A South Asian woman finally makes it to a dedicated menopause clinic. She has been to her GP multiple times over the years. She has been told her blood tests are normal. She has been treated for anxiety, iron deficiency, or depression. She has been reassured that there is no obvious medical explanation for how she feels.

And then, in this clinic, something shifts.

She is heard.

“By the time they reach a dedicated menopause clinic,” Dr Farah writes, “there is often a profound sense of relief, not only at receiving answers, but at finally feeling heard, understood, and having their experiences validated.”

That relief, the relief of a woman who has been carrying her symptoms for years, alone, largely unseen, is what this conversation is about.

Dr Farah Ahmed is a GP with a special interest in women’s health, working in a dedicated NHS menopause and women’s health clinic. She holds diplomas from the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and the Faculty of Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare, is a certified member of the British Menopause Society, and has contributed to Vogue, Women’s Health, and Condé Nast, taking evidence-based medicine out of the consultation room and into the mainstream media where women actually are.

Her message to every healthcare professional working with South Asian women is clear, direct, and long overdue: equitable care is not achieved by treating everyone the same. It is achieved by understanding that different women face different barriers. And until those barriers are built into service design from the outset, not treated as an optional extra, health inequalities will persist.

This is a conversation that the South Asian women in our community have needed a clinician to have publicly, in their language, for a very long time.

Dr Farah is that clinician.

You work in a dedicated NHS menopause and women’s health clinic, which means you sit with the reality of what women are experiencing and what the healthcare system is and isn’t delivering for them, every single week. When South Asian women do finally make it into your consultation room, what are they most commonly carrying that has been unaddressed for far too long?

What strikes me most is how long many South Asian women have been carrying their symptoms alone before seeking help. By the time they reach my clinic, they are often exhausted, not just physically, but emotionally. Many have spent years normalising symptoms such as anxiety, low mood, sleep disturbance, joint pain, brain fog, heavy bleeding, loss of confidence, and low libido because they assumed these were simply part of getting older, stress, or something they should quietly tolerate.

I also see a profound lack of validation. Many women tell me that they have never discussed menopause openly with their mothers, sisters, or friends. In some families, there isn’t even a shared vocabulary for these experiences. As a result, women often arrive believing that what they are experiencing is unique to them or that they are somehow failing to cope.

Alongside the symptoms themselves, there is frequently an invisible burden of caregiving. Many South Asian women are simultaneously supporting children, ageing parents, extended family, and careers, while placing their own health at the bottom of the priority list. What has often gone unaddressed for far too long is not simply the menopause symptoms, but the woman’s belief that her wellbeing matters too.

What also stands out is that many women have not been absent from the healthcare system; they have often sought help repeatedly. Many have seen their GP several times over a number of years with symptoms such as fatigue, anxiety, low mood, poor sleep, brain fog, palpitations, or reduced confidence. Some have been treated for conditions such as iron deficiency or depression, which may well have been contributing factors, while others have been reassured that their tests are normal and that there is no obvious medical explanation for how they are feeling.

The challenge is that perimenopause remains a clinical diagnosis. There is no single blood test that can reliably confirm it, particularly in women in their forties whose hormone levels naturally fluctuate. As a result, many women can leave consultations feeling that their symptoms have not been fully explained or connected together as part of a broader hormonal transition. By the time they reach a dedicated menopause clinic, there is often a significant sense of relief, not only at receiving answers but also at finally feeling heard and understood and having their experiences validated.

You speak a lot about menopause through a cultural lens. What is the central message you want healthcare professionals in that room to leave with? And why is it still necessary to make this case in 2026?

My central message is that equitable care is not achieved by treating everyone the same; it is achieved by understanding that different women may face different barriers to accessing and benefiting from care.

We have made enormous progress in raising awareness of menopause, but awareness alone does not guarantee inclusion. Many of the resources, campaigns, educational materials, and even research studies that have shaped menopause conversations have historically centred on white, middle-class experiences. While these initiatives have been valuable, they have not always reflected the realities of women from ethnic minority communities.

In 2026, we still need to make this case because health inequalities persist. We know that South Asian women are less likely to access menopause support, less likely to receive evidence-based treatment, and more likely to encounter cultural, linguistic, and systemic barriers. If we genuinely want health for every woman, diversity cannot be an optional extra; it must be embedded into the design of services, education, research, and clinical practice from the outset.

South Asian women are significantly less likely to receive timely, appropriate menopause support. As a GP working at the frontline of that gap, what are the most significant barriers you see, and which ones do you believe are most within the healthcare system’s power to change?

The barriers exist at multiple levels.

At an individual level, many women do not recognise that their symptoms may be related to perimenopause or menopause. Cultural taboos, stigma around ageing, and limited opportunities for open discussion all contribute to delayed help-seeking.

At a healthcare level, I still see gaps in clinician confidence, variable menopause training, and a lack of culturally tailored resources. Too often, consultations rely on women already having the language and confidence to describe their experiences.

The encouraging thing is that many of these barriers are within our power to change. We can improve menopause education for healthcare professionals. We can ensure patient information is culturally relevant and accessible. We can engage communities directly rather than expecting women to find services on their own. We can diversify research participation and representation in public health campaigns.

Most importantly, we can create healthcare environments where women feel heard, respected, and understood from the moment they walk through the door.

Sexual health during and after menopause is one of the most significant and least discussed dimensions of this transition for South Asian women. What do you want South Asian women to know about their sexual health in midlife, and how do you create a consultation environment where these conversations become possible?

I want South Asian women to know that sexual health is a legitimate and important part of overall health. Vaginal dryness, discomfort during sex, recurrent urinary symptoms, changes in desire, and difficulties with intimacy are common during and after menopause, but they are not things women simply have to endure.

Many highly effective treatments are available, including vaginal oestrogen, lubricants, moisturisers, pelvic floor support, and broader menopause treatments where appropriate. The first step is recognising that these symptoms deserve attention.

In consultations, I try to create permission for the conversation. Rather than waiting for women to raise intimate concerns, I routinely ask about them in a matter-of-fact, non-judgmental way. Often, there is visible relief when women realise they are being asked because these symptoms are common and medically relevant, not because there is something unusual or embarrassing about them.

Trust is built through empathy, normalisation, and creating a space where women feel safe discussing topics that may have been considered taboo for much of their lives.

PMS and perimenopause share significant symptom overlap. How do you help women and their GPs distinguish between PMS, PMDD, and the early stages of perimenopause, particularly when women present with emotional symptoms rather than physical ones?

The key is understanding patterns.

PMS and PMDD symptoms typically occur during the luteal phase of the menstrual cycle and improve shortly after a period starts. Women often describe a predictable cyclical pattern, even if the symptoms are severe.

Perimenopause is different. Symptoms may become less predictable and can occur throughout the month. Women often notice changes in their menstrual cycle, alongside symptoms such as sleep disturbance, hot flushes, brain fog, anxiety, and reduced resilience to stress.

The challenge is that emotional symptoms frequently appear before the more widely recognised physical symptoms. Many women present with anxiety, low mood, irritability, or loss of confidence and do not immediately connect these changes to hormonal fluctuations.

Careful history-taking remains one of our most valuable diagnostic tools. Understanding symptom timing, menstrual patterns, and the broader clinical picture often provides far more useful information than a blood test alone.

You have contributed to Vogue, Women’s Health, and Condé Nast, using mainstream platforms to make health information more accessible. What does reaching women through media that they actually read, rather than clinical leaflets they don’t, allow you to do that the consultation room cannot?

A consultation changes one woman’s experience. The media can change thousands.

The reality is that most women spend far more time engaging with magazines, websites, podcasts, social media and mainstream media than they do sitting in a GP surgery. Meeting women where they already are allows us to start conversations earlier and reach those who may never actively seek health information.

The media also helps normalise experiences. When a woman reads about perimenopause, heavy periods, or vaginal symptoms in a publication she trusts, she often realises she is not alone. That recognition can be incredibly powerful.

My goal is always to translate evidence-based medicine into language that feels relatable, accessible, and relevant to everyday life. Good health communication should empower women, not overwhelm them.

Many South Asian women arrive at a GP appointment having already minimised their symptoms. As a GP, how do you draw out the full picture? And what would you say to South Asian women about how to advocate for themselves in that ten-minute window?

I often find that the symptom a woman mentions first is not necessarily the one affecting her most.

Creating space for the fuller story requires curiosity and active listening. I ask open questions, explore the impact symptoms are having on daily life, and pay attention to what is left unsaid. Often, once a woman feels heard, the consultation opens up considerably.

For South Asian women, my message would be simple: you do not need to earn the right to seek help. Your symptoms matter.

Before an appointment, write down your main concerns and prioritise the two or three issues having the greatest impact on your life. Be specific about how symptoms affect your work, relationships, sleep, mood, or ability to function. Those details help clinicians understand the true impact.

Most importantly, do not minimise your experience. If something is affecting your quality of life, it is worth discussing.

HRT remains one of the most misunderstood and feared interventions among South Asian women. What do you wish every GP in the UK understood about how to have the HRT conversation with South Asian women specifically?

Many South Asian women arrive carrying fears that have developed over years, sometimes decades. These concerns may stem from stories shared within families, experiences of serious illnesses such as cancer, misinformation online, or a broader cultural tendency to avoid medications unless absolutely necessary.

The starting point should not be persuasion; it should be understanding.

Before discussing treatment, I want to understand what the woman already knows, what concerns her, and where those concerns come from. Evidence-based reassurance is most effective when it addresses the individual’s specific fears rather than delivering generic information.

GPs should recognise that trust matters as much as knowledge. Women need time to ask questions, weigh risks and benefits, and make informed decisions that align with their values.

The goal is not to convince every woman to take HRT. The goal is to ensure every woman has access to accurate information and feels empowered to make a genuinely informed choice.

Your mission is to promote proactive, preventative care tailored to each woman’s needs. For South Asian women in their late thirties and early forties, what proactive steps would you encourage them to take right now?

My first recommendation is to start paying attention to your health before symptoms become disruptive.

Understand your menstrual cycle and notice changes. Prioritise regular physical activity, particularly strength training, which supports bone health, muscle mass, metabolic health, and long-term wellbeing. Focus on adequate protein intake, sleep, stress management, and cardiovascular health.

South Asian women already face increased risks of conditions such as type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease, so midlife is an important opportunity to invest in preventative health.

I would also encourage women to become menopause-literate. You do not need to wait until symptoms become severe to learn about perimenopause. Understanding what lies ahead can make the transition far less confusing and far less frightening.

Perhaps most importantly, start viewing your health as an investment rather than an afterthought.

If you could change one thing about how the NHS approaches menopause care for South Asian and ethnic minority women, one structural, cultural or clinical shift that would make the biggest difference, what would it be and why?

I would embed culturally competent women’s health care throughout the system rather than treating it as a specialist interest.

Too often, culturally sensitive care depends on individual clinicians who have developed expertise or awareness on their own. Equity should not rely on luck.

Every woman, regardless of her ethnicity, language, postcode, or socioeconomic background, should have access to healthcare professionals who understand how culture, identity, family dynamics, and health beliefs can shape menopause experiences and healthcare decisions.

If we can build services that are designed with diverse communities rather than simply delivered to them, we will move much closer to achieving genuinely equitable menopause care.

Ultimately, the goal is not simply better menopause care. It is ensuring that every woman feels seen, heard, and valued within the healthcare system.

I want to return to something Dr Farah says early in this conversation, because it is the thing I keep coming back to.

“What has often gone unaddressed for far too long is not simply the menopause symptoms. It is the woman’s belief that her well-being matters too.”

Read that again.

Because that sentence describes something that is not clinical. It is cultural. It is the accumulated weight of decades of messaging, from families, from communities, from a culture that placed South Asian women at the centre of everyone else’s care and rarely, if ever, asked about their own.

The menopause symptoms can be treated. There are consultations, medications, and therapies. What is harder to treat, and what The Sattva Collective was founded precisely to address, is the belief that a South Asian woman’s suffering is too small, too private, too inconvenient to name.

Dr Farah’s message to South Asian women is both clinical and deeply personal:

“You do not need to earn the right to seek help. Your symptoms matter.”

And her message to the healthcare professionals treating them is equally direct: trust matters as much as knowledge. Understanding where a woman’s fears come from matters. Building services with diverse communities, not simply delivering to them, matters.

The goal, she says, is not simply better menopause care.

“It is ensuring that every woman feels seen, heard, and valued within the healthcare system.”

That is the whole point.

To find out more about Dr Farah Ahmed’s work:

LinkedIn: Dr Farah Ahmed Instagram: @drfarahwomenshealth

This is definitely the latter.

For a while now, we’ve been working behind the scenes on something very close to our hearts: the Thrive Through Midlife & Menopause Summit, taking place on 14th May 2027.

And today, we get to share the first of the experts who will help bring that room to life.

Our keynote speakers are Sonia Shah, Sahir Ahmed-Evans, and Janisha Parmar, joined by guest panellists Dr Farah Ahmed and Dr Vikram Talaulikar.

Five brilliant voices. Five different areas of expertise. Five different perspectives on what it means to navigate midlife, menopause, health, identity, and everything that comes with this particular chapter of a woman’s life.

And that diversity of perspective is exactly what we wanted.

Because the Thrive Through Midlife & Menopause Summit was never going to be another generic menopause event with a South Asian woman or two added to the programme.

