Clearing The Savior Fog

Clearing The Savior Fog
In June I took my clothes off in a SoHo photo studio. This is a leadership essay. Stay with me. Heads up before you scroll (Content Warning): this one goes into sexual assault, addiction, and my actual naked body. Take care of yourself. Come back later if later is better. I'll be here.

June 2nd. SoHo. Second Floor.

I rang the doorbell of a very swank studio house, took the elevator up, and got greeted by Danita — a petite Black woman with the voice of an angel and fierce braids flowing down her back.

She walked me through the whole process. What to expect. My choice of jewel-toned sash.

I chose pink. For self-love.

Then she gave me privacy and plenty of time to get ready in my birthday suit.

Let me back up. Because I need you to understand why a leadership coach is telling you about the day she got naked in front of a stranger in SoHo.

The Same Day I Clarified My Pricing, I Took Off My Clothes

That was not an accident.

June 2nd I was in Brooklyn for a Hello 7 Mastermind retreat — I've been in that program since Juneteenth of 2025 — and our group was deep in power mapping. Market research and analysis, coached by the inspiring Rachel Rodgers and her equally phenomenal team, to get clear on our pricing and offers in THIS sociopolitical context. Not the one from three years ago. This one.

I got the clarity I came for. Sharp, strategic, business-model clarity.

And then I got on the train to SoHo and took off all my clothes.

Here's my argument: burnout is not a scheduling problem. You cannot out-calendar it. You cannot out-Notion it. You cannot fix it with a better morning routine or a Peloton or a silent retreat you white-knuckle through and then return to the same exact life.

Burnout is what happens when you've been living OUTSIDE your body for so long that you stopped getting the memos. And you cannot lead people or organizations — really lead them, the kind of leading where you can feel the room and hold the pressure and make the hard call and still be a person at the end of it — from a body you abandoned ages ago.

Strategy AND soma. Same day. Same work. Ok?! This is what it’s really about.

The shoot wasn't on a whim, by the way. I booked it in March, cancelled at the last minute, then thought about it for two more months before rescheduling. So by the time I actually walked in the door, I was ready, excited, a little nervous, and open.

Weed Your Garden and Plant Your Flowers?

Here's why the whole thing was so frickin’ hard for me.

Before I was the bad B.I.T.C.H. (Boss In Total Control of Herself) that I am today, I was a Black American girl and young woman who survived racism, poverty, and repeated sexual assaults. I also didn't know until recently that I was experiencing the world much louder and more intensely than most people because of my undiagnosed AuDHD and giftedness.

So I learned to keep going the only way I knew how: work as much as possible — three jobs for as long as I can remember — and numb my mind and body.

And in the process of that overwork and numbing, I neglected my body. I took her for granted for years.

Because my subconscious had decided there MUST BE something wrong with me. I couldn't make sense of why family members, co-workers, and "friends" would assault me — or do nothing when I told them. So for a long time I thought it must be because I wasn't worthy of respect, or protection, or love. I thought it must be because people hate me and my existence is simply tolerated. I felt like a burden to the world. With white people, I assumed they hated me for my brown skin. With everybody else, I assumed they hated me for being bi-racial, or for not being figure-out-able, or for being weird.

And so my auto-response was to make myself as "useful" and "appeasing" as humanly possible.

Weed your garden and plant your flowers? Mow your lawn and mulch your beds? Clean your pool and pH balance the water? Wash your windows or wax your floors? Straighten the fringes of your carpets? Vacuum the floors and dust the furniture?

As a child, I did these jobs as thoroughly as any professional at my grandmothers' bed and breakfast businesses. All while surviving an unstable home.

Fake a smile and make straight A's (or else)? Keep my real thoughts to myself and refrain from speaking uncomfortable truths? Compliment you on your style and beauty while feeling ugly and depressed myself? Become captain of the Cheerleaders, President of Spanish Club, and Secretary of Student Government while working part time at Friendly's, American Outfitters, American Outpost, AND the family business?

By the time I was a teenager I was an expert at masking, isolating, journaling to process my real thoughts, managing a complex schedule with limited resources, and working without boundaries for low or no pay.

Now.

You know this list. Yours has different line items — but it’s the same machine we’re in. Different decade, different tax bracket now.

And here's the part that makes capitalist grind culture so hard to put down: it f*cking worked. The overfunctioning got us promoted. The masking got us in the room. The appeasing got us trusted with everybody else's crisis. But nobody hands you a severance package for the survival strategy that built your entire career. You have to decide to fire it yourself . . .while it's still working. While it's still the only thing you know how to do. And It’s scary at first.

