25. The Messy Middle: Midlife Burnout, Healing & Reinvention with Dr. Siri Chand Khalsa

In this powerful episode of Nourished with Dr. Anikó, Dr. Anikó Gréger is joined by integrative medicine physician and mindfulness mentor, Dr. Siri Chand Khalsa, for a deeply honest conversation about burnout, midlife transitions, and the emotional awakening many women experience in the second half of life.

Together, they explore the “hard stop” many women reach when years of caregiving, emotional labor, and self-sacrifice catch up with the body, mind, and spirit, especially for those in healing professions. Dr. Khalsa shares why this season of life is not a decline, but a powerful portal for reinvention, healing, identity reclamation, and purposeful living. Learn why empathetic women, particularly in medicine, face higher rates of burnout, how chronic stress impacts longevity, and why slowing down is essential not indulgent for true nourishment. You’ll also hear how grief, rest, creativity, and community can support meaningful transformation during midlife. This heartfelt episode offers validation, compassion, and guidance for anyone navigating the “messy middle” of change. If you’re craving permission to pause, evolve, or simply breathe… this conversation will meet you right where you are.

Episode Highlights:

 3:00 The “pivot generation” and why women 45+ are carrying unprecedented emotional and energetic loads 
 6:30 The identity collapse of the female healer and emotional cost of self-sacrifice 
 12:30 How chronic stress affects women’s health, aging, and longevity 
 16:45 The “hard stop”: when your body and life demand change 
 22:00 Midlife as a spiritual initiation and awakening—not a decline 
 34:00 Healing from burnout: the power of rest, recalibration, creativity & community 
 51:30 Grief as transformation: releasing old identities and allowing renewal 

Learn more about Dr. Siri Chand Khalsa:

Website: https://drsirichand.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/doctorsirichand/

PLEASE NOTE: This episode is not for everyone, as it discusses suicide and mental health crisis. Please skip it if this does not feel like the right fit for you right now. If you or someone you love is having a mental health emergency, call 988.  Love to you all!

Connect with Dr. Anikó:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dr.aniko/

Website: https://www.draniko.com/

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Disclaimer:
The content of this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only and does not constitute medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. The views expressed are those of the host and guests and do not substitute for professional medical advice. Always seek the guidance of your physician or other qualified healthcare provider with any questions you may have regarding your health or a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay seeking it because of something you heard on this podcast.

Transcript

Dr. Anikó: [00:00:00] Hi, you are listening to Nourished with Dr. Ani Kreer. This podcast is all about the many, many ways you can support your health and your family's health. I'm an integrative physician and I am so passionate about helping people find their pathway to their very best life. I hope you enjoy. 

Dr. Anikó 2: Hello? Hello, y'all, and welcome back to Nourished with Dr.

Aniko. Thank you so much for being here with us today because I have a very special guest, Dr. Siri Chand Khalsa. Dr. Khalsa has a lifelong interest in mindful living as the basis for long-term vitality of mind, body, and spirit. She completed a residency in internal medicine at the Mayo Clinic and she's board certified in internal medicine, integrative medicine, lifestyle medicine.

And hospice palliative medicine, [00:01:00] Dr. Calsa has deepened her studies on health and healing by becoming a yoga instructor, reiki master, and participating in a two year full-time program on Ayurveda at the Ayurvedic Institute in Albuquerque and India. Serving as an integrative medicine primary care physician and instructor at the University of Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine and a consultant to other medical practices.

She has dedicated her career to promoting an increased understanding in clinical medicine of the link between long-term vitality and our daily choices. She is currently focusing her energy on supporting physicians who want to expand their personal understanding of new ways of healing through an experiential process, utilizing techniques in Ayurveda, yoga, mindfulness, lifestyle changes, and plant-based nutrition through the online community vishuda.com.

Welcome. 

Dr. Siri Chand: Welcome. Thank you so much. It's [00:02:00] such a delight to be here and really excited for this conversation. I 

Dr. Anikó 2: am too. And the thing I was trying to tell you, and then I said whatever let's just start recording, was that I was trying to just kind of prepare and kind of. Look over your bio and set an outline and my computer just would not cooperate.

Oh, I've been there. But also, I don't know if you've had the experience where when you're in a deeper energetic place or doing deeper energetic work, like technology kind of goes, Hey, why are, I was 

Dr. Siri Chand: gonna allude to that, but I was like, that's the day-to-day story of my life. Right. So the fact that it follows me to other people's spaces, I am constantly fighting technology.

Like, it's not even a joke in our household at this point. Like computers are always crashing. The internet never works, like programs freeze all the time. So because your energy is vibrating so much, you know. Exactly. [00:03:00] I mean, I, I wish I could like quantify that so that I had tangible proof for like the scientist in me.

But I definitely know that I'm in like really deep spaces of internal evolution and like. Places that I'm supporting others, and I, I know that's oftentimes those spaces are really hard to articulate and name and or for people to understand what is the hope or the desire or the function or the focus of creating space like that in your life.

Yeah. 

Dr. Anikó 2: Well, and so in the, in the vein of creating space, I kind of took that as a sign of stop trying to prepare for this or organize it or. Make it whatever you think it needs to be. Just let it be what it's going to be and let it unfold. Because when I even started talking to you about being on the podcast and doing an episode, the idea I had in my mind was talking about Ayurveda and [00:04:00] nutrition in the Ayurvedic, sort of from an Ayurvedic lens.

And then when we had our phone call to discuss what we wanted to talk about on the podcast, that is not at all what we ended up talking about. And it really resonated, it felt like with both of us. And then in the meantime, I had an episode on menopause and how a powerful time of life that is for women.

And that was really the sort of life change. And so I'm gonna stop talking and just let you start talking about whatever, whatever comes out today. 

Dr. Siri Chand: Oh wow. Well, what absolute treasure of an experience. How often are we just allowed to speak fully our minds? I think, you know, to be honest with you, one of the things that, um, our conversation before, and even just the conversations I've had lately in my coaching work and in community building for female clinicians, most of whom are mid to late [00:05:00] career, so we're saying elder millennials, gen X, age groups, you know, 45 and above.

One of the things that I've really been noticing and hearing about, um, is some really complex metrics around what's evolving for us in midlife. And I saw something recently that said that the, let's, let's take something super practical, that the pay gap between men and women in in medicine can total up to $2 million over the course of the career.

