[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to the Blackel Burnout podcast, Kelly here.

[SPEAKER_00]: And today, I want to talk about what's been kind of on my heart and I've been thinking a lot about, which is what it costs to keep everything in the air.

[SPEAKER_00]: I know many of us right now feel like [SPEAKER_00]: where juggling, which is why the title of this episode is when juggling isn't joyful and the cost of carrying it all.

[SPEAKER_00]: I felt the need to talk about this episode because I feel like this season of my life, I don't know about you, I have so many roles that I am holding right now.

[SPEAKER_00]: I am a business owner, times two.

[SPEAKER_00]: I am a daughter of a mom who's recently been widowed.

[SPEAKER_00]: and who's been displaced and helping her move back in her place, due to like flooding, I have these roles as a friend and trying to keep up with what's going on in my friend's life.

[SPEAKER_00]: I have to create content, I'm a content creator, I lead different spaces and people depend on me, I pay people's salary is so to speak, and there is these moments in time where I feel like, if I just pause, everything is going to crumble.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like everything I'm holding together is going to fall apart.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that's just the roles that I'm carrying.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's not even talking about the things that I have to do in my own life personally.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, managing doctor's appointments.

[SPEAKER_00]: I have had.

[SPEAKER_00]: Multiple doctors lately have just been cancelling appointments because of whatever is going on in their world and I have struggled to find the time to follow back up to make follow-up appointments with them.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm struggling and running to do that [SPEAKER_00]: I have let things fall through the cracks.

[SPEAKER_00]: I've had like, I never have late payments.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm pretty good at scheduling my finances.

[SPEAKER_00]: I've gotten late payments and then I've got to go call and fight about that.

[SPEAKER_00]: I've had insurance issues where I'm feeling like, oh my gosh, I got overcharged here.

[SPEAKER_00]: I need to call them and refix everything.

[SPEAKER_00]: And all of that feels impossible to manage.

[SPEAKER_00]: in a day, in a business hour day and still eat and still shower myself, still do the basics of functioning and be good at what I do.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think the other piece is being good at what I do.

[SPEAKER_00]: has felt harder because I've had so much on my plate, it's been really hard to keep it together and to make everything flow together with the level of excellence I'm used to bringing in my life and in my world.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I thought, if you're anything like me, you might be feeling that way.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so I want to pose a question to you very gently, which is what are you juggling right now?

[SPEAKER_00]: And more importantly, what's the story you're telling yourself about why you can't stop?

[SPEAKER_00]: Because I know I'm telling myself many stories.

[SPEAKER_00]: One, I have to make money in this economy and what's going on in this foolishness, I need to make money to support and sustain myself.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm also thinking about, I have obligations to people in my life that I can't just tell them to sit down and ignore.

[SPEAKER_00]: I have obligations to myself that I'm like, how long can I ignore doctor's appointments, vaccinations, follow-ups or chronic conditions before it starts to impact my ability to show up to work because I'm sick.

[SPEAKER_00]: how can I stop?

[SPEAKER_00]: And if I'm having even moments of that and I teach how to do that, I just wonder how many more of you are feeling the same and maybe even more intensely than I'm feeling and maybe you have more going on than I have listed out.

[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe you're a partner and a parent.

[SPEAKER_00]: And [SPEAKER_00]: you have just been laid off or there are just so many other things that you are juggling that I can't even begin to comprehend, but just to extend my complete, I don't know, my complete virtual hug is the best thing I could think of right now to you and say that I see you, I'm here for you and I want you to understand that I experience the same kind of level of [SPEAKER_00]: And when I start to ask these questions about how am I going to juggle all this might you do list feels like it's getting a little longer even when I'm taking off five things off the list and two things off the list.

[SPEAKER_00]: It still feels impossible.

[SPEAKER_00]: I feel a lot of pressure on me.

[SPEAKER_00]: Whatever that is, that's when I know, okay, it's time to take a beat and a breath and.

[SPEAKER_00]: and work on it.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that's what this episode's gonna be about.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let's work on it together.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let's work through it together.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I wanna give you some tips and tools on how to handle life when it feels like you're juggling it all and it's too much.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it feels like you don't know when you're gonna be able to put the balls down.

[SPEAKER_00]: And if you do stop that somehow you feel like [SPEAKER_00]: there will be some huge disaster that you cannot prevent if you don't pause.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you drop them or put any of them down, everything will crumble all around you.

