And lately, I’ve been paying attention to what happens in my body between things.

Not while I’m working.

Not while I’m handling the problem.

Not while I’m sitting in the meeting.

But in the moments when technically, I’m supposed to be resting.

Have you ever watched a relay race?

The next runner doesn’t stand there peacefully waiting for the baton.

She’s watching.

Anticipating.

Measuring the distance.

Her adrenaline is already going.

And before the baton ever reaches her hand, she starts running.

That is what anxiety can make your entire day feel like.

You finish one client, one meeting, one task, one responsibility, but you never actually rest because your body is already anticipating the next handoff.

You may technically have thirty minutes between obligations, but instead of experiencing thirty minutes of rest, you experience thirty minutes of waiting for the next thing to begin.

That is a very different way to live.

You’re resting, but you’re still in the race.

This is what I’ve been noticing.

Sometimes the task is finished, but my body hasn’t gotten the message.

There’s another client coming.

Another meeting later.

An email I’m waiting on.

Something I need to remember.

Something that might need my attention.

So instead of putting the baton down, my mind starts preparing for the next exchange.

What time is it?

How much time do I have?

What can I get done before the next thing?

Did I forget something?

Maybe I should knock this out really quickly.

And there goes the break.

Not necessarily because I filled every minute with work.

But because I spent the break anticipating work.

Burnout isn’t only about how much you carry.

I think we talk about burnout as if it is exclusively a workload problem.

Sometimes it is.

But I also think we have to talk about what happens when your body never experiences a true stopping point.

Because even when nothing is actively being demanded of you, you can remain internally braced for the next demand.

That means removing something from your calendar might not automatically create rest.

You have to learn how to stop running when there is nothing currently asking you to run.

I’ve had to start telling myself:

That client is later.

That meeting is later.

Tomorrow’s work belongs to tomorrow.

If something happens, I will deal with what actually happens.

Right now, there is nothing for me to carry.

Put the baton down.

This has become one of my practices.

When something is complete, I want to let it be complete.

When I have thirty minutes, I want to experience those thirty minutes instead of mentally converting them into a countdown.

When the workday ends, I want to allow my body to leave the track too.

And yes, another baton will eventually come.

Another email.

Another client.

Another responsibility.

Another problem.

Life will keep life-ing.

But I don’t have to start running before the baton reaches my hand.

And I definitely don’t have to spend my entire life standing in the exchange zone.

Dear Burned Out Black Girl,

Maybe you don’t need to become better at carrying everything.

Maybe you need to practice recognizing when there is nothing in your hands.

That space between one responsibility and the next belongs to you too.

Sit down.

Eat something.

Watch TV.

Go outside.

Laugh.

Be present.

Do absolutely nothing for a minute.

Let your body learn that every pause is not preparation for the next demand.

Rest your case.

The next thing will come when it comes.

You can pick the baton up then.

Until then, get off the track.

Come Build and Heal With Us

If you’re a Black woman learning how to build a meaningful life without burning yourself out to maintain it, join us inside Hustle & Heal: A Community for Black Women Building and Becoming.

https://www.facebook.com/share/g/191h5FSNjX/?mibextid=wwXIfr

And stay close for the Hustle & Heal Summit.

Yes, we’re talking about burnout. But we’re also talking about what comes after it. Business, money, career, relationships, motherhood, identity, pleasure, purpose, community, and what it actually looks like to build a life you want to be present for.

Follow me:

Instagram: @290therapy

TikTok: @290therapy

YouTube: @290therapy6

If you’re new here, I’m Tyra Steverson, a licensed therapist and founder of 290 Therapy.

I write Dear Burned Out Black Girl for Black women who are tired of carrying everything—the relationships, the responsibilities, the expectations, the healing, the ambition, and everybody else’s shit—while still trying to figure out who they are underneath all of it.

A lot of what I write here comes from the intersection of what I’ve learned as a therapist and what I’m still learning as a woman living my own damn life.

And this is one of those things I’m still learning.

There is a particular kind of exhaustion that comes from being the responsible one.

You remembered.

You planned.

You followed up.

You noticed what was running low.

You thought three steps ahead.

You reminded him of the thing you already reminded him about.

And eventually, you look over at this grown-ass man laughing, playing, forgetting shit, moving through life like somebody else has the clipboard—and you think:

Must be fucking nice.

And sometimes, yes.

He needs to grow up.

Let’s get that out of the way.

Sometimes what we call “childish” is avoidance. Sometimes it’s learned helplessness. Sometimes it’s a man who has gotten entirely too comfortable knowing somebody else will catch whatever he drops.

But I’m learning there might be another side to this.

Some of us have become entirely too good at catching shit.

We carry responsibility so seriously that we don’t even give life the opportunity to show us what would happen if we stopped.

We assume:

If I don’t remember it, it won’t happen.

If I don’t remind him, he’ll forget.

If I don’t handle it, it’ll get fucked up.

And you know what?

Maybe.

Let it.

Not recklessly. Not when somebody’s safety is involved. Not when the consequence would be catastrophic.

But sometimes?

Let the shit be uncomfortable.

Let him forget.

Let him figure out how to fix it.

Let something happen differently than you would have done it.

Let another adult experience the natural consequences of being responsible for something.

Because every time you automatically pick up his slack, you aren’t only saving him from the consequences.

You’re saving yourself from the anxiety of watching something potentially go wrong.

And I’m starting to wonder if some of our over-functioning is our own fear of responsibility showing up backwards.

His fear might sound like:

I don’t want all of that on me.

Ours might sound like:

I can’t trust anybody else to carry it.

Different behaviors.

Same obsession with controlling what happens when responsibility gets distributed.

You Are Allowed to Be Unserious Too

This might be my favorite part.

Because I don’t think the answer is creating a household with two extremely serious people walking around making sure everybody is performing adulthood correctly.

Girl, that sounds miserable too.

Maybe sometimes you meet that man where he is.

Laugh.

Play.

Do something stupid.

Stop correcting everything.

Let him make you laugh when you’re trying to be mad.

Let yourself be the one who doesn’t know.

Let somebody else figure it out.

Let adulthood contain some fucking delight.

Because some women have carried the load for so long that seriousness starts feeling like maturity.

It isn’t.

You can be responsible and playful.

Dependable and spontaneous.

A grown-ass woman who occasionally doesn’t know what the hell is going on.

You don’t have to become childish.

But you might need permission to stop being everybody’s adult.

And No, This Doesn’t Mean Lower Your Standards

You still need boundaries.

You still need expectations.

You still need consistency.

You still need to say what you need out loud.

And sometimes you need to say it more than once.

Not because you’re raising him.

Because relationships require communication, and people cannot consistently meet expectations that remain trapped inside your head.

Tell him.

“I need you to handle this.”

“I don’t want to be responsible for reminding you.”

“When you do this, it leaves me carrying this.”

“I need more from you here.”

Say the thing.

Then watch what he does with the information.

Because communication gives someone an opportunity.

Consistency gives you data.

If you clearly communicate what you need and nothing changes, that’s information.

If you establish a boundary and he repeatedly violates it, that’s information.

If you stop rescuing him and he rises to the occasion, that’s information too.

You don’t have to immediately turn every problem into a verdict about the entire relationship.