And it's trackable. It's not even. Like an obscure, oh, it's just data. I want to feel sorry for myself, but I don't think that we're as powerless to it as it would seem because what is the skillset that one needs to track into certain, let's say leadership and salary roles? Because I think we're also, though the study hasn't been there, [00:06:00] where are the women in our age group in leadership roles also, um, at this, in the same way, I think we would see similar gaps and I have definitely been thinking about what's happening in this period in our lives.

Our bodies are changing. We're exhausted from a career that has been modestly fulfilling for some of us. Oh, moderately fulfilling for others and desperately unfulfilling. For some we have aging parents. We have a world in absolute disarray around us and. For some women in certain fields, the ability to fully express or do their work has been limited and or interest in the field Continuing has been limited.

I saw some recent statistics that said some of the reproductive rights programs that were filling and and interest are now scrambling even to fill basic bare minimums to keep the programs going. So I [00:07:00] think when we look at all of the cognitive load, the emotional load, the spiritual load of, of this particular generation, it's a huge pivot generation.

We had the first computers in our generation. We have the true pivot. We had them and we didn't have them, right? Mm-hmm. We pivoted, we had. Pre ai and we have post ai, we have the large scale entry of women into medicine, and we have the generation prior to us where it was really more of a novelty. So there's a lot of culture that we're setting and I think that we're really trying to establish sometimes not very effectively what is it that needs developing that allows us to track into leadership that allows us to be maybe a little narcissistic, a little less empathic, or, um, you know, navigating all the terrain of how we think, feel, and perceive ourselves.[00:08:00] 

And also not wanting to just sort of pass on things that were destructive or not useful in us. It's like a, I sometimes see it like we're just this huge. Hinge our generation, and it's like this energy comes in directionally this way, and we're like, it's like Superman. We're like, I wanna to go that way.

And, um, I'm really appreciating the toll it can take on one spirit in, in especially, I wanna just make a particular call out to the empathic sensitive female healers who are really looking at medicine more as a calling than as a career. And in that calling is this very rich terrain of evolving from the modeling that we were given around efficiency and worthiness to productivity.

And el you know, eliminating this and being the one that cures to this other space [00:09:00] that's a bit more ambiguous, it's a bit more walk with. It's a bit more evolve into, as opposed to a final destination. And all of these pivots actually take a tremendous amount of energy, which is also occurring at the same time.

Your body's going through big changes, you can't sleep, your memory's foggy. All these bizarre changes, marriages, children, family plus career. I think it's just this huge, um, huge space of evolution that's happening. And I wanna just, even just in this moment acknowledge the effort it takes for so many of us to keep showing up every day and not just be like, I quit.

I'm so effing over this, the whole thing. I quit. You won't carry on without me. And, um, I guess that's what I'd like to start with. Like if I'm given complete permission to you are 

Dr. Anikó 2: free. [00:10:00] Yes. Yeah. Thank you. And actually, as you were talking. I mean when you were talking about the people who are called into medicine, especially the women, I just felt like emotion swelling in me.

'cause it is this, you're raised in a world particularly as women, where you are expected to give of yourself. You are expected to sacrifice and it is something noble to suffer. Women's suffering is seen as something wonderful. You know, and I remember you, I was, you were the first person who told me that women physicians' life expectancy is lower than men's physicians.

And that's really the one area professionally in which that's the case. Is that, is that true? Am I remembering that right? 

Dr. Siri Chand: Yeah. I think the way that I understand it is that women have in, in most avenues of life a longevity. Um, benefit, meaning we live a couple years longer, but in medicine we're more to the equivalent of men.

So I'm not sure. It's definitely [00:11:00] less okay, but it's the, we lose our longevity benefit or, you know, the preferential qualities that tend to allow us to live longer in medicine. We live same, maybe a little bit less than our male counterparts, but I think more the point is that we lose that benefit that the general population has.

Yeah. So then what is, what is that, what are we holding that precipitates? Cancer, dementia, atherosclerosis, inflammation, you know, is, can stress be something that drives inflammation? I think so. And that's a precursor for metabolic disorders, microbiome memory. Circadian rhythm disruption, hormonal disruption, all of those things internally probably create environments that are creating more susceptibility to the very things we're trying to treat and help others avoid.

I mean, the irony in that is just chef's kiss. 

Dr. Anikó 2: I know. Just well, [00:12:00] and I, and as we were talking about it initially, the idea that sort of flashed into my mind, I'm like, it's obviously because we are giving of ourselves, but now that you're talking about it, it's like we're giving away what we need and we're also taking on what's not ours.

Yes. And I think encouraged to do so, and 

Dr. Siri Chand: this is such a interesting abstraction, like what does it mean to take on something that belongs to someone else? Are there really pragmatic and practical elements to that that show up? Like, you know, my husband's a chaplain and they say, you know, in the chaplain world they say when the person in front of you, when you're working harder than the person in front of you, that's usually a sign that the balance of the relationship is out of sync.

And I think that, you know, I wouldn't say that I often worked harder than my patients for them, but it is a very abstract thing to carry their [00:13:00] story in our hearts. And, you know, occasionally you'd have a, a patient who had a really unusual problem and you would find yourself somehow mimicking those symptoms.

Right. Is that an energetic thing? Is that a thought ba thing? Is that a co, co-regulatory mirror neuron thing? You know what? What is the neurobiology of that? I can't answer that question. I'm sure there are people that could. Speculate scientifically, I just know it observationally that when people around us are suffering or going through great, uh, transformation or even that we perceive their situation is unfair, we lean in.

We lean in and say, how can I serve you? How can I help you? How can I uplift you? When I would say it's not always that our male counterparts would do the same, and, and I don't wanna like have it be a big, um, dis to men, but it's just [00:14:00] observationally. What I've seen is that we're just sort of like you said, there's, there's the, our biologic nature and then there's gender and this quality of how those who identify as women are sort of being cast into roles that are inherently having components of sacrifice and, um, suffering as sort of noble cause.

Um. We sort of unknowingly step into those spaces without fully identifying our agency and control. We may have to not necessarily burden ourselves in certain circumstances with client work or families. And I think it is really difficult when you are the healer of the family or the doctor of the family, and there isn't an array of people that sit in similar roles around you especially.

So I think this is, very complicated topic, um, to speak eloquently on. So I'm more just speaking from my [00:15:00] own, what have I seen and what have I lived through, not from like a research based kind of perspective, but I do know that through the course of my career, um, I certainly felt like the women physicians and um, nps and PAs that I worked with were always the ones that were willing to lean in.

