Ever thought of hitting the road in a retrofitted van? Victoria Lee Starr did it in midlife and found her true self. She became a guide for women through the sacred season of midlife reinvention, helping them reclaim self-trust, inner safety and their authentic power. Using transformational breathwork, guided microdosing support, somatic ritual and emotional excavation, her work meets women in the places most avoid... the unraveling, the burning, the falling apart...and transforms those moments into a becoming.

Victoria’s own awakening began in Costa Rica, when everything she thought she needed to feel loved, safe or worthy started to collapse. What looked like failure was actually her Rite of Passage into self-trust, honesty and the woman you become when you stop abandoning yourself.

After leaving an emotionally abusive relationship, Victoria rebuilt her life from the ground up and spent nearly four years living full-time in her Ram Promaster van with her dog, Olivia Grace. Her van became her initiation chamber, a sacred space to learn to trust her body, intuition, truth and the quiet voice that had been waiting decades to lead.

Victoria works through psychological wisdom, nervous system healing, transformational breathwork, guided microdosing, intuitive channeling, somatic rituals and emotional excavation. She helps women fully be themselves in midlife, showing them that falling apart is often the beginning of becoming.

She calls herself a "spiritual outlaw" because she refuses to heal or lead within the confines of traditional systems, surface-level fixes or fluff. "This work is not about bypassing the hard stuff, it’s about entering the sacred, messy, untamed places where real healing lives," Victoria says. "I walk between realms of emotional, spiritual, somatic and psychological and I'm not here to guide women to think their way into peace. I guide you to feel, to embody and to remember. A spiritual outlaw breaks the rules of what healing is 'supposed to' look like; doesn’t fix you — she walks with you as you unlearn the lies and reclaim your soul; channels deep wisdom that comes from lived experience, intuition and higher intelligence — not just certifications; uses non-linear tools like breathwork, somatic ritual and emotional excavation to guide people back to their power; refuses spiritual bypassing and meets you in the root of it — trauma, lineage, nervous system patterns — and helps transmute them into gold; and is wildly intuitive, slightly rebellious, deeply grounded and divinely guided."

In this episode, we talk about:

--Midlife as a Rite of Passage

--Why women in their 40s, 50s and 60s are unraveling and why this is actually the beginning of their becoming.

--Being a Spiritual Outlaw

--The future of healing beyond fluffy positivity and patriarchal conditioning

--Breathwork + Microdosing using natural, non-addictive medicine for Emotional Reinvention

--A grounded, embodied approach for women ready to reclaim self-trust and inner safety.

--Living on the Road After Burning Down Your Life

--Lessons from four years of nomadic living about freedom, intuition and rebuilding identity.

--Rebirth After Divorce, Abuse and Identity Collapse

--How to trust yourself again when everything familiar has fallen away.

She offers free resources:

Her Guided Meditation Collection consists of short, soul-nourishing meditations for midlife transformation:

https://www.victorialeestarr.com/free-meditation

Breathe with Intention: Your Toolkit

Practical breathwork exercises to reclaim calm, clarity and self-trust:

https://www.victorialeestarr.com/free-breathe-toolkit

Hot Flashes Breathwork

A focused practice for navigating menopause with embodiment and empowerment:

https://www.victorialeestarr.com/hotflashes

Learn more:

Website: https://www.victorialeestarr.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/victorialeestarr/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/victorialeestarr

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/victoria-starr-68495a280/

Oona Metz is a nationally recognized therapist and author who has spent more than 30 years studying the strange, tender, deeply human ways we navigate relationships, self-abandonment and change. Her new book, Unhitched: The Essential Divorce Guide for Women (Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster), launched in January and has already earned remarkable attention. Gayle King praised it on CBS Mornings, Maria Shriver highlighted it in her newsletter, Time Magazine ran an exclusive excerpt, and it’s been featured on CBS News and NPR's Morning Edition. It also quickly became a top divorce book on Amazon.

She speaks candidly about why women initiate nearly 70% of divorces, and how that statistic is less about endings and more about awakening — about the cumulative weight of emotional labor, the slow erosion of self and the eventual decision to choose alignment, truth and self-trust.

Oona’s work is deeply aligned with conversations about reinvention and becoming. In this episode, we discuss:

• the quiet realization that something needs to change
• the emotional courage it takes to leave a life that once made sense
• the nonlinear path from grief to clarity to self-reclamation
• how women rediscover identity and purpose in midlife
• the unexpected freedom and possibility that can follow loss
• what it means to consciously step into a new version of yourself

Her five-phase model of divorce grief offers a thoughtful framework for understanding the emotional arc of transformation — not just as loss, but as a process of becoming.

