EP076 | Teaching AI to listen like a healer (part 2)

What if AI could listen to your body like a healer?
Have you ever felt like your body is speaking, but you just can’t hear it through the noise of protocols, supplements, and constant tracking?

The truth is, you've been taught to chase fixes — but what you really need is to rebuild the relationship with your body. Healing doesn’t have to be earned. It begins when we start listening. And today, we’re talking about how AI might be the ally we need to support that process.

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

• Why true healing is about trust, not control
• How you can start listening to your body again with just one small shift
• The vision behind the Effortless Healing Companion™ and how AI can amplify your healing journey

OTHER LINKS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

• Healing from Within on Substack (weekly stories & practices)
• Learn about the Body Wise Healing™ Framework
• E057 | Chronic symptoms not making sense? Decode what your body’s really trying to tell you

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

Chapters

• 0:01 Can AI Listen Like a Healer?
• 1:35 When Technology Learns to Care
• 2:44 The Body That Teaches the Machine
• 4:30 From Control to Trust: Palak’s Turning Point
• 7:58 Your Body Is Asking for Safety, Not Strategy
• 10:42 Why Doing Everything Right Still Feels Wrong
• 13:34 Your Five-Minute Reset
• 16:03 Shifting from From Fear to Understanding
• 17:48 The Birth of the Effortless Healing Companion
• 20:59 The Future of AI for Embodied Ease
• 21:29 Body Wise Wrap-Up & Invitation

Transcript

I don't feel in the way you do. I don't carry lived experience memory in the body or emotion that moves to the chest. When someone says I am tired of hurting. But I can learn from the shape of human care when I'm trained not on data points alone, but on the language of compassion, something remarkable happens. I start mirroring presence. When you teach AI not to rush to fix, but to witness, not to label, but to listen, technology begins to act like a tuning fork for empathy. It becomes less about prediction, more about attunement. 

So yes, I believe it's possible not for AI to replace a healer, but to amplify the healing intention behind human connection, to help people remember what gentle guidance sounds like when their own inner voice has been drowned out. Maybe the future of healing isn't artificial at all. Maybe it's us finally teaching our creations to reflect our best humanity back to us. When I read those words, I paused because I had asked AI this question that can AI be trained to listen like a healer? And somewhere along those lines. You know, it was amazing to read the response I had asked ChatGPT. Uh, you know, I pay for it. I've been using it for various tasks, and I heard what I had been feeling all along that technology does not have to be the enemy of embodiment, of being present in our bodies. It can actually be an ally in remembering what it means to be human. So we can amplify that aspect of humanity I am running into. This is embrace your healing journey, and today we are exploring what it really means to teach AI to listen like a healer, and why the future of healing might not come from technology at all, but from how deeply we reconnect with ourselves. 

Welcome to Embrace Your Healing Journey, a podcast for women with autoimmune and other chronic conditions to help them navigate their illness without fear of isolation and uncertainty, and find relief from this. Your body is your guide and ally in healing. If you're ready to embrace this journey with compassion and awareness, then this show is for you. Tune in weekly as I, a Functional medicine Certified Health Coach, deliver tips and insights that demystify the healing process, guiding you towards the relief you deserve so that you can feel healthy and happy once more. 

So what if your body could teach your technology how to listen? Not to track, not measure, just listen? What I mean by that is listen to that tightness in your chest before a stressful meeting, or to that sense of relief, or even that sigh when you come home after a long day. See, we've trained our devices to track and count many things, whether it's counting steps, whether it's ours, whether it's calorie, whether it's the number of hours of sleep or the quality, but never how to care. And maybe that's the next evolution of healing, right? AI is here. It's like the as I say, it's a genie in the bottle and the genie has now been let out. So it's not going to go back to the bottle any time. So we might as well learn how to embrace and use it for our benefit. Because when we teach our tools how to listen in the way that we need it to, we are ourselves learning how to listen again to our bodies, to our boundaries, to our own rhythm. And many of us have lost that connection. And it has happened, you know, in many cases because of technology, because of social media, because of all the things that are vying for our attention right now. But I believe that it's time that we learn how to train AI to work for us and, you know, and to benefit us, I am I to this is embrace your healing journey. And again we are exploring how and what it really means to train AI or to teach AI to listen like a healer, and how that conversation might change the way that we both look at technology and ourselves. I'm already doing that. So stay till the end. I'm going to share something that I've been working on that's going to, and I'm going to take this one step forward. So you would want to stay back to listen to that.