And, and I, as opposed to sort of saying what the men didn't do, I'm just gonna focus on what I saw the women around me doing. And I, I do think that that's an unusual component that does contribute to feelings of heaviness, feelings that can lead to powerlessness, moral injury that are all components of, uh, burnout and which is what it kind of, on some level boils down to.

It's like the rubber meets the road when you're in this type of cycle and you get to a space where you're like, I, I cannot do another minute of this. Mm-hmm. Like 

Dr. Anikó 4: [00:16:00] hard 

Dr. Siri Chand: stop. 

Dr. Anikó 4: Mm-hmm. 

Dr. Siri Chand: Hard stop and pe and it's shocking to ourselves, I think, when we arrive there. But it, it does happen because we, I know many who have landed there and then you're left with this very big question of like, okay, I'm in my hard stop.

But now what, what does the transition look like? Who do I need to get help from to help me move through this transition and feeling power unempowered and without agency and those types of transitions of internal agency, like waking up to your own power, your own voice, your own qualities. Um, I think actually really can leave women feeling very internally, um, frustrated, sad, depressed, anxious.

It's a really important thing to find people that help one move through once there's an awareness of like, but I think I'll call it the hard stop. I think a lot of people arrive there and they're kind of like, whoa. It's like a [00:17:00] Disney ride. Like, 

Dr. Anikó 4: mm-hmm. 

Dr. Siri Chand: Oh, the ride just stopped and I'm getting off. Oh my God.

Like, I'm dizzy, I'm disoriented, I'm exhausted, I'm exhausted. Like I did loopy loops for four 40 minutes, like 

Dr. Anikó 4: mm-hmm. And you, 

Dr. Siri Chand: and the ride stops and you wanna get out of the car and step onto pavement. But the, the proprioception, the neurologic receptors are like, that's not solid ground yet. You know, we're just like, whew.

That kind of transitioning is, but the ride stopped. Right? And so this is kind of the interesting intersection that I, I tend to work with people in their careers now, and I would never have predicted that, but, um, I always thought I'd be patient facing. But what I've really come to appreciate, I'll, I'll say this and then I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.

I had this image the other day. They were showing how, um, some, in some of the European museums, there's these really beautiful works of art. [00:18:00] There have been vandals who've had various political messages who've come into the museums and have destroyed or attempted to destroy the art, which, um, gosh, that's a big discussion.

I don't wanna kinda comment one way or the other on that. But, um, as a student of art, as a creative person, I enjoy looking at the great impressionist masters and I was thinking about the fact that one of these tiny little paintings could be worth $4 million, right? We look at that painting and we just think, oh, oh my gosh, what, what do we do need to do to protect that asset?

It's so valuable. And then I think about like this, or, you know, you, that's worth $4 million, like our earning life, depending on your specialty. It could be double, triple that, but we don't ever see it as precious as it is. And, and I think this is something. Um, can't be [00:19:00] said enough. 'cause I was thinking about it like, oh, we can see this inanimate thing as being worth three or $4 million.

And we look at it and we're like, oh, what, what these, the diamonds or the jewels, what under lock and key, like, don't harm the gem, don't harm the painting. But when it comes to ourselves, we're like, oh yeah, I'll just go without sleep for four years and I'll just live with this weird migraine that won't go away.

And suddenly it's like your mental acuity is less, or you've got a complication from an untreated process. I think that happens at the physical, it aeros arose us at the spiritual, emotional, and mental as well. And yeah, that piece of like really appreciating the value that we bring and the qualities of how precious.

How precious all of that we've invested in is, is. And even if the world around us isn't willing to kind of see us lean into it [00:20:00] with us, we can still hold that internal value in a really elegant way. Life may come at us in such a pummeling way that's like boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And, and I think this is just such an awkward time to be alive.

And again, this pivot generation has this quality I think of, of holding and, and certainly my studies in Ayurveda and mindfulness, yoga, pranayama. These are all things that help give us more internal awareness of what's actually happening. Being willing to rest, being willing to pause, being willing to pivot, being willing to sit in the luminal space of not knowing that's where all the messy middle is in, in this.

Pivoting time. And I think that's, um, boy, that's really been up for me. Like I've been in it, seeing it myself, seeing it in clients, seeing it in the world around me, and really [00:21:00] appreciating that if we don't articulate it, if we don't talk about it, if we don't acknowledge it, it's really not gonna get in any way, shape, or form better.

Dr. Anikó 2: And we can't carry it together either if we can't name it. It just reminds me of the conversations about before there was a word for sexual harassment when they were having this experience that felt really bad, but there was no way to even talk about it. Much less have anybody intervene, but there wasn't even a naming of it.

So that you could communicate it to somebody else. You know, and this feels similar in that the naming of it allows us to acknowledge it as a powerful force and experience we're going through and then we can talk about it together. And it does. And I was thinking about how you were saying this is not a disman, I don't actually think it's a disman at all.

I think it's a really wonderful thing. If anything, I feel like a lot of men that are in healing professions have a really boundaried sense of self. 'cause they grow up in [00:22:00] a world where they're not expected to bleed out for people. And it's like they have a sense of their own preciousness, you know? And in some ways it feels like women.

Not all women, but so many women. It's like we're trying to prove our worth and that we're good and like we're gonna help. And of course I'll do it. I'm gonna give my full self. When not only is that not good for the person that you're working with, because in many ways you disempower them and they don't get to be the hero of their story.

'cause you're like, I did it. You know, I cried so much for you. I cried more than you did. You know? Yeah. Um, but I love that idea and that image of us as the precious jewel and us being thoughtful about where we spend our energy, us being thoughtful about where we begin and the next person ends and that kind of thing.

Um. And in that. And so when you're talking about the pivot generation, it's like the pivot generation at the pivot moment of life, which [00:23:00] often is this sort of midlife, perimenopause, menopause time. And in our previous conversation we talked about that idea of kind of being on a highway or I love the image of the ride this time and there's no like off ramp, you're like, and then even the image of us as these like, you know, gen Xers and older millennials, like we're kind of building the road under us as we are.

And renovating it and being like, Nope, not that rock. You know, that one's bad. We don't wanna pass that on. And it's this really intensive, energetic, collective and individual work that's all happening at a time when you're going through a huge life change. And you know, both with career we're sort of like, you know, going through our lives and we're building our careers or our lives or our families or whatever it is.

And there's comes a time that you're calling the hard stop. For many people it happens around this time. And it could be about their career, it could be about their marriage. I think many of us are experiencing [00:24:00] this energetic drop off. You know, where the things that you could just power through and like run on adrenaline to do that is not there anymore.