Sometimes you just need to stop interfering long enough to see who you’re actually partnered with.

I’m Still Learning the Rest

I don’t have a pretty little five-step formula for this.

I’m still learning where support ends and over-functioning begins.

I’m still learning when grace is appropriate and when grace has quietly become enabling.

I’m still learning when to push, when to communicate, when to laugh, when to let something fail, and when to say:

Nah. This actually isn’t acceptable to me.

But I know this much.

I don’t want love to turn me into somebody’s mother.

And I don’t want responsibility to turn me into a woman who has forgotten how to play.

Maybe partnership isn’t about finding someone who carries everything exactly like you do.

Maybe it’s learning how to clearly name what belongs to each of you—and developing enough tolerance to actually let them carry their part.

Even when they carry it differently.

Even when watching them figure it out makes you uncomfortable.

Even when letting go means something gets dropped.

Because, Burned Out Black Girl,

you deserve a life where you aren’t constantly bracing yourself to catch everything.

Put some of that shit down.

And go be unserious for a little while.

You are allowed to play too.

Come Heal With Us

If this sounds like the kind of conversation you’ve been needing, come join us inside Hustle & Heal: A Community for Black Women Building and Becoming.

It’s a space for Black women figuring out how to build meaningful lives without abandoning themselves in the process.

Join Hustle & Heal:
https://www.facebook.com/share/g/1DHFeKs4Gt/?mibextid=wwXIfr

And we’re taking these conversations beyond the internet at the Hustle & Heal Summit—a gathering created for Black women who are building, becoming, healing, resting, connecting, and figuring this shit out in real time.

Because I don’t just want us talking about a different way to live.

I want us to experience it.

More Hustle & Heal Summit details coming soon.

Not secret. Not hidden. Not shameful.

Sacred.

And everybody does not need access to them.

I’m Tyra Steverson, a Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor, founder of 290 Therapy, and creator of Dear Burned-Out Black Girl. Through my work, I help Black women process pain, understand themselves more deeply, and build lives that don’t require them to constantly betray themselves just to maintain them.

And lately, I’ve been thinking about what it means to be deep without constantly giving away your depth.

Because I am a deep person.

I think deeply. I feel deeply. I process deeply. I notice the thing underneath the thing.

And for a long time, I think I confused authenticity with giving people access to all of that.

But authenticity does not require complete exposure.

You can be completely honest with yourself and never say the thought out loud.

You can notice something about somebody and not confront them with it.

You can understand the deeper meaning of an interaction and still let the interaction remain simple.

You can have an entire internal world that belongs to you and God.

Depth requires stewardship

The older I get, the more I realize I don’t necessarily want people pulling depth out of me.

I don’t want people poking around just because they’re curious.

Because people are messy.

Someone can ask you a question that opens something they don’t have the capacity to hold. They can stir up emotions they don’t know how to sit with. They can invite vulnerability, receive it carelessly, and then walk away while you’re left cleaning up the emotional mess.

That’s not intimacy to me.

I want people who understand that being invited into someone’s inner world is a privilege.

Choose people who can enter your depth without disturbing your peace.

People who know how to sit with what they find.

People who don’t need to fix it.

People who don’t make your vulnerability about themselves.

People who can be curious without excavating.

People who understand that sometimes the most loving response to something sacred is simply to witness it.

You don’t have to give everybody the deepest version of you

This is especially important for those of us who naturally know how to hold space.

When you’re insightful, caring, emotionally aware, or professionally trained to understand people, depth can become something you automatically offer.

A friend tells you something, and you’re processing.

Your partner is struggling, and you’re searching for what’s underneath it.

Someone you love repeats a pattern, and you’re trying to help them see it.

Eventually, everybody is getting the therapist, coach, teacher, fixer, nurturer, or wise version of you.

And you are exhausted.

I’m learning that capacity is not responsibility.

Just because I can go deeper doesn’t mean I have to.

Sometimes my friends just need my friendship.

Sometimes my family just needs my presence.

Sometimes the people I love just need the human version of me.

Sometimes I don’t need to turn an observation into an intervention.

And sometimes the deepest thing I can do is keep something between me and God.

There is no scarcity in what is sacred

Protecting your depth doesn’t mean becoming guarded.

It means learning stewardship.

The goal isn’t to build walls so high that nobody can reach you. I still want intimacy. I still want to be known. I still want relationships where somebody can come into the deep water with me.

But I don’t want to confuse access with intimacy anymore.

You don’t get to come into my inner world simply because you knocked.

And when I do invite you in, I shouldn’t consistently have to clean up after you leave.

Dear Burned-Out Black Girl, you don’t have to become shallow to become lighter.

Keep your depth.

Let some of it belong only to you and God.

And choose people who can enter the rest without disturbing your peace.

Come Hustle & Heal With Us

If you’re a Black woman learning how to build, heal, become, and create a life that actually belongs to you, I created Hustle & Heal: A Community for Black Women Building and Becoming for us to have a place to do exactly that.

It’s a space for Black women who are building something on the outside while becoming somebody new on the inside.

And we’re taking that community beyond the screen.

The Hustle & Heal Summit is coming.

A space centered on Black women, healing, building, becoming, connection, and what it looks like to create lives that are sustainable enough for us to actually live in them.

Save the date and stay connected to the Hustle & Heal community for summit details, registration, speakers, and everything we’re building next.

Subscribe to my Substack and YouTube channel for more episodes of Dear Burned-Out Black Girl.

You Can Be Authentic and Still Be Graceful

Dear burned-out Black girl, you can be authentic and still be graceful.

For a long time, I think I associated grace with a certain type of woman.

Women like Eartha Kitt. Gladys Knight. Even characters like Betty Boop or Lucy from I Love Lucy.

There was something about women like that. The femininity. The presence. The way they carried themselves. They seemed polished without disappearing inside of the polish.

And being a Black woman in AKA has taught me a lot about that.

Because when you see AKA from afar, you see the pink and green.

You see the pearls.

You see the outfits.

You see accomplished Black women who seem polished to perfection.

But when you actually become a part of the sisterhood, you realize something very quickly.

Behind the pink and green and the pearls, we’re all just girls at the end of the day.

We love a good kiki.

Sometimes we use really explicit language.

Sometimes we say thoughts out loud that probably should have remained thoughts.

We laugh too loud. We have stories. We have histories. We have shit we have survived.

Some of us were raised in the hood.

Some of us are still the girls who got cheated on by our college boyfriends.

Some of us have been married and divorced.

Some of us have experienced domestic violence.

Some of us have endured suffering beyond comprehension.

Some of us have lost our minds and somehow found our way back to ourselves.

And none of that disqualifies us from grace.

We Are Still Human Underneath the Pearls

The human part of us cannot be negotiated away.

You cannot perform your way out of being human.

You cannot accomplish enough, dress well enough, become educated enough, earn enough titles, or perfect your reputation enough to escape the fact that you are still a woman who has lived a real life.

As polished to perfection as we may look in our pink and pearls, we are still women at the end of the day.

Women who have loved.

Women who have been hurt.

Women who have made mistakes.

Women who have survived.

Women who are still becoming.

And I think one of the greatest lessons AKA has taught me is that there is a way to wear your womanhood in stilettos.