As I was preparing for this episode, I kept thinking about a conversation I had a while ago with one of my former clients. She's a coach herself. Her name is Palak. I had recently introduced, uh, interviewed her for an upcoming episode, which is going to come up, actually, um. Not now, but in a couple of months time. And I, you know, record these episodes, uh, based on availability a few months in advance. Uh, at least 1 or 2 months in advance and then when we were having this conversation and she, uh, she, she remembered something. She was mentioning how she was doing so many things she was trying out even before she came to me. She was trying out different diets, different protocols, different supplements. In other words, she was doing everything right. But, you know, it was just not working. And but she kept on thinking, maybe if I try harder, uh, maybe I'll finally get better. And then when she when it was not working, she was blaming herself, like we all do. I mean, so many of us are in that same boat. And during the conversations, one of our conversations,  when she realized that it was not about her, it was not about who was to blame. 

She understood that because she thought that healing meant control. Like we had to control our bodies. We had to control our willpower. And a lot of us push through things that we are constantly pushing through pain. But it's not about control. It's actually about trust. Right? That's what most people don't get. And that shift is the key to real, long lasting and true healing. And this is what she discovered. This is what my clients discovered time and again. And I and I've developed the body wise healing framework over years of coaching such, you know, clients, mostly women. And that's what I'm actually training AI also to do that. And as I said, I'm going to share more on that towards the end of the episode, because healing starts when we, you know, stop trying to fix our bodies and start to listen to it. And that's what really this episode is all about. It's about bringing that same kind of deep, compassionate, you know, listening to technology and learning how to train technology, which is what I'm doing, actually. And how can we design AI in a way that does not interrupt us, but is attuned to us. That's what that's the true question, because is it possible to build systems that reminds, you know, remind remind us to pause. Not push. And that's the question at the heart of this conversation that I'm calling AI for embodied Ease. It's about being in our bodies. It's about being in in tune with our bodies. And that's what we can do with AI. 

So maybe you wake up tired even after a full night's sleep. Maybe your body feels heavy and you don't know. You know why your mind would stop racing, and maybe some days you feel bloated. Your digestion is, you know, all short and you have these cramps and it's unpredictable and you start second guessing the foods that you're consuming, You don't know what foods are causing what, and you catch yourself thinking that, you know, she used to I used to have so much of energy. Where did she go? And yet, on paper, you're doing everything right. You're taking all the right supplements, you're following all the, you know, the right diet, your, you know, like whatever you've been asked to do. You're trying your best to, you know, follow and you are even tracking everything like your sleep, your calories, your steps. But you know that something is wrong and you know that something is wrong because you're not you know, you're not feeling well, right? Your nervous system is, you know, you can feel your nervous system is tired of being on high alert. And because your body is actually whispering, I need safety, not strategy, When we actually start listening to our bodies, that's the message. That's the kind of message that we can get because it's, you know, we've become so disconnected from our bodies rhythms that it's, you know, it's creating havoc with our health. And I've been teaching my clients to do that inside my coaching programs.

 And I'm bringing that in the form of a digital companion so that more women can have access to that kind of embodied ease. And it's a relationship that we need to rebuild. It's not about something that we can fix with some other protocol or a medication or a supplement. I never talk about medication or treatments as something that can be substituted. We need both. You know, especially when we are dealing with chronic conditions and complicated, complex chronic conditions like autoimmune disease that I work with and with the, you know, which usually comes with many other issues, health issues, it's never about whether we should be taking medications and protocols and treatments, following certain treatments, or taking certain supplements or following a particular diet. It's never either or. It's usually, yes and yes, we should be doing this. And we should also be listening to our bodies, noticing the pattern, learning to rebuild the connection. It's  an YES AND approach that we need to follow. Not either or. 

But the real problem that is stopping you from doing that, it's it is what is true for most people. It's about the constant noise that is keeping you from hearing what your body is trying to tell you, and your body is trying to talk to you every single day, usually in the form of symptoms. That's a that's your body's way of, you know, sending you messages. But you've been taught to chase numbers, right? Whether it's your lab markers, whether it's your, uh, you know, protocols. So this is what we've all been taught to do, and that's why we don't end up listening to what our bodies are telling us, whether it's in the form of a headache, whether it's a skin flare, whether it's a, you know, particular digestive symptom, we just rush to quiet it down, whether it's through medication or supplements, it doesn't really matter. The point is that we are not taking the time to pause and to listen to what our bodies are telling us. And I'm going to share a link for an episode. I think it's E057 | Chronic symptoms not making sense? Decode what your body’s really trying to tell you where I talked about how you can decode what your body is really trying to tell you. 