And now you have to look at your life and be like, well, what can I do? What do I even wanna do? I've never thought about this before. You know, it's sort of like you, you haven't even thought about yourself and your needs and your wants and any of those things until you're like in your fifties, you know?

Yeah. And so would you be, would you wanna share about your heart stop? 

Dr. Siri Chand: Yeah. Well, I think, you know, one of the things that's been so interesting from my personal journey is that I got very sick with COVID. And so in a lot of ways I would've kept going. Like, I would say I'm like the empath, empath in a way.

I am. Like, I, I will just, I have enough for 

Dr. Anikó 2: everybody, 

Dr. Siri Chand: right? I can just keep doing all of it. And the funny thing [00:25:00] is, back when I, I had my first hard stop in pre-med, so I was taking. I was at UVA and I was doing really standard pre-med courses and a women's study. I didn't quite get to the minor, but it was a large focus of classes on women's studies.

So this has always been something of interest to me. And as I, I had a, a couple of classes that I realized like there's just a lot of memorization. There's not a lot of application. I'm not sure this is how I wanna train my brain. Like I'm not sure who I like when I have to employ my cognitive faculties in a certain way that eliminates other parts of myself for it to, to really function at the level that being pre-med requires.

And we obviously know how all this turned out, but uh, at that time I was like, I'm gonna take a semester off. I had done a bunch of AP courses, so I was still gonna graduate on time. I'm gonna take a semester off. I'm gonna play pool, [00:26:00] I'm gonna learn yoga. And Tai Chi. I'm gonna learn how to cook like natural foods.

It was my first exposure to like ashram style eating like chiri and dolls and what we call what would be like an Ayurvedic menu. And so this would be 1993. So it's been a minute. All right. It is almost, was that 30 years ago? I think that was 30 

Dr. Anikó 2: years gross. I 

Dr. Siri Chand: know. Okay. So in that, and in that semester, I went and worked in a metaphysical bookstore and learned all about sort of natural healing.

And through the course of that semester that I took off at the end of that semester, I was like, I don't think I really vibe with this traditional healer's path. I'm gonna look at alternate ways that I can sort of activate myself to become a healer. Now there's a long story in there, but about five years later I had gr, excuse me, I had graduated.[00:27:00] 

Went on and I did other things and I reached a certain, that was my first hard stop. I was like, I'm done. I'm not going to do this. It felt great, but about five years later, this other voice started percolating through. That sort of was like, yes, you could become a naturopath, you could become an acupuncturist, you could become an osteopath.

And I don't mean like, um, just the degree meaning learn OMT and become really an expert at that. But perhaps I was living in a city that had a medical school, but perhaps it's time to really look at going back to school. And I remember thinking at the time like, well, I'll just be like a mole in the machine.

I'll get in there and I'll bring all these great theories and, um, I already live here. This, you know, I can matriculate into this program. I'd been doing some master's type science research and what, and um, and, and I went in thinking. Now, probably 25 years ago [00:28:00] thinking, oh, I could, I could make a difference.

I could bring these series of things that I lived and learned about and enjoyed and, um, integrated into my own life and saw the value. And I can carry that voice into medicine. Now, 25 years ago, it was still not that popular. A lot of the whole person theory, um, looking at nutrition, stress level, sleep movement, all the things that of course, um, more and more medical institutions are saying, well, maybe that's just good medicine.

That's not alternative or integrative. And so I really persevered in a, in a career for a long time until I again reached an impasse and said, you know, I don't think, I don't think that the way medicine is being practiced now in insurance space or. Private equity based for profit, I'm ever gonna have an understanding of what I hope to [00:29:00] accomplish with patients in the visits.

And um, there was a moment in my last job where it was a hard stop. There was some shifting, and I don't wanna go into too much detail, but I just said, we're done here, we're done, I'm done. I'm done being present for what you're offering me. And the pandemic came shortly after that. So it wasn't so easy to kind of hop back into other options.

And so it was a very interesting off ramp for me because I reached a hard stop in my practice, but then the pandemic came and I couldn't really easily reintegrate. And so then I realized, oh, there's a lot of unlearning I still wanna do here. And, um, have you by chance watched any of the. I can't recall them at this moment.

The documentaries said, talk about the impact to our neurobiology from social media, like the impact to dopamine and different receptors. I haven't 

Dr. Anikó 2: seen anything, [00:30:00] but I've read a ton about it. Yeah, 

Dr. Siri Chand: yeah. There was one on Netflix anyway, I can't remember the names of them. They were talking a lot about how many of the early social media feeds are a little bit like a gambling, a little bit like these dopamine hits.

You know, the little arrow is spinning, when are the hearts gonna be there, when are the new followers gonna be there? And that, that there's this very real quality, addictive quality to it. And I had a call with a client recently and, and um, and we were talking about that there was this loss of focus, a loss of motivation, a loss of drive that had happened when they started their direct primary care practice, which for those of you that aren't aware, it's when you really step out of.

The pay model into a cash based model, but it's really the model that empowers the clinician's health and wellbeing to then really show up fully as the healer they imagine themselves to be and to [00:31:00] walk with people. And I said, you know, this is really in some ways a neurobiology issue. Like when we step out of these high demand practices, where we've been hitting refresh, clicking the button, checking the emails, it's not unlike a social media feed the way these EMRs work.

It was this real like it internal light bulb moment for me that when we come off that hard stop moment, I think it actually takes several years of rest and recalibration for our nervous systems to sort of reintegrate normal social cues that aren't based on these sort of. High stress, high demand dopamine.

I don't wanna know if I'm using the right term here, depleting, but certainly dopamine exacerbating behaviors where it's requiring just like our brains just get used to hit after hit after hit. Yeah. And we talk about the mental load of these lists, but I've never [00:32:00] heard anyone talk about it. Similar to what social media has done to our brains from the EMR, it was just this like light bulb moment for me.

I was like, I, I need to write about that. We need to talk about that mostly. 

Dr. Anikó 2: Absolutely. And for those of y'all who aren't familiar with EMR, it's electronic medical record and there are a lot of boxes to click and buttons to hit. And as they've tried to make it more and more streamlined, it does, I've never thought of it that way, but it does feel like hitting buttons on a social media app and you get that win because you whatever, check the allergies or whatever it is.

And also, as you were talking, I was thinking about that transition into having a new baby and how everything all of a sudden becomes so slow. You know? 'cause now you're at the pace of nature. And nature is slow and our society is not. And when you think about an average physician's pace, and you know, obviously this can vary too if you're working in the ICU, if you're a trauma surgeon, if you're on the floor with a [00:33:00] million patients, like the level of, of intensity.