Not hide it.

Not sanitize it.

Not pretend it never got ugly.

Wear it.

Life can be painful and uncomfortable and still be as pretty as you allow it to be.

And you get to determine what pretty means to you.

You do not get to determine how other people interpret your beauty.

Some people are only going to see the pearls.

Some people are only going to see the accomplishments.

Some people will see the hood girl.

Some people will see the woman who has been through some shit.

And some people will have enough depth to see all of her at the same time.

I Wish People Could See the Heart of AKA

A lot of women have worked very hard to create the aesthetic people associate with AKA.

But I wish people could also see the heart.

Because underneath the pearls, the reputations, the status, the careers, and the roles are Black women who have chosen to dedicate themselves to service.

And we do that while living real lives.

We handle business while handling heartbreak.

We serve communities while sometimes trying to put ourselves back together.

We show up for each other while navigating marriages, divorces, motherhood, careers, grief, disappointment, reinvention, and everything else that comes with being human.

And somehow, the work continues.

The sisterhood continues.

The service continues.

For generations, Black women have continued choosing to become part of Divine Nine organizations and carry that commitment forward.

That means something to me.

Because sisterhood is not about never getting ugly.

It is about knowing there is still a connection underneath the ugly.

There have been moments when I wanted to pull away.

Moments when I didn’t want to participate.

Moments when I needed distance.

And somehow, I have still been able to find my way home to AKA.

Grace Does Not Require Perfection

That may be the bigger lesson.

You can be a woman who has been through a lot of shit and still be a woman who carries herself with grace.

Those things are not contradictory.

You can be hood and graceful.

You can cuss and be graceful.

You can be loud and graceful.

You can have survived some shit and be graceful.

You can have an ugly season and still create a beautiful life.

You can lose yourself and find yourself again.

You can be soft without pretending you have never had to be hard.

You can wear the pearls without hiding the woman underneath them.

Because authenticity does not cancel out grace.

And grace was never supposed to require you to erase yourself.

Dear burned-out Black girl, maybe the goal isn’t to become some perfectly polished version of yourself.

Maybe it is learning how to carry the fullness of who you are beautifully.

Maybe that is grace.

Keep Building. Keep Becoming.

If you are a Black woman figuring out what it looks like to build a life, career, business, relationships, and identity without losing yourself in the process, come join us inside Hustle & Heal: A Community for Black Women Building and Becoming.

I’ll also be sharing updates and details there about the upcoming Hustle & Heal Summit, so join the community to stay up to date as everything comes together.

Join Hustle & Heal:
https://www.facebook.com/share/g/1CAyAXWXyp/?mibextid=wwXIfr

And subscribe to my Substack and YouTube channel for more episodes of Dear Burned-Out Black Girl.

Tyra Steverson, LCPC
Founder, 290 Therapy

When was the last time you dreamed about your life instead of your accomplishments?

Not the business you want to grow. Not the income goal. Not the next program, promotion, degree, launch, opportunity, or thing you can finally prove you’re capable of doing.

Your actual life.

I realized I had gotten so used to dreaming through the…

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Hey, I’m Tyra Steverson, LCPC, LPC. I’m a therapist, entrepreneur, founder of 290 Therapy, and creator of the Processing Pain to Pursue Purpose framework.

A lot of my work centers Black women who are trying to heal, build, become, and figure out who the hell they are underneath everything they’ve had to carry.

And lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about what happens when your growth starts requiring different rooms.

There comes a point in your growth where you have to get honest about the people around you.

Not because they are bad people.

Not because you are better than them.

But because everybody in your life cannot pour into every part of you.

Some people are your friends. Some people are your family. Some people are learning from you. Some people are building beside you. And some people have gone places you haven’t gone yet and have something to teach you.

The problem comes when you expect one group to function like another.

You keep bringing your dreams to people who only know how to comfort you.

You tell them what you’re building, and they tell you not to overwhelm yourself.

You tell them you want more, and they remind you to rest.

And maybe they’re right. Maybe you do need rest.

But sometimes what you really need is somebody who says, “Okay. What’s the plan?”

You need people who can teach you something.

People who have tried something you haven’t tried yet. People who have gotten rejected, changed the strategy and tried again. People who know how to build relationships, make money, sell something, create opportunities, and turn an idea into something tangible.

Sometimes you need to be the least knowledgeable person at the table.

Because being the person who always has the answer gets exhausting too.

There is a particular kind of burnout that comes from constantly being the resource.

Everybody calls you because you know something.

Everybody processes with you.

Everybody wants your perspective.

Everybody wants to know what you would do.

Meanwhile, you’re starving for somebody to say, “I know something you don’t know. Come here.”

That’s when boundaries become bigger than learning how to say no.

Sometimes the boundary is deciding who gets access to your thinking.

You don’t have to explain every idea while you’re developing it.

You don’t have to workshop your dreams with everybody.

You don’t have to teach everything you’ve learned just because somebody asks.

Some lessons cost you years, money, mistakes, embarrassment, rejection, and getting your hands dirty.

You are allowed to let somebody else learn theirs.

And you are allowed to redirect your energy toward becoming a student again.

Find people who stretch your imagination.

Find rooms where the thing you’re struggling to figure out is something somebody else has already survived.

Find women who make you pull out your notes.

Find people who don’t just admire what you’re building, but can challenge how you’re building it.

You don’t have to abandon the people who have loved you.

You may simply need another table.

Because the next version of you cannot spend all of her time teaching.

Sometimes, Black girl, you need to sit down, shut up, listen, and learn.

And maybe that’s not leaving anybody behind.

Maybe that’s finally giving yourself permission to go where you can grow too.

Come build with us.

If you’re a Black woman trying to figure out what you’re building, who you’re becoming, and what needs to heal along the way, come join Hustle & Heal: A Community for Black Women Building and Becoming.

We’re building a space for conversations about both sides of becoming: the ambition and the healing required to sustain the woman carrying it.

And we’re taking those conversations even further with the upcoming Hustle & Heal Summit, bringing together Black women to talk about building, healing, purpose, money, relationships, spirituality, community, and what it actually takes to become.

Join Hustle & Heal here:

https://www.facebook.com/share/g/1H466zShpU/?mibextid=wwXIfr

Come get in the room. We have some shit to talk about.

Maybe you were never unworthy. Maybe you just spent enough time in rooms that taught you to question whether you belonged there.

Sometimes insecurity does not begin with self-hatred. Sometimes it begins with observation. You notice who gets chosen, who gets invited, who gets celebrated, who seems polished, desirable, connected, important, and completely at ease in spaces where you still feel like you are figuring yourself out.

Nobody has to tell you directly that you are less than. Sometimes you just start building a quiet internal map of who belongs where.

And then adulthood complicates that map.

You grow. You build. You become successful. You deepen spiritually. You learn yourself. You survive things that change you. And eventually, you look around and realize that people you once experienced as aspirational are experiencing you as significant.

They trust you. They seek your perspective. They invite you in. They choose you.

That can be surprisingly disorienting, not because you secretly believe you are worthless, but because your self-concept may still be catching up to your life.

You may find yourself asking, Why me? What do they see in me? How did I get here before I felt ready?

And that can be frustrating when you already know your worth.

