This episode of the Self Care Oasis Podcast is pure fire! I got deep with Dr. Nikki Coleman — psychologist, sexologist, and a Black woman who is absolutely redefining what it means for us to live fully, joyfully, and unapologetically. If you’ve ever felt stuck in burnout, starving for more pleasure, or tired of the old narratives weighing you down, this is the conversation you need in your life.

What Went Down: Highlights from Our Real Talk

* Pleasure Isn’t Just for After the Work’s DoneDr. Nikki Coleman dropped this gem: pleasure is a pathway to liberation. We get into why waiting to “earn” pleasure is a trap, especially for Black women, and how flipping the script is radical (08:44).

* Who Told You Who You Are?We unravel all that negative programming and talk about making a new choice—actually, remembering who you were before everybody tried to tell you otherwise (05:05).

* Slow Down, Sis…Seriously, did you know most of us are disconnected from our own bodies? We talk about how to gently come back to yourself and why tuning in is where real self care starts (11:01).

* Escapism vs. Embodied PleasureLet’s be real: zoning out is not the same as lighting yourself up from the inside. We go there! (14:16)

* What Does REAL Joy Feel Like?Performing happiness for the ’gram or buying brunches isn’t the same as being deeply nourished. We unpack how to tell the difference and why it matters (17:35).

* From Womb Healing to Erotic LiberationWe get vulnerable about generational trauma, the power of reconnecting with our wombs, and how pleasure—at every level—is for us, right now (34:34; 25:13).

* Liberation Is an Inside JobYou have permission. Seriously. Nobody is going to hand you a gold star for living small. Dr. Nikki Coleman and I want you to walk away from this episode knowing your pleasure is yours to claim (37:18).

Self Care Oasis is the gateway to your softer life glow-up via Self Devotion, wellness travel, and early semi-retirement. Join 2400+ Self Devotion Divas who are proactively creating the life they love by becoming a free or paid subscriber. Plus get FREE access to the Oasis Vault containing resources and tools to support your journey from burnout to better boundaries and shameless bliss!

Want More? Here’s How to Connect with Dr. Nikki Coleman

If you loved Dr. Nikki Coleman’s wisdom, go follow her right now! She created the Pleasure Pursuit Journal a yearlong guided practice for women finally ready to make pleasure a priority. She also offers therapy, group programs (the Sanctuary), and some of the most soulful content you’ll find.

* Peep her site: drnikkinows.com

* Find her everywhere: @drnikknows

Stay Connected with Me and the Oasis Community

I’d love nothing more than to hear how you’re reclaiming your pleasure and showing up for yourself, day by day. Find me and the Oasis community on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube. Drop your questions, joy moments, or even just a “hey girl!” DM.

Don’t Forget to Subscribe & Leave a Comment!

I know you felt that energy and insight so hit subscribe on the Self Care Oasis Podcast. If you vibe with the show, take a quick second to leave a comment.

Tell us what shifted for you, what you crave more of, and invite a friend to tune in with you next week. We grow and glow together!

You are the boss of your own joy. Give yourself full permission, right now, to live lit up from the inside. The world was made for your pleasure—don’t let anyone convince you otherwise.

Grateful for you, always can’t wait for you to join us again.

How do you keep your calm and lead with clarity when chaos threatens to throw your whole world off balance?

Founders today are not just building businesses—they’re facing an onslaught of industry instability, mounting internal pressure, and a relentless need to perform under stress. The panic in your body can feel like a physical force, leaving you scrambling for control, hypervigilant, or ashamed of your own reactions.

Top Moments & Episode Highlights

* Chaos as the Default—But Not Your Destiny:Olivia Denton Thomas and I take you through what it looks like to embrace the fact that chaos is always lurking, but panic doesn’t have to run the show. We dig into why preparation—emotionally, mentally, physically—is the flex for founders who want to move from fear to fierce agility (02:23).

* Preparation over Panic:I share what I learned in my NASA disaster recovery days—because your nervous system deserves a contingency plan, not just your business. Let’s talk crisis response, backup plans, and the power of knowing yourself and your triggers (05:55).

* Let’s Reframe the Shame:We get candid about that urge to control, shame around the moments you freeze or panic, and why you must treat every “I didn’t know better” as an opportunity, not a character flaw. It’s not an identity, it’s just information (12:14).

* The Power of the Pause:Holding your ground, even when your internal alarms are blaring, is a skill. I walk you through how to take a sacred pause, stand ten toes down in stillness, and give yourself the gift of an actual choice—instead of letting pressure make decisions for you (19:13).

* Identity, Community, and Celebrating Your Progress:We talk about building an environment (internal and external) that supports your most grounded, capable self. And yes, we high-five ourselves for every tiny win—because celebration builds resilience like nothing else (26:38).

* Soul Print, Not Just Fingerprint:I bring it home with “know your crisis management blueprint”—your soul print. Who are you, really, when the heat is on? How do you want to show up next time? Know your vibration, protect your peace, and don’t absorb anyone else’s panic (35:06).

Segments from This Episode

* From Hustle to Wholeness: How to drop the hypervigilant founder act and lead regulated from within.