We are building something for South Asian women, from the ground up.

For the women who have spent years wondering whether what they were experiencing was normal.

For the women whose symptoms went unnamed because nobody talked about menopause at home.

For the women navigating changing bodies alongside family expectations, caregiving, relationships, work, faith, identity, and the invisible emotional load that so often comes with midlife.

For the women who have learnt to keep going, even when something inside them is quietly asking for change.

And for the women who are simply ready to have a different conversation.

One where we can ask the questions we were never taught to ask.

One where our cultural context isn’t an afterthought.

One where evidence, lived experience, honest conversation, and community can sit in the same room.

That is what we are creating.

And these first five speakers already give you a glimpse of the breadth of that conversation.

Sonia Shah brings her expertise as a Clinical Pharmacist, British Menopause Society-trained Menopause Practitioner and Coach, with a strong focus on evidence-based menopause education and women’s wellbeing.

Sahir Ahmed-Evans, through her work in women’s health, education, and advocacy, brings both lived experience and a powerful mission to change the way we understand menopause and women’s health.

Janisha Parmar brings the world of mental fitness, nervous system regulation, energy, and the emotional realities of midlife, helping women move beyond simply surviving and towards feeling like themselves again.

And joining them on our panel, Dr Farah Ahmed, a GP and British Menopause Society Accredited Menopause Specialist, brings her passion for culturally competent and equitable menopause care.

Alongside her, Dr Vikram Talaulikar, Associate Specialist in Reproductive Medicine at UCLH and Hon. Associate Professor in Women’s Health at UCL, brings extensive expertise in women’s health and menopause.

And here’s the thing.

This is only the beginning.

There are more speakers to come. More conversations to announce. More pieces of the day are still being created.

The full programme is taking shape, and I honestly cannot wait to share it with you.

Because I have a feeling that when this room comes together on 14th May 2027, it is going to be about much more than menopause.

It will be about women finally having language for things they have carried quietly.

It will be about asking better questions.

It will be about learning from one another.

It will be about being seen.

And perhaps most importantly, it will be about remembering that midlife isn’t the end of anything.

It can be the beginning of something entirely different.

Something we actually get to design.

So, if you are a South Asian woman navigating perimenopause, menopause, or postmenopause, or you simply want to be part of a conversation that puts South Asian women’s experiences at the centre, put the date in your diary:

• 🗓️ 14th May 2027

• 🕔 5 PM–9 PM

• 📍 The Bridge, 73–81 Southwark Bridge Road, London, SE1 0NQ

The summit is currently in development, so tickets and the full programme will be announced over the coming months.

If you want to be among the first to hear about new speakers, ticket releases, and programme updates, join our waitlist below.

Subscribe now

This room is already beginning to take shape.

And I cannot wait to fill it with you. ❤️

Kiran x

The Sattva Collective
Redefining Midlife & Menopause for South Asian Women

This is one of them.

Anushka Chaudhry is a Consultant Oncoplastic Breast Surgeon, one of a very small number of female breast surgeons in the UK, and the first female general surgeon appointed to Great Western Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. She grew up in Wales as part of a South Asian minority community, rarely seeing anyone who looked like her in positions of leadership within medicine, let alone surgery. She trained, persisted, and arrived somewhere that, still, in 2026, not enough women who look like her have reached.

But what makes this interview exceptional is not the title. It is what sits beneath it.

Anushka founded Aurora Breast Cancer Wellbeing Charity because she recognised that excellent surgical care alone is not enough. She works with national and international faculty. She publishes, she educates, and she gives seminars to schools and businesses. And she is passionate, with the particular, focused passion of someone who has spent years watching South Asian women arrive at her clinic too late, with diagnoses that earlier intervention could have changed, about reaching the communities that mainstream healthcare consistently fails to reach.

South Asian women face specific and documented barriers to breast cancer screening. Language barriers. Cultural silence around the body. The fear of cancer is a taboo subject. Modesty concerns. Misconceptions about risk. And the particularly powerful myth that HRT causes breast cancer, a fear so pervasive that it is preventing women from seeking menopause support that could genuinely transform their quality of life.

Anushka does not shy away from any of it. She names it directly, addresses it with evidence, and asks South Asian women to do something that requires real courage in communities that have taught them to stay quiet about their bodies.

Get it checked. Know your normal.

This conversation could save lives. We mean that without hyperbole.

You are the first female general surgeon employed by Great Western Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, a milestone that carries particular weight for South Asian women watching you. What did it take to get there, and what does your presence in that role represent to you personally as a South Asian woman in surgical medicine?

Growing up in Wales as part of a South Asian minority community, I rarely saw people who looked like me in positions of leadership within medicine, let alone surgery. The journey to becoming a consultant surgeon required years of training, resilience, sacrifice, and a willingness to challenge societal and professional expectations. Surgery has traditionally been a male-dominated speciality, and for many women, particularly those from ethnic minority backgrounds, there can be an additional burden of feeling that they must constantly prove themselves. Fortunately, my parents always instilled in me a strong sense of self-belief and a fearless approach to everything I set my mind to. I feel so lucky to have such support.

Being the first female general surgeon appointed to Great Western Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust is something I am proud of, but also something I view as a responsibility. Representation matters. When young South Asian women see someone who shares aspects of their background succeeding in a field that has historically lacked diversity, it helps expand their sense of what is possible. Personally, it represents progress, but it also reminds me that we still have work to do to ensure medicine and surgery reflect the communities we serve.

You are passionate about increasing breast cancer awareness, specifically among ethnic minority populations, and you are affiliated with national projects in this area. What are the most significant barriers you have identified that prevent South Asian women from engaging with breast cancer screening, and what does it cost them when those barriers are not addressed?

The barriers are often complex and interconnected. Language difficulties, limited access to culturally tailored health information, modesty concerns, fear of cancer, misconceptions about risk, and the belief that breast cancer is less common in South Asian women can all contribute to lower engagement with screening services.

There is also a tendency in some communities to avoid discussing breast health openly. When breast cancer is viewed as a taboo subject, women may delay seeking help when symptoms develop. The consequence is that cancers are often diagnosed at a later stage, when treatment can be more intensive, and outcomes may be poorer.

Early diagnosis saves lives. When barriers to screening are not addressed, women lose the opportunity for earlier treatment, less invasive surgery, and potentially better long-term outcomes. That is why community engagement, culturally sensitive education, and trusted conversations are so important.

Breast cancer risk changes at menopause, and yet the conversation about breast health and menopause is rarely had with South Asian women in a culturally grounded way. What do South Asian women in midlife need to understand about how their breast cancer risk evolves through the perimenopausal and postmenopausal transition?

One of the most important things women need to understand is that age itself is one of the strongest risk factors for breast cancer. The majority of breast cancers occur after the age of 50, which means risk naturally increases during and after the menopausal transition.

Many women assume that because their periods are becoming irregular or stopping, their focus should be solely on managing menopausal symptoms. While that is important, breast awareness should remain a priority. Women should continue attending screening appointments, understand what is normal for their breasts, and seek medical advice promptly if they notice changes.

At the same time, risk is influenced by many factors, including genetics, family history, weight, alcohol consumption, physical activity, and reproductive history. Menopause is therefore an opportunity to adopt a holistic approach to health, including breast, bone, and cardiovascular health, as well as emotional well-being.

HRT and breast cancer fear are perhaps the most significant barriers preventing South Asian women from seeking menopause support. Many women are refusing HRT because they believe it will give them breast cancer. As a consultant breast surgeon, what is the current clinical picture on HRT and breast cancer risk, and what do you want South Asian women to understand before making that decision from a place of fear?

The relationship between hormone replacement therapy and breast cancer is often misunderstood. Many women have heard simplified messages suggesting that HRT causes breast cancer, but the reality is much more nuanced.

For most healthy women under the age of 60, the benefits of HRT in managing significant menopausal symptoms often outweigh the risks. Different types of HRT carry different levels of risk. Combined oestrogen-progestogen HRT is associated with a small increase in breast cancer risk with longer-term use, whereas oestrogen-only HRT appears to carry a lower risk profile in appropriate women.

Importantly, the increased risk associated with some forms of HRT is relatively small and needs to be considered alongside other common risk factors such as obesity, alcohol consumption, and physical inactivity.

My message to South Asian women is simple: do not make decisions based on fear alone. Seek personalised medical advice, understand your individual risk profile, and make an informed decision based on evidence rather than myths. Untreated menopause symptoms can have profound effects on quality of life, relationships, work, sleep, and long-term health.

You founded Aurora Breast Cancer Wellbeing Charity, taking your work beyond the operating theatre into community and emotional support. What gap were you trying to fill, and how has that work shaped your understanding of what women, particularly South Asian women, actually need when they receive a breast cancer diagnosis?

I founded Aurora because I recognised that excellent surgical and medical treatment alone is not enough. A breast cancer diagnosis affects every aspect of a woman’s life: her family, relationships, confidence, mental health, sexuality, career, and identity.

Many women told us they felt unsupported once treatment ended. Others struggled to access practical information about exercise, nutrition, menopause, emotional well-being, and survivorship.

For South Asian women, there can be additional challenges. Some women feel isolated because cancer is not openly discussed within their communities. Others carry concerns about family responsibilities, body image, fertility, or cultural expectations.

Aurora was created to provide holistic support and to remind women that they are more than their diagnosis. Through this work, I have learned that women need information, but they also need connection, understanding, and a sense that they do not have to face cancer alone.

Oncoplastic surgery sits at the intersection of cancer treatment and reconstructive outcomes, preserving cosmetic and functional results wherever possible. For South Asian women, body image, modesty, and cultural attitudes to the body can make decisions around breast surgery particularly complex. How do you navigate those conversations with your patients?

Every woman’s priorities are different, and one of the most important parts of my role is listening. For some women, preserving breast shape is extremely important. For others, the priority is removing the cancer with the least possible future worry.

I ensure patients understand all available options, including breast-conserving surgery, mastectomy, and reconstruction where appropriate. We discuss the advantages, limitations, recovery, and expected outcomes of each approach.

Cultural sensitivity is vital. Discussions about breasts, body image, and sexuality can be difficult in some communities. It is also important for healthcare teams not to make assumptions based on people’s backgrounds, so I focus on educating colleagues. Creating a safe, non-judgmental environment allows women to express concerns they may never have voiced elsewhere. Ultimately, the goal is shared decision-making that respects both medical evidence and individual values.

South Asian women face specific challenges in breast cancer screening, including lower uptake of mammography, language barriers, cultural stigma around gynaecological and breast examinations, and a tendency to present later when symptoms are more advanced. What systemic changes would make the biggest difference in closing that gap?

We need healthcare systems to move beyond a one-size-fits-all approach. Community-based education delivered in multiple languages, partnerships with faith organisations and community leaders, culturally tailored awareness campaigns, and greater representation within the healthcare workforce would all help improve engagement.

We also need to improve health literacy and ensure information is accessible and relevant. Trust is crucial. When women hear health messages from people who understand their cultural context, they are more likely to engage. I have worked with a local charity called Changing Suits, set up by two sisters who do an excellent job of raising awareness of health issues in the South Asian community and working with local councils.

Most importantly, we need to bring conversations about breast health into everyday community spaces rather than expecting women to seek information independently.

You are also an educator, leading national and international faculty, giving educational seminars to businesses and schools, and publishing book chapters. What is the single most important message about breast health that you wish every South Asian woman, at every age, would hear?

Know your normal.

Breast awareness is not about checking your breasts in a particular way on a particular day every month. It is about understanding what is normal for your body and seeking medical advice if something changes.

Breast cancer can affect women of all backgrounds, all religions, and all communities. Early diagnosis remains one of the most powerful tools we have. Do not let fear, embarrassment, or cultural stigma prevent you from seeking help. If you notice a change, get it checked.

The Sattva Collective exists to ensure South Asian women in midlife are no longer invisible in the healthcare conversation. As a South Asian woman who has spent her career at the frontline of breast health, what gives you hope that the conversation is changing for our community, and what still needs to happen?

What gives me hope is that more South Asian women are speaking openly about health than ever before. Conversations about menopause, breast cancer, mental health, and wellbeing are becoming more visible, and organisations like Sattva Collective are helping to create spaces where women feel seen and heard.

I am also encouraged by the growing number of South Asian healthcare professionals, advocates, researchers, and community leaders who are championing change.

However, there is still much to do. We need more research that reflects the diversity of our population, more culturally competent healthcare services, and greater representation in leadership, policy, and education. Most importantly, we need to continue normalising conversations about women’s health.

No woman should feel invisible because of her ethnicity, culture, age, or background. If we continue to work together as communities, healthcare professionals, and advocates, I believe we can create a future in which every South Asian woman feels informed, empowered, and supported in making the best decisions for her health.

There is a phrase Anushka uses near the end of this conversation that I want to return to before we close.

No woman should feel invisible because of her ethnicity, culture, age, or background.

It sounds simple. It is not simple. For South Asian women in midlife, women who have spent decades navigating healthcare systems that were not designed with them in mind, carrying cultural silence around their bodies, managing the particular shame that many communities attach to the words cancer, menopause, and breast cancer, invisibility is not an abstract concept. It is the lived, daily reality.