So both the adrenaline and just the pace of it all, the fastness of it all. When I was in residency, I remember and I was newly engaged and then I was newly married and my husband just like knew he could not call me at the hospital because I had no moment that I could sit. At one point they started calling me Shark because it sounds like a cool nickname and I'm, we had a whole team of predators, but the reason they called me shark is because I was standing at the nurses station as one does waiting for our patients to come up from the er, whatever it was.

And I was like, if I sit down, I'm gonna collapse and die. I have to keep moving like a shark does, you know? That pace is not a human pace. So if you're also going at that, I can also imagine not just this sort of gambling epic game, you're playing constantly with your electronic medical record, but that you are running on this pure adrenaline all [00:34:00] day, every day, very little sleep.

That just exacerbates it. And then now you're kind of, it's kind of like when I, when I talk to people who are, you know, addicted to alcohol or whatever it is, and then when you first come off it, you're like, man, life's kind of boring. You know, because you have it recalibrated to be at the pace where you are taking in the beauty, at the like pace it's being offered to you, you know?

Dr. Siri Chand: Right. And I think this is such a complicated question because you could say for some of us. If you've lived three quarters of your life that way and you're being invited into this different space and someone says, well, it's gonna feel like this, but you'll live three years longer. Like, I mean, the U now might say, I don't know, that doesn't really work for me.

But then the U 20 years from now that's getting those extra three years might have said, thank God you did that. Like thank you even [00:35:00] thank God, because 

Dr. Anikó 2: I was racing through everything so fast that I didn't see and live my life. You know? I think about the people that are like, oh, you know, I remember being with my.

Older child who's now 11, and we were in the park and some man walked by and was like, oh, remember those years? They go by so fast, you know? And at the time it's a little patronizing 'cause you're like, oh my God, every day it takes a lifetime right now star. But it's true. And it's even harder when you've been zooming because you're also zooming away from the people that the most precious gems in 

Dr. Siri Chand: your life.

And I think even as we talk about this, it's not like there are easy solutions because maybe your mortgage is predicated or you're the primary earner, or your self worth is so intricately tied to your earning and to your financial independence that it's really not that [00:36:00] feasible to say, I don't wanna work, I don't wanna earn.

And so how do, how do you navigate that transition of. Meaning making fulfillment, pacing, sustainability, resilience. When, when the midlife reno pause, you know, the pause if you will, the portion of it that comes is, is it going to demand some changes? And there's no infrastructure internally in our psyche, in our beings for change.

It becomes this very push pull reality that can have extremes of emotion. And I think that that's so important to acknowledge that it's not, I don't wanna even know what normal is. 'cause I don't think we live in normal times anymore. Like I honestly, there will never be another era where it's the advent of AI and computers, that's it.

This is it. We, we are that generation. And so the way that what's being asked. [00:37:00] In one lifetime. I think it's okay. Occasionally be like WTF man, this is, uh, hard. Like what, what is happening? And have also at the same time this sort of rational feeling inside you that's like, this is affront to my humanity.

Yeah. This is an affront to my dignity what's being asked here. Mm-hmm. To keep showing up for X, Y, z and to, and like this is ridiculous to try to figure out how to hold the tension of say you're an ob GYN doing my job and it's illegal to do my job now. 

Dr. Anikó 4: Yes. 

Dr. Siri Chand: They're talking about extreme punishment to clinicians and patients that undergo what could even be life sustaining procedures.

Right. So I think this is, this is sort of an unprecedented era. Of stress for women. And I actually think we're doing a fabulous job. [00:38:00] Yeah, we are. Of showing up for it and just like celebrating our, um, what we've brought and, and certainly in the integrative community, I was seeing quite a bit about this today when we're talking about incorporating things that inherently are require relationship building with someone.

Dr. Anikó 2: Yeah. 

Dr. Siri Chand: I heard a politician who's a, who had a history as a clinician and um, I'm not gonna speak specifics, but him recounting his career was like a, it's a perfect polarity to what we're talking about because partly way into his or oratory moment, we'll call it that, like his speech, um, he started saying, well, you know, I just got really busy and so you know, who better than to form relationships than my nurses.

So I would ask my nurses to take care of A, B, C, D, E, and I was like, female clinician would never hand that [00:39:00] off. She just wouldn't like, and I'm not saying he's wrong and we're right, I'm just observing the way it's gone down. 

Dr. Anikó 4: Mm-hmm. And 

Dr. Siri Chand: um, I was so triggered by him and then I started looking internally.

It was like, yeah, I mean, we don't necessarily delegate, well, we don't necessarily trust the process. You know, there's a whole bevy of things we could say about that. But I do think it's important to acknowledge that we are doing our very best and it is completely like uncharted territory. We are laying the tracks for the train as it moves forward.

Mm-hmm. Especially as women move into senior leadership, which was unprecedented when I was training. There was zero, maybe one female leader, and now leadership is slowly but surely starting to have more. Varied perspectives. Women of color, men of color, um, women, you know, all kinds of, of diverse [00:40:00] perspectives are emerging through leadership lenses.

And I think that's going to really humanize the medical training and medical supervision environments incredibly. But that doesn't, that's not what we need, right. Because we're, well, we're well into like, what do I gotta unlearn to feel like a human being again? 

Dr. Anikó 2: Right. Right. And hopefully we can pass that on to the younger generation so they don't have to start where we started.

But even as you were talking, and so wise, I did an episode on Shadow work recently about like when something's really bugging you because Yeah. It, you don't feel like you are allowed the privilege of delegating something else. Like you're just expected to carry, carry, carry. And that's what we do. We carry, until then we break and then we have our hard stop and we're.

Hopefully don't burn anything down, but we often do. We often do because it's such a time of depletion and, and sometimes desperation. [00:41:00] Um, and it sounds like you have worked with a lot of people in that space. And so, you know, when I do an episode, I, I try to also offer, like, if you're in this space, like obviously there's no one size fits all.

Certainly not here. One of the first things that I'm hearing, which I'm seeing too, like. Women in this time of life stepping into like an activist community or stepping into flower arranging or whatever it is. Like starting to step into things that are beautiful and creative and also that create community.

And so in your personal life and also in your professional life, what have you seen to be really helpful in sort of helping you not even think about building the OnRamp ramp? Just be or off ramp, but just be like, oh, I, I gotta get off this highway and sort of build that re like resilience because you kind of, you have to be resourced to do [00:42:00] anything, right?

If you wanna move anywhere, you know. 

