Chapter 7. Leadership Thread Seven: Embodied

A sense of integrity is expressed when one weaves stories told to self, about self, into meaning-making events that facilitate transformative learning experiences. The expression of said learnings reveals who we are as elders. Significantly, embodied leadership helps one “move through life powerfully and compassionately” (Schuyler, in , p. 240) and furthers women’s wisdom. The author of this chapter utilizes interpretive autoethnographic methodology to explore stories told, practices embraced, and lessons learned by an older woman during, and after, the global COVID-19 pandemic. Her continuing journey toward wellness and wholeness, i.e., integrity, within the context of cultural assumptions about women and aging will be examined. Several concepts linked to wellness will be explored, literature and resources applicable to each construct reviewed, and assumptions and evidence-based interventions that contribute to an embodied leadership thread will be considered within a framework grounded in aging well. The chapter concludes with an examination of the potential benefits of “shifting the conversation” about women and aging to recognize its complexities, as well as a discussion of the societal advantages of adopting a new paradigm of aging that honors the voices and experiences of elders as wisdom-building constructs.