By the time I made it through college and into adult life, I was an expert in all of the above — with the addition of numbing myself with alcohol and weed, because that was literally the healthcare plan available to a young hospitality worker in a cycle of poverty with crushing student loan debt. Though I'd also occasionally numb with a medium fry and a hot fudge sundae.

Cue the Childish Gambino. Not for the weed and the alcohol — for the scene of me trying to recover from sexual assault while searching for joy and inner peace through the McDonald's drive-thru. Eww.

This is Muhf*ckin' America though.

Then My Body Said BIIIISH, ENOUGH IS ENOUGH

Most of those behaviors came to a halt in my early 30s.

Not because I decided. My body decided for me.

Throughout the whole course of me trying to dissociate from her, she repeatedly refused to let me poison and numb myself anymore. She'd start throwing up. She'd shut down and sleep at any given moment. She'd cry for days. She'd stop wanting to eat, then want to eat everything. She would do any f*cking thing to wake ME — my consciousness — the f*ck up and carry me toward the light, water, earth, and people I needed to heal.

I used to not think about it. I'd just experience it and find gratitude and wonder in it, without knowing exactly what "it" was.

Now, in my 40s, I know and trust with every fiber of my being that my body will move me until I am conscious and able to take powerful intentional action. It's less wonder now, more gratitude and understanding — backed by years of research, study, reflection, practice, faith, and action.

"It" is the somatic evolutionary wisdom that all of our bodies possess. The wisdom inside our DNA that lets us adapt and become more resilient to change and pressure. The power within that drives us to expand and take up space.

Your body has been sending you the somatic memos too. The jaw clenching. The 3am wake-ups. The Sunday-night dread. Your hair falling out. Your hands shaking. Your core and lower back always in a dull pain. The migraines.

You’re body is not malfunctioning. She's escalating the messaging. She's been cc'ing you for years and you keep marking it read without taking action and she’s had enough.

Savior Fog

Sexual freedom and the freedom of pleasure — these are the big ones for me. This is where I've had the most pain and suffering and confusion and what I call savior fog.

Savior fog is the fog my brain produces to shield me from the depth of truths that were too hard to process. It's a mercy. It let me keep going.

It's also a trickster — one you love and hate at the same time. Like a cage of ice around your heart. You love it a little because it protects you. But it's really cold and annoying.

For the last 8 years I've been melting that ice. Taking a hard look at the depth and complexity of what happened to me. It's looked like crying a lot. Writing a lot. Vision boarding a lot. A lot of therapy. Investing in a pleasure coach and an Art of Healing Breathwork class. Hours of reading on pleasure, sexuality, and trauma. Sharing more of myself with trusted family and friends. Working to authentically communicate my thoughts, fears, boundaries, requests, and needs with my husband.

And this past June, it looked like booking a semi-nude portrait session.

Because to become her — the future version of me who enjoys purposeful luxuries and simple pleasures without guilt, who has amazing deep conversations AND quality, mind-blowing sex characterized by ease and joy and playfulness — something inside me knew I needed to see myself naked and do a serious reframe after all the trauma that’s shaped me.

And I knew I needed a professional safe person to help. Because every time I looked at myself naked in the mirror, I didn't like what I saw.

I really, really want to let those thoughts go. Because I see people all the time for my whole life— in every shape, shade, and style imaginable — who are breathtaking beings of light. I once had the honor of meeting Sonya Renee Taylor at a Decolonize Wealth Project Conference. I saw her floating around the conference and couldn’t stop staring at her because she literally radiated light. And she wrote that the Body Is Not An Apology and she’s 1000% right!

I want to see myself in that light too.

I know that when I can really see myself and BELIEVE in my light, the next level of healing and freedom is a just short leap in front of me. And with it, the next level of expansiveness in my ability to hold more women through their transformations as well.

What Getting Free Actually Means

I'm clear now. So let me be specific, because vague freedom isn't a goal, it's a vibe and I’m shooting for winning goals here.

Financial freedom means building and growing my 6-7 figure coaching business. Paying for the coaching, the team, and the benefits I need to make it work without unnecessary chaos. Making housing, education, transportation, travel, entertainment, savings, and operational CHOICES for myself and my whole family without fear and without juggling essentials. Putting my child, nephews, and nieces through college. Paying for weddings. Helping somebody get a first home. I want to be a rock and an inspiration to the next generation in my family, because that's what they deserve from mine.