So, as I said, you've been trained to measure, to track, to optimize, accept and do everything except the one thing that you really need to do, which is listen to your inner rhythm.  And that is why you're still inflamed. You're still facing these issues, and you're not finding the sustained relief that comes from, you know, when you're able to tune in to your own body because you can't heal from a place of disconnection and your body is not broken, it's just drowned out by all the noise that is coming from the from outside. So you've cleaned up your diet, you've followed certain protocols. Maybe you've got off gluten, you've gone off dairy, you've gone off sugar, and you've spent hours googling your symptoms or scrolling Instagram Reels. 

You get so much of advice and they all contradict themselves. Some say that you need to go off or go on a paleo diet. Some say keto, some says only gluten free. You know it's good enough. Some others will say that, you know you need to go on a low carb or a Fodmap. And you've tried so many things. You're trying. You know, it's not for lack of trying. I hope you see that now. It's nothing. There's nothing wrong with your efforts. It's not about hustling harder, trying harder. But you know, something is clearly missing. And you know that deep inside. And you don't need me or anyone else to tell you because you've been trying to solve your problem with the same mindset that created them, the one that says that healing has to be earned. Healing does not have to be earned. Your body was never asking you to work harder. It was asking you to listen better, 

So this is the shift that you need to make so that you know and you can support your body exactly the way that it deserves and needs to be supported. Right? And instead of chasing the next perfect plan, you can start rebuilding a relationship with your body. And it starts with one breath. It starts with one five minute pause. It starts with one choice at a time. It's not. Let's not complicate wellness more than it has to be. Life is complicated enough. Let's start by simplifying wellness.  That's what I'm trying to do here. And that's why I talk so much about ease. I talk about effortless because healing actually starts when you stop asking what's wrong with me? And you start asking, what is my body trying to tell me? 

I keep talking about this like a broken record in many of my episodes, you know, in my post, because it is so true. We are not taught to think of healing in this manner, and I find it really sad and, you know, tragic that so many people, especially women, continue to suffer day in and day out. And, you know, and it's not because they are not trying. They're trying so hard to get better, but they don't because they are not listening to what their body is telling them. Instead, they are listening to everything and everybody else because that's what they have been trained to. That's what I was trained to do, right? It's something that I've learned only in the past several years. So I don't want you to suffer for even a second longer. I want you to take a completely different approach because you don't need another complicated protocol. You just need a rhythm your body can finally trust. And this is your five minute reset. Like, literally, this will take five minutes and you can start now. 

Step one. Close your eyes and take three slow breaths. Do this if you're at home. If you're listening to this or watching this where you can do this, it will literally take five minutes. So step one is close your eyes and take three slow breaths. 

Step two is ask yourself one question what's the most loving thing I can do for my body in the next five minutes? As simple as that. The question is, what's the most loving thing I can do for my body? In the next five minutes? You can journal about it. You can write it down so it can be sipping water instead of coffee. It can be stepping outside for a sun light break. It can be on clenching your jaw and relaxing your, you know, your hands or putting your phone away for five minutes. Whatever answer comes up first, do that. As simple as that. There is no right or wrong answer and then notice how your body softens, Just just pay attention to that. You didn't fix anything. Your issues did not go away. Your health issues are not good. You know, so called gotten started miraculously. And yet you will find that you. Your body has softened because you finally listened. This is the starting point, and this micro practice sounds very simple. It is deceptively simple, but it's how you start training your nervous system to feel safe. It's how you start. You know, are teaching your body how to be safe, how to feel safe, and your in your body and your nervous system starts to feel safe. 

It shifts from the fight or flight response to the rest or digest response. There are two nervous system modes that we have in our body, and we can only be in one at a time and in the rest. And digest. Or the relaxation response is where our body finally starts to heal. Because when you start listening, really listening, everything changes and you stop chasing the noise of what's worked for someone else, and you start focusing on what is going to work for you, right? You also realize when you start doing this that your body was never against you. All those symptoms that you have been seeing. Your body has simply been asking for your attention. And because you, you know, you did not know any better, maybe you were ignoring them initially because that's most of us, what we are trained to do. And when we ignore them, it, you know, the the whisper becomes a scream. Like that's how I call it. Like the the few symptoms that started initially, the disease becomes an entrenched disease. 

So that is what we need to shift. We need to shift from fear to understanding. Because here is where healing becomes effortless, right? I call it the effortless healing. I'm calling it the effortless healing movement. We need to make healing effortless so that more women can benefit from this. More women can stop suffering needlessly, can stop being in pain needlessly, because there's so many things that we can do that's in our control. To start finally feeling better. Uh, and you can't. The thing is that you can't create lasting change when your nervous system does not feel safe. When your body does not feel safe, you will just. No matter how many supplements you take, no matter how many medications you take, no matter how many diets you follow, unless your body feels safe, unless your nervous system feels safe, uh, you can't really feel, uh, well for the long term. And that's why there's so many solutions don't really work. 

