving multitasking, just listen. But if you are in a safe space and you can close your eyes, then do that just for a few seconds. So let's drop in for a bit into our body. Take a deep breath in. An exhale slowly. Let your shoulders drop. Let your jaw unclench. Feel your feet on the ground. Open your fists. Just using your hands. And ask yourself. Take a deep breath and ask yourself without judgment. Without trying to fix anything. What does my body feel like right now? What does my body feel like right now? Is there tension? Heaviness? Lightness? Is there a flutter in my stomach? A tightness in my chest? Just notice. No labels, no judgment, just sensation. Now gently ask your body this question. What are you trying to tell me today? What are you trying to tell me today? And just listen. It might be just a whisper, a word, a feeling. Take a moment and listen. And maybe your body says I'm tired or I miss being held. Or please stop pushing harder. Whatever it is, acknowledge it. You don't need to fix it. Don't judge. Just say internally. Just say to yourself, I hear you. I'm here with you. So one more deep breath in and exhale. And finally, place your hand on your heart or your belly wherever you feel comfortable and simply say to yourself, to your body. Thank you. Thank you body. Thank you for all that you do for me. I'm finally learning to listen again. And you can do this optional. You can take a deep breath. Come back to the sound of my voice and open your eyes. 

And you can do this optional journaling exercise. And you can answer this question in your journal when I stop trying to fix everything. What does my body want me to feel? I'm going to share that in the show notes below as well. The question is, when I stop trying to fix everything, what does my body want me to feel? Okay, getting back to the episode, when you stop pushing and and start partnering with your body, you finally stop swimming against the current. You start healing in a way that doesn't burn you out, doesn't isolate you. And this shift is not just about feeling calmer, it's about feeling connected. And this connection is what helps your nervous system stop bracing for the next flare up and deal with it better. It's what helps your digestion improve your energy. Come back and you sleep deeper, feel deeper. And it helps. It helps making the right decisions. It makes room for joy again. When you learn to tune in, you begin to decode your symptoms instead of fearing them and you need you stop needing to micromanage every bite, every thought, every lab test, and everything that you do because you've got something better than a perfect protocol. You've got a relationship with your body, a healthy one. And that's when things get easier. Not perfect, but possible, peaceful and progressive. You start seeing results. That's what you want, isn't it? 

And this is exactly the kind of work that I do with my clients using the body wise healing framework. It's a very powerful framework. It's the same framework that I use inside my body wise reset program. It's a 12 week guided coaching experience where we rebuild the relationship. Step by step healing does not seem like a full time job, and it becomes a way of living. 

So if this episode resonated with you, if you think that, if you think that even a little bit of this is what I need, then I want to invite you to take the next step. So this experience, as I mentioned, is called the body wise reset, where we strip away the noise, the the overwhelm, the over effort and rebuild your healing foundation from a place of trust, simplicity and body wisdom. Because you don't need to do it all. You just need the right support and the right tools and the space to reconnect with your body's wisdom again. And that's exactly what this healing container will provide you. So if you're done with trying harder and start to and you're ready to start healing smarter, then this is for you. 

So you can head to the link in the show notes. I've shared the link. You can check it out, you can sign up, you can learn more. And remember your body is not broken. It's brilliant. It's been speaking to you all along. It's trying to get your attention. You're just learning to listen again. Thank you so much for joining me for today, for this episode of Embrace Your Healing Journey. 

If today's episode helped you see your healing in a new light, and if you're ready to stop pushing and start listening, you're going to want to come back next week. Because in the next episode, I'm diving into something most women don't even realize. They're doing, something that keeps them stuck, no matter how hard they try outsourcing their power. It's called why you're not healing because you keep outsourcing your power. And I'm breaking that down. What that really means and what changes when you start trusting your inner authority again, because your healing get simpler and it gets much more effective. So it's the next level after this episode. So you can share this with a friend who needs it. And I'll see you next week on Embrace your Healing Journey. Your body knows how to heal. Are you ready to support it?