What Anushka is doing, in the operating theatre, in the classroom, in the community halls, in the conversations she has with patients about things that are rarely discussed openly anywhere, is refusing to let that invisibility stand.

And what she is asking of South Asian women is deceptively simple and genuinely important.

Know your body. Attend your screenings. Do not let fear, embarrassment, or cultural stigma delay you from seeking help when something changes. Do not make decisions about HRT, or anything else, from a place of fear and misinformation when evidence-based, personalised advice is available.

And if you notice something, get it checked.

Early diagnosis remains one of the most powerful tools we have. And it is only possible when women show up.

To find out more about Anushka Chaudhry’s work:

Aurora Breast Cancer Wellbeing Charity, supporting women beyond their diagnosis with holistic care, community, and connection.

For breast health information and to find your local screening programme, visit breastcancernow.org or nhs.uk/conditions/breast-cancer

If you have noticed a change in your breast and are concerned, please contact your GP.

South Asian Heritage Month does that. It shifts something; quietly, but unmistakably. The conversations get a little braver. The stories get a little louder. And the work of this organisation, which can sometimes feel like swimming upstream, suddenly feels like it has a current behind it.

Here is what we built in it.

South Asian Heritage Month, and where TSC showed up

This month, we published Unity in Diversity: What South Asian Heritage Month Means for Women in Midlife, an essay about what this month actually holds for women who are navigating cultural identity and midlife change at the same time.

Not a celebration for its own sake, but a reflection with substance.

We were also proud to have the piece featured by the South Asian Heritage Month organisation itself at southasianheritage.org.uk, reaching an audience well beyond our own community, and planting TSC’s voice in a space that matters.

Two new expert interviews

The bi-weekly interview series continued in July with two conversations that, between them, cover a lot of ground.

Dr Shila Patel, M.D., brought the kind of clinical clarity that cuts through the noise. Her perspective on South Asian women’s health in midlife is both medically grounded and culturally informed, a combination that is rarer than it should be.

Dr Supatra Tovar, founder of ANEW, brought something equally important: a whole-person framework for how women approach health, identity, and reinvention in this season. Her work sits at the intersection of psychology and wellness, and the conversation reflects that.

Both interviews are on the website. Both are worth your time.

What self-care actually means

We published Not a Bubble Bath: What Self-Care Actually Means for South Asian Women in Midlife this month, because the word self-care has been so thoroughly hollowed out that it barely means anything anymore.

For South Asian women specifically, the barriers to genuine self-care are not just about time or money. They are cultural. They are relational. They are rooted in a lifetime of being told, in a hundred different ways, that your needs come last.

This piece tries to give that reality the honest treatment it deserves.

The podcast: Episode 2 is live

Episode 2: The Exhausted Woman Myth - Why You’re Running on Empty in Midlife is now live.

The exhaustion that so many women in midlife describe is not weakness. It is not a character flaw. It is the entirely predictable result of decades of invisible labour, hormonal change, and a culture that has never adequately named either of those things.

This episode names them.

You can listen below or on Spotify. And if it sounds like someone you know, please send it to them.

The Summit: two more keynote speakers confirmed

This is the news I have been waiting to share.

Sahir Ahmed-Evans and Janisha Parmar have both confirmed as keynote speakers for the Thrive Through Midlife & Menopause Summit on 14th May 2027.

They join Sonia Shah and Dr Vikram Sinai Talaulikar, confirmed in June. Four speakers. A stage that is beginning to look exactly like the room I imagined when this Summit was still just a date in a notebook.

There is more to come. Full details, including how to secure your place, are on the Summit page.

If 14th May 2027 is already in your diary: good. Keep it there.

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August is a quiet month for us; I’ll be out of the country, and the pace will reflect that. But September brings a return to full momentum, and there is a great deal already in motion.

Thank you for being here. For reading. For sharing. For being part of what this is becoming.

With love and Sattva,

Kiran x

Founder & Director, The Sattva Collective CIC

thesattvacollective.org

It isn’t a candle. It isn’t a face mask on a Sunday evening, photographed at just the right angle before it slides off your cheekbones. It isn’t a spa day you feel guilty about the second you book it, and it certainly isn’t something you earn only once everyone else in the house has been fed, ferried, and settled.

For most South Asian women I know, self-care has quietly become another item on the to-do list; something else to fail at.

International Self-Care Day falls on 24th July. The date itself is a small piece of poetry: 7/24, a reminder that looking after yourself isn’t meant to be a once-a-year event, or even a once-a-week one. It’s meant to happen every day, in ways so small they barely look like anything at all.

I think about my own mother’s version of rest. It was rare, and when it came, it came disguised, watching Khana Khazana and trying new recipes. Listening to Gurbani LIVE from Harmandir Sahib on low before anyone else woke. She never once used the word “self-care.” Watering and caring for her kitchen garden in the afternoon. She wouldn’t have known what to do with it. But I recognise it now, looking back; those were the moments she was quietly putting herself back together, in the only language her life allowed her.

We inherited that same instinct, many of us. The idea that rest has to be hidden. Earned. Squeezed into the gaps other people don’t want.

And in midlife, that instinct starts to cost us something we can’t always get back.

Why this hits differently after 40

Something shifts in perimenopause and menopause that makes the old way of coping, pushing through, running on empty, putting yourself last, genuinely harder to sustain. Not because we’ve become weaker. Because our bodies have started asking for something different, and they’re asking louder than before.

Cortisol sits differently in a perimenopausal body. Sleep, already fragile for so many of us, becomes something we chase rather than simply have. The nervous system that once absorbed everything – the caregiving, the career, the emotional weight of an entire extended family – starts to show its edges.

This is the part nobody warned us about. Self-care in midlife isn’t a treat anymore. It’s closer to maintenance. It’s the difference between a body that can keep meeting everyone’s needs and one that’s quietly running on fumes, smiling through it because that’s what we were taught a good woman does.

What self-care actually looks like, stripped of the marketing

Real self-care, the kind that holds up on an ordinary day and not just a curated Sunday, tends to look unglamorous.

It looks like saying no to the fourth family function of the month without an essay of justification attached. It looks like closing the WhatsApp group chat and not feeling like you owe anyone an explanation for the silence. It looks like eating a meal while sitting down, with a plate in front of you, before it goes cold. It looks like naming what you need out loud, in your own home, in your own language, without waiting to be given permission first.

None of this photographs well. All of it matters more than anything that does.

The permission piece

Here’s what I keep coming back to: so many of us were raised to believe that tending to ourselves is a kind of selfishness, that a good daughter, a good wife, a good mother puts everyone else first, every time, without exception. We absorbed that as a virtue. It so often becomes a slow erosion.

This is where the timing of this year’s Self-Care Day feels meaningful, sitting as it does inside South Asian Heritage Month. Because self-care, done honestly, isn’t a departure from our culture; it’s an act of reclaiming it. Rest, boundaries, softness towards ourselves – these things exist in our traditions too, even if they got buried under generations of “log kya kahenge.”

You are allowed to put the kettle on and drink the tea while it’s hot. You are allowed to let the phone ring out. You are allowed to rest before you’re depleted, not only after.

That’s not indulgence. That’s simply what taking care of yourself, honestly and daily, was always meant to look like.

With love and Sattva,

Kiran x

For South Asian women navigating perimenopause and menopause, that integrated understanding is not just helpful. It is often the first time someone has looked at the full picture of who they are and what they are carrying.

Because South Asian women in midlife are rarely just navigating hormonal changes. They are navigating the physical and emotional aftermath of decades of cultural conditioning around food, body size, and self-worth. They are navigating the physiological consequences of chronic stress, caregiving, and emotional self-suppression. They are navigating the particular grief of a body that is changing in ways they were never prepared for, and a culture that, for most of their lives, told them that a smaller, more controlled, more compliant body was the goal.

Dr Tovar works at the precise intersection of all of that.

Her message to women in midlife, delivered with warmth, clinical authority, and the kind of honesty that only comes from two decades of sitting with women in distress, is one that The Sattva Collective wants every South Asian woman to hear.

Your body is not betraying you. It is asking for a different kind of care.

You hold a doctorate in psychology, a Master’s degree in nutrition, and you’re a certified Pilates instructor, an almost uniquely integrated set of qualifications. When a woman comes to you in midlife feeling like her body has become a stranger to her, how does holding all three disciplines simultaneously change how you approach her?

I think one of the biggest differences is that I don’t see a woman’s body as something that needs to be fixed. I see a whole person whose hormones, stress, emotions, nervous system, lifestyle, relationship history, and beliefs about herself are all interacting at the same time. Midlife is incredibly layered.

My background in psychology helps me understand the emotional impact of body changes and the stories women attach to them. My nutrition training allows me to explain what is happening physiologically rather than reinforcing diet-culture myths. And my movement background helps women reconnect to their bodies in a supportive, compassionate way rather than through punishment or overexercise.

So when a woman says, “I don’t recognise myself anymore,” I don’t focus on weight loss. I become curious about what her body may be trying to communicate. Often, the body is not betraying her. It’s asking for a different kind of care.

Your work is rooted in deprogramming diet culture, the belief systems that tell women their bodies need to be fixed, controlled, and shrunk. For South Asian women in midlife, that programming often runs especially deep, shaped by cultural ideals of slimness, by comments at family gatherings, by decades of being told what their bodies should look like. How does that layer of cultural conditioning change the work of healing your relationship with food and your body?

For many South Asian women, these messages begin very early and become so normalised that they almost disappear into the background of daily life. Comments about weight, appearance, skin tone, eating habits, or marriageability are often framed as concern or care, but over time, they can deeply shape a woman’s relationship with her body and self-worth.

What makes healing more complex is that these beliefs are often intergenerational. Women may intellectually know that body shaming is harmful, but emotionally, those messages can still feel deeply ingrained because they came from family, culture, and community.

So part of the healing process is helping women recognise that many of these beliefs were inherited rather than chosen. We begin separating self-worth from body size and helping women understand that their value was never supposed to be tied to how small, controlled, or pleasing they could make themselves appear.

I also think it’s important to approach this with compassion. Many families passed these beliefs down out of fear, survival, or societal pressure. But even when intentions were loving, the impact can still be painful. Healing often begins when women finally give themselves permission to stop viewing their bodies as lifelong projects.

Perimenopause and menopause bring significant physical changes, weight redistribution, changes in metabolism, muscle loss, and increased fat storage that are hormonally driven, not the result of personal failure. And yet so many women in midlife blame themselves. What do you want women to understand about what is actually happening in their bodies during this transition, and why the usual tools, restrictions, more exercise, and pushing harder often backfire?

I want women to understand that these changes are biological, not moral. Midlife is a major hormonal transition that affects everything from sleep and stress response to insulin sensitivity, muscle mass, recovery, hunger cues, and fat distribution. The body is adapting to a completely different hormonal environment.

Unfortunately, many women respond by becoming more restrictive and more punishing with themselves. They start eating less, exercising harder, cutting out more foods, and criticising themselves more intensely because they think they’ve lost discipline. But the body in midlife generally does not respond well to chronic stress and deprivation.

Overrestriction and overexercise can increase cortisol levels, further disrupt metabolism, worsen inflammation, impair recovery, and intensify emotional burnout. The body often becomes more resistant the harder women push against it.

Midlife requires a different approach. The body tends to respond much better to nourishment, strength training, stress regulation, sleep support, blood sugar balance, recovery, and nervous system safety than to punishment. Many women have spent decades trying to dominate their bodies. Midlife often becomes the season where the body says, “I need partnership now, not war.”

You have written and spoken extensively about the psychological damage that dieting does, how chronic restriction disrupts both metabolism and mental health. For South Asian women who have spent decades cycling through restrictive eating, often linked to religious fasting, cultural food rules, or family expectations around weight, what is the first step towards healing that relationship?

The first step is helping women understand that their relationship with food did not develop because they lacked willpower. Most women who struggle with food have spent years trying very hard to control themselves. The problem is that chronic restriction disconnects people from their bodies and creates cycles of deprivation, guilt, obsession, and rebound eating.

For South Asian women, food can become emotionally very complicated because it is tied not only to nourishment but also to family, religion, identity, comfort, and belonging. At the same time, there may be shame attached to certain foods, body sizes, or eating behaviours.

Healing often begins by removing morality from food. Food is not “good” or “bad,” and eating is not a reflection of virtue or failure. I help women reconnect with their internal signals again: hunger, fullness, satisfaction, cravings, energy, emotional needs, and physical responses. Many women have spent so many years following external rules that they no longer trust themselves.

Rebuilding trust with the body is slow, but it is one of the most powerful forms of healing.

Movement in midlife is a topic filled with conflicting advice: do more cardio, lift heavy, don’t do too much, do yoga, rest more. As someone who integrates psychology, nutrition, and movement, what does your evidence-informed approach to exercise in midlife actually look like? And what are the biggest mistakes women in their 40s and 50s make with movement?

I believe movement in midlife should support the body, not punish it. Exercise should help women feel stronger, more energised, more mobile, more emotionally regulated, and more connected to themselves.

The evidence is very clear that resistance training is incredibly important in midlife for preserving muscle mass, bone density, metabolic health, cognition, and longevity. But I also think walking, mobility work, Pilates, balance training, restorative movement, and stress-regulating forms of exercise are essential.

One of the biggest mistakes I see is women staying trapped in the “burn more, shrink more” mindset. Many women are chronically overdoing cardio while undereating and under-recovering. Others avoid movement altogether because exercise has become associated with shame, punishment, or failure.

