E056 | Flare-Up mode? 3 Mistakes keeping you stuck (and what to do instead) (BONUS)

Are your flare-ups trying to tell you something?
 

If you’re stuck in chronic flare-up mode—despite clean eating, supplements, and endless protocols—this episode is your wake-up call.

What if your symptoms aren’t signs of failure… but signals that your body is fighting for you?

In this powerful episode, I break down 3 common healing mistakes that might be keeping your body in survival mode—and share what you can do instead to finally find relief from chronic symptoms, flare-ups, and burnout.

Whether you're navigating autoimmune issues, gut health imbalances, or persistent fatigue, this is your invitation to stop fearing your body and start partnering with it.

✨ BY THE TIME YOU FINISH LISTENING, YOU’LL DISCOVER:

• Why treating flare-ups like a failure can block your healing
• The hidden cost of over-tracking your symptoms and micromanaging your body
• How unprocessed emotional stress keeps your nervous system stuck—and your symptoms flaring

It's time to step off the disease merry-go-round and embrace a more compassionate, body-wise path to healing.

 RESOURCED MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

E055 | Your symptoms aren’t random—they’re the map to your healing
E09 | 5 Autoimmune Myths Busted: What You Really Need to Know

E25 | Leaky gut and autoimmune disease: How to heal your gut naturally

Book - The healthy deviant by Pilar Gerasimo

OTHER LINKS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

Join our free Facebook group: Embrace Your Healing Journey
Learn about the "BODY WISE HEALING" FRAMEWORK
Break free from chronic health struggles by visiting aninditarungta.com.

📬 Write to me at anindita@aninditarungta.com — I’d love to hear from you!

FREE MASTERCLASS FOR WOMEN WITH CHRONIC CONDITIONS

If you’ve been stuck in pain and fatigue despite doing everything "right"—this is for you.

My free masterclass, Tired of Chronic Pain, Fatigu

Chapters

• 1:25 Importance of treating flare-ups as feedback
• 1:50 Excerpt from the book - "The Healthy Deviant"
• 4:48 Understanding Flare-ups
• 6:21 Disconnection as the Real Problem
• 8:52 3 common mistakes that keep people stuck
• 10:12 Mistake 1: Treating Flare-ups as a Crisis
• 11:04 Mistake 2: Over-tracking and Over-analyzing
• 12:02 Mistake 3: Skipping the Emotional Aftermath
• 13:13 Power of Small Shifts
• 15:34 Invitation to free Masterclass
• 16:28 Body Wise Wrap Up

Transcript

You're not broken and your body is not betraying you. But if you are stuck in a flare up loop, then it's time to go deeper.

In today's episode, I'm breaking down the three sneaky mistakes that even the most well-intentioned women often make that keep your body in stuck in a survival mode, and what you can do instead to finally reclaim your energy, clarity, and calm. 

My name is Anindita, and I'm a functional medicine certified health coach and practitioner. And in today's episode of Embrace Your Healing Journey, I'm breaking down the three mistakes that even the most well-intentioned, well, red health conscious women make that, you know, they unknowingly make this mistake. 

Mistake that can quietly keep their bodies stuck in a flare flare mode by treating flare ups as feedback, choosing restoration over restriction, and learning to decode what really matters, you can stop chasing short term fixes and start stepping into real healing. 

I want to share an excerpt from the book The Healthy Deviant by the author Pilar Gerasimo, and I will be sharing the link in the show notes below. Um, and I am going to talk a bit about that. She speaks mostly of the US in this excerpt, but I think it's more or less applicable to many other countries. 

She says, 

What kind of society makes being healthy and happy so difficult that only a tiny, single digit percentage of its population can hope to pull it off? The answer is self-evident a sick society and within a sick society, one where chronic illness, obesity, drug dependence, anxiety and depression are rapidly becoming the prevailing norms. What does it mean to be the one of the few who bucks those unhealthy odds? It means that you should have to be prepared to successfully resist your society's standard way of doing business. You have to oppose its rules and defy its conventions. You have to make all sorts of inconvenient and unpopular choices. You have to become a sort of a renegade freak, or at least be willing to think and act like one some of the time. The great news is that this does not require superhuman willpower. Single digit body fat percentages, buns of steel, or an endless parade of boneless, skinless chicken breasts. 