But knowing your worth now does not erase the environments that shaped what you believed about belonging then.

Sometimes the healing is simply recognizing that you were reading the room with the information you had. You noticed who seemed to fit the standard, and you learned to place yourself somewhere outside of it.

Then life gave you new evidence.

Maybe people were responding to your depth, your spirit, your discernment, your mind, your curiosity, your ability to understand people, your leadership, or the way you make people feel. Maybe they saw something in you before you knew how to name it yourself.

There is something uncomfortable about genuine regard when you are used to proving yourself.

Black women know how to work harder, become undeniable, and make a case for why we deserve to be in the room. What can feel much more unfamiliar is being valued without having to perform for it.

Sometimes there is no complicated explanation for why somebody keeps choosing you. Maybe they respect you. Maybe they trust you. Maybe they genuinely like who you are.

You do not always have to reverse-engineer affection into a qualification system.

And none of this means you stop growing.

There will still be women and spaces that inspire you to elevate how you dress, how you carry yourself, how you care for your body, how you build your life, and how you express your femininity.

That does not automatically mean insecurity.

Sometimes exposure simply shows you another possibility for yourself.

The danger is when inspiration becomes an admission requirement, when you start believing the future version of you is the woman who will finally deserve the life the present version of you is already living.

You can become more refined without believing you were unworthy before.

You can grow without turning growth into an apology.

You can want more for yourself without making who you are today inadequate.

Maybe that is the real work: not convincing yourself that you are worthy, but allowing new experiences to update an old map.

Maybe your life has simply moved ahead of the version of yourself you still carry internally.

Dear Burned Out Black Girl, sometimes healing is not discovering your worth.

Sometimes it is finally believing the evidence that you have belonged longer than you realized.

Ready to process what you’ve been carrying?

Pain to Purpose is for women who are ready to slow down, understand what their experiences shaped in them, and intentionally decide what they want to carry into the next version of their lives.

Join Pain to Purpose⁠

You can also join Hustle & Heal, a community for Black women building, becoming, and healing in real time.

Join Hustle & Heal⁠

Pinky Cole called bankruptcy a tool, and people started acting like they had never heard of such a thing.

During The Real Housewives of Atlanta reunion, Phaedra Parks questioned Pinky’s perspective. “That’s a positive thing?” she asked.

Phaedra is an attorney. She knows bankruptcy is a legal tool.

Bankruptcy is not simply a public declaration that someone failed. It is a legal process created to help individuals and businesses address debt they can no longer manage under its original terms.

The United States Constitution gave Congress the power to establish bankruptcy laws. Chapter 11, the chapter Pinky filed under, allows people and businesses to reorganize their financial obligations and repay creditors over time.

That does not mean bankruptcy is free money or that financial decisions do not have consequences. It means the law recognizes that sometimes restructuring is more productive than forcing someone to lose everything.

That is what tools do. They help solve problems.

These systems were not created with us in mind

Bankruptcy was not created exclusively for white people, but it was developed in a country where most Black people were excluded from citizenship, property ownership, banking, credit, and wealth-building opportunities.

We were not sitting at the table helping design America’s financial protections.

For generations, white businessmen and corporations have used bankruptcy to restructure debt, protect assets, renegotiate obligations, and start again. They hire attorneys and accountants, study the rules, and use every legal protection available.

It gets called strategy.

But when a Black woman uses the same system, people expect a confession. They want tears, embarrassment, and a performance of shame.

Pinky refused to give them that.

She did not invent the bankruptcy code or create a special exception for herself. She used a legal protection that already existed and said the quiet part out loud:

This tool is available to me, so I am going to use it.

We confuse suffering with integrity

Black women are taught that being responsible means paying every bill, keeping every promise, saving every business, carrying every person, and honoring every commitment even when it destroys us.

We are praised for making a way out of no way, but rarely taught how the way actually works.

Meanwhile, people with power use lawyers, contracts, tax provisions, government programs, and bankruptcy protections to preserve what they can.

They understand that responsibility does not require volunteering to be destroyed.

This is bigger than bankruptcy.

Learn what tools exist.

Request the accommodation.

Take the medical leave.

Apply for the grant.

Use your insurance.

Hire the attorney.

Call the accountant.

Renegotiate the contract.

Restructure the business.

Get the medication.

Accept the assistance.

Stop letting shame block your access to legitimate support.

Pinky Cole’s story is not an instruction for everyone to file bankruptcy. Bankruptcy has serious financial and legal consequences, and anyone considering it should consult a qualified attorney.

The lesson is not that bankruptcy is always the right tool.

The lesson is that we should stop pretending it is not one.

Dear Burned Out Black Girl, you do not receive a trophy for choosing the hardest possible way to survive.

Learn the rules. Ask for help. Use the tool.

You are allowed to reorganize your life without treating the need to begin again as a character flaw.

If this resonated with you, subscribe to Dear Burned Out Black Girl for more conversations about healing, rebuilding, and creating a life that does not require you to suffer in order to prove yourself.

You can also join Hustle & Heal, my free Facebook community for Black women who are building, becoming, and learning to do life in a way that feels sustainable and whole:
https://www.facebook.com/share/g/1KNWVRUrrm/?mibextid=wwXIfr

Or go deeper inside Pain to Purpose, my Skool community for Black women who are ready to process what hurt them and intentionally build what comes next:
https://www.skool.com/pain-to-purpose-2442/about?ref=a1debff60fb24a36a80719b40f4afc48

They can make you laugh. They can comfort you. They can know your history, understand parts of you other people never reached, and feel like home in ways that are difficult to explain.

You can love them deeply and still wonder whether the relationship is enough.

That que…

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That is the simplest answer.

For me, postpartum depression was layered on top of a life that was already depleted and unsupported. I brought a baby into a life that had no real systems, no dependable structure, and no room for me to fall apart. I was already carrying too much, and then motherhood required even more from me.

Breastfeeding was the last straw.

Not because breastfeeding is bad. Not because I didn’t understand the benefits. Not because I didn’t love my baby enough to try. It was the last straw because it represented one more way my body, time, energy, and identity were expected to belong to someone else.

Before I became a mother, I had already made the helper and healer my identity. I was the person who knew what to do. I could hold the crisis, organize the plan, make the decision, and help everyone else regulate. I taught people not to help me because I was always showing them that I could handle it.

Even when I couldn’t.

That identity required me to perform beyond my actual capacity. People became accustomed to me being the strong one, and I became accustomed to abandoning myself to remain her.

Then I had a baby.

Motherhood did not enter a soft, supported, well-structured life. It entered a life that was already being held together by my overfunctioning. There was no strong system waiting to catch me. There was no deep reserve of energy. There was no version of me who had been consistently cared for and could now pour from an overflowing cup.

There was just me, already exhausted, now responsible for keeping a tiny human alive.

And then came breastfeeding.

Latch the baby. Feed the baby. Pump. Track the ounces. Wash the parts. Try again. Worry about the supply. Question whether the baby is getting enough. Listen to everyone explain what is best while you are barely surviving what is happening inside your own body and mind.

Breastfeeding was being presented as another responsibility for me to carry perfectly. But I was no longer willing or able to keep proving that I could endure one more thing.