I want women to move because they respect their bodies, not because they are trying to earn food or erase themselves. That psychological shift completely changes the relationship with movement.

You founded ANEW, Advanced Nutrition and Emotional Wellness, on the premise that the mind, body, and nutrition are deeply interconnected. For South Asian women who have been conditioned to compartmentalise, treating their physical health separately from their emotional life, their hunger separately from their stress, what does it look and feel like to begin integrating those parts of themselves?

For many women, integration initially feels unfamiliar because they’ve spent years disconnecting from themselves to function. They may ignore exhaustion, override hunger, suppress emotions, or push through stress because that has become normalised.

Integration starts with slowing down enough to notice what is happening internally. A woman may suddenly realise that what she thought was “lack of discipline” around food is emotional exhaustion or chronic nervous system stress. She may notice that her digestion worsens during periods of anxiety or that her cravings intensify when she feels emotionally depleted.

At ANEW and in my private practice, we focus on reconnecting mind, body, and nutrition because they are never truly separate. Stress affects hormones. Trauma affects inflammation. Sleep affects hunger. Emotional suppression affects physical health.

When women begin understanding themselves more holistically, there is often a profound sense of relief. They stop feeling broken and begin recognising that their bodies have been responding intelligently to prolonged stress and disconnection.

Stress and cortisol are major factors in midlife health, affecting weight, sleep, immune function, and hormonal balance. South Asian women are often navigating an unusually high cortisol load: caregiving, multigenerational family demands, cultural expectations, and the hormonal shifts of perimenopause all arriving simultaneously. What does chronic stress do to the midlife body, and what are the most effective interventions that go beyond the generic advice to “stress less”?

Chronic stress affects virtually every system in the body. Elevated cortisol over time can impact sleep, blood sugar regulation, appetite, abdominal fat storage, inflammation, immune function, mood, memory, and hormone balance. But what many women don’t realise is that emotional stress affects the body physiologically just as much as physical stress.

Many South Asian women carry enormous emotional responsibility. They are often balancing caregiving, work, family expectations, cultural obligations, and perfectionism while also navigating hormonal shifts that already make the nervous system more sensitive. Many women have been in survival mode for so long that stress feels normal.

The solutions need to go far beyond telling women to “relax.” We need nervous system regulation, boundaries, social support, restorative sleep, blood sugar stability, movement that regulates instead of depletes, trauma-informed therapy when needed, and permission to stop equating self-sacrifice with worthiness.

Sometimes, the most healing intervention is helping women understand that they are allowed to take up space, have needs, rest, and care for themselves without guilt.

Your book ‘Deprogram Diet Culture‘ is about rebuilding trust with food and the body. For South Asian women, food is also deeply cultural; it is love, identity, memory, and community. How do you help women disentangle the nourishing, celebratory role of food from the shame and control that diet culture has layered over it?

I think it’s incredibly important to preserve the emotional and cultural beauty of food while removing the shame that diet culture attaches to it. Food is a connection. It is family, tradition, comfort, celebration, and identity.

Many South Asian women feel caught between honouring their culture and trying to conform to Western wellness ideals that often demonise cultural foods. That creates a painful internal conflict in which food becomes emotionally charged rather than nourishing and joyful.

Part of healing is helping women reclaim cultural foods without guilt. Instead of asking, “How do I avoid these foods?” we ask, “How do I reconnect with these foods in a grounded, nourishing, emotionally healthy way?”

Food can absolutely be pleasurable and supportive of health at the same time. Those things are not mutually exclusive. Healing often happens when women stop viewing cultural foods as something they need to control and begin experiencing them again with presence, permission, and connection.

You work with clients on trauma, anxiety, and depression alongside physical health, and you see these as inseparable. What is the relationship between unprocessed emotional experience and physical health in midlife? And how often do you find that what looks like a body problem is actually a grief, identity, or emotional problem that hasn’t yet found language?

I see this constantly. The body carries emotional experiences in very real physiological ways. Chronic stress, trauma, anxiety, grief, perfectionism, emotional suppression, and hypervigilance all affect inflammation, hormones, digestion, sleep, appetite, immune function, and nervous system regulation.

Midlife is often the stage where unresolved emotional experiences begin surfacing because women can no longer outrun them through productivity or caretaking. What initially appears to be a body issue is often layered with burnout, loneliness, identity shifts, grief, relationship pain, or years of emotional self-abandonment.

A woman may think she is distressed about weight gain, but underneath that may be fear of ageing, invisibility, changing family roles, or feeling disconnected from herself after decades of prioritising everyone else.

I think many women have spent years speaking to themselves in ways they would never speak to someone they love. Healing often begins when women stop viewing the body as the enemy and start listening to what their emotional and physical symptoms may actually be trying to communicate.

If you could give every South Asian woman in midlife one piece of advice, not about what to eat or how to exercise, but about how to relate to her body during this season of life, what would it be?

I would tell women that their bodies are not failing them during midlife. Your body is communicating with you.

This season of life is not an invitation to become smaller, more disciplined, or more perfect. It is an invitation to become more honest, more compassionate, and more connected to yourself. Your worth was never meant to be measured by how little space you take up.

Midlife often marks the first time women begin to question the pressures, expectations, and conditioning they have carried for decades. And while that can feel uncomfortable, it can also become incredibly freeing. When women stop fighting themselves and start building a relationship with their bodies based on respect rather than control, they often discover a level of peace and self-trust they never thought was possible.

There is a sentence near the beginning of this conversation that I keep returning to. Dr Tovar is describing what she does when a woman in midlife comes to her, saying she no longer recognises herself. She says, “I don’t focus on weight loss. I become curious about what her body may be trying to communicate.”

That reorientation, from fixing to listening, from controlling to communicating, is at the heart of everything Dr Tovar offers. And for South Asian women who have spent decades being given the opposite message, it is quietly radical.

The conditioning runs deep. Comments at family gatherings about weight and appearance. Cultural ideals around slimness and fairness. Religious fasting layered with shame. Decades of following external rules until the internal signals, hunger, fullness, exhaustion, and emotion, became impossible to hear. Dr Tovar names all of it, with care and without judgment.

But what she offers is not just a diagnosis. It is a way forward.

Stop fighting the body. Start listening to it. Remove morality from food. Move to feel better, not to earn your right to take up space. Recognise that the stress you are carrying is physiological, not a personal weakness. And understand, perhaps for the first time, that your body in midlife is not failing you. It is communicating with you. And it has been waiting a long time for you to hear what it is trying to say.

If you would like to explore Dr Supatra Tovar’s work further:

Website: www.drsupatratovar.com | www.anew-insight.com Book: Deprogram Diet Culture: Rethink Your Relationship with Food, Heal Your Mind, and Live a Diet-Free Life Podcast: ANEW Insight LinkedIn: Dr Supatra Tovar

This is what she does.

Dr Patel was born in India and became what she calls a global citizen, carrying her South Asian heritage through four countries and four very different cultural contexts, watching, in each, how women, particularly South Asian women, navigate the particular bind of midlife. The cultural conditioning to sacrifice. The decades of putting family before self. The gradual, quiet erosion of a woman’s own identity, her own dreams, her own bucket, which, as Dr Patel puts it with characteristic directness, is given away and given away until there is simply nothing left.

She calls it Empty Bucket Syndrome. And once you hear that phrase, you will not be able to unhear it.

This conversation covers the mental health dimension of menopause that most healthcare professionals still aren’t asking about. It covers the stigma that keeps South Asian women suffering in silence. It covers intergenerational patterns, inherited sacrifice, and the particular psychological weight of reaching midlife, having spent most of it attending to everyone else’s needs.

But more than anything, it is a conversation about personal responsibility. About the moment a South Asian woman decides, perhaps for the first time, that her happiness is not something she is waiting to be given. It is something she is responsible for creating.

Dr Patel is not here to be gentle about that. And in her directness, there is a kind of care that is harder to find and more lasting than comfort alone.

You have lived across India, Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States, carrying your South Asian identity through each of those worlds. How did navigating so many different cultural contexts shape your understanding of what South Asian women silently carry, particularly as they move into midlife?

It all depends on what type of South Asian family the woman was raised in. If it were a very conservative and rigid family, the woman would remain subservient, taking care of family needs before her own. She spends all day cooking, cleaning, and tending to children or grandchildren. However, if the woman had been allowed to pursue a career, she might be more independent, but the family’s needs are almost at the forefront in midlife.

In your psychiatric practice, you have worked with both children and adults for more than 25 years. When South Asian women in midlife do come to you for support, which many resist for a long time, what are they most commonly carrying that has gone unnamed for years?

By the time these women reach midlife, they have missed out on learning how to be independent. They have been taken care of first by fathers, then by husbands, and they have poor skills in being truly independent. They also put their needs aside and do not know how to speak up or pursue their own dreams.

The Sattva Collective hears from South Asian women who describe a particular kind of emotional exhaustion in midlife, not just hormonal, but the accumulated weight of decades of cultural expectation, caregiving, and self-erasure. As a psychiatrist, how do you understand that kind of long-held, unspoken weight, and what does it do to a woman’s mental health over time?

It is a very significant weight to bear, always caring for others and putting yourself last. Not surprising that there is a low level of depression and even anxiety, realising that their whole life has been devoted to others, and now they do not have the skills or means to do things that they may have dreamt of. I call it an empty bucket syndrome. They give and give, while getting very little back to fill their own bucket.

Mental health stigma within South Asian communities is something many of our women know intimately: the fear of being labelled, of bringing shame to the family, of being seen as weak. How has that stigma shifted, if at all, in your experience, and what do you think it will take to genuinely change the conversation within South Asian families?

The stigma of shame and being made to feel weak has not decreased much in South Asian families. As women become more educated and are made aware of the balance between caring for family, which is so ingrained in women because of the culture they grow up in, and doing things that make them happy, they may seek this balance. Having a supportive spouse would go a long way in helping these women.

Perimenopause and menopause have a documented and significant impact on mental health, mood, anxiety, cognition, sleep, and emotional regulation. And yet so many South Asian women have these experiences dismissed as stress, nervousness, or “just how you are.” What do you want South Asian women and the healthcare professionals treating them to understand about the mental health dimension of menopause?

Menopause brings about hormonal changes that affect the mood of many women. Sleep deprivation in itself leads to an increase in irritability, anxiety, and fatigue. There are herbal and prescription medications that can help with different symptoms. Sexual activity can become painful, and women run the risk of getting more urinary infections due to dryness of the vaginal walls. Their Doctors can prescribe medications that help with these symptoms.

Your work explores the relationship between personal responsibility and change, individually and collectively. For South Asian women in midlife who have spent decades prioritising everyone else, how do you frame the act of finally seeking support for themselves? And how do you help women move past the guilt that so often comes with that?

Guilt never solves any problems. However, continuing down a path that keeps you unfulfilled, depressed, and anxious is not good for the woman or her family. The saying “Happy wife, happy family” is one where everyone benefits. Only when someone speaks up about what her needs are can she find the support she needs. People assume everything is okay and cannot read minds, even if they do suspect something is wrong.

You have written extensively about the intergenerational dynamics within South Asian families, the patterns that get passed down, often without anyone choosing them. When a South Asian woman reaches midlife and starts to question inherited patterns around silence, sacrifice, the body, and her own worth, what does that process look like psychologically? And how can she navigate it without losing her family relationships in the process?

It is a lost life if she does not start making changes. There is a choice: remain subdued or start speaking up slowly. Do things that bring her joy and contentment, but ask for help with household duties so she does not feel overwhelmed by the burden of taking care of others and herself. Have expectations of children, young and old, and spouse to help out.

You have spoken about the importance of leaving behind a positive legacy. The Sattva Collective was founded on that same impulse, a mother building something alongside her daughter, for the generation of South Asian women coming after them. What does legacy mean to you personally, as a South Asian woman who has lived and worked across four countries, and what do you hope the next generation of South Asian women inherits that yours did not?

Being a positive role model is something I advocate. Young South Asian women are forgetting their role as women in the family. Being a caretaker, learning to cook, sew, etc. However, show the daughters that pursuing careers and dreams is possible while also being central feminine figures in the family. The next generation will have the support to do things outside the family that the older generation did not have.

South Asian women in midlife are often managing the mental health of everyone around them, children, ageing parents, partners, while their own goes unattended. What is your message to the South Asian woman reading this who recognises herself in that description, who knows she is not coping, but cannot yet find the permission to ask for help?

As I said before, it is a choice. Speak up and get help, or carry on with what you are doing and feeling, and keep going down the same old path of self-destruction. No one is going to take care of you if you do not tell them how things are affecting you and whether you would like some things to change. Many men are oblivious as to what their wives need and are surprised when a woman wants a divorce in midlife or when the kids have left home.

If you could change one thing in healthcare, in South Asian culture, or in the way society treats women in midlife, what would it be, and why?

Do not take the woman for granted; talk to her. Allow her to explore and dream. She does not have to lose her identity. Speak up. Stop being fearful of retaliation. Get support from children, friends, and the community if the spouse is not understanding. You are responsible for your own happiness.

There is a moment near the end of this conversation where Dr Shila Patel says something that has stayed with me.

