Holistic Mental Health for the Woman Behind the Vision

In this episode, Dr. Nic sits down with Samantha, the Self-Care Alchemist, for a powerful conversation about moving from task-based self-care into deeper self-devotion. Together, they explore burnout, chronic stress, capacity, life transitions, faith, caregiving, Black women’s self-care, and why choosing yourself is not selfish — it is necessary for sustainable wellness, purpose, and impact.

Visit The Black Women's Self-Care Bundle for FREE resources referenced in this episode.

SEO KEYWORDS

self-care, self-devotion, International Self-Care Day, July 24 self-care, holistic self-care, holistic mental health, women solopreneurs, self-care for women solopreneurs, self-care for entrepreneurs, burnout recovery, burnout prevention, chronic stress, adrenal fatigue, high cortisol, nervous system regulation, capacity, women’s wellness, Black women self-care, self-care for Black women, self-care without guilt, faith and self-care, Christian self-care, women and burnout, burnout relief loop, stress management, anxiety management, emotional exhaustion, caregiving and self-care, mom guilt, boundaries, self-awareness, leading lady energy, holistic wellness, purpose-driven women, women entrepreneurs, self-care practices, self-care routine, self-care lifestyle, choose yourself, mental health for women, wellness coach, wholeness advocate

Self-Care is about more than nails, hair, bubble baths, and massages. It's more than REST.

EPISODE DESCRIPTION

Did you know International Self-Care Day is observed on July 24th — 7/24 — as a reminder that self-care is not just an occasional event, but something we are invited to practice 24/7?

In this episode of Holistic Mental Health for Women Solopreneurs, Dr. Nic opens her countdown to International Self-Care Day with a powerful conversation about what self-care really means, why so many women struggle to prioritize it, and how pausing can help us reconnect with our needs, capacity, wellness, and purpose.

Self-care is more than getting your nails done, taking a bubble bath, or scheduling a nap, even though those things can absolutely matter. True self-care asks us to look more deeply at how we are designing our lives, honoring our boundaries, managing stress, accessing mental and physical healthcare, caring for our bodies, and creating rhythms that support our spirit, mind, and body.

Dr. Nic also shares why self-care is a major part of her work as a mental health coach, especially with people seeking support for anxiety management, stress management, burnout prevention, business overwhelm, and finding their next aligned step.

This episode is an invitation to pause, examine your life holistically, and ask: Am I creating a life that cares for me or a life I constantly have to recover from?

IN THIS EPISODE, WE TALK ABOUT:

Why International Self-Care Day is celebrated on July 24th

The meaning of 7/24 as a reminder that self-care is a 24/7 way of life

Why self-care is not just an event, activity, or luxury

How self-care connects to stress management, anxiety management, and mental health

Why many women struggle to identify what they enjoy or what fills them back up

The importance of slowing down enough to reconnect with yourself

How overextending, people-pleasing, and poor boundaries can affect your well-being

Why “love your neighbor as yourself” also invites us to examine how we love ourselves

How self-care connects to faith, purpose, service, and honoring the body as a vessel

Why self-care requires more than rest — it includes access, agency, healthcare, boundaries, money, time, and holistic support

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Self-care is not just something you schedule. It is a way of thinking, living, and arranging your life.

International Self-Care Day on July 24th reminds us that self-care matters 24/7.

Self-care includes rest, but it also includes boundaries, healthcare, mental health, capacity, access, agency, and holistic wellness.

Many women do not know what they need because they have not paused long enough to listen to themselves.

Taking care of yourself is not selfish. It helps you serve, love, lead, parent, create, and build from a fuller place.

The pause is powerful because it gives you space to examine your needs, your patterns, your body, your schedule, and your life.

Self-care does not have to start with a full day off. Sometimes it starts with one intentional minute.

Women solopreneurs need self-care rhythms that align with their actual capacity, not just their ambition.

You do not need to build a life that constantly drains you and then call recovery self-care.

What happens when a woman solopreneur finally slows down long enough to hear herself clearly?

In this special guided episode, Dr. Nic leads listeners through a live Pause Session designed to help overwhelmed, stuck, and creatively blocked women reconnect with themselves, their ideas, and the dreams they may have quietly buried beneath pressure, burnout, and overthinking.

This is not a strategy episode.

It is an experience.

Through grounding exercises, nervous system regulation, reflective journaling prompts, and intentional stillness, listeners are invited to pause, breathe, and reconnect with the ideas and desires they may have stopped giving themselves permission to pursue.