What it does require a willingness to toss some official looking rulebooks out of the window. To suspend some self torpedoing beliefs and assumptions and to begin doing some things differently. That's the person she calls the healthy deviant. Because you are defying the norms. You are standing out from the crowd, and it's a very unfortunate reality that you have to literally go against. What is the common sense, what is the, you know, the common wisdom to actually be healthy in today's society, as she calls it. 

And it's true. It's true in many in the American, you know, part of the world as she talks about. But it's equally true in many of the other developed nations and to a large extent in my country as well. And in fact, the other day I was having coffee with a friend. And she's also a health and wellness, uh, you know, she she's also very passionate about health and wellness. And as a health coach, I tend to gravitate towards people where we share the same kind of interests and values, of course. And yeah, she was asking me this question that, you know, she feels that when she talks to people, many, many of them actually look at her strangely when she talks about to them about things that she does on a daily basis, things that are good for her, good for her mentally, physically and emotionally. And I can completely relate to that, because when I tell people that I want to go to bed at 930, it's been a very stressful time for me lately. 

For the next few weeks, I'm not stepping out at night. People look at me strangely. Right. So the small things, the. I take sleep very seriously. Right. And most people don't. So I am the kind of deviant and the healthy deviant, uh, because I know how, what price my body pays. So that's that's what I'm talking about, that we need to do things differently. Uh, in in fact, if you want to stay healthy just by going along with the flow, going with the crowd is not going to help you. And that's exactly what I told my friend. And this is the book that I shared with her, which is, you know, and I wanted to share it with you here. So I'm going to share the link in the show notes. 

And if you're here, chances are that you are no stranger to flare ups. Your body crashes out of nowhere. One day you're functioning okay. The next day you're curled up with crushing fatigue, joint pain, brain fog, or something else. You've canceled plans, pushed through meetings, skipped meals, and you're done with your body. That seems to play by no rule whatsoever. So maybe for you, it's the sudden bloating and stomach pain after food that was meant to be healthy for you, rashes or hives that just appear out of nowhere and it leaves you embarrassed and frustrated. Or it may be a deep, relentless fatigue that never seems to go away, or that constant tightness in your chest. You know, you don't know whether it's anxiety, inflammation or both or something else. 

And the hardest part? 

You are doing everything right. And you are reading the blogs, following the protocols, maybe even avoiding gluten, dairy, soy, corn, maybe nightshades. And still nothing seems to work long enough. And that is why in today's episode, I am talking about the three sneaky mistakes I see again and again, even from the most healthy woman. And I'm going to share that. So hang on till the end. 

 And this is not because you're doing something wrong, but because most of the healing advice comes from a place of fear and not wisdom. So I'm not here. Don't worry. To give you another 20 point checklist. Things to do. I'm here to make healing more simple, intuitive, and a lot more human. Because here's what no one's telling you. It's not just your gut. It's not just your hormones. And it's not definitely not just your immune system.

 The real problem is that your body's caught in a loop not of dysfunction, but of disconnection. And I keep talking about it. I talked about it in the previous episode. I'm going to share episode 55 in the show notes as well. Disconnection is from what your symptoms are trying to tell you. It's your body's way of communicating with you. Disconnection from how your environment, physical and emotional, is affecting your body. Disconnection from your own internal signals. Your intuition, because you've been trained to override, dismiss, or mitigate them. 

When you live in a world that praises you for pushing through, numbing through, or medicating, it becomes almost impossible to hear your body's voice clearly. And that's what the author Piller was talking about in the book The Healthy Deviant, that you have to become a deviant in today's day and age to actually be able to hear your body's voice. So the symptoms keep on building. They get louder, they flare not because you're doing something wrong, but because you're not really tuned in to what's going on underneath. So the real problem is not that something is broken. If your it's your body is trying its best to adapt in an environment that is overwhelming, misaligned or unsupportive. And it's using these symptoms as signals. So your role is to understand, to stop and pay attention. So that's the shift for you. 