Not gently. Not with caveats or qualifications. Just plainly, as a psychiatrist who has spent over two decades watching what happens when South Asian women do not say it:

You are responsible for your own happiness.

For many South Asian women reading this, that sentence will land with complicated weight. Because it can sound, at first, like blame. Like the problem and the solution both belong to you, and no one else is accountable.

But that is not what Dr Patel means. What she means, and what her whole body of work points towards, is something far more empowering than blame. It is an agency. The recognition that waiting for your spouse, your children, your family, your community to notice what you need and give it to you without being asked is a long wait with an uncertain outcome. And that the only person who can begin to change the shape of your life is you.

That is not a small thing to ask of a South Asian woman in midlife who has spent decades being told, by culture, by family, by expectation, that her needs come last.

But it is, perhaps, the most important thing.

The empty bucket will not fill itself. And no one is coming to fill it for you.

You have to ask. You have to speak. You have to choose.

And as Dr Patel has shown across a lifetime of clinical practice, a life lived across four countries, and a career built on the belief that personal responsibility is the beginning of everything, it is never too late to start.

To find out more about Dr Shila Patel and her work: drshilapatel.com

These are the things South Asian women carry with them. Into their forties and fifties. Into the doctors’ offices and the HR departments and the family gatherings and the quiet rooms where they sit alone with a body that is changing, a self that is shifting, and a question that no one around them seems to be asking.

Who am I in this season of life? And does any of this, my heritage, my culture, my history, have anything to say to me here?

South Asian Heritage Month 2026 invites us to explore Unity in Diversity, a theme that celebrates the extraordinary breadth and richness of South Asian communities across eight countries, hundreds of languages, multiple faiths, and millennia of intertwined histories. It asks us what unites us across those differences. It asks us what we carry together that we might not always name.

At The Sattva Collective, we have been sitting with that question since before we had a name for it.

The diversity we celebrate, and the unity that holds it

South Asia is not one thing; it never has been.

The South Asian women who make up The Sattva Collective’s community come from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, and the diaspora that has woven South Asian heritage into the fabric of British life over generations. They are Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Christian, Jain, and secular. They speak Punjabi, Gujarati, Urdu, Tamil, Hindi, Bengali, Konkani, and English. They are mothers and grandmothers and daughters and women who have built careers and businesses and families and lives in the UK, far from the places their families first called home.

They are not one community; they are many. And yet, when a South Asian woman in her forties sits down in a Sattva Women’s Circle, something happens that transcends every one of those differences. She recognises something in the woman sitting across from her. In the way she pauses before she speaks. In the particular silence she carries. In the way she holds her exhaustion, carefully, privately, as if it belongs only to her.

That recognition is the unity. Underneath all the diversity of faith, language, background, and generation, the shared experience of being a South Asian woman in midlife in the UK, navigating a transition that the culture has never quite learned to hold.

That is what unites us. And it is why The Sattva Collective exists.

What our heritage carries, and what it costs us

South Asian heritage is extraordinary in its richness: its food, its textiles, its music, its languages, its philosophies, its medicine, Ayurveda and Unani, centuries-old systems of healing that are only now beginning to receive the recognition they have always deserved in Western contexts. Its family structures are rooted in deep interdependence and collective care. Its festivals, its rituals, its architecture of belonging.

We carry all of this. And for South Asian women in midlife, it is both a gift and a burden.

The gift is community, connection, the understanding that you are not navigating life alone, that there are people who will show up, that the bonds of family and culture hold. The gift is food as love, celebration as healing, ritual as anchor. The gift is a philosophical heritage, from the Sanskrit concept of sattva, meaning clarity and balanced energy, to the Sufi traditions of many South Asian Muslim women, to the Sikh teaching of sewa, selfless service, that offers a depth of wisdom about what it means to age with grace, purpose, and surrender.

The burden is the expectation of endurance. The cultural conditioning that says South Asian women are strong, and strong women do not complain. The family structures that place women at the centre of care: for children, for ageing parents, for husbands, for in-laws, without always asking what those women need in return. The silence around the body, around health, around the changes of midlife and menopause leaves women navigating enormous physical and emotional upheaval entirely alone.

Unity in Diversity for South Asian women in midlife means holding both truths simultaneously. Honouring what our heritage gives us, and being honest about what it asks of us.

The healing that heritage offers

There is something happening across South Asian women’s communities that feels significant: women are returning. Not to everything, not to the expectations that diminished them, not to the silence that hurt them, not to the roles that left no room for their own needs. But to the wisdom, to the rituals, to the parts of their heritage that were always about nourishment, not performance.

Women in midlife are returning to Ayurveda, discovering in its ancient understanding of the body’s seasons and doshas a framework for the changes they are experiencing that Western medicine has never quite given them. They are returning to the practice of oil, coconut, sesame, mustard, not as something to be ashamed of, but as medicine. They are returning to the spices in their kitchens and beginning to understand them as anti-inflammatory, adaptogenic, and hormonally supportive. They are returning to the concept of rest as sacred, not lazy.

They are returning to each other, gathering in rooms, in circles, in WhatsApp groups, on Substack, and in community spaces, doing what South Asian women have always done when they gather without an audience: telling the truth.

At The Sattva Collective, we see this return every month. In the Sattva Women’s Circle, women arrive carrying everything: the hormonal shifts, the identity questions, the caregiving exhaustion, the grief of ageing parents and changing relationships and selves they no longer recognise. And they find, in a room full of other South Asian women, something they weren’t sure still existed. Understanding. That doesn’t require translation.

That is heritage. Not the version that asks women to be silent, but the version that has always known how to hold a woman when she is falling apart, and help her find her way back.

Unity in Diversity: What it means to us

The Sattva Collective was founded on the belief that South Asian women deserve a midlife and menopause conversation that truly understands them. Not a conversation that flattens our differences, that treats all South Asian women as the same, speaks to us as a monolith, ignores the profound distinctions of faith, language, generation, and experience that make us who we are.

But a conversation that holds us together in our diversity. That says: your specific experience matters, and so does hers, and so does the woman across the room whose background is nothing like yours but whose exhaustion feels exactly the same.

Unity in Diversity, for us, means building a community where a Punjabi grandmother navigating hot flushes in silence and a British-born Bangladeshi woman questioning her marriage and a Tamil professional burning out at work and a Pakistani woman caring for her mother while her own body changes, can all find themselves in the same room, recognised, not erased.

It means understanding that the silence around midlife and menopause is a shared inheritance, across South Asian communities, across faiths, languages and generations. And that breaking it is a shared act. One that belongs to all of us.

South Asian Heritage Month 2026: How to mark it

South Asian Heritage Month is observed throughout July 2026 under the theme “Unity in Diversity.” This year, it moves to a full calendar month, 1 to 31 July, making it easier than ever to participate, plan, and mark the month in a meaningful way.

Here is how The Sattva Collective community can engage:

• Submit your story to the SAHM National Heritage Archive: a personal reflection, a family memory, a community narrative. In any language, any format. Your story belongs there. Submit at southasianheritage.org.uk/how-to-submit-your-stories

• Find or list an event on the SAHM national calendar. If you are hosting a gathering, a talk, or a community event for South Asian women in July, list it for free. Events at southasianheritage.org.uk/events-list

• Join The Sattva Collective’s Sattva Women’s Circle: our monthly in-person gathering for South Asian women in midlife. July’s circle falls during South Asian Heritage Month, and we will be holding space for exactly this conversation: what our heritage gives us, what it asks of us, and what it means to navigate midlife as South Asian women in the UK today. Find out more →

• Share this article with a South Asian woman in midlife who needs to feel less alone. With your family WhatsApp group. With a colleague who doesn’t know this conversation is happening. Every share reaches a woman who might need it.

A final thought

In Sanskrit, the word sattva speaks to clarity, purity, and balanced energy. It is the quality of inner light, the stillness that exists beneath the noise and change of any season of life.

It is not a quality that belongs to one faith tradition, or one country, or one generation. It is a human quality. One that every South Asian woman, across all the extraordinary diversity of who we are and where we come from, carries within her. South Asian Heritage Month is a reminder that we carry it together.

And midlife, with all its difficulty, its disruption, its grief and its invitation, is when we may need that reminder most.

To every South Asian woman navigating midlife this July: your heritage is not a burden, it is a source. And you are not navigating this season alone.

New voices. New platforms. A community campaign that, I’ll be honest, I wasn’t entirely sure would land the way I hoped. And the quiet, determined work that happens away from the screen, in GP surgeries, local businesses, and email inboxes, that rarely gets documented but matters just as much.

Here is what June looked like for The Sattva Collective.

We launched My Sattva Story, and women started sharing

This was the thing I had been building towards for months, and the thing I was most nervous about.

My Sattva Story is a year-round storytelling campaign inviting South Asian women to share their midlife and menopause experiences in their own words. No clinical language. No performance. Just truth, told at their own pace, on their own terms.

The first story published was my own. I wrote it because I couldn’t ask women to be vulnerable in a space I hadn’t been willing to enter myself. You can read it here: My Sattva Story: Kiran Singh.

And then Rubina Chadha shared hers. Read Rubina’s story here.

Two stories. Two women. Two different experiences of the same silence.

If you have a story or know a woman who does, the door is open. We want to hear it.

The podcast is live

Two episodes of The Sattva Collective Podcast are now live on Spotify. Solo episodes for now, and honestly, I have found them unexpectedly grounding to record. There is something different about speaking out loud the things I usually write. It enters the body differently.

Expert guests join from Autumn 2026. Until then, these early episodes are where I think alongside you.

We published two new expert interviews

In June, we published conversations with two remarkable women.

• Darpan Bhasin brought a perspective I know will resonate with so many women reading this: the intersection of identity, culture, and midlife that rarely gets space in mainstream conversations.

• Mangala Rao-D’Sa was generous and frank in a way that stayed with me long after the edit was done.

Both interviews are on the website. Both are worth your time.

We wrote about invisible carers

Carers Week came and went in June, and I could not let it pass without naming what I see in the women who come to this space.

South Asian women in midlife are often carrying caring responsibilities, for elderly parents, for children, sometimes for both at once, and doing it largely without acknowledgement. The article, "The Invisible Carer: What Carers Week Means for South Asian Women in Midlife," seeks to give that experience the language it deserves.

We made our website available in multiple languages

This was something Khushi and I had been thinking about for a while, and in June, we did it.

For a community where English is not always a first language, where a woman’s mother or auntie might be searching for answers in Punjabi, Hindi, Urdu, or Gujarati, accessibility is not optional. It is part of the mission.

We wrote about why we did it here.

Our book is releasing next year!

Good Girls Don’t Talk About This. Until Now is the book I have been circling for some time. You will know the phrase. Many of us were raised inside it. This book will be about what happens when good girls finally decide to speak.

New resources: GP Pack and Resource Hub

In June, we made two new resources available on the website.

1. The GP Healthcare Professional Pack is designed for GPs, nurses, and other healthcare professionals who want to better understand the specific experiences of South Asian women navigating midlife and menopause. We want the conversations happening in consulting rooms to be more informed, more culturally aware, and more useful.

2. The Resource Hub brings together trusted information in one place, because no woman should have to search too hard to find support.

Both are free. Both are for sharing.

Outreach work, going beyond the screen

One of the things that rarely makes it into a newsletter is the work that happens offline.

In June, we continued building relationships with local businesses in Bedford because the community does not live only online, and the women we want to reach are not always the ones already following us. This work is slow. It is unglamorous. And it matters enormously.

A community cause worth supporting this July

As we move into July, I want to share something from Nisha Harichandran, a woman whose work I have been following and whose voice I believe our community needs to hear more of.

Nisha is fundraising for the British Heart Foundation in celebration of South Asian Heritage Month. The reason this matters: South Asians are at a significantly higher risk of coronary heart disease than the general population, and funding research that addresses this specifically is something our community has a real stake in.

In exchange for any donation, Nisha is offering a one-hour coaching or mentoring session; leadership, mindset, joy, clarity, whatever you need. It is a generous offer from someone who clearly understands the value of giving time as well as money.

If this speaks to you, please donate and share it widely.

Support Nisha’s fundraiser for the British Heart Foundation →

The Summit is taking shape

In May, I told you something was coming. Now I can tell you more. The Thrive Through Midlife & Menopause Summit takes place on 14th May 2027, 5 pm – 9 pm, at The Centenary Hall, Bedford.

And our first two confirmed speakers are:

• Sonia Shah of Avenir Clinics, our first confirmed keynote speaker, brings clinical expertise and a genuine understanding of the women we serve.

• Dr Vikram Sinai Talaulikar, confirmed guest panellist, is a leading voice in reproductive and menopausal medicine.

This is just the beginning of the line-up. More announcements are coming. If you know you want to be in that room on 14th May 2027, save the date now.

Support our work

The Sattva Collective is a not-for-profit Community Interest Company. Everything we create, every article, interview, story, resource, and podcast episode, is free and accessible to the community we serve.

If our work has meant something to you, or to a woman you love, please consider supporting us.

Support The Sattva Collective →

June has been full. Not in the breathless, anxious way that full sometimes feels. Full in the way of a table at the end of a long meal, warm, satisfying, with more still to come.

Thank you for being here. For reading. For sharing. For being part of what this is becoming.

With love and Sattva,

Kiran x

Founder & Director The Sattva Collective CIC thesattvacollective.org

Midlife reinvention and coming home to myself. Empty nest approaching, post-menopause, and discovering that this season is less about proving and more about living with presence, creativity, and purpose.

