EP107 | I thought I'd open 50 doors. Here's why I changed my mind

Anindita had fifty seats for fifty women written down for months, until she sat to write the invitation and felt something heavy she couldn't ignore. In this episode she explores how a number quietly became a target, and you'll discover what she found waiting underneath her attachment to it. 

What happens when the thing you built to prove your worth turns out to be for you, not the women you made it for?

If you have spent years chasing one more result before you let yourself rest, this episode will feel familiar in a way you might not expect. You already know the tiredness of always having to keep up.

Anindita shares how a plan that sounded perfect failed a simple test she now runs everything through, and what it asked of her to let it go. .

The letting go wasn't a loss of nerve. It was the moment she stopped needing proof.

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

• Why a number written down as a celebration can quietly turn into a target that bends everything toward it.
• How urgency and scarcity can appear in your own work without you ever deciding to build them.
• What the Whisper Test asks of an idea, and why relief matters more than performance.
• Why she chose a quiet invitation over a launch, and what that choice marks about turning fifty.

Transcript

I thought I had opened 50 doors. Here's why I changed my mind. I had this number written on a page for months. 50 invitations for 50 women opening on my 50th birthday, the 3rd of August. And it sounded perfect and felt completely symmetrical. Plus, it also had the kind of a ring that I thought would make people proud of me and nod when you say it aloud. Fifty for fifty and I shared it with my team on call and in this Substack newsletter, and I liked how it sounded. Mostly, it made me feel like a woman with big plans, and I liked the sound of that. And then in early June, I sat down to actually write the invitation, and I noticed something that felt really heavy in my chest. 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. Beneath 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 pain. And I want to share that with you today. Because what was underneath that weight, that heaviness? Uh, because I think it belongs to more of us than just me. You see, 50 wasn't a promise. 50 was actually more of a target. And the moment a number becomes a target, everything begins to bend towards the number as a result. You start counting. You start mentioning how many places are left. You build a countdown and you create scarcity as a downstream effect. And then, without ever once deciding to, you have built the exact thing you have spent years asking women to walk away from urgency, scarcity, hurry the feeling of being constantly one step behind. I have spent my working life with women who are already running the past decade. Specifically. One more protocol, one more diet plan, one more specialist, one more test, one more number, one more thing to try before Monday. These women who are chronically exhausted, chronically overwhelmed and may even be dealing with a chronic illness do not need me standing at a door, with a clock or a countdown or a timer announcing that 11 places remain and that it closes Sunday. That isn't an invitation. That's just one more thing to keep up with. And they are so, so tired of keeping up. There's a test. I run everything through now. I call it the whisper test. And it's very, very simple. Does this create relief or does it create? Pull? Not. Does it convert? Not. Does it perform? When I ran 5450 to the whisper test, it failed. It failed clearly. And it failed immediately. And that was actually quite hard for me to accept because I'd grown attached to that concept. But when I stopped defending it, I had to accept a reality that made me quite uncomfortable. The 50 was for me because it was proof. You see, it was the number that I could point to say that this worked. This is real. I built something that mattered and that I was successful. It was a result I could show and it would prove my word. And this is precisely the move I watch my clients make when they chase one more lab value to prove they're finally getting better, show progress, produce a result, and finally on the right to rest. 50 years old and there I was, still trying to earn it. Do I change my mind? Not because the plan was bad, because the plan was mine and not theirs. So here's what's coming. It's an invitation. A small one. A handful of women coming into the next coming home. Circle with the companion at its heart. There is no seat count. There is no countdown. There is no price on a page, no timer and no last call. The door opens quietly, and it stays open long enough for anyone who wants to walk through it. To walk through it. And what's inside is the thing I actually believe in. Nothing to perform. Nothing to fail at. Nothing to keep up with. It has a gentle rhythm where a reflection lands on a Monday, Wednesday or Friday. And beyond that you move at your own pace. A journal that is entirely yours used, however, and whatever, whenever you want. Or not at all. A small circle of women, a community who are living with this exact tiredness so you never have to explain yourself the way you do. Everywhere else, and a companion that will sit with whatever is true at two in the morning without one suggesting you're doing it wrong. That's it. However, I am not going to pretend this is the smarter business decision. 50 is a much bigger number than 7 or 8 in terms of revenue, and I'm aware of what I'm letting go of is a version of me who finds this genuinely uncomfortable. But as I turned 50 this August, the thing I want more want to mark isn't a launch. It's that I finally stopped needing the number. The birthday is the meaning. It was never the quarter. So nothing to do today. Nothing to decide. Nothing to register for. No place to hold. When the door opens, it will open gently. And you will hear it here first. Come as you are.