[SPEAKER_00]: So let's talk about that.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let's first talk about the myth around this belief that we can do it all and have it all.

[SPEAKER_00]: I really do believe a lot of the reasons why we push ourselves into burnout and we push ourselves so hard is this belief that you can have everything you've ever desired all at once, you are superwoman and you can do it all.

[SPEAKER_00]: This belief of having it all and doing it all, I really think is nothing more than another system trap designed to keep us striving to keep us moving to keep us pushing.

[SPEAKER_00]: Instead of pausing, instead of reflecting and taking breaks and giving ourselves space to for some of us, it's to heal for some of us, it's to rest for some of us, it's to celebrate.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I realize that when we are trying to balance all the balls in the air, we don't do any of those things.

[SPEAKER_00]: When you are a high achieving black woman, which I think is everybody listening to this podcast, we learn a lot about success and the importance of success, but we equally learn a lot about silence.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so we learn how to pair the two.

[SPEAKER_00]: To be successful, but to be silent about all the things that we are caring, to be successful and push ourselves and hit the next goal and have these great objectives, but also be silent about being in physical pain, or maybe emotional pain while achieving those things.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're silent about the cost of our success [SPEAKER_00]: of success, high earning, having the titles, having the accolades, that kind of level of success.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so it's really important to ask yourself the question that I'm asking myself as I have big goals, big dreams, and equally big responsibilities.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that is this reflection about, do you really want it all or do you want peace?

[SPEAKER_00]: Which is more important?

[SPEAKER_00]: even to think about areas of my life where I'm having it all and in quotes, people are looking at me, they're seeing, oh, look at you, you're doing so great, but also maybe quietly suffering and not naming that suffering.

[SPEAKER_00]: Where in my life am I successful but silent?

[SPEAKER_00]: And foundationally, [SPEAKER_00]: And these are the questions that I ask myself when I feel overwhelmed or when I start to feel like I'm juggling too much.

[SPEAKER_00]: To give myself permission to reflect and to give myself permission to redefine what success is and redefine what having it all is.

[SPEAKER_00]: And understanding that the other trap we get into is the balance trap.

[SPEAKER_00]: This belief that we can kind of balance everything [SPEAKER_00]: There is a colleague I know who's always said, I don't believe in work-life balance, and I've adapted it from her.

[SPEAKER_00]: I believe in work-life alignment, and I agree.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's not my original idea, but I do believe that I now strive for alignment versus balance, because balance will keep you burned out, frankly.

[SPEAKER_00]: balance kind of implies keeping all the balls in the air and continuing to juggle, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: It's like, well, I'm trying to balance it all and this ball gets this much of my time and, oh, this ball now has to get the same amount of time.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then it's kind of like, we're in motion at all times and we're just surviving.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you think about a juggler and think about some age juggling 24-7, how long can you physically juggle everything?

[SPEAKER_00]: It demands so much of you physically and in our case emotionally as well and mentally.

[SPEAKER_00]: Can you really say that you're balanced or you just in this place of survival?

[SPEAKER_00]: I never look at jugglers and think, oh wow, they have a really aligned, balanced life.

[SPEAKER_00]: And yet so many of us are juggling all these different balls.

[SPEAKER_00]: All our different struggles and our successes trying to keep them all in check.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we're not balanced at all.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're stressed.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're tired.

[SPEAKER_00]: We've had it.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so it's understanding what a fault sense of balances and what that can look like to me that looks like a packed calendar, no wide space on your planner or your calendar or whatever you're journaling, it is a pattern where we use rest as fuel and not relief.

[SPEAKER_00]: So we're constantly [SPEAKER_00]: sleeping in these spurts to get us ready for Mondays.

[SPEAKER_00]: Our weekends are crash outs on the couch.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, you will do anything in order to just be able to get up and function on a Monday versus rest that is a relief that is [SPEAKER_00]: not a fire alarm that we're responding to with rest, but that we're saying, oh, now I'm going to intentionally choose it, not because my body's like if we don't sleep until noon or if we don't catch a nap or if we don't shut everybody off and go for a drive, we're going to lose it, but rather it's built into our life that we do these things.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I really say all this because I want to make sure we don't get caught in that balance trap where really what balance is is just a better dress to a sexier version of burnout.

[SPEAKER_00]: It aesthetically looks better because maybe we're resting and we're in a cozy blanket and we look great, but we're actually just burned out.