Where are you based?

Los Angeles, CA

Tell us your Sattva Story.

For much of my life, I was known as the capable one. I grew up in a South Asian family where meditation, yoga, and service were woven into everyday life, but like many women, I spent decades caring, achieving, creating, and quietly putting myself somewhere near the bottom of the list.

Midlife arrived less like a crisis and more like a series of invitations. My body changed. My priorities changed. Relationships changed. I began noticing that the things I had spent years building externally no longer mattered as much as the quality of my inner life.

As a single mother, I devoted much of my energy to raising my son, building a career, and showing up for others. Somewhere along the way, I realised that many women of my generation had become experts at holding everything together while quietly carrying exhaustion, grief, and expectations that no one could see.

Menopause was not something anyone really talked about. There was little language around it and even less understanding. What surprised me most was that this chapter was asking me not only to let go. It was asking me to become more honest. I stopped measuring my worth by productivity and started paying attention to presence. I returned to creativity, breath, silence, and practices that reminded me who I was underneath the roles I had been playing.

Today, I see midlife not as a decline, but as a homecoming. It has softened some things and strengthened others. It has taught me that wisdom often arrives quietly. That rest is not laziness. That boundaries are acts of love. And that we do not have to earn the right to take up space. What midlife has taken from me are some old identities and expectations.

What it has given back is something far more valuable: a deeper relationship with myself. At fifty, with my son entering his own next chapter, I feel less interested in performing and more interested in living truthfully. I have learned that creativity is not a luxury. Presence is not selfish. And perhaps the greatest gift of this season is realising that we do not have to become someone new. We can simply return to who we have always been.

Is there one thing you wish someone had told you earlier about midlife?

I wish someone had told me that midlife is not the beginning of disappearing. It is the beginning of returning. No one prepared me for the fact that some relationships, roles, and identities would naturally fall away, and that this wasn’t failure. It was space being created for something more authentic. I also wish someone had told me that rest is productive, that hormones affect far more than we realise, and that we do not have to navigate this chapter in silence.

In this episode, I explore the particular kind of exhaustion that so many South Asian women in midlife are quietly carrying. The kind that doesn’t go away with sleep. The kind that gets called life.

I talk about why fatigue in perimenopause and menopause is different to ordinary tiredness, why emotional labour is the hidden energy leak nobody names, and why rest can feel so unsafe when usefulness has been your currency for decades.

This isn’t about doing more. It’s about finally understanding why you’re depleted, and what micro-recovery actually looks like in real life with real demands.

Because the exhaustion is not your failure. It’s your body’s boundary.

If you’ve been running on duty for too long, this one’s for you.

~ Kiran x

Kiransinghuk.com | The Sattva Collective

She didn’t see it as wisdom then. She saw it as a difference. As something to hide.

Decades later, in the foothills of the Himalayas, scattering her father’s ashes and trying to find her way back to herself after grief had taken her apart, she found her way back to exactly those rituals. And everything changed.

Mangala Rao is the founder of Chasma, an Ayurvedic skincare brand built not from a business plan but from a breakdown and a homecoming. After her father’s sudden death in 2019, her body spoke loudly and unmistakably, hair falling out, skin inflamed, joints aching, nervous system unravelling. She went to an Ayurvedic retreat in India looking for relief. She came home carrying something she hadn’t expected: a reconnection to ancient Indian healing practices she had spent years quietly distancing herself from.

At 50, Mangala’s skin and hair are, by her own account and a recent biological age test, healthier than they were in her thirties. Not because she found the right products. Because she stopped fighting, her skin, her body, her heritage, and started listening.

It is not about products. It is about what it means to finally come home to yourself.

Your skincare journey began in the foothills of the Himalayas, at an Ayurvedic retreat, after scattering your father’s ashes. That is such a profound intersection of grief, healing, and discovery. What was that experience like, and how did something so deeply personal become the foundation of a business?

After my father’s sudden death in 2019 and the pandemic, my body fell apart in ways I didn’t have language for. Massive pain, hair falling out in clumps, and skin that felt like it was on fire. Underneath it all, I also felt like I lost my ability to regulate my emotions. I went to an Ayurvedic retreat in India looking for healing and found something I was not expecting. I found a reconnection to ancient Indian rituals that have surrounded me my whole life. I came home changed. People kept asking me what I was doing differently. Building something for myself still felt transgressive, though, but I set up a table at a local pop-up market and started selling. That was the beginning of Chasma.

At the time you arrived at that retreat, your skin was highly sensitive, red, blotchy, with milia, hair loss, and deep wrinkles. You now say your skin and hair at 49 are healthier than they were in your 30s. What changed, not just in your skincare routine, but in how you understood the relationship between what you put on your skin and what was happening inside your body?

What changed for me was a greater understanding of how my body works and what it needs to nourish, repair, and heal. I spent my 20s and 30s working my body hard. From childbirth to a demanding career to running marathons, I was aggressive and focused on performance. My body was sending me clear signals of misalignment, my nervous system was in a constant state of fight, my joints deeply ached, my gut was irritated, my hair had increased shedding, and my skin was sensitive and inflamed.

I tried marginal changes with temporary relief. It wasn’t until I met an Ayurvedic practitioner that I realised how working in alignment with my dosha could unveil my best health and best self. At the retreat, I learned to slow everything down. I simplified my routine, removed synthetic fragrance completely, focused on barrier repair, nourishment, scalp health, sleep, stress reduction, hydration, and anti-inflammatory ingredients. I also began thinking about beauty as something connected to the nervous system and hormonal balance, not just topical products.

The irony is that at 50, my skin and hair are healthier than they were in my 30s because I stopped attacking them and started supporting them, and a recent biological medical test revealed that even though I am 50, my biological age is 35.

You discovered that synthetic fragrances were the hidden culprit behind years of skin sensitivity and irritation, something most women would never suspect. For South Asian women in midlife, who are often navigating skin changes they don’t fully understand, what are the most common ingredient offenders hiding in mainstream skincare that are quietly making things worse?

People of colour often experience inflammation differently and are prone to post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation (American Academy of Dermatology). Research has shown that synthetic fragrances are one of the leading causes of dermatitis, and they are hiding in plain sight and smell. It can cause redness and irritation. Another common ingredient in skincare products that can make skin worse is Sodium Lauryl Sulfate (SLS). It is an overly aggressive foaming system, and with overuse, it can strip your moisture barrier.

Perimenopause and menopause bring significant and often distressing changes to the skin, increased dryness, sensitivity, thinning, pigmentation changes, breakouts, and a loss of the elasticity that women have taken for granted. From an Ayurvedic perspective, what is actually happening in the skin during this hormonal transition, and why does the approach to skincare need to fundamentally shift at this life stage?

From an Ayurvedic perspective, perimenopause and menopause occur when hormonal changes cause a dosha imbalance. When women experience dry, fine-lined, dull skin, that is a vata imbalance. At the same time, a pitta aggravation shows up as redness and sensitivity. The biggest mistake we make is trying to continue treating your skin the same way you always have. Mid-life skin needs nourishment, restoration, hydration, calming, and barrier support. The approach becomes less about control and more about balance.

Ayurveda sees skin not as a surface problem but as a reflection of internal balance, of the interplay between Vata, Pitta, and Kapha. For South Asian women in midlife who are under significant stress, often depleted, and experiencing hormonal shifts, what does their skin typically tell you about what is happening deeper inside, and how does Ayurveda address that root cause rather than the surface symptom?

Our skin is the last organ to absorb nutrients, but the first organ to show issues. Ayurveda looks at the whole system because what is showing up on your skin is happening inside your body, too. Vata imbalance often shows up on the skin as dryness, dullness, and accelerated ageing, so the skin is telling us that the body needs hydration. Pitta imbalance can manifest as redness, inflammation, and pigmentation, so the skin is telling us that the body needs fewer inflammatory foods and a calmer nervous system. Finally, a Kapha skin imbalance appears oily and puffy, and the body needs clarifying and stimulation, such as facial massage and exercise. By addressing the root cause, we can bring our doshas back into alignment and reveal radiant skin.

South Asian women in midlife are navigating a particular relationship with their skin, shaped by colourism, by cultural ideals of fairness, by decades of products marketed around brightening and anti-ageing in ways that can feel both familiar and harmful. How do you approach the conversation about skin and self-worth with South Asian women who have grown up in that cultural landscape?

I love this question because for a lot of South Asian women, our relationship with our appearance is shaped by growing up with the idea that lighter, younger, smoother skin somehow equals beauty and worthiness. That conditioning comes from deep generational trauma dating to colonialism. I try to create a conversation about the importance of alignment, loving yourself, and focusing not just on what you put on your skin, but on your overall health to reveal your best skin ever. Healthy skin is balanced skin, where the mind, body, and soul are better aligned. I think there is something deeply healing about reconnecting with beauty rituals from our own culture, rooted in care and celebration rather than aggressive correction. For me, Ayurveda is not about chasing fairness or the media definition of perfect skin. It is about balance, nourishment, and honouring the skin you are in.

You built Chasma on the principle of purity and intention, stripping away the unnecessary and returning to what is genuinely nourishing. That philosophy maps almost exactly onto what The Sattva Collective believes about midlife itself. What parallels do you see between the journey of simplifying a skincare routine and the journey of simplifying a life, particularly for South Asian women who have accumulated so much of what they no longer need?

We live in a culture of MORE. More supplements, more skincare steps, more routines, and more makeup. I think there is a profound parallel between simplifying skincare and simplifying life. Many of us are carrying so many expectations, pressures, roles, emotional labour, and products. We are problem-solving, constantly looking for answers. Ultimately, we eventually realise that more is not always better. This was my experience. I stopped using electronic facial brushes, harsh exfoliants, and layering endless products and started asking myself what was truly nourishing and what was causing stress and irritation. Midlife has a way of clarifying what truly matters. There is wisdom in shedding what no longer serves you, whether that is your routine, your relationship, or your beliefs about yourself.

Many South Asian women in midlife approach skincare with a sense of urgency, trying to reverse or halt what they see as damage, fighting their ageing skin rather than working with it. What shift in mindset do you try to help women make, and what becomes possible when a woman stops fighting her skin and starts listening to it instead?

In Ayurveda, ageing is seen as a natural transition to be supported through nourishment, balance, ritual, and care. It recognises that the body, skin, and hair naturally evolve through the different seasons of life. The mindset shift I try to help women see through my brand, Chasma, is that the goal is not to look 25 forever, but to age intentionally, beautifully, and well. Ayurveda teaches us to focus on longevity and vitality from within, calming inflammation, nourishing the nervous system, supporting sleep, and caring for the scalp and skin before imbalance shows up externally. Your skin and scalp are telling us what our body needs. So, when we focus on treating the whole self both topically and internally, stop fighting ageing aggressively, and listen to the body, what becomes possible is connection to ourselves at every age.

Ayurvedic skincare is deeply rooted in South Asian heritage, yet many South Asian women have spent decades turning away from it in favour of Western products, only to return to it in midlife. Why do you think that return happens? And what does it mean, culturally and personally, for a South Asian woman to reclaim the beauty wisdom of her own heritage?

This question speaks to my soul. I think for many South Asian women, there is a complicated relationship with our own beauty rituals growing up, especially for those of us born and raised in the West. Growing up in Canada at a time when there weren’t a lot of South Asians, I was mortified when my mom used to wash our hair with shikakai and rub coconut oil into my plaits, when everyone else was using salon shampoos and Western beauty products. I didn’t see those rituals as luxurious or wise at the time. I saw them as a thing that made me feel and smell different.

So many of us spent years distancing ourselves from our culture to try to blend in. Western beauty was viewed as success, modern and sophisticated, while our South Asian traditions were dismissed as old school and traditional.

I think the reason why, in midlife, many women return to our South Asian traditions like Ayurveda is that we start to see how much our population has been underserved by traditional medicine, and we are looking for something deeper than quick fixes or trends. We start realising that our mothers’ and grandmothers’ practices were never just about beauty, but their rituals were about nourishment and connection to a higher power. I also think there is something very healing about reclaiming our rituals and realising there was always wisdom there. For me, it felt less like discovering something new and more like a homecoming and a sense of comfort.

You are 49, building a business rooted in your own midlife experience, with skin that tells a story of healing rather than decline. What do you want South Asian women in midlife to understand about what is possible for their skin and for themselves in this season of life?

I want women to understand that midlife is the beginning of a beautiful next chapter. It can actually become a period of healing and reconnection with yourself if you let it. Your skin is capable of improving. Your hair can become healthier. Your energy can return, but it requires a relationship rooted in understanding and nourishment, not punishment and criticism. Now at 50, I do not feel like I am trying to turn back time and be a younger version of myself. I feel more physically and emotionally aligned now than I ever have been before, and for the first time in a long time, comfortable in my own skin. That is the possibility I hope women can see for themselves, too.

What stays with me from this conversation is the image Mangala returns to at the end.
Not younger skin. Not turning back time. Not a before and after.

Comfortable in her own skin, for the first time in a long time.

That phrase carries so much. Because for South Asian women who have spent decades navigating colourism, cultural expectations, the relentless pressure to look a certain way, and the particular disorientation of a midlife body that no longer behaves as expected, comfort in your own skin is not a small thing. It is the whole thing.

