Interview with Parita Kuttappan, Founder of Awarify Coaching

There’s a particular kind of woman I meet again and again in this community. She’s capable. Responsible. The one people rely on. She’s the glue in her family, the steady one at work, the fixer, the organiser, the emotional container. And then midlife arrives. Not as a breakdown, necessarily. More like a quiet reckoning. A shift in energy, hormones, identity, and tolerance. Suddenly, what used to be manageable starts to feel heavy. The brain fog feels personal. The fatigue feels like failure. The irritability feels like a flaw. And because she’s a South Asian woman, she often carries it in silence, convincing herself she just needs to try harder. This is why I wanted to speak with Parita Kuttappan, founder of Awarify Coaching.

Parita supports professional women and working mums through the internal patterns that keep them depleted, overgiving, and stuck in high-functioning survival mode. In this conversation, we talk about what really changes in midlife and menopause, why so many women feel alone in it, and how mindset and energy management can become a form of self-respect rather than another thing to perform.
If you’ve been feeling stretched thin, emotionally reactive, or like you’ve lost your grip on yourself lately, I want you to read this gently. Not as homework. As a mirror.

When you work with professional women and working mums, what do you notice shifts most in midlife and peri/menopause, and why do so many women think it is just them?

I think what shifts for many women in this phase of life is the push and pull of “I don’t care what anyone thinks of me” and “But what will people say?” The latter is a part of our wiring since childhood, and the freedom we begin to claim comes when we hit midlife. Many women think something’s wrong with them for feeling both of these things at the same time, but that’s not the case. It takes a lot of time and grace to stand in your authenticity, and we have to give ourselves the space to do so in a way that works for us.

South Asian women are often high-functioning and quietly depleted. What are the most common thought patterns you see that keep them stuck in survival mode?

Should shows up a lot for South Asian Women; “I should be a better mom; my house should be cleaner; I should cook for my family every night; I should be able to find time to exercise and take care of myself; I should be a better wife.” And the list goes on. As we say in coaching, let’s stop shoulding on ourselves! This is what keeps us stuck. We need to start to acknowledge and validate ourselves for what we’re doing instead of living based on an outdated societal construct.

You talk about energy as a kind of currency. In midlife, when hormonal changes and life responsibilities collide, what does managing energy actually look like in real life?

This is going to sound way too simple, but I believe the simple act of checking in with ourselves is how we manage our energy from a day-to-day perspective, regardless of what else is going on. So, for example, asking, “How do you feel emotionally in this moment? How do you feel physically? Any pain or aches? How do you feel mentally? What thoughts have consumed you so far today? What can you let go of?”

If you’re honest with your answers, they will give you the data and information you need to figure out the right next step for you. If you’re doing ok, keep going. If there’s something that needs your attention, take your next small action about that. We often feel depleted of energy because we don’t pay attention to what we need from a foundational perspective. Start doing the inner work to fill your cup and keep it full!

How does people-pleasing show up differently for South Asian women, and what is the first boundary you usually encourage them to practise?

For South Asian women, people pleasing ends up as resentment later in life. Human beings, in general, can control only one thing. Ourselves. Our own thoughts, our own feelings, our own actions. We can influence some people some of the time, but we can’t control anyone. Not what they think, not what they feel, and not how they act. When those people-pleasing tendencies are activated, we fall into this idea of “Well, I am doing everything I can as I believe they would want me to, but they are still not changing.” This then turns into resentment towards the other person, but also towards ourselves.

What do you say to the woman who feels like she is losing herself in menopause but cannot afford to slow down because everyone depends on her?

If you can’t make time to slow down and take care of yourself now, are you willing to make time for sickness tomorrow? Not slowing down leads to more and more stress. And research shows that increased stress can lead to disease, and in women, that looks like autoimmune disease.

I recently heard someone share how not slowing down in her 40s led to a Lupus diagnosis, which forced her to slow down for six years. That was six years where she had to sacrifice her work, her hobbies, her friendship, and even family time.

Confidence can wobble in midlife, especially when the body changes. What is your approach to rebuilding confidence without forcing toxic positivity or hustle?

I like to frame confidence as the output and not the input. If we want to feel more confident in our bodies (and I’m not just talking about size and shape), we have to do the mental, emotional and physical work to get there. Confidence is the prize for walking the plank. You don’t need confidence to walk the plank.

Imposter syndrome is already common in high-achieving women. How do menopause symptoms like brain fog, anxiety, and disrupted sleep amplify it, and how do you coach through that?

Firstly, I believe that imposter syndrome is a myth that’s tricked us into thinking we are the only ones not capable. In fact, that feeling is just a part of being human. By putting a label on it, we are likely to feel more stuck. Remove the label and address the feeling for what it is.

In menopause, feeling like an imposter can be amplified. If that’s the case, it’s good to pause and ask yourself if you really don’t know what you’re doing, or if it’s a hormonal fluctuation/lack of sleep. Something else mid-life women need to consider is expanding the definition of competence from productive, speedy, and available to discerning, clear, strategic thinkers, delegators, etc. True leadership means listening to our mind and body and doing what feels right in the moment.

Many South Asian women are carrying cultural expectations, invisible labour, and sometimes intergenerational trauma. How do you help clients untangle what is theirs versus what they inherited?

I do an exercise with clients called the “Who Bag.” The Who Bag is an imaginary bag we carry around with us from birth. It’s filled with all kinds of messages from our parents, family, friends, society, media, etc. Later in life, when thinking about what’s ours to carry, the question becomes “What serves me right now?” Our job is to go through this bag every so often and sift through the messages. What doesn’t serve us gets thrown out, and whatever messages are working can stay.

What is one simple daily self-check-in you would recommend for a woman in peri/menopause who feels overwhelmed, reactive, or emotionally ‘all over the place’?

A ten-second pause does wonders. When overwhelm takes over the mind and the body, we can pause and ask ourselves, “What does this moment require of me right now?” Answer honestly and act accordingly. We aren’t broken. We just need to create space to feel and think.

If a midlife South Asian woman is ready to design her next chapter but feels guilty for wanting more, what would you want her to hear, clearly and directly?

I am a big believer that the guilt females, from all over the world, feel is a societal construct to keep them stuck. Guilt implies that you did something wrong. If you did in fact do something wrong, you are guilty. But most of the guilt that women feel comes from a clash of values. You value time with your girlfriends, but that can clash with your value of family. You value professional achievement, but this can clash with your value of family. It’s ok to value two seemingly opposite things. That doesn’t make you a bad person. It just means that sometimes we have to make hard choices. That’s all there is to it!

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What I appreciate about Parita’s work is how simple it is, in the best way. Not simplistic. Not overly polished. Just honest. A reminder that so much of what we call being dramatic, being difficult, being too much is often a woman who has been holding too much for too long.

Midlife and menopause don’t create a new personality. They expose the truth. Where you’re overextended. Where your boundaries are porous. Where you’ve been living on borrowed energy.

If this conversation brought something up for you, let that be information, not self-criticism. You don’t need to fix yourself. You might simply need a new way of supporting yourself in this season. And if you’re a South Asian woman reading this, I’ll say it clearly: you’re not broken, and you’re not alone. You’re allowed to want more ease. More steadiness. More space. You’re allowed to design your next chapter from a place of self-trust, not self-sacrifice.

If you’d like to connect with Parita and explore her work further, you can find her at Awarify Coaching.
And as always, if you’re reading this in the middle of a hard week, take one small thing from today’s conversation and let it be enough. One boundary. One pause. One honest sentence. One choice that brings you back to yourself.