[SPEAKER_00]: And to reiterate the purpose of this podcast and why I do what I do, it is the belief that [SPEAKER_00]: Alright, it's not a reward and I say this so many times mostly to myself as much as to you because as many times as I say it as as many times as I need to hear it because oftentimes I will fall into the balance trap.

[SPEAKER_00]: I will fall into the rest trap of all rest when I'll take that vacation when I will take care of myself when I finished X.

[SPEAKER_00]: when I've done this thing when I've earned it.

[SPEAKER_00]: That can be scary because when we get stuck in the rest trap, [SPEAKER_00]: We also mistake sabbaticals and vacations and weekends that are supposed to be restful for repurposed strategy, goal setting, hustling sessions.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I am absolutely someone who's guilty of this and has had to unlearn it over and over and one more time over again.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let's be real.

[SPEAKER_00]: One of the biggest sources of burnout for black women is money, whether it's debt, divorce, home buying, investing, or just trying to make it to the next paycheck.

[SPEAKER_00]: Financial stress is real and it's exhausting.

[SPEAKER_00]: But here's something that can help.

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[SPEAKER_00]: You don't have to struggle alone.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I am the queen of on a weekend.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm gonna do a whole five year plan for my life.

[SPEAKER_00]: On a weekend, I'm gonna do a hundred content ideas for Black Girl Burnout.

[SPEAKER_00]: On a vacation, I'm going to take my journal with me and I'm going to write out some ideas and capture my creative flow because I'm going to be finally at rest, right, the ideas for that and some some scripts and some poems and whatever I am the queen of turning my vacations and my rest into work into hustle.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it has been a hard, earned lesson and something I work very hard at.

[SPEAKER_00]: I took a vacation recently to London, which is one of my favorite places in the world.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it is a place that both gives me rest and also energizes and recharges me.

[SPEAKER_00]: Makes me excited.

[SPEAKER_00]: to be there and to rest there.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I was really intentional about, I brought a journal, but I was really intentional about just capturing the fun of what I had that day.

[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't do one thing for work.

[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't do one thing for the podcast.

[SPEAKER_00]: Instead, I took long walks.

[SPEAKER_00]: I drank my tea.

[SPEAKER_00]: I went to perfumories.

[SPEAKER_00]: I went to some fantastic plays in the West End.

[SPEAKER_00]: I just listened to music and wandered the streets.

[SPEAKER_00]: I window-shopped with no true intention.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then I did more than window-shop and my credit card said, time to go home.

[SPEAKER_00]: that I was present for.

[SPEAKER_00]: I saw great people and great family members.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I really made this vacation restful.

[SPEAKER_00]: For once, I didn't try to hustle or work my way through my time off.

[SPEAKER_00]: I did all that because I'm realizing more and more in my life.

[SPEAKER_00]: what I've said, and what I say to be true, that rest doesn't need a reason for it to happen.

[SPEAKER_00]: You don't have to hustle your way through rest, and I don't have to do something to deserve it.

[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't have to work hard to have time off.

[SPEAKER_00]: I literally told myself, you've not had time off in several years, this is your happy place, get on the plane and go.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is a concept I, again, am working through, [SPEAKER_00]: Embracing, repeating to myself as a mantra so that I can then repeat it to you.

[SPEAKER_00]: And as a shameless plug, this is something I'm also going to be talking about on Substack this week.

[SPEAKER_00]: And as this episode drops, there will be a beginning of a series on that as well.

[SPEAKER_00]: About what happens when rest just becomes performance.

[SPEAKER_00]: So again, I'm going to gently tell you, if you haven't already subscribed to the Substack, which I'll do when we can go a little deeper there, but I digress.

[SPEAKER_00]: I am still learning and determined to walk the walk of that truth that rest does not need a reason, and I don't have to do something to deserve it.

[SPEAKER_00]: And neither do you.

[SPEAKER_00]: So in the absence of hustling through our rest, what can we do instead?

[SPEAKER_00]: And this is where I want to offer you the concept of a soulful pause.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that's the moments that you take where your rest is in a performance where you don't [SPEAKER_00]: to an outcome to something you have to do.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's breaks that don't serve a purpose beyond anything, but your restoration.

[SPEAKER_00]: So if you are struggling with the idea of rest, or if you're like, I wish I could do a sabbatical, that's not happening, wish I could afford a vacation, I'm fighting for my life right now, Kelly.

[SPEAKER_00]: Then how about introducing a soulful pause instead?