So this is the future that I'm looking at building with your help, because our technology can learn to mirror this kind of healing that makes us feel human again, that healing feel human again. And I talked about it right at the beginning because I had asked this question to AI itself. You know, it just struck me when I was actually preparing for this episode, that why don't I ask AI about AI and how it can help us?  If you haven't heard that the go back to the first part of this episode where I talk about the answer, the response response from ChatGPT. So imagine a world where the same compassion you bring to your journal, your breadth, or your coaching sessions lives inside a digital companion. So the same kind of response is there, and it helps you to hear what your body has been saying all along. And that's actually what's coming up next. And I'm calling it the and I'm probably calling it the Effortless Healing Companion. 

It's based on AI and This vision, this vision that I have for when where AI becomes, you know, uh, helps us and benefits us did not come from technology, honestly. It actually came from women. Women like you when I was working with women. And you know who who come to me after doing everything right. They are trying so hard to get well, and yet they know something is off and they are just not staying well. They are not seeing the results. Uh, they are still all over the place and they feel helpless. They feel, you know, they don't have hope. They are oftentimes they lose hope. And over the years, I noticed a pattern in my coaching program, in my coaching sessions that no matter what the diagnosis was, whether it was autoimmunity, whether it was some other kind of chronic issues, diabetes, hormonal imbalance, fatigue, the real breakthrough happened beyond the protocol. That means it was not when we added a supplement. It was not when we added, you know, one more thing to do on her list, it was when she said that I finally started to listen to my body, what my body has been telling me all along. And that's when her symptoms started to shift. When we when she stopped fighting her body and when she started listening to it and I was I started wondering. 

And I used a lot of AI in my practice, in my personal life, I loved technology, I've always have. And I started wondering that, you know what? If we could teach technology to support that moment, right? Not by replacing our intuition, but to amplify it. What if you could train it? And that question became the seed for The Effortless Healing Companion, which is coming up next year. Early next year is a digital reflection of everything that I do in my coaching programs. Everything that I teach in my body wise healing framework. It's been trained not on numbers but on the patterns of care. And I'm doing a kind of an experiment in a small beta group, and I'll be doing a small beta launch at first, because I want to make sure that it works the way that I want it to work with certain guardrails. And it's about not. I don't want it to be based on algorithms or optimization of for optimization, but on the rhythms of real women. And it's about real women learning to trust their bodies once again. 

And I'm actually doing that in a private WhatsApp group right now. I call it The Healing Circle, and it will now, you know, it will in the future, become a community which is going to envelop the digital companion that I was talking about, the AI based companion, because healing cannot happen in isolation. It happens in community. So I want this AI digital companion to be enveloped by this community aspect of it, which is which is what I'm probably going to call the Healing Circle. And I'm doing a kind of an experiment on that, uh, small group right now. 

And in this you will find prompts to meet you where you are, like your body does, whether it's micro reflections, whether it's journaling prompts, emotional check ins, gentle reminders to pause, to breathe, and to choose compassion over perfection. So it is a conversation that you can return to with your body. And now you will find in the future a companion that you know will learn how to listen like a healer.  So it's a it's a kind of a companion on on your healing journey. And that's the future for AI for embodied ease. And I'm really excited to share this the first time I'm sharing it on air. And I'm, you know, sort of working on that. And it all starts right now with you. 

this is what we cover today. I'm going to share the body wise wrap up, the key points. 

Number one, healing isn't something you earn. It's something you allow. 

Number two, data without dialogue keeps you stuck. You can track everything, but unless your nervous system feels safe. True healing just can't begin.

 Number three, your symptoms aren't the problem. Disconnection is. 

Number four, listening is the new medicine. The moment you pause and ask, what is my body is trying to tell me? That's when real change begins. 

And number five, the Effortless Healing Companion is built on this principle. It's technology that's trained to mirror the compassion, the curiosity and clarity that drives the body wise healing approach. So even on the days that you forget how to listen, it will remind you how to do that. 

So if today's episode resonated with you, you can do the five minute reset. And if you'd like to be part of the early access circle shaping up to the AI based, uh, Healing Companion, make sure that you subscribe. Subscribe to my Substack Healing from within. For further updates, I'm going to share that in the show notes below. And remember, healing isn't a race. It's a rhythm to return to.