So stop asking what's wrong with me and start asking what is my body reacting to and why? So let me guess. You've been told that if you could just find the right diet, the right treatment, the right medication, the right supplement, follow the right protocol, everything would get better.

 So you've tried. You put in your best, you've cleaned up your food, you've eliminated gluten, dairy, maybe even nightshades or lectins. You started tracking everything food, mood hormone, sleep. You stocked your shelves with probiotics, all kinds of supplements. You followed the wellness rules to the letter may be green smoothies, gut repair powders, collagen. You went to see yet another specialist who did another round of tests and gave you another set of lab results, but no real answers. And still, the flare ups keep coming. And maybe you've developed yet another autoimmune disease. You know, because a person who has one autoimmune disease is three times more likely to develop another one. That's just how the immune system works. 

And I've done episodes on autoimmunity in the past as to why this is. So, I'm going to share the link in the show notes. 

So now you're not just exhausted, you're discouraged and you're confused. If this sounds like you, I want you to know something important. It's not that you failed, it's just that the strategy is incomplete because most of the solutions you've tried are focused on controlling symptoms, not understanding them. They are built on the assumption that your body needs fixing instead of learning how to feel safe again. And that changes everything again. Don't get me wrong. 

 It's not that you don't need medications. It's not that you should not go to the doctor. It's not that you should not get your labs done. They are all important parts of getting a diagnosis, getting the right treatment, making sure that there's you prevent further damage there. They all have their role because medications. Doctors are of course save lives. That's not the point. 

The point I'm making is that they are often not enough.  This is and this is what you are missing. And I'm to talk about the three mistakes that you may be making. Because when your nervous system is constantly on high alert, your body cannot be in a healing mode. It's in survival mode, it's in fight or flight mode. So you can't bio hack, supplement or restrict your way out of that. And in today's episode, I want to help you shift that not by adding more to your plate, but by removing the friction, by showing you the three common, well-meaning mistakes that people that you may be making, that people often make, that keeps you stuck in this flare up loop, and exactly how to shift them in a way that finally makes sense to your body. 

So you don't need a stricter diet. You don't need more tests or a longer supplement list. You don't need to fix your body because your body is not broken. What you do need, you definitely need to do, is shift the way that you respond to those symptoms. And it starts by spotting these three sneaky mistakes that keep you stuck, even when you're doing all the right things. So mistake number one. 

Mistake number one is treating flare ups like a crisis instead of a clue. So when your symptoms spike, when they when they become really aggressive, it's easy to go into panic mode. It's easy to do more, uh, you know, medicate more, cut out more foods, push harder. But your body is not punishing you. It's trying to communicate with you. It's telling you that there is something that is that is not in alignment. So what you need to do instead is pause, breathe and listen and ask yourself, what is this flare trying to protect me from? What message am I really getting? And this single question can shift you from clear fear to clarity and open the doors to real healing. So mistake number one. Was treating flare ups like a crisis instead of a clue. 

Mistake number two. Again, extremely common is over tracking and overanalyzing. So you might be logging every meal, every symptom, every ounce of calories, sleep and still feel lost. The truth is, all that tracking can actually keep your nervous system on high alert. And it can backfire because you are stuck in hypervigilance and your body's stuck again in the fight or flight or survival mode, and it cannot heal. It cannot be in two modes at the same time. It cannot heal and repair itself, and also be stuck in a survival fight or flight mode. So what you can do is track with intention and not obsession. Instead of recording everything. Tune in to what really matters your body's patterns, not just the data. So start with 1 or 2 key symptoms and explore how they show up, not just when. In fact, I have created a free symptom relief guide to help you do this. There's a lot of resources in that, and I'm going to share that link in the show notes below so you can get that as well. So mistake number two was over tracking and overanalyzing. 