[SPEAKER_00]: as someone who also can't take a vacation currently, who dreams of having a sabbatical, but is not able to do that right now, and whose weekends can sometimes become full as well.

[SPEAKER_00]: I am going to be practicing soulful pauses too.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, what are soulful pauses not?

[SPEAKER_00]: Let's start with that.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let's start with the negative to go to the positive.

[SPEAKER_00]: What they are not is a time for you to brainstorm is strategic rest, the strategist inside of me.

[SPEAKER_00]: My soul breaks a little bit when I say that loud.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's not just another thing you put on your to-do list.

[SPEAKER_00]: Up, soulful pauses at three o'clock.

[SPEAKER_00]: What they are instead is just sitting for the sake of sitting without guilt.

[SPEAKER_00]: It is things like staring out the window and daydreaming.

[SPEAKER_00]: It is crying because your body needs to get it out of its system and not rushing to make it mean anything or to stop it.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's laughing without trying to capture it for content.

[SPEAKER_00]: Or be like, oh my gosh, say that one more time, I gotta get it for the gram.

[SPEAKER_00]: Or TikTok's gonna love this.

[SPEAKER_00]: and I want to offer three types of soulful pauses that you can maybe think about doing this week.

[SPEAKER_00]: The first one is just a micro break.

[SPEAKER_00]: How about just putting a timer on your phone for three minutes where you put your phone down, turned away from you?

[SPEAKER_00]: And you just be, let your eyes wander, maybe you close them, maybe you listen to a piece of music that makes you feel good, just a three minute breath with no phone and no goal.

[SPEAKER_00]: The second one I want to invite you to consider taking this week is a grief break.

[SPEAKER_00]: There is so much happening right now in our world and so much of it is frankly soul-crushing.

[SPEAKER_00]: and particularly as black women, it has never been a harder, it feels like to be a black woman navigating the spaces that we navigate, and there is so much disappointment and grief that we are experiencing on a daily basis.

[SPEAKER_00]: And some of them are capital G griefs.

[SPEAKER_00]: We've lost people.

[SPEAKER_00]: We are in renegotiating relationships that are heart-breakingly painful.

[SPEAKER_00]: We've lost income or employment.

[SPEAKER_00]: And some of them are just smaller G griefs.

[SPEAKER_00]: We miss our friends.

[SPEAKER_00]: We haven't seen them in a while.

[SPEAKER_00]: We don't feel good.

[SPEAKER_00]: Our cycle is coming and we're PMS and we're grieving the emotions of several things that are happening at once.

[SPEAKER_00]: We had a goal for the quarter and we didn't hit it and we might be grieving that.

[SPEAKER_00]: So a grief break can be this moment to feel what you're holding without any rush to process it.

[SPEAKER_00]: quantify it or make it me have meaning.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like I'm saying big G and little G grief, but it's all grief.

[SPEAKER_00]: As I say this out loud, I want to say to you, is all grief and we're not going to say you can't grieve this moment because it doesn't equal a bigger moment.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's all grief.

[SPEAKER_00]: You get to feel it and you get to just not rush to process it, not rush to shame yourself for it, not attach some [SPEAKER_00]: the last soulful pause I want you to encourage to try is a joy break and this one always makes me excited to talk about because I love a joy break taking a moment to laugh or to dance or to stretch for no reason at all but just to do it.

[SPEAKER_00]: I am really proud of myself for the amount of joy breaks I have in a day.

[SPEAKER_00]: I have YouTube videos I watch to laugh and accounts on social media I go to when I need a giggle.

[SPEAKER_00]: I have music that puts a smile on my face and makes me move my body.

[SPEAKER_00]: I have books that make me happy and rom coms that I read just because I know that they have beending us coming and I'm going to be so excited for the characters.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think about productivity when I'm participating in these joy breaks and you shouldn't either.

[SPEAKER_00]: So there's three different types of soulful pauses.

[SPEAKER_00]: So to recap, there's three different types of the soulful pauses.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's the micro breaks where you just take three minutes to do nothing but be with your breath and be in the moment.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's a grief break where you let yourself feel what you're feeling and what you're grieving.

[SPEAKER_00]: There is no grief too small or too big to feel.

[SPEAKER_00]: And there's the joy break where you laugh, you dance, you stretch, you move, and you do not attach it to any kind of productivity.

[SPEAKER_00]: So try the three this week, but then right now in this moment, what's one soulful pause you can take today.

[SPEAKER_00]: Not without judgment, guilt, or trying to make it useful, just doing it because your body and your mind and your spirit deserves it.