So I stopped.

And there may be people who think I should have tried longer, asked for more support, pushed through the pain, or sacrificed more. But sacrifice was not new to me. I had built an entire identity around it. I knew how to override myself. I knew how to ignore my needs and call it strength. I knew how to keep going long after my body and mind had asked me to stop.

What I did not know yet was how to choose myself without feeling guilty.

Not breastfeeding became one of the first decisions I made based on my actual capacity instead of the woman I thought I was supposed to perform as.

My baby needed to be fed. But my baby also needed a mother who could remain here. A mother who could sleep when possible, take her medication if needed, recover, ask for help, and begin building the systems that should have existed before the baby arrived. A mother who understood that keeping herself alive and emotionally present was also an act of care.

Formula gave me somewhere to put the pressure down.

It allowed someone else to feed my baby. It gave me one small opportunity to step outside the identity of being the only person who could provide what everyone needed. It did not solve my postpartum depression. It did not create support where support was missing. But it removed one demand from a life that could not safely hold another one.

I did not fail at breastfeeding.

I reached my limit and finally believed it.

That distinction matters because so many burned-out women have been taught that our limits are moral failures. We think needing help means we are incapable. We think changing the plan means we lacked discipline. We think choosing the option that preserves us makes us selfish.

It does not.

Sometimes the healthiest decision will not look like the most sacrificial one. Sometimes loving your child means refusing to disappear inside motherhood. Sometimes being a good mother means acknowledging that you are a human being with a nervous system, a body, a history, and a finite capacity.

My recovery from burnout began when I got honest about the life I had created and the identity that helped create it. I had taught people that I did not need help. I had built a life that depended on me performing beyond my ability. Postpartum depression exposed just how unsustainable that life had become.

Breastfeeding was not the cause of my burnout. It was simply the final demand I could not absorb.

Today, I am much clearer about who I am, what I do, who I can help, and who I am outside of being a healer. I am learning that I do not have to earn care by collapsing first. I do not have to prove my love through suffering. I do not have to abandon myself to be a good mother.

And neither do you

I really want to understand who put these limitations around your life.

I know you are burned out. I know you have bills to pay. Many of us are parents, partners, caretakers, and caregivers to the people we love. I understand the weight and responsibility that come with being alive.

But that is just it.

This is life.

I am not sure what version of life you grew up believing you would experience. Maybe you thought things would be easier by now. Maybe you thought you would feel safer, have more support, or be further along. Maybe the life you imagined looks nothing like the one you are currently living.

There are parts of this reality that are insufferable. There are experiences that are unfair, painful, and completely outside of your control.

But there are also parts of your life that you can change.

Your pain is real, but it does not have to become permanent

I understand that you were traumatized.

You were hurt. You were heartbroken. You may have experienced things that changed the way you see yourself, other people, and the world around you.

I also understand how hard it can be to pick yourself up when you have been living in a dark place for a long time.

But there are skilled people, resources, and therapeutic tools that can help you begin digging yourself out of that hole.

We have EMDR. We have EFT. We have IFS. We have DBT. We have all these acronyms representing different ways of helping people understand themselves, process their experiences, regulate their emotions, and cope with life more effectively.

You do not have to know which one you need before asking for help. That is what trained professionals are there to help you figure out.

I understand that there may be hesitation around therapy. Therapy can be expensive. It can be difficult to access. You may have had a bad experience with a therapist before. You may not trust that someone can understand you. You may even be afraid of what will surface once you finally become still enough to deal with everything you have been carrying.

I understand the hesitation.

I just do not want your hesitation to become another limitation.

And let me be clear. I am not begging for clients at 290 Therapy. You do not have to come see me.

But you need to go see somebody.

If post after post that I write to you as a burned out Black girl keeps resonating, it is resonating for a reason.

It is speaking to a part of you that needs attention.

A part that needs to be heard, cared for, understood, and given room to heal.

Burnout is bigger than your job

When I talk about burnout, I am not only talking about being exhausted from work.

I am using burnout to describe the exhaustion that comes from performing, surviving, overfunctioning, and moving through life without the tools or support you need.

It is the exhaustion created by negative self-talk.

It is the weight of abuse, trauma, disappointment, rejection, racism, responsibility, and grief.

It is what happens when you continue showing up for everyone else while ignoring what is happening inside of you.

Those experiences need somewhere to breathe.

They need somewhere to be understood.

They need somewhere to heal.

I am creating space for those conversations through the Dear Burned Out Black Girl podcast. But I also need you to create that space in your own life.

Listening to me talk about healing cannot become a substitute for doing your healing work.

Reading something that resonates is a beginning. It is not the entire process.

Your life can still look different

You can dream again.

You can pursue what you want to pursue.

You can build, create, move, change careers, return to school, start a business, repair your finances, leave an unhealthy relationship, deepen your faith, and become someone you feel safe being.

You can still create a life that feels like your own.

Some of us are exhausted because we are working so hard to manifest the lives of our dreams while carrying the weight of everything we have never processed.

We are trying to build with grief in our hands.

We are trying to create while trauma is consuming our energy.

We are trying to become while remaining loyal to the survival patterns that helped us endure who we used to be.

I am not telling you to stop manifesting.

I am telling you to slow down long enough to heal so you can create a life that is aligned with who you are and what you can actually contain.

Because what is the point of building the life of your dreams if your nervous system cannot experience it as safe?

What is the point of reaching the goal if you are too exhausted, anxious, or disconnected to live inside the life you worked so hard to create?

I built from burnout too

I have been a burned out Black girl for years.

I started my business from a place of burnout.

Over time, I discovered another level of healing because I was no longer working inside organizations that expected me to live by their standards. I found liberation in creating my own organization, building my own life, and developing something I could feel safe inside.

But I could not build that safety through ambition alone.

I had to heal.

I had to become dedicated to my own healing journey.

It is a process. You will not always feel like you have arrived. There will be seasons when you feel strong and clear, and other seasons when old fears and survival patterns return.

That does not mean the healing is not working.

It means you are human.

The question is not whether you can transform your entire life today.

The question is: What is stopping you from starting today?

Make one different decision

Today, you can make a different decision.

You can commit to one thing that has the potential to change your life tomorrow, as long as you are willing to remain consistent.

That is something I am learning here on Substack. If I consistently show up, my aura does the work. My personality does the work. My voice finds the people it is meant to reach.

I do not have to remain stuck because something is not growing as quickly as I expected.

I can choose a path and be consistent in it.

That applies to Substack. It applies to social media. It applies to business. It also applies to life.

Learn.

Grow.

Process your emotions.

Feel your feelings.

Make room for all your parts.

Then choose to create a life that aligns with the highest and best version of you.

It is not impossible. It takes time, but it is possible.

Many of us need to sit with ourselves long enough to fully accept and embrace who we are. Then we can develop a vision for our lives that aligns with what we feel in our bodies and what we know we want to become.

But it starts with stillness.

It starts with sitting with yourself.

It starts with taking the time to deal with the burnout, exhaustion, anxiety, panic attacks, negative self-talk, intrusive thoughts, obsessive thoughts, trauma, pain, depression, and isolation you have been ignoring every day.

Maybe those symptoms are not only there to make you uncomfortable.

