EP100 | 100 episodes. What I know now that I didn't know at episode 1

What if the reason nothing has worked isn't that she's doing it wrong but that she's been performing healing while trying to heal at the same time? 

In this milestone 100th episode, Anindita names the single insight that changed everything she understood about what women with chronic illness actually need. 

What if the thing keeping her stuck isn't a missing protocol  but the pressure to perform one perfectly?

She's done everything she was told to do. The diets, the supplements, the gym sessions on days her body begged for rest, the meticulous symptom tracking. 

And yet, somehow, she's still overwhelmed, still exhausted, still losing hope of ever feeling like herself again.

In this milestone episode, Anindita shares what 100 episodes of listening to women with chronic illness made undeniable — that most of them weren't failing at healing. They were exhausted from performing it. 

The protocols weren't the problem. The pressure to follow them perfectly was. 

And the shift she began to see wasn't about adding more or trying harder. It was about what happened when that pressure finally lifted.

What emerged was something quieter than a strategy and more powerful than a plan — a woman reconnecting with her body, maybe for the first time. 

Not because anything on the surface had changed. But because she was finally allowed to just be in it.

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

• Why the women who are doing everything right are often the most stuck — and what that reveals about how healing actually works.
• The difference between performing healing and actually being present to it, and why they cannot happen at the same time.
• What it sounds like when a woman's body finally exhales — and what had to shift for that to become possible.
• Why Anindita built her newest offering backwards, leading with what it will never ask of the women inside it.
• How thirty-five women chose a name that wasn't hers — and what that revealed about what she was really building.

If you've been doing everything right and still feel stuck, you haven't failed. The architecture around you simply wasn't built for what your body actually needs.

This episode is not a prescription. It's a door left open.

The Coming Home Circle begins June 2. Nine weeks. Twenty women. Three mornings a week.  If you're tired of performing your own healing, this is for women who are ready to just be in it instead. 

