Female by Design

What if one of the most powerful tools for healing your nervous system isn't a supplement or a protocol — it's a hug? In this episode, Francie sits down with functional medicine nurse practitioner Carly Bayless to take a deep dive into oxytocin: what it actually is, why it matters far beyond labor and breastfeeding, and how finding "oxytocin opportunities" throughout your day could be the missing piece in your healing journey.
Whether you're navigating chronic illness, new motherhood, a demanding season of life, or simply a cortisol-soaked Tuesday — this conversation will change the way you see connection.
Key Takeaways
Oxytocin is your body's primary buffer against chronic cortisol — it's not a nice-to-have, it's a need-to-have.

You don't need a long list of oxytocin activities. Look for the one opportunity right in front of you and be fully present in it.

Screens replace eye contact (and oxytocin) with cortisol. That trade is more costly than we realize.

Vulnerability in community builds oxytocin. Reaching out when you most want to isolate is often exactly what your nervous system needs.

God wired us for connection — with each other and with Him. The desire to feel safe, near, and known is not weakness. It's design.

 
Meet Carly Bayless
Carly is a functional medicine family nurse practitioner, founder of Nurture Functional Medicine, and host of The Carly Bayless Podcast. Her path into functional medicine began at age 16 when she experienced a major crash of chronic fatigue and was eventually diagnosed with POTS (postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome). After being told by conventional medicine that there was little to be done, she found real healing through a functional approach — and never looked back. Today she serves women across multiple states and is especially passionate about hormonal health, nervous system regulation, and helping women understand God's design for their bodies.
She's also a relatively newlywed (married January 2024) and a new mom to 11-month-old twins — so she's living this content in real time.
Connect with Carly Bayless
Podcast: The Carly Bayless Podcast Instagram: @carlybaylesswellness | @nurturefunctionalmedicine
 
Resources Mentioned
📖 Anchored by Deb Dana — a therapist's accessible guide to polyvagal theory

🎙️ The Carly Bayless Podcast — follow up on all things functional medicine and nervous system health

📱 Instagram: @carlybaylesswellness | @nurturefunctionalmedicine

🏥 Nurture Functional Medicine — Carly's practice, serving women in multiple states

 
Connect with Francie
🎓 Pleasure & Orgasm Course — one of Francie's most popular offerings, going deep on female pleasure and anatomy → franciewinslow.com
🌿 The Circle — group mentorship community where women have these conversations together → franciewinslow.com
📩 Submit your listener question → Instagram DMs or franciewinslow.com

Francie tackles another listener question — one of the most personal and practical she receives: How can I help my husband better learn what brings me pleasure?
What she loves about this question is the word the listener used: learn. Because that's exactly the right frame. Becoming a great lover isn't about natural talent or chemistry — it's about paying attention, practicing, and becoming a student of each other. And for most women, before they can teach their husband anything, there's a more foundational step: learning what brings them pleasure themselves.
Francie gets honest about how many women — herself included — have been so trained to dissociate from their bodies and silence their desires that they've lost touch with what they actually want. The "duty wife" script, the shame around pleasure, the pressure to just meet his needs — all of it has quietly robbed women of the ability to even answer the question their husband is asking: What do you like?
This episode is the answer. Francie walks through how to re-attune to sensation, how to start naming what feels good, how to wake up your five senses as a pathway to communicating desire — and she closes with a beautifully practical framework that every couple can use starting tonight: the 3 P's — Place, Pace, and Pressure.
Warm, practical, and full of Francie's signature mix of honesty and joy.
The 3 P Framework
A simple, practical tool for teaching your husband what brings you pleasure:
Place — Where on your body do you want to feel sensation? Name specific places and help him understand what type of touch feels good where.
Pace — How long do you want him there? A brief kiss on the neck when he walks in the door is different from lingering during intimacy. When a wife is becoming aroused, staying with what's working rather than moving on too quickly makes all the difference.
Pressure — Firm or feather-light? Intense or gentle? These descriptors help him understand exactly how you want to be touched, not just where.
 