* Disaster Recovery—But Make It Nervous System Chic: Lessons from NASA and how to apply redundancy, contingency, and backup strategies to your daily rituals.

* Celebration as Self-Regulation: Making joy, acknowledgment, and self-esteem your everyday fuel.

* Visibility, Vulnerability & Reframing Imperfection: Why repair builds more trust than perfection ever could—and how to let the world see the “messy middle.”

Connect with Us!

Love what you heard? Pull up and connect with me, Samantha Gregory, over at Self Care Oasis on Substack for my newsletter and more episodes. Find me on YouTube at Samantha Gregory and on LinkedIn under the same name as well as TikTok. Let’s start a conversation about your burnout breakthroughs or your own rituals for staying in your power.

Olivia Denton Thomas is a founder and advocate for self devotion as the anchor in times of chaos. Guided by mentorship and experience, she champions resilience and intentional self care as the foundations of effective leadership. Connect with Olivia at https://wintentional.com and follow her journey on and LinkedIn.

Thank you to everyone who tuned into my live video! Join me for my next live video in the app.

You can spend 35 years as a healthcare executive and still feel completely lost when you finally become the patient.

Dana Sherwin joined the Self Care Oasis podcast to share her powerful journey from being a high-level healthcare consultant to navigating a life-threatening blood cancer diagnosis. Her story is a wake-up call for anyone who puts their career and family responsibilities ahead of their own physical well-being.

In a world where we often give away our power in the medical space, Dana highlights why we must reclaim our sovereignty and act as the lead coordinator of our own care.

Self Care Oasis is the gateway to your softer life glow-up via Self Devotion, wellness travel, and early semi-retirement. Join 2400+ Self Devotion Divas who are proactively creating the life they love by becoming a free or paid subscriber. Plus get FREE access to the Oasis Vault containing resources and tools to support your journey from burnout to better boundaries and shameless bliss!

Here are the essential takeaways from her experience:

📍 Don’t ignore the small signs. Dana pushed symptoms aside for years because she was busy being productive. Those minor pains were actually early warnings of a serious blood disorder.

📍 A primary care physician is a non-negotiable baseline. Relying solely on specialists or yearly OBGYN visits can leave dangerous gaps in your health monitoring. You need someone looking at the big picture of your blood work and history.

📍 Become the CEO of your own health. The healthcare system, insurance companies, and employers do not teach us how to navigate care. You have to take agency and lead the process yourself.

📍 Master the 15-minute window. Doctors are often stretched thin with very little time per patient. Learning how to communicate effectively and advocate for your needs is a vital skill for survival.

Self-care is more than just a luxury; it is about having the autonomy and power to navigate the healthcare system with confidence. When you prioritize self-devotion, you gain the tools to stay equipped even in a crisis.

How are you taking charge of your health journey this week? Let’s discuss in the comments below.

Watch the full video:

Enter the Oasis: The Gateway to Your Pleasure, Inner Power, and Prosperity aka Bliss!

Join the Community and get free access to the Oasis Vault and the Emergency 72-Hour Nervous System Reset Guide.

Your next level doesn’t need more struggle. It needs better support. Get it in the Self Devotion Shop

Get 1:1 Mentorship where we create a customized Self Devotion protocol to take you from overwhelm to overflow.

Coming Soon: The Pleasure Mystic Membership. A soft-power space for nervous system-led self-devotion with pleasure as a daily practice, boundaries without the guilt hangover, and receiving as the default standard.

Self Care Oasis is the gateway to your softer life glow-up via Self Devotion lifestyle, wellness travel, and early semi-retirement. Join 2400+ Self Devotion Divas in training who are creating the life they love by becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Week 2 of The Regulated Founder

The professional mask was never really protection. It was a prison.

In this episode, me and brand counselor Olivia Denton Thomas go deep on what it actually costs women founders to perform professionalism at the expense of their own humanity and what becomes possible when you finally stop negotiating with the armor.

We name the invisible dynamics underneath founder burnout: the nervous system running on fawn mode, the self-trust that got buried under everyone else’s mission and values, the perfectionism that quietly became the bottleneck. This is not a conversation about hustle. It’s a conversation about what it looks like to build something from your actual self.

In this episode, we explore:

* Why your perfectionism might be the bottleneck — and what it takes to admit that

* The “professional liar” mask and how it forms when we don’t trust ourselves to show up

* Why women receive contradictory messages (too much and not enough simultaneously) and how that fuels imposter syndrome

* The biology of trust: why self-trust is the soil that holds everything else

* What fawning actually looks like in business — and how it’s quietly draining your 24 hours

* The difference between persistence and consistency when building authority

* How to train your nervous system to feel safe in visibility and vulnerability

* Morning prep and evening decompression as daily trust-building rituals

* Embracing your “villain era” — what healthy boundaries actually look like from the outside

* The Courage to be Disliked and why walking in your own job frees everyone

* How to shift from being the superstar to being the visionary

* Documentation, SOPs, and operationalizing trust so you’re no longer the bottleneck at 3am

* Attribution and celebration as trust infrastructure for your team

* Being heart-first and AI-augmented — why your humanity is your differentiator in an AI-saturated world

Quotable Moments:

“Self-trust is the ground that you begin to till and build and add the nutrients to so that it’s fertile for the thing you’re building.”