Maybe they are making you uncomfortable enough to demand your attention.

Your pain is asking you to do something.

So do something.

Make the appointment.

Ask for support.

Research the therapist.

Set the boundary.

Write the plan.

Take the medication if you and your provider determine that it is appropriate.

Apply for the opportunity.

Leave the relationship.

Rest.

Start again.

You do not have to fix everything today. You just need to stop treating your current reality like it is the only reality available to you.

Your pain explains where you are.

It does not have to decide where you stay.

Ready to go deeper?

If you are ready to process your pain, reconnect with your purpose, and build the life you want piece by piece, I would love for you to join me inside the Processing Pain to Pursue Purpose Skool community.

This is where we move beyond identifying what hurts and begin doing the deeper work of understanding ourselves, healing our patterns, and creating lives that align with who we are becoming.

I will see you on the inside.

https://www.skool.com/pain-to-purpose-2442/about

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You are not just a body.

You are a collection of experiences, memories, values, beliefs, desires, wounds, gifts, contradictions, and possibilities. You have parts of you that are confident and parts that are afraid. Parts that are still healing. Parts that remember who you were, who you had to become, and who you are trying to be now.

Your body holds all of them.

Your body is the container of your identity. It is the home of your character. It is home base for your entire human experience.

Every relationship you have ever experienced, every loss you have survived, every moment of joy, every lesson, every prayer, every dream, and every version of you has been experienced through this body.

Mentally, your body gives your thoughts and emotions somewhere to live. It communicates with you through tension, exhaustion, hunger, pleasure, fear, intuition, and relief. It remembers what your mind tries to minimize. It lets you know when something feels safe and when something feels wrong.

Spiritually, your body is where your life is happening.

It carries your breath. Your purpose. Your ability to love, create, nurture, serve, connect, and become. It is the physical home you were given for this human experience.

That does not mean you have to love every part of it every day. It does mean your body deserves to be understood as something far more sacred than an object for society to evaluate.

The reason you do not feel safe in your body is not necessarily because your body did something wrong.

Many of us were taught that our bodies were wrong.

Too big. Too dark. Too loud. Too soft. Too sexual. Not feminine enough. Not desirable enough. Not disciplined enough. Not healthy enough. Not shaped correctly. Not worthy of being seen unless somebody else approved of what they saw.

Eventually, other people’s opinions became our inner voices.

We started looking at ourselves through the eyes of a society that was never committed to seeing us clearly. Then we blamed our bodies for the discomfort that society created.

But your body did not reject you.

Your body did not create the beauty standard. It did not humiliate you. It did not withhold affection from you. It did not teach you that being desirable was the same thing as being valuable.

People did that.

Systems did that.

Experiences did that.

Your body has been trying to keep you alive through all of it.

I recently saw a pregnant woman say that she hated her body, and I could not ignore the irony. Her body was actively producing a miracle while she was speaking to it with disgust.

Your body is doing the labor of your legacy, and you are treating it like it has failed you.

Think about that.

A body can create life, adjust its organs, increase its blood volume, stretch, nourish, protect, and prepare to bring another human being into the world, and society can still convince the woman living inside of it that the most important thing about that body is whether it looks acceptable.

That is insanity.

And pregnancy is only one example. Bodies are producing miracles every day.

Your heart keeps beating without being reminded. Your lungs keep receiving breath. Your skin repairs itself. Your nervous system works constantly to protect you. Your body carries you through grief, heartbreak, trauma, childbirth, illness, work, caregiving, and every ordinary day you barely remember to appreciate.

Then we punish it because it does not look the way somebody told us it should.

We become angry when men and other people across the gender spectrum objectify our bodies. We are rightfully offended when someone humiliates us, dismisses our physical needs, ignores our discomfort, pressures us sexually, comments on our weight, or treats our bodies as though they exist for somebody else’s consumption.

But we also have to tell the truth about the ways we participate in our own objectification.

We dismiss our hunger.

We override our exhaustion.

We ignore pain.

We force ourselves into clothing that makes us uncomfortable just to prove something.

We deny ourselves pleasure, movement, photographs, intimacy, and visibility until our bodies become more socially acceptable.

We use the body we claim to hate to seek validation from strangers online who are part of the very society that taught us our bodies were not good enough.

That is self-betrayal.

We hand strangers the authority to determine whether the home of our entire human experience is worthy of kindness.

And when they do not validate us, we take their judgment back home and punish our bodies with it.

Your body deserves better than that.

You do not have to wake up tomorrow and love every stretch mark, roll, scar, wrinkle, or changing part of yourself. I am not asking you to perform body positivity while secretly feeling miserable.

But there is space between love and hate.

That space is respect.

Body respect says, “Even when I am struggling with how I look, I will not speak to myself with cruelty.”

It says, “My body’s needs matter.”

It says, “I will not punish my body for failing to meet an expectation it did not create.”

It says, “I am allowed to pursue change without making war with the body carrying me through it.”

Your body is not the enemy.

It is the place where your life lives.

It is carrying every part of you, including the part that has not yet learned how to appreciate it.

Be careful how you treat your home.

Welcome.

This is a space for Black women who are tired, but know somewhere deep down that they weren’t created just to survive their lives.

We’re going to talk about burnout here, but we’re going deeper than bubble baths, boundaries and telling you to get some rest.

I want to know why you’re tired.

What have you been carrying?

What have you been tolerating?

What have you disconnected from inside of yourself just to keep functioning?

And most importantly, who are you underneath all of that?

Because I believe there is purpose underneath your pain. But we have to be willing to process what happened to us, what it’s cost us, and sometimes, the ways we’ve learned to participate in our own disconnection.

That’s the work we’re doing here.

So before we get into today’s conversation, I want you to do something.

Don’t just listen to me.

Notice yourself while you’re listening to me.

Notice what makes you uncomfortable. Notice what makes you want to argue with me. Notice what makes you say, “Damn.” Notice what feels a little too familiar.

Your body is part of this conversation too.

And today, we’re talking about the cost of self-betrayal.

Because self-betrayal compounds with interest.

And that interest is called burnout.

CLOSING: DON’T JUST CONSUME THIS

Now here’s where I don’t want you to disconnect from yourself.

Because it’s really easy to listen to something like this, say, “Whew, that was good,” and keep scrolling.

And I want you to notice if that’s what you’re about to do.

You clicked on this episode for a reason.

Something about these words made some part of you curious enough to stop.

So honor that.

You don’t have to have your whole life figured out today. But self-loyalty can look as small as saying:

Something in me needs this. I’m going to stay with it.

If this conversation put language to something you’ve been feeling, subscribe.

Not just because I want another subscriber.

Subscribe as a small act of staying connected to the part of you that brought you here in the first place.

Because we’re going deeper.

We’re going to talk about your nervous system. Relationships. Trauma. Burnout. Identity. Purpose. Faith. Joy. Boundaries. Self-betrayal. And what it actually looks like to build a life that feels safe enough for you to live in it.

Don’t just collect the language.

Do the work.

And if you want somewhere to actually process this work with other Black women, come join us inside Hustle & Heal.

That’s where we get to take conversations like this off the page and into community.

Because sometimes you need the information.

Sometimes you need to sit with yourself.