This episode explores:

• nervous system grounding
• creative clarity
• reflective journaling
• emotional regulation
• dream pursuit
• pause practices for solopreneurs
• wellness-centered entrepreneurship

If you’ve been feeling stuck, creatively disconnected, emotionally overwhelmed, or uncertain about your next step, this guided Pause Session is for you.

Stay Connected with Dr. Nic through her newsletter, The Pause for Solos. Click HERE to subscribe.

Dr. Nic shares business lessons learned from her journey through a 30-day Hot Pilates challenge, emphasizing the power of community, committed decisions, and support in building sustainable habits and businesses.

Stay Connect with Dr. Nic: The Pause for Solos Newsletter - https://nicolepertillar.substack.com/subscribe

Check Out the Community Dr. Nic Loves: Hot Works Little Rock on HWY 10 - https://www.hotworx.net/studio/littlerock-hwy10?source=DriveSearch&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=21987217577&gbraid=0AAAAA-kEjsdJW96mabLUd5VSgZA7UrgAp&gclid=Cj0KCQjw3qLSBhDaARIsAFTiVh71c_FB97IE6dVYJy1gDn55Fbiz9iV1W9UIk-_q2Bxuj29NnLBWEPwaAjlwEALw_wcB

Key topics

The importance of community and accountability in achieving goals

How committed decisions drive consistency and momentum

The role of support systems in mental and physical health

Lessons learned from a 30-day Hot Pilates challenge

Strategies for building sustainable habits in business and life

In this episode of Holistic Mental Health for Women Solopreneurs, Dr. Nic shares a vulnerable reflection on feeling stuck in her weight loss journey and navigating a frustrating plateau.

You feel stuck in your weight loss journey or wellness routine

You are navigating a plateau in your business, creativity, or consistency

You are comparing your body, business, pace, or process to others online

You feel like what used to work no longer works the same way

You are in a season of grief, stress, transition, or midlife change

You are trying to rebuild healthy rhythms after disruption

You want to stop shaming yourself and start listening with compassion

You are a woman solopreneur who wants to build a sustainable business without burning out

In this vulnerable and reflective episode, Dr. Nic shares honestly about feeling stuck in her weight loss journey, navigating a frustrating plateau, and trying to understand what her body needs in this current season of life.

After being away from her normal rhythms for two months, carrying stress, processing grief after the loss of one of her dearest friends, and navigating the realities of age, hormones, and perimenopause, Dr. Nic began to recognize that her plateau was not just a physical issue. It was an invitation to pause.

This episode explores the connection between weight loss plateaus, business plateaus, creative blocks, comparison, and the need for recalibration. Dr. Nic invites women solopreneurs to stop shaming themselves when old systems stop working and instead use the pause to reset, reevaluate, and recalibrate their next aligned step.

Because sometimes a plateau is not proof that you are failing. Sometimes it is information.

🔴 Why plateaus can feel so discouraging when you are trying to become a healthier version of yourself

🔴 How stress, grief, disrupted routines, age, hormones, and perimenopause can impact your body and your capacity

🔴 Why comparison with fitness influencers and online business voices can disconnect you from your own wisdom

🔴 How weight loss plateaus and business plateaus often bring up the same emotions: frustration, shame, urgency, and self-doubt

🔴 Why what used to work may not work the same way in a new season

🔴 How to pause before you panic, quit, or copy someone else’s process

🔴 The importance of resetting, reevaluating, and recalibrating your systems

🔴 Why solopreneurs need aligned systems that honor their current capacity, not fantasy versions of their lives

🔴 How to stop interpreting every plateau as failure and start seeing it as information

weight loss plateau
business plateau
women solopreneurs
holistic mental health
perimenopause and weight loss
midlife wellness
women over 40 wellness
burnout prevention
nervous system regulation
sustainable business

What if the reason you keep starting, stopping, scrolling, overthinking, or struggling to follow through is not because you lack discipline — but because your nervous system is overwhelmed?

In this episode of Holistic Mental Health for Women Solopreneurs, Dr. Nic explores the powerful connection between nervous system regulation, burnout, creativity, decision-making, and sustainable business building.

Building a business while emotionally flooded, overwhelmed, grieving, exhausted, or stuck in survival mode is not sustainable. Your body was never designed to carry vision, leadership, creativity, and impact while constantly living in fight, flight, freeze, or fawn.

Dr. Nic shares a vulnerable story from her doctoral journey, reflecting on how emotional overwhelm almost led her to make a panic-based decision to quit. With time, training, and deeper self-awareness, she now understands that what she needed was not more pressure or more discipline — she needed regulation.

This episode is an invitation for women solopreneurs to stop judging themselves for what looks like inconsistency and begin noticing what may actually be dysregulation.

Because you are not lazy.
You are not incapable.
You may simply be trying to build from a body that does not yet feel safe.

