Press and Media
Ana María Serrano-Fowlkes, MS LPC
The Curator of Sacred Transformation
Licensed therapist, coach, wellness expert, founder of Increase Your Bliss, and PhD candidate in Mind-Body Medicine
Ana María Serrano-Fowlkes speaks and writes about what happens when accomplished Black women have built successful lives, but the structures supporting those lives have not kept pace with everything they are carrying.
Her work examines unsupported success, chronic overextension, fulfillment, pleasure, purpose, midlife, relationships, culturally relevant wellness, and the difference between temporary self-care and meaningful change.
About Ana María
Ana María Serrano-Fowlkes is a licensed mental health counselor, coach, wellness expert, and founder of Increase Your Bliss.
She has more than a decade of clinical experience and holds a master’s degree from Long Island University’s Brooklyn Campus. She is currently a PhD candidate in Mind-Body Medicine, specializing in Integrative and Functional Nutrition. Her professional background includes trauma treatment, Brainspotting, EMDR, mindfulness-based approaches, nutritional wellness, couples work, and integrative mind-body health.
Her work has expanded beyond traditional one-on-one therapy into coaching, immersive experiences, thought leadership, writing, speaking, wellness, and media centered on accomplished Black women.
Through Increase Your Bliss, she advances a simple belief:
Success is incomplete if you cannot enjoy your life.
CURRENT STORY
When Success Is Unsupported, Self-Care Is Not Enough
Accomplished women are often praised for how much they can manage.
They lead businesses and teams. They care for families. They make decisions, solve problems, manage relationships, absorb emergencies, and continue performing at a high level.
Their competence can make an important question easy to miss:
What happens when too much of a successful life still depends on one woman’s personal capacity?
Ana María calls this unsupported success.
It describes the experience of being successful on paper while professional, financial, emotional, caregiving, or relational responsibilities continue to depend disproportionately on one person.
Her work challenges wellness messages that treat chronic overextension primarily as a problem of discipline, boundaries, or insufficient self-care.
A massage can feel wonderful.
A vacation can provide needed rest.
Meditation can create space.
But none of those things automatically redistribute responsibility, create practical support, protect capacity, or change a structure that requires a woman to remain constantly available.
The question becomes larger than:
“How can she cope better?”
The better question is:
“What needs to change so her life no longer requires this much from her?”
The Bliss-Full Weekend Retreat
That conversation is at the center of The Bliss-Full Weekend Retreat, taking place November 13–16, 2026, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
The intimate retreat invites accomplished women to step outside the demands of everyday life long enough to examine what is costing too much, what no longer feels aligned, what needs additional support, and what they want the next part of their lives to feel like.
A featured experience is an optional 24-hour guided silent meditation, designed to provide an intentional period away from constant demands, external performance, and habitual over-functioning.
AVAILABLE FOR INTERVIEWS & EXPERT COMMENTARY
Ana María is available for interviews, expert commentary, podcasts, panels, and speaking engagements on:
Unsupported Success
Why accomplished women can appear highly successful while privately carrying lives that depend too heavily on their energy, availability, decision-making, and emotional labor.
Black Women, Achievement & Fulfillment
Why achievement alone does not guarantee fulfillment, and what happens when accomplished Black women begin evaluating success by how their lives actually feel.
Beyond Self-Care
Why wellness practices and better boundaries may provide relief without changing the conditions responsible for chronic overextension.
Midlife, Pleasure, Purpose & Reinvention
What happens when accomplished women begin reconsidering work, relationships, identity, spirituality, pleasure, ambition, and what they want next.
Mind-Body Wellness & Culturally Relevant Care
How emotional well-being, physical health, stress, mindfulness, nutrition, cultural context, and the conditions of everyday life interact.
In the Media
Auntie Magazine
Architect of Bliss Ana Maria Serrano-Fowlkes: Why Self-Care Can’t Fix Founder Burnout
Ana María discusses unsupported success among Black women leaders, the hidden cost of being chronically relied upon, and why sustainable wellness requires looking beyond temporary relief.
Ana Maria Serrano-Fowlkes Announces Bliss-full Weekend Retreat in Fort Lauderdale, Featuring a 24-Hour Guided Silent Meditation Experience
The November 13–16, 2026 retreat invites accomplished women to move beyond performative self-care and examine the structures driving chronic overextension.
MEDIA & SPEAKING INQUIRIES
For interviews, expert commentary, editorial features, podcasts, panels, speaking opportunities, and other media requests:
Keka Araujo
Paradigm