And sometimes you need other women who are also learning how to stop abandoning themselves.

So subscribe here.

Come find us in Hustle & Heal.

And then go back to the question I asked you earlier:

Where am I betraying myself?

Don’t rush to answer it.

Just stay with yourself long enough to hear what comes up.

I’ll talk to you soon.

Notice what your body feels like right now.

And think about what made you click on this post to begin with.

Because I think there’s probably a part of you that feels burned out.

And I want to introduce you to this concept that I’ve been sitting with called self-loyalty.

Because I think for a lot of us, we’re not just burned out because we have too much to do.

We’re burned out because we keep betraying ourselves.

And when I say betraying yourself, I mean all of those moments where you knew what you wanted, you knew what you needed, you knew something didn’t feel right for you, and you chose something else anyway.

And sometimes you had good reasons.

Sometimes you were thinking about your family.

Sometimes you were thinking about your relationship.

Sometimes you needed the money.

Sometimes you didn’t want to disappoint somebody.

Sometimes you genuinely did not know what the hell you wanted.

But when you do that over and over and over again, eventually you become disconnected from yourself.

So for me, self-loyalty is learning how to choose yourself again.

And I don’t mean choosing yourself in this selfish, fuck everybody else kind of way.

I mean being able to get connected enough with yourself that, in any given moment, you can ask:

What decision works best for me right now?

And that decision may not be easy.

That’s the thing.

The decision that’s best for you isn’t always the decision that feels the best.

Sometimes choosing yourself is uncomfortable.

Sometimes it disappoints people.

Sometimes it requires sacrifice.

Sometimes it means staying.

Sometimes it means leaving.

Sometimes it means doing the hard thing.

But I think what matters is being able to have peace with the decision you made because you know that when you made it, you made it from a sober place.

You weren’t making it because you were panicking.

You weren’t making it because somebody pressured you.

You weren’t making it because you were trying to prove something.

You got quiet enough to hear yourself.

And you chose what you genuinely believed was best for you at that time.

Because here’s the other part of self-loyalty:

You can choose again.

That’s it.

You can literally choose again.

You can make a decision today, and if six months from now that shit doesn’t work for you anymore, you get to make another decision.

And I think there is so much liberation in that.

Because I don’t have to know today what is going to work for me forever.

I just need to be connected enough to myself to know what works for me right now.

And then I need to trust myself enough to know that if it stops working, I’ll choose again.

And again.

And again.

That’s how you become loyal to yourself.

And every time you choose yourself, you learn a little bit more about yourself.

What feels good.

What doesn’t.

What costs you too much.

What you actually want.

What you thought you wanted.

What you can tolerate.

What you can’t.

What brings you peace.

And the more connected you become to yourself, the more your decisions actually start serving you.

That’s why I think this starts with the body.

Because before you can choose yourself, you have to be able to feel yourself.

You have to notice yourself.

You have to start paying attention to what happens inside of you before your brain comes in with 97 reasons why you should override it.

So that’s where I want you to start.

Not with some huge life decision.

Just notice yourself today.

Notice the little choices.

And when you have an opportunity to choose, ask yourself:

What works best for me right now?

Then make the best decision you can with the information, capacity, clarity, and version of yourself that you have today.

And give yourself permission to choose again tomorrow.

Because I really believe you have to fall in love with yourself enough to keep choosing you, every single day.

And all of those little choices?

Eventually they create the life you’ve been trying to manifest for years.

I was listening to Pastor Keion talk about betrayal, and he defined betrayal as the abuse of access.

That got my attention.

Because betrayal requires access. A stranger can hurt you, disrespect you, reject you, or even harm you, but there is something different about being harmed by somebody you trusted enough to give access to you.

He said, “They used what they knew against you.”

And clinically, that made me think about betrayal trauma.

Some of our deepest wounds happen within relationships where there was trust, attachment, dependence, or safety. That’s part of what makes betrayal so disorienting. You’re not only processing what somebody did. You may also be trying to make sense of the fact that the person you trusted was capable of doing it.

And sometimes you still need the relationship.

That’s where things get complicated.

Because what happens when acknowledging what you know threatens something else that you need?

What happens when telling the truth might cost you the relationship? What happens when saying no might cost you belonging? What happens when acknowledging that something doesn’t feel right means you now have to make a decision you don’t feel ready to make?

Sometimes we adapt.

We learn what not to say. We learn what parts of ourselves create conflict. We learn when honesty is welcomed and when honesty has consequences. We learn how to read the room, maintain the relationship, keep the peace, and survive the environment.

Those adaptations can be incredibly intelligent.

But what happens when we keep using them after the environment changes?

That’s where I’ve been thinking about the relationship between betrayal and self-betrayal.

I define self-betrayal as the repeated, frequently unconscious overriding of our own needs, values, limits, and inner knowing in order to preserve attachment, safety, belonging, or relief.

In other words, sometimes the way we learned to survive betrayal becomes the way we learn to relate to ourselves.

And I want to be careful here because this is not about blaming people for what happened to them.

If you learned that telling the truth was dangerous, silencing yourself made sense.

If you learned that love required performance, performing made sense.

If you learned that being needed was one of the safest ways to maintain connection, becoming indispensable made sense.

If being strong protected you from being vulnerable in environments that weren’t safe enough for vulnerability, strength made sense too.

The problem isn’t that you adapted.

The question is whether you’re still making decisions from an adaptation that you no longer need.

We Learn Performance Early

I think about this beyond our families and relationships too.

Think about school.

Most of us spent our formative years inside a system where somebody else decided what we needed to know, taught us the information, and then asked us to give the information back correctly.

Perform well and you receive a good grade.

Perform poorly and there is a consequence.

There is value in education, obviously. But I also think it’s worth examining what happens when children are consistently rewarded for performance and compliance without being equally taught to question, discern, challenge, create, and trust what they observe.

And then there is the experience of Black girls.

There are times when a Black girl’s questioning, assertiveness, emotional expression, or refusal to accept something she believes is unfair can be interpreted as disrespect or defiance instead of critical thinking.

So what does she learn?

Not necessarily consciously.

She learns something about what version of herself is rewarded in that environment.

We do this everywhere.

Family.

School.

Church.

Friendships.

Relationships.

Work.

We are constantly receiving information about who we’re allowed to be.

And eventually some of those external expectations become internal rules.

Now nobody has to tell you to be strong. You tell yourself.

Nobody has to tell you that resting is lazy.

Nobody has to tell you to keep everybody happy.

Nobody has to tell you that questioning authority makes you difficult.

Nobody has to dismiss what you’re feeling because you’ve gotten very good at dismissing it before anybody else has the opportunity.

That’s the part of self-betrayal that fascinates me.

At some point, the external relationship can become an internal one.

So How Do We Come Back?

I think we start by learning how to be present with ourselves again.

That’s why mindfulness matters so much in this work.

And I don’t mean sitting quietly trying to make your brain stop thinking.

I mean developing the ability to notice yourself while you’re actually living your life.

Something happened.

What did I feel?

What did I notice in my body?

What did I immediately want to do?

What did I actually need?

Did I respond to what I needed, or did I immediately start calculating what everybody else needed from me?

Sometimes we don’t know the answer.

That’s okay too.