As both a therapist and someone who rebuilt her own life after divorce, Oona brings a rare blend of clinical depth and lived wisdom to conversations about resilience, reinvention and the deeply human process of beginning again.

Oona is a Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker, a Certified Group Psychotherapist and a Fellow of the American Group Psychotherapy Association. She has three decades of clinical experience and specializes in treating women navigating divorce. She leads three weekly Divorce Support Groups and is the founder of the Beacon Group Fellowship, a program which trains mental health professionals across the country to lead divorce groups. She has given over 100 talks and workshops locally, nationally and internationally. 

Learn more:

www.oonametz.com

https://www.instagram.com/oonametz/

https://www.facebook.com/womennavigatingdivorce/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/oona-metz-licsw-cgp-6a14a41b/

https://www.youtube.com/@OonaMetz

https://www.oonametz.com/book-unhitched

https://time.com/7344525/why-women-divorce/

https://www.cbsnews.com/video/why-more-women-are-initiating-divorce/

"Aging is the ultimate triumph of living," says ageism & longevity specialist, Helen Hirsh Spence. Helen is a later-in-life Canadian entrepreneur, speaker and age-equity advocate. She also is a leader navigating the demographic shift; TEDx and global speaker, author; age provocateur & mindset shifter; older & multigenerational workforce expert; and founder of Top Sixty Over Sixty.

Top Sixty Over Sixty is a social enterprise advancing age inclusion, longevity literacy, and healthy ageing across workplaces and communities. Helen consults with businesses, communities and individuals to help them become age-ready for their longer lifespans. 

Her TEDx talk on embracing a longevity mindset was among the most viewed globally the month it aired. Helen urges us in the Talk to reject the longstanding negative perspective on aging and, instead, to embrace our later years as a time filled with growth, promise and opportunity.

Top Sixty Over Sixty advances longevity literacy by providing the tools and training to eliminate age bias and promote age diversity. Top Sixty drives success by resetting thinking, unlocking potential and leveraging the talent of all generations.

"We provide consulting, speaking and training to businesses. We help reframe the age narrative, address age biases and myths, and leverage the talent of the multigenerational workforce. Through coursework, training and coaching, we show mature adults how to renew and reinvest their knowledge, skills and experience to reinvent themselves with purpose.

Created in 2017, Top Sixty Over Sixty focused on older Canadians and encouraged them to reinvent themselves to meet new work and entrepreneurial challenges. Top Sixty Over Sixty continues to evolve.  It works with progressive businesses and organizations to maximize efficiency, innovation, and prosperity.  We offer practical guidance on how to engage an ageing workforce and create stronger sales opportunities for ageing customer segments.

We do this in four ways:

• We motivate and re-skill older adults by introducing an entrepreneurial mindset.
• We help employers transform their multigenerational workforces into innovative, intergenerational teams.
• We advise businesses on how to attract and retain a diversely aged workforce.
• We show progressive businesses how to avoid age-bias in their branding, hiring, and communications.

Top Sixty Over Sixty provides original and curated resources of interest to businesses and organizations, as well as individuals.  These include a monthly newsletter, The 360, blogs and online resources.  Events and workshops are held as programming and demand dictate."

Helen's book, ReSet: Making the Most of the Rest of Your Life, reframes longevity as a triumph—not a burden—and offers a bold roadmap for thriving in a century-long life. It challenges the outdated notion that age is merely a number and introduces a richer understanding of what it means to grow older this century. It exposes the hidden architecture of ageism—in our policies, workplaces, media and even our own thinking—and dismantles the myths of inevitable decline. Most importantly, it moves from insight to action.

Through self-awareness, values alignment, purpose discovery, and an entrepreneurial mindset, readers learn how to redefine their personal brand, cultivate optimism and spot new opportunities for growth and contribution. This is a roadmap to living longer and better, shifting mindsets from viewing aging as decline to viewing it as a time for new growth.

Helen is helping us learn how to enjoy our "longevity bonus," since we generally are living two to three decades longer than our predecessors. Every day is a gift! Use it well!