Intellectual freedom means having the time to read and study and write and watch things that fascinate me — and confidently formulating my OWN understanding and articulation of those ideas. It means investing time, energy, and resources into learning for the rest of my life.

Emotional freedom means feeling, holding, expressing, and releasing the full expansive ocean of emotions inside me and others — without fear of abandonment, financial repercussions, or physical, verbal, or emotional violence. It means safe spaces that are actually safe, protected, and sacred. It means existing without constantly calculating whether I'm making some insecure man or white person uncomfortable and therefore prone to a violent, overexaggerated reaction to reassert his or her false sense of reality.

It means breathing for real. The full breath of my lungs. The full scale of my voice. The flowing and cleansing waters of my tears, without shame, as a neurodivergent person.

Freedom of expression means moving my body any way I want without judgment. Taking up the space I need — verbally, silently, physically, artfully. Dressing however I want without fear of violence or professional judgment. Speaking passionately from a center of love and deep care without fear of rejection or financial repercussions. The confidence to write and create every day. To make and share videos and stories about my glorious life and ideas and offers without the voice in the back of my head — my zombie, aka my amygdala — going "Hey hey now! Maybe don't show them who you really are, because you already know they hate you."

Freedom of choice and pleasure. Cheers to all of it. And it's all interrelated — which is exactly why you can't fix the money one without touching the body one.

How Danita Captured Me

So: pink sash. Birthday suit. Danita asked for my consent to begin and kept asking for it throughout. Key.

She was kind, patient, and gentle while directing me through poses and shifting the lighting. (And listen — this was the most high-tech, sparkling-clean, professional photo studio I've ever set foot in. I felt like I was shooting for Essence or Vogue.)

The whole time I felt awkward and shy and open all at once. I kept reminding myself I was safe. Danita kept affirming me and telling me I was SLAYING. Also Key. So I decided to keep trusting her and following along.

And this is how she captured me:

Seeing these photos was big. I cried, of course. Danita said she was honored to guide me through this part of my growth and witness my tears.

Afterward I took myself to dinner at Balthazar — partly because it was close, and partly because I remembered it as the real-life inspiration for the “Balzaac” restaurant on Sex and the City with the famously rude hostess. Food was PHENOM and the place was still on and poppin' twenty years later. Way too loud for my AuDHD ass after a long day, though, so I skipped dessert and took myself back to my cozy hotel bed. Super proud and feeling myself.

I Don't Think People Hate Me Anymore

It took me until August to be ready to share this. I've been thinking about it since June 2nd, carrying a lot and transforming at the same time. Writing with clarity and authenticity takes energy I didn't have until this week.

I'm not beating myself up about that. I'm celebrating it. Taking my time IS the practice. Appreciating the unfolding even when it's uncomfortable — mentally, emotionally, somatically, physically — that's what its all about.

And I'm sharing it now because I don't think you hate me anymore.

My inner zombie still does. But I correct her out loud now, with love, because she is a part of me and I love all of me.

I’m sharing this now because I think you see my light. My resilience, my beauty, my depth, my power.

And if you've read this far, I think some part of you sees your future self too — and is already becoming her.

So let me ask you what I had to ask myself:

What is your body already telling you that you and your calendar keep overruling?

And what would you have to stop and let go of, in order to be free?

If you're a leader who's exhausted from being everyone's steady presence — and you want to become her while ALSO navigating this draining, patriarchy-on-steroids, authoritarian moment we're all in — book a conversation with me here. Tell me where you are on your journey. We'll figure out together whether I'm the right guide.

To reclaiming ourselves wholly,

Nikki MG

P.S. The other thing that came out of that Brooklyn retreat: I'm now offering the Super Human Leadership Retreat as a stand-alone experience — not just as part of my Super Human Leadership Executive Coaching & Strategy offer — for executives and senior leaders who are burning out and need restoration. I put the idea into the world and it's been received better than I expected. 5 seats left as of today. If your body has been sending you memos, this is me forwarding another one. Come talk to me.

P.P.S. Danita and the team at Nuovo Studios were extraordinary. If you're thinking about doing this — stop thinking about it and go.

#SaviorFog #SuperHumanLeadership #TheBodyKeepsTheReceipts #AuDHD #HighAchievingAndHollowedOut #BlackWomenLeaders #Burnout #Pink