And mistake number three is skipping the emotional aftermath. We don't really want to talk about our emotions. We don't really think that they're important. Many times because we are so focused on the physical aspects of our health issues. So you treat the physical symptoms, but you know, the emotional load that comes of dealing with flare ups, dealing with chronic illnesses, dealing, living with it every single day, you know, and the price that we often pay. The guilt, the fear, the worry about the uncertainty. Those emotions. If they stay bottled up, your body stays on edge. They brace for the next flare. And once again, you are stuck in survival mode. And once again, your body is not able to heal. So what you need to do instead is to give yourself space to feel, to create that space to name what came up during or after a flare up. To ask, what emotions did this bring up for me? Was it guilt? Was it fear? Was it shame? And sometimes the sadness, you know, it can be. It depends on what you went through and you need to name it to be able to tame it. And sometimes the most healing thing that you can do is not to fix the flare, but to acknowledge the feelings that it left behind. And these you know what I've talked about today? 

These three mistakes I've talked about. Number one. Treating flare ups like a crisis and not a clue. Number two over tracking and overanalyzing. And number three skipping the emotional aftermath. You know, these all these things might seem like small shifts, but they are powerful. Because when you start seeing your symptoms, it's conversation. Instead of a crisis, everything begins to change. Your energy begins to stabilize, and the flare ups lose their power. 

And most importantly, you stop fearing your body and you start partnering with them. This is the key. If there is only one thing that you take away from this episode that is this, that you need to stop feeding your body and start partnering with it. Because that's where true healing begins. And the reason this is so important is because every time you treat flare up like a failure, you chip away at your trust in your body. 

Every try to micromanage. With more tracking, more stuff, you pull yourself further away from your inner wisdom, inner intuition, and every time you skip over that emotional weight that you've been carrying for for dealing with this illness for so many years or decades, it's keeping you stuck. You're missing the opportunity to release what is keeping you stuck. And the patterns is not. And, you know, living like this is not just exhausting. It is unsustainable because real healing will not happen when you're constantly fire fighting symptoms. Your Symptoms. 

You have to get out of this disease merry go round. I call this this situation as a disease merry go round. Because I see so many people stuck in this disease. They constantly go round and round in circles. And this the only way that you can get out of this disease merry go round is by shifting into partnership with your body. And that's when the fog starts to lift. The thing is, you know, it's not just about feeling a little bit better. It's not. It's not even about reversing your symptoms. It's about getting your life back. That's what I feel so passionate about.

 It's not about getting well. It's not just about symptom reversal or reversing a disease. It's about getting your life back on track. It's about living your life. It's about your energy, your clarity, your confidence and your freedom. Your freedom to pursue your dreams, your freedom to live life on your terms, your freedom to, uh, you know, uh, have healthy relationships with your children, with your husband, with your family, your freedom to live a very happy and healthy social life. That's what you want, right?

 It's not about the disease. And it's certainly not about just reversal of symptoms. So if you're ready to explore how to do that in a way that is simple, doable, and rooted in wisdom, then I invite you to join me for the free upcoming masterclass that I have on April 25th. Uh, I'm going to share the link in the show notes below. But before you go, here are today's key takeaways. I call it the body wise wrap up. Tell me, uh, you know, let me know on Instagram at the rate and if any of them resonate with you. 

Number one, your symptoms are signals, not setbacks. 

Number two, doing more isn't always the solution. And these are the three mistakes that you need to look out for, which is treating flare ups like a crisis instead of a clue over tracking without real insight and ignoring the emotional weight that the symptoms carry. 

Number three, uh, key takeaway is healing begins when you shift from control to connection. Because listening to your body creates that clarity calm that you've been craving for. So any any, any of these takeaways, any of this, uh, what I shared in today's episode really resonated with you. 

Share it with a friend, share this episode or screenshot your favorite takeaway and tag me at the rate and room on Instagram so that I can share you on. And as I mentioned, I'll be sharing the link for the masterclass if you want to learn how to put this in practice. It's called tired of doing everything Right and still not Healing. Uh, check out the show notes below. The link is going to be shared there. Your body knows how to heal. Are you ready to support it?