Connect with Francie
🎓 Pleasure & Orgasm Course — one of Francie's most popular offerings, going deep on female pleasure and anatomy → [franciewinslow.com]
🌿 The Circle — group mentorship community where women have these conversations together → [franciewinslow.com]
📩 Submit your listener question → Instagram DMs or franciewinslow.com

Francie answers one of the most-requested questions she receives from women in her live events: How do you make talking about sex with your husband less awkward?
This episode grew out of a recent in-person Q&A at a local moms group — where the questions came so fast and so honestly that Francie knew she had to bring the conversation to the podcast. She's doing something different this season: sprinkling real listener and event questions throughout upcoming episodes, and this one kicks off that series beautifully.
But this episode goes deeper than tips. Before Francie gets practical, she does what she always does — she roots the conversation in something bigger. She reframes communication itself as communion, tracing the word back to its origin and back to the garden, where there was no shame and words came freely. She explores how shame — not awkwardness, not personality, not the wrong approach — is the true barrier to sexual communication for most women. And she offers a surprisingly tender place to start: Do you actually believe your body is good?
Then she gets practical. Six honest, accessible, real-life tools for opening up the conversation — from books to date nights to secret code words to knowing your anatomy. Francie closes with a call for husbands to become true students of their wives and an invitation to keep growing together.
This episode is for every couple who knows they should talk about it but has never quite known how.
Resources & Books Mentioned
Cliff & Joyce Penner — Christian sex therapists with decades of experience. Francie recommends any of their books, particularly:
Enjoy — on sexual pleasure for women
52 Ways to Have Fun, Fantastic Sex — a guidebook for married couples
Go Deeper in The Circle
The Circle is a place to keep growing in freedom, understanding, and embodied joy. The Circle is Francie's group mentorship community where women gather monthly for live teaching, honest conversation, and support as they learn God's good design for intimacy, desire, and pleasure… not as performance, but as part of faithful discipleship. Inside the Circle you'll find safe connection with other women, access to Francie through discussion and messaging, and a gentle space to rethink what you've been taught about sex, your body, and your feminine design.
Join The Circle
 
More Growth Resources
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Our calendars are full, demands are never-ending, and overwhelm is knocking with every new notification.
In this final part of the "Unlocking the Female Heart, Mind, and Body" series, Francie leans into the impact of our busy lives on our bodies. This episode unpacks how the nervous system—designed by God—is central to our ability to feel safe, be present, and receive pleasure. It's not just about emotions or mindset. It's about how your body was wired by God to experience intimacy, connection, and peace.
When safety is absent, disconnection becomes the norm. But there is another way: a way of awareness, rest, and gentle re-inhabiting of the good body God gave you.
"You were never meant to be disembodied. God gave you a body to dwell in—where His Spirit meets you, where connection becomes possible." – Francie Winslow
In This Episode:
How chronic stress, performance culture, and disconnection impact female sexuality

What your nervous system is doing all day long—and why it matters for intimacy

Why safety is foundational for feminine arousal, connection, and presence

How to notice what your body is saying (and how to respond with care)

The invitation to trade numbness and overthinking for embodiment and pleasure

Go Deeper in The Circle
The Circle is a place to keep growing in freedom, understanding, and embodied joy. The Circle is Francie's group mentorship community where women gather monthly for live teaching, honest conversation, and support as they learn God's good design for intimacy, desire, and pleasure… not as performance, but as part of faithful discipleship. Inside the Circle you'll find safe connection with other women, access to Francie through discussion and messaging, and a gentle space to rethink what you've been taught about sex, your body, and your feminine design.
Join The Circle
 
More Growth Resources
Connect with Francie:
Receive Francie's weekly newsletter

Overwhelm. Pressure. Tension in your body and to-do lists in your head. Not the recipe for receptivity, mutual pleasure, and oneness.
So many women are living in a constant state of doing—managing families, navigating stress, and holding everything together. But when there's no space for play, our nervous systems stay locked in survival mode. And when our bodies are braced and burdened, intimacy feels more like a demand than a delight.
In this episode, Francie explores the surprising power of play as a key to unlocking feminine integration. Playfulness is one way to reclaim our God-given design for creativity, movement, laughter, and lightness.
You'll hear how play resets the nervous system, reawakens your sensuality, and gently loosens the grip of stress, making space for joy, beauty, and deeper connection.
"We weren't made to be efficient machines. We were made to dance, to laugh, to move with grace—and that freedom is part of God's design for intimacy." – Francie Winslow
In This Episode:
Why play isn't frivolous—it's foundational for emotional and sexual connection

How stress and shutdown impact your body's capacity for arousal and openness

Scientific studies on how dance increases female desire, satisfaction, and confidence—even post-menopause

Practical ways Francie and Wyatt build play into their connection as husband and wife

Gentle, creative ways to reawaken your feminine body and spirit through nonlinear movement

Go Deeper in The Circle
The Circle is a place to keep growing in freedom, understanding, and embodied joy. The Circle is Francie's group mentorship community where women gather monthly for live teaching, honest conversation, and support as they learn God's good design for intimacy, desire, and pleasure… not as performance, but as part of faithful discipleship. Inside the Circle you'll find safe connection with other women, access to Francie through discussion and messaging, and a gentle space to rethink what you've been taught about sex, your body, and your feminine design.
Join The Circle
 
More Growth Resources
Connect with Francie:
Receive Francie's weekly newsletter