Black Girl Burnout

In this episode, Kelley explores why softness is not collapse or avoidance—but a survival strategy in hard times. As the world feels increasingly heavy, she reframes softness as discernment, protection, and a way to stay human without disappearing. Through personal reflection and practical examples, Kelley invites listeners to release constant bracing and reconnect with their bodies, boundaries, and choices. This episode is a reminder that tenderness is not a liability—it’s how we endure with our humanity intact.
Key Takeaways
Softness is not weakness—it’s an embodied way of staying present and human in the face of prolonged stress and uncertainty.
Armoring yourself isn’t sustainable; long-term hardness shrinks empathy, imagination, and joy.
Softness gives you choices—what to take in, what can wait, and what is (and is not) yours to carry.
Episode Highlights & Timestamps
00:00–03:08 — Why prioritizing softness can feel unrealistic right now—and why it matters more than ever
04:00–07:28 — Letting go of survival-mode “warrior” identity and redefining strength
08:00–09:00 — Softness as protection: discernment, nervous system flexibility, and choice
10:35–14:54 — Practical tools: checking your “battery,” releasing what can wait, and putting down what isn’t yours
A Gentle Invitation to Apply This Episode
Today, pause and ask yourself one soft, honest question: “What is my capacity right now?”
If you’re running low, give yourself permission to take in less—less news, less emotional labor, less urgency. If you have more energy, choose one thing to engage with intentionally, not reflexively. Softness doesn’t require fixing your whole life—it begins with one moment of discernment, one boundary, one small release of tension. Let that be enough for today.
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Join our Substack family for weekly reflections, tools, and behind-the-scenes notes from Kelley.
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Check out PharmaNutra and use my code BGB for a great deal: https://pharmanutra-us.com
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In this episode, Kelley reframes burnout as a response to systems that demand too much—not a personal failure or character flaw. She explores why we internalize stress, how self-betrayal becomes normalized, and what it looks like to support yourself without overriding your body’s needs. You’ll learn how to build support, rhythm, and minimal mindfulness practices that help you stay human in a world that keeps asking for more.
Key Takeaways
Burnout is not a personal failure—it’s often the result of long-term systems stress that forces self-betrayal.
True support includes who you’re around, what you consume, and whether those things calm or dysregulate your nervous system.
Small, consistent rhythms and minimal mindfulness practices can help your body exhale—even in uncertain times.
Episode Highlights & Timestamps (4)
00:00 – Why “Nothing Is Wrong With You” Needs to Be Said Out Loud: Naming burnout as a normal response to abnormal conditions.
02:45 – Burnout as Self-Betrayal, Not Weakness: How systems failure becomes personal harm—and why that matters.
05:20 – Redefining Support: People, Media, and Nervous System Safety: Learning to choose relationships and content that feel like a homecoming.
11:00 – Rhythm, Systems, and Minimal Mindfulness: Simple practices that give your nervous system something steady to return to.
When the World Feels Like Too Much, Try This
After listening, take a quiet moment to ask yourself: What in my life feels nourishing—and what feels depleting? Choose one small shift this week—whether it’s a boundary, a pause, or a grounding practice—that helps your body feel a little safer and more at home.
No fixing. No rushing. Just care.
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@blackgirlburnout
Subscribe to our newsletter: blackgirlburnout.com
Watch the episode on YouTube
Drop a review—help us spread the word that rest is not weakness.
Stay in Touch
Join our Substack family for weekly reflections, tools, and behind-the-scenes notes from Kelley.
Become a paid Substack subscriber ($5/month—the cost of a latte!) for exclusive resources to support your burnout-free life.
Our Sponsors
Check out PharmaNutra and use my code BGB for a great deal: https://pharmanutra-us.com
Savvy Ladies: https://www.savvyladies.org/
Advertising Inquiries: RedCircle
Privacy & Opt-Out: RedCircle

Our Sponsors:
* Check out PharmaNutra and use my code BGB for a great deal: https://pharmanutra-us.com