Learn more:

https://www.topsixtyoversixty.com/  

 TED Talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwhOQRduE7c

Age sense/ newsletter on LI:

https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/age-sense-7377782746225582080/ 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/helen-hirsh-spence-a029a010/

Johanna Danaher is a mindset, life and leadership coach who helps high-achieving pre-retirees and mid-life professionals navigate one of the most overlooked transitions of all: who you become after you leave a long-held career. After more than 25 years in high-level corporate leadership, guiding global talent, culture and leadership strategy at Pfizer, Johanna understands how deeply identity can become intertwined with a title—and how destabilizing it can feel when that chapter comes to an end. Through her coaching practice, Anchor to Aspire™, she now supports pre-retirees and midlife professionals as they navigate the emotional and psychological side of transition, helping them move forward with clarity, energy and intention.

Johanna’s work blends evidence-based tools with deeply human insight, drawing from Energy Leadership™, the Energy Leadership Index (ELI), Positive Intelligence®, Whole Brain Thinking and the science of happiness. She helps clients recognize how they show up on their best days versus under stress—and how small mindset and energy shifts can radically change their experience of retirement, reinvention and life transitions.

What sets Johanna apart is her ability to honor paradox: ambition and ease, resilience and softness, structure and surrender. Her clients—executives, public-sector leaders and long-tenured professionals—aren’t looking to stop growing; they want their next chapter to feel meaningful rather than performative, intentional rather than fear-driven.

A former marine biologist turned HR leader and now entrepreneur, Johanna’s nonlinear path shapes a coaching approach rooted in possibility. Whether she’s guiding a team through reinvention or helping someone redefine what success means in midlife, her work is both strategic and soulful—anchoring people to who they are so they can rise into what’s next.

Some topics we cover in this episode:

--How to prepare emotionally for retirement

--How to maintain identity after retirement by determining what you value

--Why do so many people rush to stay busy after retirement and the cost of doing so

--How pre-retirees can learn to shift and reframe fear and uncertainty about their identity or their future—and use it as fuel for an intentional and empowered "rewirement"

--How pausing can be a superpower

Learn more:

Website: https://anchortoaspire.com/ 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johannadanaher/ 

IG: https://www.instagram.com/anchortoaspire/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/anchortoaspire/

Blog: https://anchortoaspire.com/blog-posts

Gail Rubin, CT, The Doyenne of Death®, is a pioneering death educator based in New Mexico. A doyenne is a woman considered senior in a group who knows a lot about a particular subject. Gail is a Certified Thanatologist (a death and grief educator) and speaker who uses humor and films to get end-of-life conversations started. 

She’s the author of the award-winning books A Good Goodbye: Funeral Planning for Those Who Don’t Plan to Die, Kicking the Bucket List: 100 Downsizing and Organizing Things to Do Before You Die, Hail and Farewell: Cremation Ceremonies, Templates and Tips, and The Before I Die Festival in a Box. Her next book, 98.6 Mortality Movies to See Before You Die, was published April 2026. 

She is also the coordinator of the award-winning Before I Die New Mexico Festival, a pioneer of the Death Cafe movement in the United States, and host of the Mortality Movies TV series and Mortality Movie Night events. 

She’s a two-time TEDx speaker. Her first talk in 2015, “A Good Goodbye,” focused on the importance of starting end-of-life conversations before there’s a death in the family. The second talk in 2025, “We offer our pets a good death, why not our people?” is about medical aid in dying.  

The Association for Death Education and Counseling recognized her work with their 2024 Community Educator Award. Her motto is, “Talking about sex won’t make you pregnant. Talking about funerals won’t make you dead.”

Learn more:

https://agoodgoodbye.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gailrubinctagoodgoodbye/

Facebook (personal page): https://www.facebook.com/gail.rubin.3/ 

Facebook (A Good Goodbye page): https://www.facebook.com/AGoodGoodbye/

Instagram: gail.rubin.doyenne.of.death

X: @TheFamilyPlot

Ilene Berns-Zare, PsyD, PCC, is a life and leadership coach, psychologist, educator, and author who helps people navigate their lives with resilience, meaning, mindfulness, and well-being. Ilene is the author of the new book: You’re Not Too Old, & It’s Not Too Late: Weekly Practices of Meaning, Mindfulness & New Possibilities at Midlife and Beyond (MSI Press, released January 2026). Designed as an accessible 52-week companion, this inspiring book invites Baby Boomers and Gen Xers to reimagine aging with confidence, vitality, and purpose. Drawing on research-informed tools and practical reflections, it encourages readers to tap into inner strengths, embrace meaningful shifts, and discover everyday “ah-ha” moments that spark renewal.