Dr. Siri Chand: Well, I think one of the things that I would say first is that sometimes our inclination is to complain, is to vent, oh, I need a vent session. And I will say, I've rarely found that to be the path to the solution. It's a temporizing. Element. So I wanna just normalize that sometimes you just have to like let it out and talk to somebody who's like, oh my God, are you okay?

And you're like, I'll be okay in three minutes. Like, not right now though. Like, and I do think, you know, just being completely sensitive, you know, there are some people who could be listening who feel like they need more resources and I would highly encourage you if you're feeling completely overwhelmed or having thoughts of self-harm, to reach out into appropriate mental health channels to seek direct treatment and not try to navigate it or worry about your license.

Really get help, get [00:43:00] support, get a therapist. You can pay cash for them. You know, there's different ways to kind of, um, pursue where you get support, get coaching, be part of communities where coaching is prominent. Find those hobbies that you've maybe left by the wayside. And I think what you said that's so incredibly valuable is the cost can cost nothing.

It depends where you find it, but, um, finding things to take your mind off. You like being in creative spaces where, sure, you can have a process or something you're sorting through, but the focus of that space isn't necessarily on self-development or self-growth. It's around either helping others or something creative or something athletic where you can just sort of step out of a role that you've been playing or persona or an internal part that's sort of got a really dominant role that needs like a check in the boardroom, if you will.

Mm-hmm. Like who are all the board [00:44:00] members at the internal table and if the chairman is basically never letting anyone else. Speak or talk it, it becomes so one sided. And so finding those other aspects of self that can be developed in nonclinical environments, um, could be a nature walking group, a photography group, pottery.

Um, it could be learning improvisation. That's one I actually really recommend because it's, it just lets, um, our inner creativity sort of be more amorphous and be explored. Uh, so improv work can be really fun 

Dr. Anikó 2: and you're not like overthinking it. Yeah. Which sometimes for people who live in their heads, it's such a wonderful, like learn it out.

That's what you're supposed to do. 

Dr. Siri Chand: Yeah, exactly. Certainly movement, um, exercise classes. But I do wanna stress that sometimes the. The maze inside our head is, is really challenging. And so if you are feeling thoughts of self-harm, um, please, please, please seek [00:45:00] out resources that are available to you. Call the self-help lines.

I think nine eight. Eight is the 9 8 8. Mm-hmm. Yeah, the suicide, um, prevention line. But just recognize that there are so many avenues from if you're in a crisis to the point, you know, where things feel very heavy and hard all the way to the, like, uhoh, something's knocking at the door. Can I be more preventive in my thoughts and approach to this?

Then it sort of door opening and this whole process coming in. So I think there's. There's a, a sort of self-awareness component to all of this that's really important and to recognize, like, um, that we can find ourselves in over our heads and not have enough resources to figure out what the next steps we need to take are.

And there are people that shoot, they may still go through their own process, but they understand how to support someone. And in some ways, as Ram Dos said, we're all [00:46:00] just sort of walking each other home and feeling like you have to be the, um, the saviors not quite the right word, but the one that just sort of endures it all, that never has a need, that never needs help.

I, I really do think midlife offers you this wonderful opportunity to say, I need help. And that's not a weakness. And that doesn't mean I'm gonna lose my license or my ability to practice medicine. Um, the Lorna Breen Foundation has really worked hard. To give less precedence on license renewals and malpractice and other forms that say if you've been treated or are being treated for a psychiatric, uh, diagnosis, that you have to declare it to them.

Um, I think that's absurd that, that it was even ever there. Um, frankly, I, I don't even know how that all came about. Um, people could, horrible physicians have maintained their [00:47:00] practice that's doing horrible things without checking that box. And really decent people have gone through horrible physician programs because they checked that box out of integrity and honesty.

Yeah. And when it wasn't necessary to track their progress. Now, addiction and other things different, you know, it's a different conversation than just. Feeling the strain and overwhelm and burden and burnout. 

Dr. Anikó 2: While an addiction is often a symptom of those things too, and, and again, if you are having thoughts of self-harm, not only is that a sign to seek support and health and call 9 8 8, it's also a sign that you are in overwhelm because when we are in overwhelm, our problem solving absolutely suffers.

So that's the only time that you're like, you know what would be a really good idea? You know what would solve everything right now? That's your signal. Just like anger is a signal that your boundaries are being crossed, or there's something that's unjust, this is your signal [00:48:00] that you are very overwhelmed because that is not a solution, a reasonable, logical solution.

To your life's problems as much as it might come up at times when you're in places of deep overwhelm. And for those listeners who aren't aware, um, physicians, even though they are often encouraged to get mental health support, they are often deeply punished and lose their licenses licensed to practice when they seek mental health support.

Um, and even though we're talking a lot about physician mental health and physician health and changing a career as a physician, this is obviously applicable to non-physicians and people who aren't talking about their careers, but about marriages too, right? Because a lot of people get to. Their marriage at this time in life.

And they're like, what? Like, I want out. I don't want this anymore. And in a way, when we talk about how our hormones change in this time of life too, that we don't have those, you know, typical feminine hormones anymore, it is sort of a breaking [00:49:00] open into this more gender neutral role. And a lot of us find that it's a lot easier to be honest, and we're not worrying about pleasing people as much.

And there's a very like spiritual, energetic, and also just hormonal component to that, that I have found very refreshing. I don't know that everybody in my life would agree, but I am really enjoying it. I'm really enjoying that. I'm not all in my head wanting everybody to think I'm nice and sweet and all of those things.

That can be very liberating. And it can be incredibly scary when you hit it. Mm-hmm. As well. 

Dr. Siri Chand: Yeah. There's, it's like, um, Tesseract, right? It's like this. You know, this big moving energy that you're like, ah, can I contain this? Like, is it gonna just like, like cyclone through my whole life and like, what's left of me after it passes through?

And I, and I think that, you know, the, there are certain days or months where we put [00:50:00] prominence on sort of mental and emotional spiritual health, but I just can't say it enough. Like you're not alone. If you're listening and you feel overwhelmed, you're not alone. Many people right now feel overwhelmed and they're getting help and support, and they find that through that health and support, that those feelings of overwhelm are not so prominent.

And whether they need talk therapy or medication support, or botanical or body work, or a holistic approach to how that healing happens for them, um, it's. I know it's difficult. Things can be tough to afford, but there are community resources and I encourage you to just see yourself as precious, like those beautiful, expensive paintings.

