Healing Through Words: When a Doctor Writes Women’s Lives

What if the most powerful kind of healing doesn’t come from a prescription, but from a story that makes you feel seen?

In a world where women are constantly told to “manage it all” (quietly, perfectly, and without complaint), there’s something deeply validating about hearing another woman say: your feelings count… even the small ones. And that’s exactly what this conversation with Dr Shalini Mullick delivers, warmth, wisdom, and the reminder that writing can be both an art and a lifeline.

In the latest episode of The AboutHer Show, we sit down once again with Dr Mullick, doctor, author of three books, and a woman who has found a rare rhythm between two demanding callings: medicine and storytelling. She doesn’t treat writing as a hobby she “does on the side.” Instead, she speaks about it as a space where she gets to reclaim herself, where she calls the shots, listens to her inner world, and gives voice to women’s emotional landscapes.

This episode fits perfectly under our new theme: Healing Through Words, because Shalini’s work proves that sometimes, the act of storytelling is not just creative… it’s restorative.

Meet Dr Shalini Mullick: Doctor. Author. Story Listener.

Dr Shalini Mullick’s journey into writing didn’t begin as a grand plan or a carefully charted career pivot. It began the way many personal revolutions do quietly.

She describes how she went through a rough personal phase and began writing small pieces, short reflections, little paragraphs. She posted them online, and something interesting happened: people responded. They told her they liked her voice. They wanted more.

That validation mattered, because it gave her the courage to take herself seriously.

But the turning point didn’t just come from external encouragement. It came from her own realisation: she enjoyed writing because it was the one thing she did purely for herself. Unlike the structure of professional life, where even expertise can become routine, writing offered her freedom. The page became a space to breathe.

And then, like many of us, she faced the inevitable question: How do you become a writer when you’ve never been trained to be one?

Her answer was simple and incredibly modern: she learned. She joined writing groups, took courses, found communities, and absorbed everything she could, especially during the COVID period, when so much of the literary world moved online. She approached the craft like a student again: curious, hungry, determined.

When Medicine Meets Storytelling

One of the most striking parts of this conversation is how naturally Shalini connects her medical life to her creative life.

She explains that in medicine, the first thing a doctor learns is to take a patient’s “history”, which is really just another word for story. Every patient walks into a hospital with a narrative: what happened, when it started, how it feels, what they fear.

That habit of deep listening becomes a bridge into writing.

Also Read: Building Sisterhood One Walk at a Time- The City Girls Who Walk Delhi Story

Shalini also speaks about how medicine trains you to observe, carefully, precisely, and with nuance. In a diagnosis, small details matter. In storytelling, they matter too. The ability to notice expressions, dynamics, silences, emotional shifts, these become material for her books.

And perhaps most importantly, she describes what many of us forget: doctors witness people at their most vulnerable. Especially in a government setup with diverse socioeconomic realities, she sees lives that aren’t always visible in privileged spaces, women arriving to deliver without a single prenatal visit, families reacting differently based on gender, the emotional undercurrents of inequality playing out in real time.

What might feel frustrating in the medical moment becomes profound in the writer’s mind: Where is this person coming from? What formed these beliefs? What shaped their choices?

That’s where stories are born.

Key Takeaways from the Episode

1) You can’t add without subtracting

Shalini shares a practical truth that many women need to hear: you cannot keep adding dreams to your life without removing something. For her, that meant giving up TV time and using that space to write, or even to think and plot.

2) Delegation is not optional

You can’t do everything. And you shouldn’t try. She highlights delegation as essential, especially when balancing work, home, family responsibilities, and creative ambition.

3) Women-centric writing isn’t an “agenda”, it’s life

When asked why her books centre women, Shalini’s answer is powerful: life. She speaks about intersectionality, conditioning, and the ways womanhood shapes choices, sometimes so subtly that women believe the choices are entirely their own.

4) Patriarchy is a “collective gaslighting”

She frames patriarchy as a system so deeply embedded that it becomes invisible. The barrier isn’t women’s lack of strength, it’s women not believing they have strength.

5) Storytelling validates the “small” things

One of the most resonant parts of the episode is her point that even small experiences matter, like never being asked what you want on a family vacation, or losing touch with tiny preferences over years. When women hear these stories, they feel recognised, and that recognition is the beginning of empowerment.

Quote to Remember

“The main problem is not that a woman does not have the strength. The main problem is that a woman does not believe she has the strength.”

Listen to the Full Episode

Spotify: https://url-shortener.me/2TUL
Apple Podcasts: https://url-shortener.me/2TUS
Audible: https://url-shortener.me/2U4M
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1O_-ItANPXA&t=6s

Final Word: Why This Episode Matters

This conversation isn’t just about writing books or building a career. It’s about the quiet courage of women who give themselves permission, to want more, to choose differently, to reclaim small joys, and to build identities that don’t fit into neat boxes.

Dr Shalini Mullick shows us that healing can take many forms. Some heal with medicine. Some heal with stories. And some, like her, do both.

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Because stories don’t just entertain,
they heal, they awaken, and they empower.