Ilene writes the blog Flourish and Thrive for PyschologyToday.com and is adjunct faculty in Georgetown University’s Transformational Leadership Program. Her passion is inspiring people to flourish in life and work by bringing mind, body, and spirit into flow with their strengths, purpose, and potential. She has a PsyD in psychology, master’s degree in human resources development, and PCC certification from the International Coaching Federation. Her research interests span positive psychology concepts, resilience, mindfulness, spirituality, and personal/professional development, including the joys and adventures of adulthood and growing older. Ilene also is a facilitator for the Wise Aging program, a national initiative based in the Jewish tradition.

On this episode, we discuss:

▪ Strengthening Resilience and Wellbeing in These Challenging Times

▪ Invigorating Your Second Half of Life with Greater Resilience, Flourishing & Possibilities

▪ Choosing to Live Your Daily Life with Greater Joy, Meaning, & Wellbeing

▪ Hitting Your Stride at Midlife & Beyond: Strategies to Jump-Start Flourishing & Wellbeing

▪ Navigating Midlife & Beyond with Meaning, Mindfulness and New Beginnings

▪ Re-energizing & Flourishing During Life’s Transitions and Changes

▪ Yes, I Can: Recharging Your Life-Work Balance

▪ Invigorating Happiness: Tips for Flourishing with Insights from Positive Psychology

▪ Day-to-Day Mindful Living to Inspire Flourishing After Retirement

Learn more:

https://ileneberns-zare.com/

https://go.authorsguild.org/members/5549

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/experts/ilene-berns-zare-psyd

https://ibzcoaching.com/blog/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/ilene-berns-zare-psyd-pcc-cec-9062a39b/

Emily Lampkin is a highly sought-after speaker, author and advisor, known for empowering women leaders in corporate, non-profit, education, and political sectors to hone their skills and maximize opportunities. With a pragmatic style and actionable advice, she has trained thousands of women globally through her dynamic, one-of-a-kind “Women Leaders Series” workshop. The Women Leaders Series is the culmination of more than 25 years of experience advising women leaders on ways they can perfect their skills to maximize opportunities. Emily has trained thousands of women across the country and the world. 

Recognized as one of Washington, DC's most respected connectors, Emily has worked in American politics for thirty years.  Her passion is electing more women to office. Emily excels at threading policy and cultural priorities into communications that resonate. A frequent media contributor on major TV networks, radio, podcasts and social platforms, Emily is committed to building a multi-decade pipeline of diverse female leaders. She speaks at universities and schools, including Georgetown University and the London School of Economics, inspiring the next generation of women.

Emily’s book, Duct Tape and White Lies: A Woman’s Practical Guide to Success (March 3, 2026), speaks directly to women who have built successful careers, spent decades caring for others, and are now ready to redefine what fulfillment and leadership look like in this next chapter. It is based on her Women Leaders Series workshop.

Emily serves as a member of the U.S. Department of State Speakers Program, collaborating with U.S. embassies and working with a number of international women’s organizations to train women globally to assume leadership roles. A proud St. Louis native and University of Missouri graduate, Emily lives in Virginia with her husband and three children.

In this episode, we discuss:

• Why so many successful women feel stuck — and why it’s normal

• How caregiving and ambition can coexist

• Redefining success later in life without starting over

• How women can give themselves permission to pursue what’s next

Learn more and follow Emily:

https://www.emilylampkin.com

https://www.linkedin.com/in/emilylampkin/

https://www.facebook.com/emily.k.lampkin

Gail Harris is a certified ghostwriter who drafts deeply healing, compelling, life-affirming memoirs for women authors who don’t want to write their book on their own. An IPNE Book Award Finalist for the memoir Finding Zoe, Gail resonates with authors who, in addition to any professional goals they may have, see writing their memoir as a way to heal—they want to heal and share what they’ve learned about themselves and life and possibly help others. They’ve done enough self-reflection to know they have a powerful story inside and are ready to claim it and start writing. 

Gail helps her authors connect the dots in ways they may not have seen before. She’s a story doula guiding them to give birth to the story that’s bursting to come alive in them, the one they’re meant to write, that’s universal, and marketable.