Um, you know, reinvest in yourself and take those pauses. Live a little more lean if you need to, less maybe eating out, maybe less shopping. Sell some things in your closet. You know, like [00:51:00] figure out how to give yourself a period of leanness to have that extra financial buffer. And I know perhaps some LI listeners, no matter what the circumstance things are gonna be lean.

And I know that's tough too. And you know, my heart goes out to you when it's, when it's those periods when finances are really tight, but you're perhaps needing support the most in those eras when things are feeling really constricted. But, um, there are, there are lots of new. Options through apps, through websites, through volunteer organizations that you please avail yourself of resources.

'cause there are people who are feeling more balanced, more resilient, more resourced, who can step into that process with you for a bit. And even if it's just this sort of, the other thing I think we're about wrapping up time wise, but I just wanna comment is that. There's also a phase when you start losing people you love, when you lose an [00:52:00] aunt, when you lose a mom, when you lose a dad or a father-in-law, or mother-in-law, or even a sibling or in sort of the, the most profound circumstances, a child, it is so, so important to understand that the rhythms and qualities of grief are not the same as depression.

And there's a lot we've done to pathologize grief, but applying this to all these changes, there is a grief when we lose an identity that we identified with. 

Dr. Anikó 4: Mm-hmm. 

Dr. Siri Chand: So recognize that grief is actually a really different thing than depression, anxiety, anger. It's its own sort of evolution and we don't, we really try to pathologize grief.

When grief may actually be a self-actualizing energy, its own invitation to say, how can I really learn to let go unlearn untether myself from outdated values and beliefs and thoughts and feelings [00:53:00] that are tethering me to the past. Mm-hmm. And how do I learn those really important skills? And I think that comes through journaling, body work, dream work, um, therapeutic support, coaching, therapists, psychoanalyst, you know, whatever the avenue is.

But there are people who can help you in the unlearning. 

Dr. Anikó 4: Mm-hmm. 

Dr. Siri Chand: And that's kind of closing thought is that I think a lot of people think that you come into this big transit, this big hard stop. And your, your thought is, what do I need to learn now? What do I need to learn that's gonna take me to that spot where I feel good again?

Dr. Anikó 4: Mm-hmm. 

Dr. Siri Chand: And I'm gonna say for everyone in the back, that's a lie. That thought right there is a lie because it's really just the same thought you had with a new bonnet on. 

Dr. Anikó 4: Mm-hmm. 

Dr. Siri Chand: It's, it's really the same achieving, the [00:54:00] same pursuit, the same inability to sit in boredom, the same inability to sit in stillness, and it will carry you really right back into the same feelings of overwhelm, but it'll just have a different bonnet on itself.

Recognize that when that hard stop comes, it's gonna feel turbulent, uncertain, unnerving, unfamiliar. Physically, just basically, you might just be like, I, my thyroid's broken because I sleep 12 hours a day now. That's okay. Body's recalibrating, of course, you know, do this with supervision. But my main point is that recognize in that time of transition, in that time of pivot is important to grieve the changing of the identities, to grieve the losses that are present to grieve.

The feeling of what if it could have been better, different, or more in this career that I wanted it to [00:55:00] look a certain way. Until we really lean into the practice of letting go this practice of moving forward, they're in constant movement. The letting go side is constantly asking for attention and it tethers us to itself.

And so really learning to grieve well is a really important part of midlife because we're about to enter a phase where we're. We're no, we're no longer guaranteed a day without a death. And I think that this, in our younger years, generally, if we're not in a turbulent part of the world, and I, you may have listeners all over the world, and so my heart certainly goes off to people that young, and there's feelings of violence and turbulence around them from very young age, but certainly many in the west feel like, I'm gonna wake up tomorrow.

Well, my friends and family are gonna wake up tomorrow. But the midlife [00:56:00] is a new invitation because a week from now, an aunt could die, who's 75 a week from now. Your parent could pass away a month from now, your friend from high school could pass away. Death is, death is a much more integrated part into this second half of life, if you will.

Dr. Anikó 4: Mm-hmm. 

Dr. Siri Chand: And, um, maybe it's my work in hospice. I don't know, maybe my husband's a grief specialist. So we talk about it a lot in our home, but I just wanna make sure we make note of that as we talk about all these beautiful opportunities that come in the pivot. That one of them is allowing for grieving and seeing grief as a self-initiative, a self, um, actualizing process to invite in, not something to avoid or suppress or push away.

Dr. Anikó 2: That's beautiful. And actually, as much as some people are like, Ooh, grief. Ooh, death, I don't wanna talk about that. I mean, we went [00:57:00] through a period where we had a very close family member and it was unclear. We were dealing with a potentially devastating diagnosis. It was unclear what it was going to be, and then it ended up being fine.

And four months after that, I was living in this oddly vibrant and alive space of. Nothing's guaranteed. Savor every second. I mean, it didn't last and it's probably a good thing 'cause it was a lot, you know? And that's all I would talk about with people. I remember I talked to my friend at a wedding we were at, and I was like, you don't even know, like your wife could be hit by a car crossing that street.

He is like, all right, like I'm at a wedding. Like, can we calm down? Right? But as much as it, it feels like an oxymoron, but facing the reality that every single one of us is going to die. Bring so much, so much vibrance and appreciation and aliveness to the time we have together. You know? And I think like you're [00:58:00] saying, this is a time that we start to lose a lot of important people, not just peripheral people, unless we're living in a place or a situation where that's happening earlier.

And that's so much harder if you're dealing with that with a young brain, a young mind, that's a lot to carry. Um, but integrating that as sort of just an expected reality. And I have had the pleasure of learning about grief from your husband, and the thing that stuck with me so much is just making space for it.

And as you're talking about, like, don't think about the next point you're gonna be at. Don't do, just be in this space, you know, and not just with grief, but with this transition, which you know, we're talking about is a kind of grief. It is a kind of like, I don't like it. I didn't want that. I don't know.

It's a, and there's despair at times, but just to be able to be in that messy middle and know that like, [00:59:00] that's a part of life, life can be really, really messy and really, really hard at times. And, and one of the other things that we spoke about in our previous conversation was that idea of like silver linings and how that's a little like trite, you know, you can still appreciate that the road to where I needed to be would not have happened unless I went through all of this without sort of like painting fairy wings on everything.

Like we can, right. We can be real and we can be with, with the, with the hard, you know? And that's an amazing. Amazing. Not just skill, but way of being to, to build, because it is in this being that we're able to be with ourselves and everyone in our lives and every woman in our lives. 

Dr. Siri Chand: It's kind of the human being versus the human doing.