Mangala’s journey, from grief to an Ayurvedic retreat, from hiding coconut oil and shikakai in her childhood to building a business rooted entirely in those practices, is a story about reclamation. About the wisdom that was always there, waiting patiently for us to stop running from it.

Your skin is not a problem to be solved. It is a conversation to be had, with your body, your history, your heritage, and yourself.
And midlife, as Mangala reminds us, is not the end of feeling beautiful. It is the beginning of understanding what that actually means.

If you’d like to explore Mangala’s work and the world of Chasma further:

Website: www.chasmaskin.com.

There is a book coming.

I have been sitting with this quietly for a little while now, turning it over, feeling its weight and rightness. I was going to wait to share this on Khushi's birthday next month, wrap it in that significance. But today felt right. There is no better time than now, and saying it out loud to you is exactly the kind of accountability that makes things real. This is how I show up. This is how the work gets done.

The book is called Good Girls Don’t Talk About This. Until Now: Breaking the Silence on South Asian Women, Midlife and Menopause.

It will be published on 14th May 2027. Sattva Day. The second anniversary of The Sattva Collective. And if everything goes to plan, you will be able to hold a copy of it in your hands at the Thrive through Midlife and Menopause Summit that same evening.

Why this book

Growing up, in our culture, and I suspect in most cultures, midlife was spoken about as a decline. Something that happened to you. A slow fading.

And if you dared to want something different, something more, something true, if you changed your hair or changed your career or left a relationship or decided at 48 that you were going to feel more alive than you ever had before, it was given a name.

Midlife crisis.

As if wanting to actually live your own life was a symptom of something wrong with you.

Look at us now.

We are the generation that gets to change that story. Not just for ourselves, for every woman who comes after us. For our daughters, who are watching how we age. For the culture that told us to shrink, which we are quietly, firmly, joyfully refusing to do.

Midlife is not a crisis. It is a renewal.

A shedding of everything we were taught, pressured, and compelled to be, and a return to the woman who was always there underneath it all.

We get to model that.

We already are.

The cover

The cover of this book is a watercolour illustration I had made some years ago.

My mother had already left us by then. But I wanted a photograph that couldn’t exist, the three of us together. My Mum. Me. My daughter Khushi.

Three generations, standing side by side.

When I thought about what this book needed on its cover, I knew immediately. There was nothing else it could be. Because that image is the book. The woman who carried it quietly. The woman writing it all down. The daughter who inherits a different story.

The dedication

For my Mum. For always being the good girl, and for everything you carried quietly, I see it now.

And for Khushi, who will never have to carry it alone, and who never has to stay silent.

What comes next

I will begin writing this Autumn. The book will weave together my own voice, the voices of experts, and the real stories of South Asian women navigating midlife and menopause; women like the ones already sharing their truth through the My Sattva Story campaign.

If you have a story you’d like to be considered for the book, you’ll hear more about that in the months ahead.

For now, I just wanted you to know it exists.

And that it was always going to.

~ Kiran x

The Sattva Collective | Kiransinghuk.com

She is a South Asian woman in midlife. And the chances are, she does not call herself a carer.

Carers Week 2026 runs from 8–14 June, with the theme Building Carer Friendly Communities. It is a week that asks us to recognise, value, and support the millions of people in the UK providing unpaid care, often without any acknowledgement that what they are doing qualifies as caring at all. cloudinary

Women are 29% more likely than men to be unpaid carers. Nearly one in four adults aged 50 to 64 provides at least some unpaid care, and many are in the sandwich generation, caring for older relatives whilst also supporting dependent children or grandchildren.

For South Asian women in midlife, this is not a statistic. It is life.

The caring that goes unrecognised

Within South Asian families, care is cultural. It is expected, not as a burden, but as an expression of love, of duty, of who you are. Daughters care for parents. Daughters-in-law care for in-laws. Wives care for husbands. Sisters care for siblings.

The problem is not the caring itself. The problem is that it often happens at the complete exclusion of the woman doing it.

Research from 2026 found that women providing 15 or more hours of unpaid care a week are 57% more likely to experience moderate-to-severe menopause symptoms than non-caregivers. Read that again. The caregiving that South Asian women absorb as a matter of course, quietly, without complaint, is directly worsening the hormonal transition they are already navigating.

And because the caring is invisible, the suffering is too.

What it costs

Caregiving in midlife has a physical cost, disrupted sleep, elevated cortisol, no time for movement, and meals grabbed between other people’s needs. It has an emotional cost, the grief of watching a parent decline, the suppression of your own feelings to hold space for everyone else’s. And it has a health cost, menopause symptoms that worsen under chronic stress, hormonal changes that go unaddressed because there is simply no time.

46% of women aged 40–54 are at high risk of burnout, the highest of any life stage.

South Asian women in this group are not just at risk of burnout. Many are already in it. Running on obligation, on habit, on the deeply ingrained belief that their needs come last.

What Carers Week asks of us

This week, Carers UK and its partners are calling on communities to become carer-friendly places, spaces, services and community groups where unpaid carers are recognised, understood, and valued.

For South Asian women, that call is both external and internal.

External, to the healthcare professionals, the community organisations, and the families who surround these women. See the carer. Ask her how she is. Not her patient, not her parent. Her.

And internal, to the woman reading this who has never considered herself a carer, who has never thought to ask for support because this is simply what she does.

You are allowed to be cared for, too.

That is not selfishness. That is what makes the caring sustainable.

Carers UK offers free support, information, and advice for unpaid carers. Visit carersuk.org or call the helpline on 0808 808 7777.

The post The Invisible Carer: What Carers Week Means for South Asian Women in Midlife appeared first on THE SATTVA COLLECTIVE.

This morning, sipping ginger and cardamom in the quiet before the day began, an idea that had been circling for months finally landed. And I decided: simply do it.

In this first episode, I share the story behind The Sattva Collective, the idea that came to me on a bus to Cambridge, my mother's undiagnosed perimenopause and the silence she carried alone, and why I built an organisation to make sure South Asian women never have to navigate midlife that way again.

I talk about what we have built in our first year, the articles, the community gatherings, the media coverage, Sattva Day, My Sattva Story, and the Thrive through Midlife & Menopause Summit coming in May 2027. I talk about my daughter Khushi, who chose to become Co-Director and what that means to me. And I share what this podcast is, how it will work, and what I need from you.

This is The Sattva Collective Podcast. Honest, unhurried, and built for South Asian women who are done going through midlife quietly.

Send your questions to hello@thesattvacollective.org with the subject line "Sattva Collective Podcast." I'll answer them on the show.

Kiran x

Thesattvacollective.org

Thesattvacollectivecic.substack.com

That changes now.

I’m Kiran Singh, founder of The Sattva Collective CIC, the UK’s first community-led initiative dedicated to supporting South Asian women through midlife and menopause. And this is our podcast.

This is a space for honest conversations. Unhurried ones. Culturally grounded ones. The kind where you hear yourself reflected back, perhaps for the first time.

Solo episodes to start, exploring the topics our community most needs to talk about. Expert guests joining from Autumn 2026.

New episodes every two weeks. Subscribe so you never miss one.

Subscribe now

~ Kiran x

Find us at thesattvacollective.org | thesattvacollectivecic.substack.com

Not “How much do you want to lose?” Not “What did you use to weigh?” Not “How quickly do you want to see results?“

The question is this: How do you want to feel in the next decade of your life?

It sounds simple. But for many South Asian women in midlife, women who have spent decades measuring their health by how they look, how much they can give to others, and how quietly they can carry it all, it is the most disorienting question they have ever been asked.

Because no one has ever asked them before.

Darpan Bhasin is a qualified Personal Trainer and Nutrition Coach who left a corporate career to do work that she believes in, helping women build strength, confidence, and sustainable health from the inside out. No quick fixes. No restrictive plans. No telling women to become smaller versions of themselves.

Her approach is rooted in something The Sattva Collective holds deeply too: that midlife is not a decline to manage. It is a phase to navigate, with the right support, the right mindset, and the kind of honest, compassionate guidance that actually meets women where they are.

She works with women who are exhausted, depleted, disconnected from their bodies, and quietly struggling with the changes that perimenopause and menopause bring. And she helps them find their way back, not to who they were, but to something stronger, more grounded, and more sustainable themselves.

This is a conversation about strength. About food and culture and the guilt that doesn’t have to be part of either. About grief, consistency, and what becomes possible when a South Asian woman finally decides that her own body deserves attention, too.

We are very glad she is here.

For many women, especially in South Asian communities, health has often been measured by how we look on the outside, how much we can give to others, and how quietly we can carry it all. Midlife and menopause invite us to challenge that narrative.

This phase is not about decline, it’s about redefining. It becomes less about appearance and more about building strength from within. Strength in our bodies, strength in our mindset, and strength in how we choose to show up for ourselves. It’s about asking a different question: How do I want to feel in the next decade of my life? Not just today, but 10, 20 years from now.

Redefining health at this stage means prioritising muscle, energy, and resilience. It means supporting our bodies through lifestyle changes that help us manage menopause, whether that’s strength training, nourishing ourselves properly, or creating habits that sustain our energy rather than drain it.

Body changes in midlife can feel deeply personal, especially for women who have spent years tying their worth to how they look. How do you help women shift the focus away from weight and towards something more sustaining?

At this stage, I help women zoom out. I help them shift their mindset away from just numbers and appearances and instead focus on what’s still working in their favour. Their body is still moving, and that, in itself, is one of the greatest gifts.

From there, we begin focusing on what their body can do rather than just how it looks. Can you move with ease? Do you have the energy to get through your day? Are you feeling stronger, more capable?

When women start noticing improvements in strength, energy, and overall well-being, their relationship with their body begins to change. It becomes less about shrinking themselves and more about supporting themselves, which creates something truly sustainable.

South Asian women are often the carers, the organisers, the ones holding everyone else together. What do you see happen when a woman in midlife finally realises that her own body needs attention too?

What I see is a gradual shift from depletion to awareness. They begin to recognise their own needs, their own fatigue, their own limits. And when they start taking small actions, even something as simple as carving out 20–30 minutes for themselves, it creates a ripple effect.

They have more patience. More clarity. More energy, and interestingly, they don’t become less available to others; they become better for others, because they’re no longer running on empty.

You speak about strength training as something transformative, not just physically but mentally. What changes have you witnessed in women who stop trying to become smaller and start building themselves stronger?

The shift is incredible, and it goes far beyond the physical. Physically, yes, they become stronger, more capable, and more resilient. But mentally, there’s a confidence that starts to build, not from how they look, but from what they’re proving to themselves.

They start trusting their body again. When a woman realises she can lift heavier than she thought, move better than she expected, and stay consistent even on hard days, it changes her internal dialogue. She starts respecting herself again.

And that body confidence shows up everywhere, in how she carries herself, how she sets boundaries, and how she navigates life.

Menopause can bring fatigue, brain fog, disrupted sleep, anxiety, and a sense of not quite feeling like yourself. Where do you encourage women to begin when they feel disconnected from their body and overwhelmed by the whole experience?

I always bring it back to simplicity, breaking things down into small, manageable steps. For me, it started with something as simple as a 10–15 minute walk each day. It may feel small, but those small actions build consistency, and that consistency helps women start feeling better about themselves again.

From there, we layer in the basics: regular movement, simple strength training, balanced meals with enough protein, and creating small routines that support better energy and sleep.

But just as important is mindset.

We need to understand that our bodies are not what they were 20 years ago, but that doesn’t mean they’re failing us. It’s changing. And when we shift our thinking and start adapting our actions to support this phase, that feeling of disconnection begins to ease.

It’s not about doing everything at once, but about starting small, staying consistent, and rebuilding that connection with your body over time.

Food is rarely just food, especially in South Asian households where love, culture, hospitality, and expectation are all tied up in it. How do you help women create healthier habits without losing that sense of identity or turning nourishment into guilt?

This is such an important conversation, because food is deeply emotional and cultural. I never approach it from a place of restriction or “cutting out” traditional foods. Instead, we look at balance and awareness.

How can we add rather than take away? Can we include more protein alongside traditional meals? Can we be more mindful of portions without feeling deprived? Can we create structure in our day so we’re not constantly grazing or skipping meals?

It’s about working with culture, not against it. When women realise they don’t have to give up the foods they love, but simply adapt how they eat them, the guilt disappears, and consistency becomes much easier.

My coaching is based on the 80/20 principle. You don’t need to eat perfectly 100%; eat with moderation & balance.

There can be a quiet grief in midlife when a woman realises the habits that worked in her 20s or 30s no longer serve her. How do you support women through that emotional shift, not just the practical one?

The first step is acknowledging that grief and that change. Because unless you recognise and accept what’s happening, you end up fighting against it, and that only creates more frustration.

I help women create a safe space where they understand that many of these changes are part of this phase of life and, in many ways, out of our control. But what is within our control is how we choose to respond, the actions we take to navigate it, and even to thrive through it.

We shift the focus. Instead of seeing it as something being taken away, we begin to ask different questions. Not “How much can I push or do?” but “What is my body capable of giving me right now?” From there, we take actions that support growth, strength, and self-focus.

And when women start to accept that these changes are a natural part of this phase, not something they’ve done wrong, the frustration softens, and those emotions become much easier to manage.

