Priya (not the real name) shares her journey from corporate burnout to boundary-setting and what peer support inside our circle made possible for her.
Priya had the kind of life that looked perfect from the outside. Senior manager at a regional consultancy, regular yoga practice, weekends filled with plans. But inside, she describes a persistent background hum of anxiety that never fully switched off.
“I thought I was just a high-strung person,” she says. “That this was my baseline. That everyone felt this way and I was just not coping as well as everyone else.”
She joined Peoties Wholesome Wave eight months ago after a colleague mentioned it almost in passing at the end of a team lunch. She almost didn’t sign up.
“What held me back was the word community,” Priya admits. “I didn’t want to sit in a circle and talk about my feelings with strangers. That felt terrifying.”
“I had been treating my inner voice like a problem to fix. The circle helped me treat it like information.”
What she found instead was something quieter. A group where someone would post a note at 11pm saying they were struggling, and five people would respond not with solutions, but with presence. A monthly check-in where everybody showed up for each other.
“The thing that changed for me was hearing other high-functioning women say the same things I had been thinking. That they also cried privately sometimes. They feel tight emotions. That they also felt like an impostor. I had been treating my inner voice like a problem to fix. The circle helped me realize it’s okay to feel how I feel, and to recognize and accept this emotion. I know that I’m not alone and it feels good to have others who understands what I’m going through.”
Her anxiety doesn’t go away yet, but she is less alone with it. And that, she says, has made all the difference.
She has also started learning to say no to things that doesn’t fit her priority list. Not dramatically and not with a three-paragraph explanation. That took a lot of conscious practice and courage.
