Dear Reader,

Earlier today, I participated in a live conversation with a woman who will be interviewing me for a book about what she calls The Third Curve of life.

As we talked, the conversation kept returning to a word I hear often in midlife: reinvention.

And yet, the older I get, the less I think this season of life is about reinventing ourselves, I really think it's about integration.

I really saw this in real time as I just returned from New Orleans where I spoke at the inaugural WomannKind event during the American Diabetes Association Scientific Sessions.

As I stood in that room, I found myself reflecting on the unlikely path that brought me there.

I was speaking about authentic leadership, empowered voice, and sustainable impact. Yet years ago, I was a clinical pharmacist and certified diabetes educator. The event itself was sponsored by friends I attended pharmacy school with.

As I looked around the room, I wasn’t experiencing a career pivot, I was experiencing a full-circle moment.

For years, I thought credibility came from choosing one lane and staying in it. Academia taught me to become an expert. Healthcare reinforced it.

If I was going to be taken seriously, I needed to know my niche, define my specialty, and have a clear answer when someone asked, “So what do you do?”

The problem was that I never felt like just one thing.

I was a pharmacist, professor, mother, advocate, writer, coach, speaker, and creative.

When I left pharmacy and academia, I barely stayed connected to my professional network. I felt like I didn’t have it together yet. I wasn’t sure how to explain what I was building, and I worried people would think I wasn't credible.

But now I have a very different perspective.

Between speaking at ADA and returning to Academia to teach both coaching and neuropharmacology, I can see the path was never disconnected.

Neither was I.

I just wanted something different and I was co-creating something I hadn't really seen.

I didn't want just success, I wanted a whole life.

A life where my work reflected my values, where creativity wasn’t separate from contribution, where family wasn’t competing with purpose, and where I didn’t have to leave parts of myself behind in order to belong.

I won’t pretend this happened quickly.

It’s taken more than a decade.

It’s been messy, humbling, nonlinear, and at times incredibly confronting and beyond worth it.

The biggest thing that helped me be able to integrate was letting go of the belief that I needed to choose.

Choose between being practical and creative.

Between being a caregiver and a leader.

Between contribution and self-expression.

This past week was really an embodiment of the integration. My husband and son joined me in New Orleans as a celebration of my birthday and son’s graduation, I reconnected with alumnae from Pharmacy School, and I got to speak about work that felt deeply aligned and was very much needed.

I'm not celebrating success.

I'm celebrating wholeness.

A life that no longer feels fragmented.

A life where work reflects values.

Where contribution and creativity support each other.

Where purpose and family can occupy the same space.

I think a lot of people want to feel like they no longer want to leave parts behind. Perhaps that’s why my recent newsletter resonated with so many of you. (I'll be responding to each one of you tomorrow)

Many of us are in the process of becoming.

But maybe what is being born isn’t a new version of ourselves.

Maybe it’s a more integrated one.

This is also one of the intentions behind the Resourced Woman Retreat I’ll be co-hosting in August.

Not to help women reinvent themselves.

But to create space.

Space to hear themselves again.

Space to reconnect with what matters.

Space to explore what becomes possible when the different parts of their lives are no longer competing for space.

So I’m curious:

What part of yourself have you been treating as separate that may actually belong at the table?

Here's to integrating,

P.S. If you're local and want to kick-off the summer with a creative and joyful girls night, join me for a Wiser Me Summer Solstice Event. Get $10 off with code SWETA

P.P.S. If you are ready to start integrating - love to have you join me in Tennessee. There are some great timely bonuses and early-bird pricing. Check out details here: https://www.drswetachawla.com/retreat​

P.P.P.S. If this email was forwarded to you - sign up for my newsletter here.