And I think, um, I love how you summarized that and I think it, it is an [01:00:00] invitation. You know, and I, and I know that, let's say I was listening to me do this podcast eight years ago before, before the messy middle started. Part of me would be listening to this podcast and I would tune in. 'cause I'd be like, well, you know, maybe there's something here I need to hear.

Um, thank God it doesn't apply to me. You know, this feeling of like, I'm so glad that's not me. And I, you know, I would just encourage everyone to recognize that. There will be a messy middle in midlife for everyone. It is the primary invitation of midlife is to get in, and I used to say this to patients who would come in and see me.

Now, this, uh, would've been in my thirties saying this, but I guess maybe somehow I just had a sense of it used to say to people, the work you do in your mid fifties to late [01:01:00] fifties is really the platform you will age in, meaning you still can change things like if you've gained a little weight or you've got something that's sort of smoldering that needs attention or you're noticing some memory changes or you don't sleep well through the night, or relationships are always in turmoil, there's never a sense of peace in your life, or you just haven't found that thing that's fulfilling.

You can change at any point. Even at 90, they're showing some cool memory change, data, movement, and exercise. I really felt like the midlife when we still had a lot of vitality. We're still working. Finances are still more fluid. It's really this great opportunity in the mid to late fifties when we care a little less about what people think.

There's a little bit of time, there's energy, there's generally health. It's a great time to get in there and, and know that that messy middle is, is an invitation for [01:02:00] everyone. And so I just encourage you to not be like me eight years ago and be like, thank God that's not me. Um, so happy that's not me. And to sort of say, what can the messy middle, what can the pivot, what can the change and the invitation of grief and letting go in this period, mid fifties, invite the latter portion of my life to look like, to take chances, to speak up, to amplify my voice, my wisdom to sit in a space of mentoring.

Not competition with people that are 25 years younger than me. Like this is what women can bring. Is this tendon befriend, sort of the oracle in the kitchen from the matrix, this quality of sort of like, yes, my young patan bend the spoon, but also look at this piece, right? We don't wanna just move into that era of life feeling filled with regret and [01:03:00] internally suffering and masking when we're trying to dole out advice and support to younger generations of clinicians or in whatever field you might be called to.

Um, it's just an encouragement to see this as a time, and we're living now for unprecedented years. So we're talking about many people. They were saying recently that people they expect with the research and AI that people will, who have access to care, it may well live into their hundreds and um. That's a lot of time.

That's a long time. That's a long time. After 50, this is like fifties, the halfway point. And so, um, I just, I guess I just can't say enough, like take the invitations as they arise, go into some messier spaces in the pivot and allow that transformational energy to be something that helps you transform and it will [01:04:00] carry you into the latter portions of whatever your next steps may be in your career, in your personal life, in your marriage.

And I do really think as, and I'll wrap up with this, I really do think that the gift in a lot of this type of work is that you really maintain agency of your values and the outcomes that are stemming from what you value and how you're shaping your life around that. And it's not necessarily. Anyone else's fault anymore.

If it doesn't look the way you want it to look, you really can't blame your parents anymore. Like you really can't blame that attending that. Did you wrong in residency. I'm not saying we didn't need to do work around toxic relationships, but there really does come a certain point where you can sort of sit in that agency of self and say, I'm getting support.

I'm leaning in. I'm in the messy middle. What do I want [01:05:00] this? What do I want this to look like? The imaginal cells of the butterfly in its mush. Like what kind of DNA do we wanna activate? What kind of wings do we want to bring out into the world as we step into those wisdom years? 

Dr. Anikó 2: I love that so much, and as you were talking, I was thinking about not only people that aren't in the messy middle yet being like, oh, poor them.

I'm so glad that's not happening to me. And maybe some people who are in it and like don't wanna see it 'cause it's too scary. The framing of it as an invitation into creating the DNA and the wings that you want to soar through life with, to me, makes it feel like such an invitation instead of this scary, messy place that you either have to avoid or pretend that you're not in when you're in it.

Because that to me is the place of greatest suffering when you're in it and [01:06:00] not willing to see it. And then you really don't have agency. You know, um, this has been so amazing. I'm so glad that we let it be amorphous. 'cause we're talking about Amorphousness. 

Dr. Siri Chand: Yes. 

Dr. Anikó 2: Morphous. It's all matrix references. But you know what's funny is that we have not even gotten to please.

So you can learn more @drsirichand. That's https://drsirichand.com/ because meanwhile. She has this beautiful photography. Honestly, sometimes I go to your website just to relax because it's so beautiful like flowers and spaces and tables set with amazing food. She has like a Ayurvedic moon milk recipe that's made with fresh lavender for sleeping.

So can you just share what your offerings are in this moment? Oh, sure. If you are messy at all. 

Dr. Siri Chand: Yes. So I'm definitely in a fun reinvention. Um, but I do two kind of things for public [01:07:00] facing. I have plant-based cooking instruction and blogging and content online that you can find through Dr. Dr. Khalsa Chun. And then I have, um, the clinician work that I do that's through Shuda community, and that is the Sanskrit term for the throat chakra.

It, it's really about finding our authentic voice and expression and doing it in community. So we have a community of female, uh, clinicians who are really. Leaning into periods of pivot and change and finding less judgment, less shame, and more openness to have spaces for exploration and connection. And inside that community, we have writing exercises, creative prompts, yoga classes, coaching, um, and we keep it really affordable.

So, uh, even someone in training could probably afford it. And there's also a lot of networking and support if you want to be a subject matter expert or leader in the integrative medicine field, we help, um, position yourself, your [01:08:00] brand voice, your marketing messages, your uh, if you wanna pitch a book or start a podcast, we help with all of those kind of, um, interior details.

Dr. Anikó 2: How cool. And just really the, the living out loud epitome of this leading and also being in it and community. Ugh. I love this so much. Thank you so much for being here today and all of our listeners. Thank you all so much for being here today. I hope this inspires you to get comfy with your messy middle, and think about the ways that you can find your community and your support to use your energy to take care of your most precious Jen, which is yourself.

So take care y'all, and thanks for being here, and we'll see you next time.

Dr. Anikó: Thank you so much for listening to Nourish Today. Your presence is truly felt and so deeply appreciated. I hope today's episode brought you some [01:09:00] insight and also some inspiration to create an even better life and world for yourself and for your community. If you enjoyed this episode, please don't forget to follow the podcast and leave a review and please share Nourish with a friend.

It helps more people discover the power of true nourishment. Until next time, take good care of yourself and your people and stay nourished.