If you’ve spent years overriding yourself, you’re probably not going to hear yourself perfectly the first time you decide to listen.

That’s why this has to be practiced.

And it has to be practiced with compassion.

Because I absolutely do not want us to learn the language of self-betrayal and turn around and use it to attack ourselves.

“See! I betrayed myself again.”

No.

Notice it.

Get curious about it.

What were you protecting?

What were you afraid would happen?

What did you need?

Which version of you made that decision?

What information do you have now that she didn’t have then?

That’s a completely different relationship with yourself.

And I think that’s where self-loyalty begins.

Not with always choosing yourself.

Not with never compromising.

Not with cutting everybody off.

Not with getting every decision right.

It begins with being willing to consult yourself before making the decision.

Self-betrayal gradually erodes self-trust. Self-loyalty rebuilds it through repeated, intentional decisions that demonstrate to you that you will listen and respond to yourself.

And maybe that’s another way to think about access.

You will always have access to yourself.

The question is:

What are you going to do with that access?

There are things I still want to change, things I’m working toward, and things I’m still figuring out. But when I look at the different areas of my life, there is a level of contentment that I haven’t always had.

And still, there is a void.

I know what it is.

It’s my relationship with God.

My time with God. Studying the Bible. Growing in my knowledge of Him. Having the Word in me. Praying consistently. Making God a real part of my everyday life again.

I know I need more God.

For a long time, church helped create the structure for that relationship. I would go to church, receive the Word, and then dive deeper on my own time.

I haven’t felt deeply connected to a church in a while, and I think I’ve been waiting to feel that same level of connection again.

But I’m also realizing that the relationship I want with God is going to require something from me.

I have to make room for Him.

I have to pray.

I have to study.

I have to get up and go to church.

I have to intentionally put God back into my routines instead of waiting until I feel spiritually inspired to do it.

And while I’ve been thinking about all of this, another question came up:

What kind of relationship do I even want with God in this season?

God has been so many things to me.

Provider.

Protector.

Defender.

He has carried me through seasons when I genuinely did not know how I was going to make it through.

A lot of my relationship with God was developed in survival.

I knew how to need God.

I knew how to call on Him when I was afraid.

I knew how to pray when something was falling apart.

I knew how to ask Him to provide, protect, defend, guide, and make a way.

But life is different now.

I’m not constantly asking God to help me survive.

And I don’t think I have fully reimagined what our relationship looks like when survival is no longer at the center of it.

It reminds me of my relationship with my dad.

I know he is my father. I know he loves me. I know our relationship is there.

But I’m grown now.

I can get caught up living my life, handling my responsibilities, building things, and doing what adults do. I don’t always stop and nurture the relationship simply because the relationship itself matters.

And I wonder if I’ve been doing something similar with God.

I know He is my Father.

I know He is there.

I know what He has done for me.

But knowing that God is there and intentionally being in relationship with God are two different things.

Maybe that is the transition I’m experiencing.

I learned how to have a relationship with God while I was surviving.

Now I want to learn how to have a relationship with God while I’m living.

I want God involved in what I’m creating.

I want Him involved in my purpose.

I want Him to help me understand what He has placed inside of me and how I’m supposed to use it.

I even want Him involved in how I show up online. I want Him to help me reveal the parts of myself that people need to see, trust, lean into, and learn from. I want the right people to find me, but I also want to make sure I’m becoming and revealing the person God actually created me to be.

And beyond what God can do for me, I want to know Him.

That part feels important.

Because maybe the next level of my relationship with God isn’t about needing Him to fix another crisis.

Maybe it’s about developing intimacy with Him when everything isn’t falling apart.

I know how to find God in survival.

Now I want to know Him in peace.

I don’t completely know what that relationship looks like yet.

But I think that’s the question I’m taking into this season:

God, who are You to me when I’m no longer just trying to survive?

Sit in the pain.

Hold space for the parts of you that experienced the rejection. The part of you that feels embarrassed. The part that feels unwanted. The part wondering what you did wrong. The part questioning whether you were ever good enough.

Let those parts of you speak without allowing them to decide who you are.

Because healing from rejection requires separating your worth from the experience of being rejected.

Someone not choosing you does not mean you weren’t worthy of being chosen.

Something not working out does not mean you weren’t good enough.

Being excluded does not mean you don’t belong.

The experience can hurt without becoming evidence against your identity.

Once you can separate what happened to you from who you believe you are, you can start asking different questions.

What did this experience teach me?

What do I know about myself now that I didn’t know before?

What do I actually want?

What am I no longer willing to do just to be accepted?

What parts of myself have I been abandoning because I wanted to be chosen?

That’s where the wisdom comes in.

You take what the experience taught you and use it to develop a more secure understanding of yourself.

And as your sense of identity evolves, so do you.

You start making decisions from who you are instead of from the part of you that’s afraid of being rejected again.

You become clearer about what you want your life to look like. Clearer about your values. Clearer about your relationships. Clearer about your purpose.

And you start aligning your life with that person.

I think that’s also when you begin to recognize how much was already available to you.

Because when rejection has wounded your sense of self, you can spend so much time looking for evidence that you’re unwanted that you miss the evidence that you are loved.

You can become so focused on the person who didn’t choose you that you struggle to receive the people who do.

So focused on the opportunity you didn’t get that you can’t see the opportunities already in front of you.

So focused on proving that you deserved what you lost that you never stop to ask whether it even aligns with who you’re becoming.

Healing doesn’t require pretending the rejection was a good thing.

It requires getting to a place where the rejection no longer gets to define you.

You felt it.

You held space for yourself through it.

You separated your worth from it.

You took the wisdom.

You allowed your identity to evolve.

And then you built a life that actually aligns with who you are becoming.

And maybe that’s how we become available for the abundance that was waiting for us all along. ❤️

Here are 10 beliefs worth uprooting:

1. Something is fundamentally wrong with me.
   You may have wounds and patterns to address, but you are not defective.

2. Other people are constantly judging me.
   CBT reminds us that assumptions are not evidence. You cannot treat imagined judgment as fact.

3. I must fix myself before I can be seen.
   Healing does not require hiding until you become a more presentable version of yourself.

4. Other people must agree with me for my experience to be valid.
   DBT teaches us that two perspectives can exist at once. Validation does not require agreement.

5. If someone does not choose me, I must be unwanted.
   Rejection, distance, and limited availability are not measurements of your worth.

6. I must perform to deserve love and attention.
   You do not have to be impressive, useful, entertaining, or emotionally profound to receive care.

7. My current appearance defines who I am.
   A temporary condition is not an identity. How you look today does not determine who you are.

8. I must meet a certain standard to belong.
   Belonging built on constant self-correction will always feel unsafe.

9. My body determines whether I am attractive or worthy.
   Your size does not revoke your beauty, sensuality, desirability, or humanity.

10. I have to fit into every person, place, or community.
    IFS teaches us to approach ourselves with curiosity and compassion. The goal is not to force every part of you to fit everywhere. The goal is to find spaces where you can remain whole.

Healing is not about correcting yourself into acceptability. It is about questioning the beliefs that taught you to abandon yourself in exchange for belonging.

You do not need to become someone else.

You need enough safety, self-compassion, and self-trust to become more of yourself.