So many women in this season are not lacking knowledge; they are lacking capacity. They are depleted, stretched, and mentally carrying far too much. How important is mindset when it comes to creating change that actually lasts?

Mindset is everything. But at this stage, it’s not about pushing harder; it’s about being smarter. For many women, the old approach was more: more cardio, more time in the gym, more intensity. But now, it’s about asking a different question: What can I realistically do today with the energy I have?

Sometimes that might be a shorter workout, a walk, or a simple strength session that supports your body rather than draining it. It’s a shift away from unrealistic expectations and all-or-nothing thinking.

Because when women stop trying to do everything perfectly and start doing what’s sustainable, they become far more consistent, and that’s what creates real, lasting change.

Your own journey began with discovering what strength and lifestyle change could do for your life. How does that lived experience shape the way you speak to women who fear it is too late, or who have quietly given up on themselves?

My journey is a big part of how I connect with women. I didn’t come into this with everything figured out. I experienced the shifts, the challenges, the doubts, and what happens when you take small, consistent action.

So when a woman tells me it’s too late, I understand where that belief is coming from, but I also know it’s not true. I’ve seen what’s possible, not just in my own life but in the women I work with every day. It’s never about starting perfectly. It’s about starting where you are.

And often, midlife is actually the most powerful time to begin, because you bring greater awareness, greater resilience, and a deeper reason to want change.

If a South Asian woman in perimenopause is reading this while feeling exhausted, uncomfortable in her body, and unsure where to begin, what would you want her to hear from you clearly and compassionately?

I would want her to know this: You are not broken. And this is not the end of feeling like yourself. What you’re experiencing is real, and it’s valid, but it’s also a phase that you can learn to navigate with the right support and approach.

You don’t need to do everything at once. Start small. Start gently. But start. Take one step towards supporting your body, whether that’s moving a little more, nourishing yourself better, or simply choosing to prioritise yourself in a small way each day. Because this phase isn’t about losing who you are.

It’s about rediscovering yourself in a stronger, more grounded way.

What you’re feeling is valid. It’s real. And yes, your body is changing. But this is not something you’re going through alone. It’s a phase that generations before us have experienced, and generations after us will go through too. The difference now is that greater awareness, understanding, and support are available.

There are people like me who are here to guide women to start where they are and take small, meaningful steps forward. You don’t need to do everything at once.

Start small. Start gently. But start, because this phase isn’t about losing who you are.

It’s about learning how to navigate it with the right support and approach… and rediscovering yourself in a stronger, more grounded way.

What I want to sit with, after reading this conversation, is something Darpan says towards the end.

Start small. Start gently. But start.

It sounds almost too simple for how hard midlife can feel. But there is real wisdom in it. Because so many women in this community are not lacking in knowledge, they broadly know what would help them. What they are lacking is capacity. They are depleted. They are stretched. They are running on empty for everyone else and cannot find the entry point into doing something, anything, for themselves.

Darpan’s answer to that is not a programme or a plan. It is permission. Permission to begin with a 10-minute walk. Permission to add a little more protein to a meal you already love. Permission to stop fighting a body that is changing, and start listening to it instead.

For South Asian women who have spent a lifetime being told that their worth lies in what they give to others, that reorientation is not small. It is everything.

You are not broken. This is not the end of feeling like yourself. And you do not have to figure it out alone.

If you’d like to connect with Darpan and explore her work further, you can find her on Instagram at @deebee.fitness, where she shares practical, honest, and culturally grounded guidance for South Asian women navigating fitness and health in midlife.

The post Interview with Darpan Bhasin appeared first on THE SATTVA COLLECTIVE.

The Sattva Collective was founded to break that silence, and today we invite you to help us do exactly that.

Introducing My Sattva Story

My Sattva Story is a year-round storytelling campaign for South Asian women navigating midlife and menopause, and for everyone who loves, supports, or works alongside them.

The premise is simple. Share your story. In whatever form it takes. However long or short. However polished or raw. A single sentence that you have never said out loud. A paragraph about the moment something shifted. A reflection on what midlife has taken from you, and what it has quietly given back.

Want to contribute your story? → SHARE YOUR STORY HERE, and we will share it, with your permission and in your words, through the Sattva Collective platform. We would be honoured to share it.

Use the hashtag #MySattvaStory on social media.

There are no rules. There is no right way to tell your story. There is only the telling.

Why stories matter

Every time a South Asian woman speaks honestly about her midlife experience, something shifts. Not just for her, though that matters enormously, but for every woman who reads it and quietly exhales. Every woman who thinks, “I thought I was the only one.”

You are not the only one.

But the women who need to know that are often the ones who haven’t found us yet. They are the ones who will find us through a story shared by a friend, or a hashtag that catches their eye, or a post that someone forwards to the family WhatsApp group with a quiet: “Read this.”

Your story is what reaches her.

What you might share

There is no limit on what a Sattva Story can be. Some ideas to get you started:

• The moment you realised something was happening in your body, and you had no language for it

• The conversation you wish you could have had with your mother

• What midlife has asked of you that you weren’t prepared for

• What you have had to unlearn, about your body, your worth, your right to take up space

• The thing that finally helped, after years of struggling alone

• What you want your daughter, or the younger woman in your family, to know

Or simply: what is true for you right now. In this season. In this body. In this complicated, beautiful, difficult, extraordinary midlife.

Each month, we spotlight one story

Every month, The Sattva Collective will feature a My Sattva Story on our blog and Substack, shared in the contributor’s own words, with care and with the deep respect it deserves.

If you would like to be considered for a monthly spotlight, email your story to hello@thesattvacollective.org with My Sattva Story in the subject line.

And every 14th May: Sattva Day, your story becomes part of something bigger.

On Sattva Day, South Asian Women’s Midlife Awareness Day, observed every 14th May, we invite the entire community to flood social media with their Sattva Stories. One day, one hashtag, one collective refusal to stay silent.

Mark your calendar. 14th May 2027. It is not far away.

The silence around South Asian women’s midlife experience has been passed down for generations. It was never ours to keep. It was simply never questioned.

We are questioning it now.

#MySattvaStory: because your story is the one someone else is waiting to hear.

With love and Sattva,

Kiran x

Founder & Director

The Sattva Collective CIC

I was not supposed to end up here. Not in the UK. Not building organisations. Not writing about midlife and menopause and the particular, layered complexity of being a South Asian woman navigating the second half of her life. Not sitting across from women, virtually, in community spaces, in quiet corners of the internet, and saying the thing that most of us were never told: you are allowed to want more than this.

But life has a way of taking you exactly where you need to go, even when the route looks nothing like you planned.

I was born and raised in Norway, the daughter of Indian parents who carried their culture, their faith, and their expectations across continents and into a Scandinavian life. I grew up between worlds, Punjabi at home, Norwegian everywhere else, navigating the particular identity tension that so many of us in the diaspora know. Not quite belonging fully to either. Translating yourself constantly. Learning early that certain things were simply not discussed.

Bodies. Health. The internal life of women. The cost of caregiving. The truth of what a marriage actually feels like from the inside.

Not discussed.

In my early twenties, I entered an arranged marriage that ended quickly. I became a single mother. I cared for my mother through ovarian cancer, sat with her, held her, watched the illness take pieces of her that never came back, and then I grieved her. I carried all of it the way South Asian women are taught to carry things. Quietly. Competently. Without burdening anyone.

And then, in 2008, I moved to the UK with my daughter. We arrived with little more than hope, determination, and a deep inner knowing that something needed to begin again.

It did not begin easily.

The recession hit. Work fell through. There was debt, isolation, and the particular exhaustion of rebuilding a life from the ground up in a country that didn’t yet feel like home. I studied, trained, worked, wrote, and survived. There were more setbacks than I had space to process. More reinventions than I had planned for.

But I kept going. Because that is what South Asian women do. We keep going. We cope. We hold it all together. We do not make a fuss. And for a long time, that capacity for endurance felt like strength.

It was only later, in my forties, when my body began to change, and my identity began to shift and the life I had built started to feel, quietly and unmistakably, like it no longer quite fit, that I began to question whether endurance alone was enough. Whether surviving was the same as living. Whether the strength I had spent decades building was protecting me, or simply preventing me from ever asking what I actually needed.

Midlife asked me a different question. Not “How do I get through this?” but “How do I want to live now?“

That question changed everything. It led me to myself. To the work I was always meant to do. To Midlife by Design: a platform, a philosophy, a space for women who are ready to stop living by default and start designing something more honest, more nourishing, more aligned.

And it led me to found The Sattva Collective CIC, the UK’s first community-led initiative dedicated to supporting South Asian women through midlife and menopause.

I founded it because I knew from my own experience what it costs a South Asian woman to navigate this transition without a space that truly understands her. Without language for what she is going through. Without a community that reflects her specific cultural reality back at her.

I founded it with my daughter Khushi as Co-Director because, to me, legacy means building something that outlasts you. Something you pass between hands.

I am in my midlife now. Still in it. Still navigating it. My body has changed. My sense of myself has shifted. There are days when I feel more like myself than I ever have, and days when the grief and the complexity of this season press in close.

But I no longer carry it alone, and I no longer carry it in silence. That is the whole point.

Sattva: the Sanskrit word at the heart of everything I have built, speaks to clarity, purity, and balanced energy. The quiet centre that remains available beneath the noise of any season of life. I spent decades not knowing that the centre was mine to return to.

This organisation, this community, exists so that fewer South Asian women have to wait as long as I did to find their way back to it.

This is my Sattva Story. What is yours?

If you would like to share your story, we would be honoured to hear it. Drop me an email at hello@thesattvacollective.org, with the subject line: My Sattva Story #MySattvaStory

Kiran Singh is a multi-award-winning entrepreneur, Midlife Lifestyle & Menopause Wellness Coach, and the author of From “What Now?” to “Watch Me!”: Midlife by Design, Not by Default. She’s the host of the Midlife by Design Podcast, the creator of Midlife by Design and the Founder & Director of The Sattva Collective CIC.

Kiransinghuk.com | Kiransinghuk.substack.com | Thesattvacollective.org | Thesattvacollectivecic.substack.com

A movement. Quiet, determined, and growing.

Here is what May looked like for The Sattva Collective.

We turned one!

On 14th May 2026, The Sattva Collective CIC celebrated its first anniversary. One year since the website went live. One year since the first article was published. One year since a South Asian woman decided that the silence around midlife and menopause in our community had gone on long enough, and built something to break it.

In twelve months, over 60 articles have been published. An interview series featuring extraordinary voices. Monthly Sattva Women’s Circle gatherings. National media coverage across eight outlets. And a community of South Asian women who write to us to say, for the first time, that they no longer feel alone.

My daughter Khushi, our Co-Director, has been part of every step of this. Building this with her is the most meaningful thing I have done in my professional life. This is our legacy. And it is just beginning.

We founded Sattva Day!

Also on 14th May, because the date deserved more than one milestone, we announced the founding of Sattva Day: South Asian Women’s Midlife Awareness Day.

Observed every 14th May, Sattva Day is the UK’s first annual awareness day dedicated entirely to South Asian women navigating midlife and menopause. We have submitted it for listing on national and international awareness day calendars. The page is live. The hashtag, #SattvaDay, is in the world.

This day belongs to our community. And it will grow, year on year, into something that reaches the women who don’t yet know it exists.

We interviewed Mr Menopause

One of the most powerful conversations we have published this year landed in May.

Tafiq Akhir, known widely as Mr Menopause, is a man who has spent over 25 years championing menopause education, driven by the memory of watching his mother stand at an open window in a snowstorm, silently suffering through what no one had explained to her.

His interview covers the cultural silence South Asian women face, what happens when a woman finally gets an explanation for what her body has been doing, and what he wants South Asian men to understand about the women in their lives.

It is a remarkable conversation. I am grateful he shared it with us.

Read the interview →

Our Website and Substack had a full update

In May, we completed a comprehensive rewrite of every page on the TSC website, from the homepage to the directory, bringing everything in line with where the organisation is now, rather than where it was when we launched. The copy is sharper, the story is clearer, and the site finally reflects the full year of work behind it.

The Substack has a new description, a pinned Start Here post, and a growing archive that goes deeper every month.

If you haven’t visited the site recently, it is worth a look.

Explore the updated website → | Read the Substack →

We launched a LinkedIn Community

The Sattva Collective now has a LinkedIn group: a space for South Asian women, healthcare professionals, coaches, advocates, and allies who want to be part of this conversation.

If you are on LinkedIn and this work matters to you, we would love to have you with us.

Join the group →

And one more thing, coming in June.

Next month, we are launching something new. A year-round storytelling campaign, My Sattva Story, inviting South Asian women to share their midlife and menopause experiences, in their own words, at their own pace.

Because your story is the one that reaches the woman who doesn’t yet know she isn’t alone.

More details coming on 1st June. Watch this space.

Support our work

The Sattva Collective is a not-for-profit Community Interest Company. Everything we create is free and accessible to the community we serve. If our work has meant something to you, or to a woman you love, please consider supporting us.

Every contribution, at any level, goes directly into sustaining and expanding what we do.

Support The Sattva Collective →

Thank you for being here. For reading. For sharing. For being part of a community that is quietly, determinedly changing what midlife looks and feels like for South Asian women.

With love and Sattva,

Kiran x

Founder & Director

The Sattva Collective CIC thesattvacollective.org