Viewing her life as a spiritual journey, Gail has been doing her own inner work for a long time and understands what healing is about. This, along with her writing expertise, is what she believes makes being a women’s memoirist her dharma or gift. She understands that when we share our deepest truth, no matter how painful, we bring compassion and healing to ourselves and others.

Founder of Golden Ghostwriting, and based outside Boston, Gail is also the author of Your Heart Knows the Answer--How to Trust Yourself and Make the Choices That Are Right for You. It guides women to listen for and live according to their hearts' wisdom.

Some gems from the interview include:

"Memoir is about being human."

"Reading is like breathing in and writing is like breathing out."

In this episode, we discuss:

• Going inward: understanding healing as a spiritual journey
• We are spiritual beings having human experiences
• Our inner energy
• Learning to let go
• Why women write their memoirs
• Why work with a ghostwriter
• The different publishing paths
• How to write a compelling memoir
• How to let the story lead
• Storytelling’s universal healing power

Learn more:

https://goldenghostwriting.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/gail-harris-269a219/

Bukky Onifade is a Midlife Reinvention Coach, International Speaker, Author and Founder of Coached by Bukky, where she helps professional women aged 45+ turn major life transitions into purposeful, profitable second acts. Her work centers on a powerful reframe: Midlife is not a crisis; it’s a creative threshold. On this episode, we talk about identity shifts, burnout, grief, divorce and the quiet dissatisfaction many high-achieving women experience after “doing everything right."

Before relocating to the United States from Ireland, Bukky built a strong media presence in the United Kingdom. She has written for Huffington Post, contributed to national and local publications and served for several years as a recurring contributor on BBC Radio, including their Sunday newspaper review program. Her book, Plan Your Life, was published in 2011 but will be re-published in the near future.

Rather than hustle culture or performative motivation, she offers listeners permission, perspective and practical clarity, helping women translate decades of life and career capital into aligned businesses, meaningful work and grounded success.

Bukky was born in Nigeria and moved to the U.K. before coming to the U.S. Learn more and follow Bukky:

www.coachedbybukky.com

https://www.instagram.com/coachedbybukky/

https://www.facebook.com/bukky.olaleye/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/bukkyonifade/

https://www.pinterest.com/coachedbybukky/

Elana Auerbach is a lover, author, mother, mentor, activist and priestess. She spent her childhood and young adulthood on what she calls “the conveyor belt of life,” being the good girl and doing what others expected of her. This looked like graduating Phi Beta Kappa from UCLA, working on Wall Street for a Japanese investment bank, and marrying someone with whom she felt no chemistry. It all fell apart in 2001 when Elana realized she’d been living a lie and found the courage to leave her marriage. She entered a world of sensuality and sex, researching orgasm in a San Francisco pleasure-centered community. This is where she met Bill, who would become her loverman for life. In 2005, Elana founded “Sensuelle: A Woman’s Journey into Sensuality,” a program supporting women to fall in love with themselves, connect with their authentic voice and ignite their passion. Then, in 2011, a few years after becoming an ordained priestess with the Sanctuary of the 13 Moon Mystery School, Elana was certified to teach their year-long immersion into the feminine mysteries, where she taught for more than a decade.

She released her book The Sure Thing: A Pleasure Practice to Revive the Spark on February 3, 2026, just in time for Valentine’s Day. In The Sure Thing, Elana invites readers to bring joy, intimacy and passion back into their relationships through a simple weekly pleasure practice. Drawing from the ritual that transformed her own long-strained partnership, she presents a clear, accessible and fun framework for reconnecting with desire. Readers learn how to release shame, understand what they truly want, create a sustainable ritual of pleasure and meet resistance with play instead of pressure.

“This book is personal,” Elana says. “For twelve years, my spouse and I struggled over sex. We tried everything—expert advice, toys, techniques—but nothing changed until I created The Sure Thing. What emerged was a practice that actually works.” 

Inside The Sure Thing, readers will discover:

•              How to break free from shame, conditioning and the pressure to “perform” intimacy

•              Why most couples drift apart—and how to reverse it through intention and play

•              How to navigate resistance and rekindle curiosity

•              A step-by-step guide to crafting a personalized Sure Thing pleasure practice

•              Why a weekly ritual can transform not only your sex life, but your entire relationship with pleasure

Elana joined us from Berkeley, California. Learn more and follow Elana:

https://surethingexperiment.com

https://www.facebook.com/ElanaAuerbachAuthor/

https://www.instagram.com/elana.auerbach