[SPEAKER_00]: As I close today's episode, I want to leave you with an affirmation.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the affirmation is this.

[SPEAKER_00]: You are never meant to carry it all, and you don't need to perform your pause.

[SPEAKER_00]: Again, you are never meant to carry it all.

[SPEAKER_00]: and you don't need to perform your pause.

[SPEAKER_00]: At the end of all this, we cannot carry with us the belief that we're weak for needing rest, or needing help, or needing healing, or needing hope, and joy, you're not weak, you're human, and you're deserving of it.

[SPEAKER_00]: So let me know in the DMs, what's one thing you're gonna set down, even temporarily, and what soulful pause you are going to use.

[SPEAKER_00]: to substitute it.

[SPEAKER_00]: I can't wait to hear all the things you are doing to give yourself rest with no goal but rest itself and to lay down some of those balls that you are juggling and find your measure of peace.

[SPEAKER_00]: So that's it for today's episode.

[SPEAKER_00]: I hope you enjoyed it.

[SPEAKER_00]: As usual, if you like this podcast, please subscribe, follow, and share this with someone you think could benefit.

[SPEAKER_00]: We are really trying to create a movement, not just a podcast where black women learn the joy of pausing, the joy of letting themselves breathe and not over-function all day long every day.

[SPEAKER_00]: So please share.

[SPEAKER_00]: Please leave reviews.

[SPEAKER_00]: We are slowly making our goal to have 700 reviews on Apple.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm trying to set a lofty goal of a thousand unspottify.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you haven't left a review, please do.

[SPEAKER_00]: They warm my heart.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I've been neglecting Spotify.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I want to read you some of the reviews I've been getting.

[SPEAKER_00]: Tiffany wrote in unspottify and said, I'm the number one fan of the podcast.

[SPEAKER_00]: So, y'all, Tiffany is number one apparently, and the sub-stack, so double points for her.

[SPEAKER_00]: And she said, your blog and podcast hit me in a different way.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm truly trying to take in everything and start living life softer.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm trying to find my joyful moments now that she's completed her final degree.

[SPEAKER_00]: So congratulations on completing your degree, Tiffany, and thank you for supporting the podcast.

[SPEAKER_00]: I see you on sub-stack, I see you.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I know you definitely are a fan.

[SPEAKER_00]: Somebody else wrote, this episode really blessed me as woman in my 20s hearing your story about navigating different jobs and seasons of hardship and how you found a place of peace and joy by prioritizing pleasure gave me so much hope for my present and my future.

[SPEAKER_00]: And Ed, I love this podcast.

[SPEAKER_00]: It has been so acceptable to be burnt out, to be always on the go.

[SPEAKER_00]: I appreciate you and you focusing on yourself and self-care being important.

[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you so much.

[SPEAKER_00]: Athena said, this was awesome and I feel so seen.

[SPEAKER_00]: Fall is a season that indicates slowing down.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm embracing the season.

[SPEAKER_00]: These are just a few of the comments I've gotten on Spotify.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's many more.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you haven't left a review and a comment, please do.

[SPEAKER_00]: They mean the world to me.

[SPEAKER_00]: I read every single one of them.

[SPEAKER_00]: I love you all and appreciate you.

[SPEAKER_00]: As for everything else, you know you can follow us on all the things we keep in simple here.

[SPEAKER_00]: Black O'Burnout is Black O'Burnout everywhere, that's TikTok, Instagram, Substack, YouTube.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if I've left everything, anything off, it's all there, it's all Black O'Burnout.

[SPEAKER_00]: So, whenever in doubt, please follow us there.

[SPEAKER_00]: We try to give a different experience and different platforms.

[SPEAKER_00]: Substack, of course, is my new baby.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we're creeping up to 14,000 on Substack in less than a year.

[SPEAKER_00]: I love you all over on that platform.

[SPEAKER_00]: Please feel free to subscribe if you haven't.

[SPEAKER_00]: We go deeper on these issues.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's a lot of conversation in the comments.

[SPEAKER_00]: I love engaging with you all over there.

[SPEAKER_00]: And if you want to upgrade to an $8 a month Patreon of the work, it's a great way to support the work, just like leaving our view, which is a free way to do it.

[SPEAKER_00]: So please, if you haven't done that do that.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that's it for now, take care of yourself, take care of each other, rest well.

[SPEAKER_00]: And find a moment for some soulful pauses.