About

Meet Caroline Swan

Author, Army combat veteran, psychedelic integration educator, and a woman willing to ask the questions we often spend years avoiding.

My name is Caroline Swan. My work grows from a life that has required me to begin again more than once, often while carrying responsibilities that could not simply be put down. I bring military service, recovery, scholarship, spiritual inquiry, and a considerable amount of hard earned honesty into the same conversation. I specialize in shadow work and uncovering potential, particularly when a person’s capacity for survival has become easier to recognize than their capacity for a different life.

I have a no bullshit approach to this work. I value direct questions, meaningful accountability, and the kind of compassion that leaves room for the truth. You can expect me to take your experience seriously and to ask what you are prepared to do with the awareness you gain. Your choices, boundaries, and pace remain yours.

The service, and the years that followed

I served in the United States Army during Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2006 and 2007. Today, I am a veteran with a 100 percent service connected disability rating. Military service remains part of my identity, and so does the long, complicated experience of living with its consequences.

My recovery story includes pharmaceutical addiction following what I experienced as overmedication during military and VA care. I have participated in 12 Step programs since 2009, and that ongoing involvement belongs in any honest account of who I am. Recovery has been part of my life across changing circumstances, responsibilities, and versions of myself.

That history informs the questions I bring to my work. What happens when the strategies that helped us endure begin to limit our choices? How do we acknowledge what happened while becoming more deliberate about what happens next? How do we build a life that has room for connection, purpose, and an identity beyond what we have survived?

Those questions matter to me personally. They also sit at the center of my writing and the conversations I have with others.

A body with its own history

I am a four time cancer survivor, and I am currently living with active cancer. I choose to say that plainly because my story is still unfolding. I continue to write, learn, and build while living with uncertainty.

I have also lost 100 pounds twice. I lost the weight, regained it, and lost it again. That history deserves more honesty than a single photograph or a tidy transformation story can provide.

I have studied nutrition since 2014. That study, and my own history with weight, became The Diva Reset™, where I provide nutrition and body care education for women. You can find that work at thedivareset.com.

Veterans have a place in that work too. Inside the Diva Reset app there is a private Veteran Room for verified women veterans, alongside the Military Diva Track and movement built for service-connected bodies. Verification is reviewed by me, and the room opens with Cohort One. And here at The Coming Home Press™, Veterans and military families take 20 percent off every book and journal with the code VETERAN20.

These experiences have shaped how I think about change and how carefully I approach another person’s circumstances. Visible outcomes reveal only part of a life. I want to understand the person living inside that life, including the effort, grief, responsibility, and possibility that a photograph cannot show.

The student behind the work

Study is an important part of my life. At the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, I was inducted into Phi Kappa Phi. Before UNLV, at Gillette College, I was inducted into Phi Theta Kappa. I also hold a psychedelic certification from Johns Hopkins University.

The ceremonial practices in my life are my own cultural practices, carried within my community, and I am permitted to facilitate ceremony. Since 2021 I have deepened that learning with my teachers and relatives. My work bridges science and spirit. I hold scientific study and ceremonial knowledge in the same hands without collapsing one into the other, and I respect the boundaries around what may be shared and with whom.

My interest is in what people do with insight once an experience has passed. What changes in their relationships, decisions, habits, and responsibilities? What support do they need to translate an important realization into a life they can actually sustain? Those questions guide my focus on preparation, integration, and personal development.

Yes, there is a roller derby chapter

Roller derby took up three chapters of my life, not one. I skated with A’Salt Creek Roller Girls, where I served as Vice President, with the Rousta Bout It Betties, and with The Coal Miners Daughters, where I served as President. My derby name was Cat‑Astrophic Diva, which probably tells you something about my willingness to take up space. That part of my history belongs beside the military service, the academic work, and the recovery years.

There is room in my story for intensity, humor, competition, and personality. I want you to know the woman behind the books as well as the experiences that inform them. You will encounter someone who takes this work seriously and still has a sense of humor.

“I promise to be a physical disturbance in your life” carries that derby spirit into how I describe myself. In my work, that means inviting you to move beyond an interesting conversation and consider what changes in your actual life. It might begin with a boundary you practice, a decision you stop postponing, or a pattern you become willing to examine.

What I mean by shadow work

When I speak about shadow work, I mean examining the parts of ourselves we have learned to conceal, reject, defend, or leave unexplored. That can include anger, grief, shame, and protective habits. It can also include ambition, creativity, tenderness, and strengths we have not felt free to express.

My focus is on helping people ask more honest questions about the patterns shaping their lives. What are you protecting? What does that protection cost you now? What becomes possible when you have more choices available?

Uncovering potential requires attention to the whole person. I care about what you have endured, what matters to you, and what you are ready to practice. Awareness becomes useful when we can begin to recognize its effect on ordinary decisions.

My directness comes with respect for consent and personal agency. You have the right to disagree, ask questions, and decide whether this approach fits you. The work should support your ability to make informed choices.

I am the one you come to when you have tried everything else and are ready to do the work.

Why I write

Through The Coming Home Press™ and my Life After Survival™ work, I explore preparation, integration, identity, and the complicated process of coming home to ourselves. Before the Medicine™ brings that concern into education for veterans considering psychedelic experiences. My writing is shaped by the questions that remain when a powerful experience ends and daily life resumes.

I write for people who recognize something of themselves in those questions. Veterans and their families have a particular place in this work. So do readers who have carried substantial responsibility while privately wondering what a different relationship with themselves might look like.

My story gives you context for my work. It does not determine what your experience should be or promise that your path will resemble mine. What I offer is education, honest inquiry, and a commitment to treating change as something we practice.

Begin a conversation

You are welcome to begin with a book, bring your questions to a conversation, or invite me to speak with your community. You do not need a polished version of your story before you arrive. We can begin with what you know, what you are questioning, and what you want to understand.