• Why you cannot sustainably build from dysregulation
• How emotional overwhelm impacts creativity, clarity, and follow-through
• The difference between laziness and survival mode
• How fight, flight, freeze, and fawn show up in business-building
• Why your nervous system may interpret burnout, comparison, pressure, and uncertainty as threat
• How dysregulation affects decision-making for women solopreneurs
• Why regulation is foundational to sustainable impact
• How grounding yourself can help your creativity return
• The importance of noticing your personal triggers and patterns
• Why self-regulation is part of nurturing the wholeness within

You cannot shift what you have not named. And for many women solopreneurs, what has been labeled as procrastination, inconsistency, lack of discipline, or failure may actually be a dysregulated nervous system trying to protect them.

“You cannot sustainably build from dysregulation.”

“Your body was never designed to stay in survival mode long-term while simultaneously carrying the weight of vision, leadership, creativity, and impact.”

“Regulation is a strength. Regulation is a superpower. It is foundational.”

“Your nervous system is not your enemy. It has been trying to protect you.”

Take a few minutes after listening and ask yourself:

1. Where have I been calling myself lazy when I may actually be overwhelmed?
2. What situations tend to push me into fight, flight, freeze, or fawn?
3. How does dysregulation show up in the way I build, create, lead, or make decisions?
4. What helps my body feel safe enough to think clearly again?
5. What would it look like to build from regulation instead of survival?

If this episode resonated with you, screenshot it wherever you’re listening and share your biggest takeaway on Facebook, Instagram, Threads, or wherever you hang out most. Tag me or send me a DM.

Everyone who shares will be entered into a drawing to receive one of my hand-painted notebooks — because writing, doodling, sketching, and painting can all be powerful practices for regulation.

And if you haven’t listened to last week’s episode, What Burnout Taught Me About Self-Care, go back and listen. These two episodes are connected.

What happens when the woman building the dream never stops long enough to care for herself?

In this deeply personal episode, Dr. Nic shares why she started pausing, what it cost her when she didn’t, and how the pause became one of the most transformational parts of her wellness and entrepreneurial journey.

This is not just a conversation about rest.

It’s a conversation about burnout, emotional exhaustion, self-abandonment, survival mode, and the sacred power of slowing down long enough to reconnect with yourself, your purpose, and your vision.

If you’re a woman solopreneur, creative, or visionary who has been carrying too much for too long, this episode will invite you to stop, breathe, and reflect on what your spirit, mind, and body may be trying to tell you.

Pausing is not weakness.

Sometimes the pause is the very thing that reconnects you to yourself, your clarity, your creativity, and the deeper vision for your life.

When is the last time you truly paused?

Not scrolled.
Not planned.
Not worked ahead.

But actually stopped long enough to listen to yourself?

• You feel emotionally exhausted
• You’ve been functioning in survival mode
• You struggle to rest without guilt
• You feel disconnected from yourself or your vision
• You’ve been building while burned out
• You know you need to slow down, but don’t know how

Rest sounds good…until it’s time to actually do it.

Then suddenly:

• you feel behind
• you feel unproductive
• you feel like you should be doing something else

And guilt creeps in.

In this episode, I’m unpacking the internal tension so many women solopreneurs and creatives carry when it comes to rest—and why rest often feels harder than doing the work.

This is not just about taking a break.

It’s about understanding why rest feels uncomfortable, what’s driving the guilt, and how to begin creating a rhythm of rest that actually supports your life, your wellness, and your dream pursuit.

If you’ve ever struggled to slow down without feeling like you’re falling behind, this episode will meet you right where you are.

• Why rest can feel uncomfortable—even when you know you need it
• The hidden beliefs that create guilt around slowing down
• How productivity culture and internal pressure shape your relationship with rest
• What I’ve learned about rest through seasons of forced pause
• The difference between avoidance and intentional rest
• Why rest is not a reward—it’s a rhythm
• How guilt-free rest actually supports clarity, creativity, and sustainability
• A simple way to begin practicing rest without overthinking it

Rest is not something you have to earn.

It’s something you need in order to continue building without breaking yourself.

When you begin to see rest as part of your leadership rhythm—not a disruption to it—you move differently.

Take a moment and ask yourself:

What belief is making it hard for me to rest right now?

Is it:

• “I don’t have time”
• “I’ll fall behind”
• “I should be doing more”
• “I haven’t done enough yet”

Now gently ask:

What would it look like to rest anyway?

If you are:

• constantly thinking about what needs to get done
• struggling to disconnect from your work
• feeling guilty when you try to rest
• pushing through exhaustion to stay productive

This episode is your invitation to pause a necessary part of how you build well.

