What if the hardest season of your life isn’t the end of your story—but an invitation to become more fully who you were created to be?

In this inspiring episode of the Wise Divine Women Podcast, Dana Irvine welcomes Marisa Handler, author, creator, teacher, and coach, for a powerful conversation about spirituality, creativity, resilience, and the transformational journey back to your authentic self.

Marisa shares her personal experience of moving through a profound physical, emotional, and spiritual breakdown while living in India. What initially felt like everything falling apart ultimately became an initiation into a deeper way of living, creating, and connecting with the Divine.

Together, Dana and Marisa explore the concept of the dark night of the soul and why seasons of illness, grief, exhaustion, divorce, menopause, uncertainty, or major life transitions can become portals into greater clarity, purpose, and spiritual growth.

They discuss why so many women are conditioned to constantly give, achieve, caretake, and remain productive—while struggling to rest, receive, and listen inwardly.

Marisa also shares the deep connection between creativity and spirituality, explaining how our gifts flourish when we create space for stillness, authenticity, vulnerability, intuition, and trust.

This conversation is an invitation to slow down, return to yourself, and consider that the obstacle in front of you may hold the doorway to your next chapter.

• Understanding the dark night of the soul
• Why obstacles can become portals for transformation
• Reconnecting with yourself during major life transitions
• The importance of rest, stillness, and receiving
• Creativity as a spiritual practice
• Listening to your body and intuition
• Moving beyond caretaking and self-abandonment
• Vulnerability, authenticity, and finding your tribe
• Why women can struggle with visibility
• Faith, surrender, and trusting the process
• Finding purpose and legacy in midlife and beyond
• Making space to feel and process emotions
• Why slowing down can create clarity

Marisa shares a powerful idea inspired by jazz pianist Thelonious Monk:

“A genius is a person most like themselves.”

The more permission we give ourselves to become who we authentically are—to honour what nourishes us, what we love, what we are called to create, and what we are here to contribute—the more fully we step into our unique genius.

Marisa works with women at the intersection of creativity, spirituality, and transformation. Her nine-month program,

Live Your Creative Genius, helps women move beyond conditioning, reconnect with their authentic selves, and become the creators they were born to be.

Learn more about Marisa, her teachings, coaching, and programs at marisahandler.com.

For more conversations supporting women through health, faith, purpose, and their Age of Wisdom, visit DanaIrvine.com.

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What happens to your business when you’re ready to step away?

In this episode of the Wise Divine Women Podcast, Dana Irvine speaks with Matt Middendorp of VisionPoint Capital about Employee Stock Ownership Plans, or ESOPs, and how business owners can approach succession, retirement, wealth, and legacy with greater intention.

Matt explains how an ESOP can give qualifying U.S. business owners another option beyond selling to private equity or an outside buyer. Through an employee ownership structure, owners may be able to transition all or part of their company while protecting the culture, leadership, employees, and community they worked so hard to build.

The conversation explores why business transitions should be deliberate rather than something that simply “happens” to an owner. Matt shares how succession planning involves much more than the sale price. Owners also need to consider control, identity, profitability, employee retention, company culture, future leadership, and the legacy they want to leave behind.

Dana and Matt also discuss the potential benefits of employee ownership for team members, including increased engagement, stronger retention, and the opportunity to build long-term retirement wealth through the success of the company.

Matt explains what types of businesses may be a good fit for an ESOP, why profitability and management alignment matter, and how a feasibility study can help owners understand the potential financial impact before making a decision.

They also explore how employee ownership may apply to women-owned businesses, wellness practices, spas, yoga studios, retail companies, service businesses, and organizations with government contracts.

Business succession should be intentional. Your transition should reflect your financial goals, personal values, leadership wishes, and vision for the future.

Legacy is about more than money. For many owners, protecting employees, culture, and community matters just as much as the final sale price.

Employee ownership can align interests. Employees may become more connected to the success of the company when they participate in its long-term value.

ESOPs are not right for every business. Profitability, employee count, management alignment, business structure, and ownership goals all need to be considered.

There is rarely only one path forward. Matt encourages owners to explore their options rather than assuming a traditional sale is the only choice.

Matt Middendorp works with VisionPoint Capital, helping business owners explore employee ownership and determine whether an ESOP may align with their succession, financial, and legacy goals.

Learn more and take the ESOP readiness assessment at:

This conversation focuses primarily on ESOPs under U.S. law. Canadian business owners should seek guidance specific to Canadian employee ownership, tax, legal, and succession planning regulations.

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What if midlife isn’t a crisis at all—but an invitation to become more fully who you are?

In this inspiring episode of the Wise Divine Women Podcast, Dana Irvine welcomes holistic health and wellness coach Erin Dougherty for a powerful conversation about reinvention, menopause, the mind-body connection, energy healing, and learning to trust yourself through life’s transitions.

Erin shares her own winding journey from an 18-year career as an English teacher to clinical research and eventually holistic health coaching. After experiencing severe burnout during the pandemic, Erin made the courageous decision to leave teaching at age 47 without knowing exactly what would come next.

That leap became the beginning of a new chapter.

Erin reminds us that when we reinvent ourselves in midlife, we are not starting from zero. We carry our lived experiences, education, wisdom, challenges, relationships, successes, and failures with us. Every experience can become “fodder for your next move.”

Dana and Erin explore why women in perimenopause and menopause often need more than another one-size-fits-all wellness plan. Hormonal changes may collide with chronic stress, changing bodies, aging parents, children leaving—or remaining—in the home, career transitions, relationship changes, and years of putting everyone else first.

Erin’s whole-person approach begins by asking deeper questions: What is happening in your life? What do you value? What do you truly want to change? And perhaps most importantly—why does that change matter to you?

Rather than focusing only on numbers such as weight on the scale, Erin helps women connect their health goals to the life they actually want to live.

This conversation also explores two of Erin’s therapeutic tools: Reiki and Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT/tapping).

Erin shares how grief originally led her to Reiki after the sudden loss of her best friend. After experiencing a profound shift in grief she had carried for years, she became a Reiki practitioner and eventually a Reiki Master.

She also explains EFT tapping, a technique that combines tapping specific points on the body with intentional language and thought patterns. Erin uses EFT to help clients explore emotional blocks, repetitive thought patterns, stress, setbacks, and beliefs that may be keeping them stuck.

During perimenopause and menopause, when hormonal fluctuations may coincide with anxiety, overwhelm, disrupted sleep, changing emotions, body changes, and increased stress, reconnecting with the body can become an important part of wellness.

“Wherever you go, there you are.”

Erin encourages women to stop trying to escape themselves through the next house, job, relationship, goal, or version of the future. Instead, begin meeting yourself where you are—with compassion, curiosity, and love.

If this conversation speaks to you, share it with a friend, sister, or woman in your life who needs the reminder that midlife can be a rebirth—not a crisis. Reach out to Erin

Visit DanaIrvine.com to learn more about Dana’s work supporting women through breast health, hormones, functional wellness, and healthy aging.

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