“Be the villain in their story while you’re the hero in your own.”

“Armoring yourself through softness, self-acceptance, and joy — that’s the armor of authenticity.”

“It’s not the business protecting you. You are protecting the business from your ego.”

“Heart first and AI augmented — that’s how you become someone people can trust.”

Resources & Connections:

* 📬 Self Care Oasis Newsletter — Substack: Samantha Gregory

* 💼 LinkedIn: Samantha Gregory

* 📺 YouTube: Samantha Gregory

* 🎵 TikTok: @MsSamanthaGregory

* 🌐 Olivia Denton Thomas — The Brand Counselor | Substack: Get daily calibrations for founders going from hustling to wholeness

* Olivia’s Website: Wintentional.com

* LinkedIn: Olivia Denton Thomas

Self Care Oasis is for women who are done surviving and ready to build from the inside out.

In this episode, I sit down with the phenomenal Vanity Jenkins. She’s a single mom, business owner, founder, and unapologetic advocate for self-care. Together, we unravel what it means to survive (and eventually thrive) through seasons of exhaustion, guilt, and growth. If you’ve ever felt like your whole life is run on fumes, this episode will meet you right where you are.

Episode Highlights

* Surviving and Naming Burnout:Vanity Jenkins shares her lived experience as an introverted eldest daughter, single parent, and nonprofit executive. She talks about those years of never sleeping, and how the layers of responsibility and cultural expectations left her so deep in burnout she didn’t even realize it until her body finally said “enough!”

* The Hidden Toll of the Nonprofit Sector:We discuss the unique guilt that comes from serving communities you identify with—particularly opening a school for Black children during COVID, balancing the desire to make a difference with the brutal realities of underfunding and overwork.

* Signs That You’re Over Capacity:Both of us share those moments when burnout revealed itself physically—when “just keep pushing” was no longer sustainable. We talk about the unhealthy coping mechanisms that show up (hello, wine and weed!) and how recognizing these signals helped us start healing.

* Boundaries, Joy, & Somatic Practices:Vanity Jenkins reveals how setting boundaries, practicing somatic awareness, and reconnecting with her body has been crucial to restoring her wellbeing. She now teaches these practices to women of color through Shifted Consulting, helping others reclaim joy, rest, and alignment.

* Societal Structure & Self-Care:We didn’t shy away from calling out how society isn’t designed for us to thrive—especially as single parents and women of color. The constant expectations and the myth of the nuclear family make self-care vital.

Guest Connection InvitationWant to connect with Vanity Jenkins? Follow her on Instagram and Facebook at Shifted Consulting, and check out her offerings—including leadership coaching and her “Authentically Me” fellowship for women of color—on shiftedconsulting.com. She’s also on LinkedIn, so look her up and find out how you can thrive in your work, business, and life!

Join the Oasis Community!Are you loving these real, raw, and restorative conversations? Be sure to hit subscribe on your favorite podcast platform, leave a review if this episode spoke to you, and share it with anyone who needs a reminder to choose themselves.

Connect with me on Substack, YouTube, LinkedIn, and TikTok the links mentioned in the episode description!

Until next time, take care, be well, and follow your bliss.

With gratitude,Samantha Gregory

Self Care Oasis - Standout Authors Unbound with Samantha Gregory

Join me, Samantha Gregory, the self-care alchemist, as I chat with host Kevin about my journey from people-pleasing and burnout to becoming an author and advocate for self-devotion and healthy boundaries. In this episode, we unpack my book No More Crumbs, dive into my writing process, discuss the impact of toxic relationships, and explore the power of journaling, personal transformation, and embracing incremental change.

Timestamps & Chapters:

00:00 - Introduction & Samantha’s Self-Care Journey01:03 - Pivotal Moments: Early Menopause as a Wake-Up Call02:16 - Overcoming People-Pleasing & Saying No04:04 - Recognizing FOMO and Trusting the Universe05:40 - How Samantha Decides What to Say Yes To08:04 - Discovering Writing and Becoming an Author10:10 - The Importance of Self-Awareness and Journaling16:10 - Samantha’s Book Writing Process17:24 - Interviews & Strategies in “No More Crumbs”26:04 - Promoting the Book & Realities of Book Sales31:47 - Impact: Reader Testimonials & Transformation33:42 - The Key Lesson: Reinventing Yourself42:09 - Advice for Aspiring Authors47:28 - Challenge: Being More Intentional & Self-Aware48:31 - Where to Find Samantha Gregory & Closing

If you’re ready to shift from surviving to thriving, set boundaries, and cultivate self-love, this episode will empower you with practical tools and inspiration. Don’t forget to subscribe, leave a comment, and check out No More Crumbs at nomorecromsdating.com.

Follow Samantha:Substack: Self-Care OasisLinkedIn: Samantha GregorySelf-Devotion Office Hours: Third Thursdays at noon EST

#SelfCareOasis #SamanthaGregory #StandoutAuthorsUnbound #SelfLove #NoMoreCrumbs #PersonalGrowth #Podcast