If this episode resonated with you, I’d love to invite you to stay connected with me beyond the podcast.

Over on Substack, I share deeper reflections, encouragement, and real conversations about wellness, wholeness, and what it looks like to pursue your dreams without abandoning yourself in the process.

👉 Subscribe here: [https://substack.com/@nicolepertillar

If this episode spoke to you, share it with another woman who needs permission to rest without guilt.

Sometimes the reminder we need is simply knowing we’re not the only one navigating this tension.

You don’t have to run yourself into the ground to prove you’re committed.

You can build your dream…

And still give yourself permission to pause.

How to Stay Grounded When Life Feels Out of Control

In this episode, I mentioned HOTWORX, my new favorite place and promised to share a LINK

When life feels like it’s spiraling, the instinct is often to try to control everything. But what if the path back to peace…is actually found in focusing on just one thing?

In this episode, I’m sharing how an intense caregiving season forced me into a place where almost everything in my life felt out of my control—and how I found grounding in the most unexpected place: my nutrition and movement.

If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed, unsteady, or like life is happening faster than you can process, this episode will help you shift your focus from trying to control everything…to anchoring yourself in what you can control.

• What it really feels like when life is out of your control
• Why trying to manage everything can actually increase overwhelm
• The one thing I chose to stay consistent with during a hard season
• How nutrition and movement became a grounding rhythm for me
• Why caring for your body is not superficial—it’s foundational
• How physical stewardship can create space for mental and emotional clarity
• The surprising way clarity about my business began to return
• How to identify one stabilizing rhythm in your own life

When life feels chaotic, you don’t need to control everything to feel grounded again.

You just need one thing you can return to.

One rhythm.
One act of care.
One place where you remind yourself—you are still here, and you still matter.

Take a moment and ask yourself:

What is one thing I can consistently steward well in this season?

Not everything.
Just one thing.

What would help you feel more grounded, more present, and more connected to yourself right now?

If you are navigating:

• caregiving
• burnout
• emotional overwhelm
• unexpected life transitions
• or a season where your capacity has shifted

This episode is your reminder that grounding doesn’t come from doing more…

It comes from returning to yourself.

If this episode resonated with you, I’d love to invite you to stay connected with me beyond the podcast.

I share deeper reflections, encouragement, and honest conversations about wellness, wholeness, and pursuing your dreams without abandoning yourself over on Substack.

👉 Subscribe here: The Pause for Solos!

If this episode spoke to you, share it with another woman who may be trying to hold everything together right now.

Sometimes one grounded reminder can shift everything.

You may not be able to control everything around you…

But one steady act of caring for yourself can help you come back to center.

And from that place—so much becomes possible.

What do you do when life interrupts your plans, your momentum disappears, and the business path you felt so sure about suddenly feels unclear?

In this episode, I’m sharing what I learned during a forced pause and how that unexpected season gave me a deeper level of business clarity than I would have found by simply pushing harder. If you’re a solopreneur, creative entrepreneur, or purpose-driven woman trying to navigate burnout, overwhelm, shifting capacity, or a major life transition, this conversation is for you.

Sometimes we assume clarity comes from doing more, moving faster, or trying harder. But this episode explores a different truth: sometimes clarity comes when life forces you to slow down long enough to finally see what no longer fits, what matters most, and what needs to change.

In this episode, I break down the 4 biggest lessons I learned during my forced pause:

2. Less Is More / Clarity Needs Space

I learned that capacity matters in business decisions. Business strategy that ignores your wellness is not sustainable. Your life and your business have to fit each other, and you cannot build well by abandoning yourself in the process.

If you’ve been asking questions like:

• How do I find business clarity when I feel stuck?
• How do I move forward after burnout?
• What do I do when life forces me to pause?
• How do I build a business that honors my mental health and real-life capacity?

This episode is for you.

• how to find business clarity during a forced pause
• burnout, overwhelm, and solopreneur mental load
• why clarity often comes through slowing down
• how to pivot in business without seeing it as failure
• the connection between wellness, capacity, and sustainable entrepreneurship
• why prioritizing wellness is a real business strategy

• solopreneurs and women entrepreneurs navigating burnout
• creatives and purpose-driven women in a season of transition
• anyone feeling stuck, unclear, or forced to reevaluate their business path
• women who want to build without abandoning themselves

The pause may not have been part of the plan, but it may be the very thing that helps clarify your path.

If this episode resonated with you, I’d love for you to stay connected to my newsletter, The Pause for Solos, on Substack, where I share deeper reflections, encouragement, tips, strategies, and practical insight on wellness, business clarity, purpose, and building a life and business that honor your real capacity.