👉 JOIN THE COMING HOME CIRCLE → CLICK HERE

Transcript

Thing is that she was not failing at healing. It was not her fault she was exhausted from performing healing while trying to heal at the same time. And welcome to Embrace Your Healing Journey, a podcast for women living with autoimmune and chronic conditions who are done being overwhelmed by everything they are supposed to do to get better. This show is built on one belief your body is not the enemy. It is wise, responsive and on your side even when it doesn't feel that way. I am unindicted into functional medicine, certified health coach, founder of Body Wise Healing and creator of The Effortless Healing Companion. I've spent a decade working alongside women with chronic illness, and what I know is this healing doesn't require more protocols. It requires coming home to yourself. Each week, this podcast is a place to do exactly that wherever you are in your journey. However hard this week has been, if you're ready to embrace healing with compassion and awareness, not hustle and self-blame, this show is for you. I started this podcast in December of 2023 because I was working with women with chronic health conditions, specifically autoimmune diseases, and I wanted to create a space where I could educate, uh, women around these health issues, what they were going through, the root causes and what they needed to prioritize and why, and, uh, you know, build it awareness so that they could actually get their life back. They could take a specific action. And, uh, because, you know, the internet is a vast place and it's a lot of information out there, but it can become really, really overwhelming. And that's why the first episodes were about gut health, autoimmunity, the root causes, and all of it, uh, along with some practical steps that they could implement to manage their overwhelm, manage their mindset, and all of which was important. But somewhere along the way, somewhere along the course of 100 episodes and this is the hundredth episode, in fact, um, I'm really excited to talk about this. Some things shifted, both in terms of what I wanted to focus on and what women actually needed the support with. And that's the only time I can tell, because I found that a majority of these women were already doing many of the things that I was talking about, whether it was focusing on gut health, whether it was about taking certain supplements, a gut healing protocol, uh, you know, following certain diets, treatment plans. They were already doing all of these things. And these were, of course, important. But there was something that was, you know, that was missing. Uh, because, again, they were doing the strength training, they were doing taking the supplements, and they were following this in a very, very step by step process with a lot of discipline, with, uh, willpower. But somehow they were stuck either physically or emotionally or both. And I kept seeing this time and time again when I had women who came to me after working with other functional medicine practitioners, other, uh, you know, medical professionals. And I keep seeing this pattern repeat itself. And they were either not seeing significant improvements or they were seeing certain improvements, but that was not holding. I mean, that was not sustainable. And it made me actually think that what might be missing, and that's where my work shifted towards, because the thing is that she was not failing at healing. Uh, it was not her fault. She was exhausted from performing healing while trying to heal at the same time. And there these are two different and distinct things. And that's something that I realized because she did not need more information, she did not need for more protocol, and she did not need more strategies. What she needed was a place that she could simply be received as she was right there and then, without the need to be fixed, without the pressure to perform or to be perfect. Because all her life she had been told that her body was broken, that her body needed to be fixed, that she wasn't following the protocols perfectly, or that she wasn't disciplined enough. And somehow, in the midst of all this, of course, it was all her fault. Like if only she followed the instructions a bit more carefully. If only she did this a bit more perfectly right. This this constant performance, the pressure to perform was actually not helping. And in fact, she was the one. I mean, this is true for so many women. Oh, you know, she was the one that that she was measuring the protein intake. She was taking the protein powder daily. She went to the gym to train. Even on her worst days, she was taking she was taking those 10,000 steps meticulously. She followed a vegan and gluten free diet, you know, hoping that it was it would ease her pain. And she was tracking her symptoms in the middle of all this, um, you know, uh, let let me know if that is something that you can resonate with, like some of these things that you may be doing. But somehow she could never see any pattern that would tell her what, that what she was doing, it was actually helping or harming. Because in the middle of all this, in spite of doing all this, she still felt overwhelmed. She still felt exhausted, and she was losing hope of ever feeling like herself again. So clearly there was something that was going on. And here's what no one had told her. She didn't need to do more or earn her support. She needed to be held in a way that took the pressure off her, that took the pressure of her body, that took the pressure of her immune system to be ever so vigilant. And that space is not very easy to come by. That safety, that feeling of safety in your body is, is actually has to come before the strategy. And this is a place that you need to come to without needing to justify yourself or apologize for your for what your body can or cannot do right now, or constantly measure yourself against other people's standards. Right. And it's exactly all the women that I was working with over the past ten years of my coaching was stuck. Because when you can do this, when you can do exactly this, your body can finally exhale. Your symptoms may remain unchanged. Nothing on the surface may seem to have changed, but something. Something inside your shifts. You feel connected to your body, maybe even for the very first time. And it is. That is the time when you actually understand the language that your body has been speaking in all along. You know, this constant struggle to overcome our body, to fight with our body, to make sure that it follows our instruction. That is what is actually, uh, you know, costing us a lot. That is what is keeping us stuck, and that is what is preventing us from feeling at home in our bodies. So when you stop struggling, when you stop fighting this constant fighting for the first time, maybe in your life you actually feel peace. You actually feel at home in your body. So what I did was I built a container and I built it backwards based on all these things that I learned over 100 episodes, I decided that I would lead with what it will never ask of world, what it will never ask of you. So there is nothing to keep up with. There is nothing to perform and there is nothing to fail at. These are the triple negatives that I that I kept in mind. And it's designed to allow women like you to sit with what's true in your lives without feeling the need to fix it, to rush to fix it. Fixing has its place. There are protocols to be followed. There are strategies to be followed, but not at all points, and certainly not where you may be stuck right now. And I ran a poll even before I did this. Even before I got started, I was thinking that maybe I should do a poll around it, because I had a few thoughts in my mind, and 35 women responded within 22 hours and 18. I actually did a poll for 35 women. 18 responded within 22 hours, but they didn't just vote. They wrote stories and they this this coming home was came out of that. And one woman wrote that Coming Home was the novel that she had always been meaning to write, uh, for a long time for herself. Another said that it meant choosing herself without needing anyone else's permission. So that told me that this name coming home wasn't mine. It belonged to these women. And finally I understood what I was really building. So this coming home circle is actually a container that begins on June 2nd. It's for nine weeks. There are only 20 women three mornings a week, not daily because I know what oval from the inside looks like. These. And there are three live sessions every three weeks. They are for witnessing, not for coaching. They are for sharing. And the Effortless Healing Companion which runs underneath this is the compassionate somatic AI. It sits with whatever surfaces. It doesn't fix anything. It just holds up. It just holds you.

 So if you are tired of performing at your own healing, then the Coming Home circle is for women who are just ready to be in it. Instead, I've shared the link below. We start June 2nd, and if any part of this essay felt like it was written for you, and if you, you know, if you could see yourself in the woman who was doing everything and still feel stuck, I want you to know something. You're not the only one. You're not the only one who's in this place. You're not the only one who's struggling like this. 

And in August, I'm opening 50 seats for The Effortless Healing Companion. That's a separate 12 week program built on everything these hundred episodes have taught me. There is coaching. There is a, you know, there is group container, there is one is to one container. There is a lot more in that. We will cover strategies as well. It's not another information, it's not another protocol. But it's about what women with chronic conditions actually need. And that's the August container a space where you are received and, you know, just seen, just felt, just heard. And I I've shared the link for the waitlist below. Um, yeah. And, um, I'll see you next time.