What do you do when the career that defined you leaves you running on empty and your body says enough? In episode 280 of Joy Found Here, coach Erin Dougherty shares how burnout and a tough perimenopause pushed her out of an 18-year teaching career, into clinical research, then coaching midlife women. She covers whole-person health, finding comfort in Reiki after loss, building a community of 100+ women, and swapping rigid goals for flexible focus.

In This Episode, You Will Learn:

3:50 Burning out, quitting teaching with no plan B, and finding clinical research

11:55 Why the body says enough, and how perimenopause forced her to rest

14:33 Losing a childhood friend, discovering Reiki, and what it involves

19:58 Health beyond diet and exercise, and why she coaches midlife women

21:46 How the Sage and Sip Circle grew from coffee meetup to 100+ women

28:15 Helping clients beat analysis paralysis by starting with values

37:56 Why "focus" beats "goals," and how sleep stalls weight loss

42:32 Grounding habits: play, nature and guided body gratitude meditation

51:32 Auditing your energy in midlife so your cup can overflow

52:50 Her children's book with her nephew, plus a free discovery call

Erin Dougherty is a certified health and wellness coach, Reiki Master, speaker and author, and the founder of Erin Dougherty Coaching. Known as the Empowering Habits Coach, she works online with women in midlife to build lasting habits around weight loss, stress, social connection and perimenopause and menopause symptoms. Her approach blends behavior change coaching with mind-body practices. Before coaching, Erin spent 18 years as an English teacher and then worked as a clinical research coordinator on neurological drug trials, which gave her an analytical eye and a whole-person view of health. She founded the Sage and Sip Circle, a Meetup community for women over 40 with more than 100 members, and wrote the children's book Eugene the Shy Dinosaur with her nephew.

In this episode, Erin Dougherty shares how burnout and a tough perimenopause led her to leave teaching at 47 with no backup plan, and how clinical research turned her toward coaching. She explains why she sees health as more than diet and exercise, how Reiki helped her through grief, and how the Sage and Sip Circle grew from a handful of people to over 100. Erin describes a coaching approach that starts with values and swaps "goals" for "focus," and shares grounding habits like time in nature, guided meditation and jumping for bone density, and urges listeners to audit where their energy goes.

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Book: - Eugene the Shy Dinosaur

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