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

In this tools-forward conversation, Kelley sits down with business strategist Jessica Lackey, author of Leaving the Casino, to unpack why so many of us have been taught to gamble with our time, energy, and money in the name of success.
This episode challenges the myth that virality, hustle, or six-figure milestones are the key to freedom. Instead, it offers a grounded, nervous-system-safe framework for building careers, businesses, and side hustles that actually support your life.
If you’ve ever felt like burnout was a personal failure—or like you’re doing “everything right” but still not getting the return—you’ll leave this conversation with clarity, language, and permission to do things differently.
Softness without delusion. Systems without self-abandonment.
Staying human is the work.
Key Takeaways
Virality is not a business model: Sustainable work is built through repeatable systems and relationships—not gambling on algorithms or “one big moment.”
You must know what kind of business you’re running: Delivery-based businesses and creator-based businesses require completely different strategies, timelines, and energy costs.
Your Zone of Enoughness matters more than revenue goals: Enoughness includes money, time, flexibility, and creative autonomy—and it shifts across seasons of life.
Work should serve your life, not consume it: Whether in corporate or entrepreneurship, success without nervous-system safety is not success.
Episode Highlights & Timestamps
00:00 – Why “softness alone” isn’t enough: Kelley sets the frame: staying human in systems that don’t care about our nervous systems.
05:10 – The casino metaphor explained: Jessica breaks down how hustle culture, virality, and business hype mirror gambling logic.
17:30 – The questions the casino never asks you: Impact, responsibility, life design, and why most programs skip them entirely.
32:00 – Defining your Zone of Enoughness: Money, time, flexibility, and creative autonomy—and why seven figures isn’t a universal goal.
40:00 – Corporate survival without burnout: Relationship-building, having a point of view, and why your job will never take care of you.
A Gentle Invitation
Before you plan your next move, pause and reflect:
Take 10 minutes and answer these questions honestly:
What kind of work or business am I actually building right now?
Which part of my life do I want this work to protect—not sacrifice?
Where might I be chasing a number, title, or outcome that isn’t aligned with my current season?
You don’t need a new strategy yet. You need clarity about enough.
Let this be an invitation to slow the game down, step out of the casino, and build something that can hold both your ambition and your humanity.
Connect with Jessica Lackey
Leaving the Casino by Jessica Lackey
Signed copies + first chapter: https://deeperfoundations.com/casino
Learn more about Jessica’s work: https://deeperfoundations.com
Follow Jessica on Linkedin
Support the Show
Like, share, and subscribe on all platforms, and find us on social media
@blackgirlburnout
Subscribe to our newsletter: blackgirlburnout.com
Watch the episode on YouTube
Drop a review—help us spread the word that rest is not weakness.
Stay in Touch
Join our Substack family for weekly reflections, tools, and behind-the-scenes notes from Kelley.
Become a paid Substack subscriber ($5/month—the cost of a latte!) for exclusive resources to support your burnout-free life.
Our Sponsors
Check out PharmaNutra and use my code BGB for a great deal: https://pharmanutra-us.com
Savvy Ladies: https://www.savvyladies.org/
Advertising Inquiries: RedCircle
Privacy & Opt-Out: RedCircle

Our Sponsors:
* Check out PharmaNutra and use my code BGB for a great deal: https://pharmanutra-us.com

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

If the year didn’t start gently — if January arrived with tension, grief, or exhaustion instead of clarity — this episode is for you. Kelley offers a softer, more honest way to begin the year: not by conquering it or hardening yourself, but by holding it with both hands. Through a nervous-system-informed lens, she explores why overwhelm and numbness make sense right now, how joy supports regulation rather than avoidance, and how Black women can move forward without abandoning their bodies or humanity in the process.
Episode Takeaways
1. You don’t need to conquer the year — you can hold it.
The pressure to dominate or “win” the year keeps the body braced. Holding the year allows for flexibility, honesty, and care as life unfolds.
2. Overwhelm or numbness is a nervous system response, not a failure.
What many people are experiencing is flooding — the body protecting itself from too much stress and information at once. The work is learning how to return to your body, not push past it.
3. Joy is practical, ancestral, and regulating.
Joy isn’t denial or indulgence — it’s a way the nervous system receives new information. For Black women, joy is inherited, communal, and a companion to grief, not an escape from it.
Timestamps & Highlights
(Key moments to revisit)
00:01:06 – 00:02:33
Why starting the year tense or guarded makes sense — and why January isn’t a clean reset.
00:02:11 – 00:03:28
What nervous system flooding is and how it shows up as anxiety or emotional shutdown.
00:06:35 – 00:07:52
The difference between gripping the year and holding it — and how your body can guide decisions.
00:08:18 – 00:10:07
Joy as ancestral practice and nervous system regulation, not toxic positivity.
Gentle Invitation:
As you move through the coming week, pause and ask yourself:
Where am I gripping my life too tightly right now — and what would it feel like to soften my hands just a little?
Notice what your body needs before deciding what the year should look like. Even one small moment of pleasure, rest, or beauty can remind your nervous system that danger isn’t the only thing happening. Heartache and hope can live in the same body.
Support the Show
Like, share, and subscribe on all platforms, and find us on social media
@blackgirlburnout
Subscribe to our newsletter: blackgirlburnout.com
Watch the episode on YouTube
Drop a review—help us spread the word that rest is not weakness.
Stay in Touch
Join our Substack family for weekly reflections, tools, and behind-the-scenes notes from Kelley.
Become a paid Substack subscriber ($5/month—the cost of a latte!) for exclusive resources to support your burnout-free life.
Our Sponsors
Check out PharmaNutra and use my code BGB for a great deal: https://pharmanutra-us.com
Savvy Ladies: https://www.savvyladies.org/
Advertising Inquiries: RedCircle
Privacy & Opt-Out: RedCircle

Our Sponsors:
* Check out PharmaNutra and use my code BGB for a great deal: https://pharmanutra-us.com

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Five years into Black Girl Burnout, this season premiere serves as a manifesto and recommitment to living fully without self-abandonment. Kelley reframes burnout as more than a work issue, challenges the lie that success requires suffering, and invites listeners to build lives rooted in softness, ambition, and sustainability—without disappearing, shrinking, or betraying themselves.
Key Takeaways
You can be ambitious without being violent to yourself.
Healing does not require disappearing from your life.
Soft living is not weakness or laziness—it’s discernment.
A meaningful life does not have to cost you your body, joy, or peace.
Episode Highlights + Timestamps
00:00–01:30 — We’re back: reflecting on five years of Black Girl Burnout and a renewed sense of clarity and purpose
05:00–06:30 — “We don’t want to opt out of life—we want to opt out of harm”
11:45–13:10 — What living softly actually means (and what it doesn’t)
18:30–20:00 — Why you don’t have to abandon yourself to heal, succeed, or live well
A Gentle Invitation
As you move through your week, notice where you may be pushing, forcing, or overriding yourself out of habit. Ask gently: Is this supporting me—or costing me myself? Let this episode be permission to choose a rhythm that allows you to stay present in your life while still moving toward what matters to you.
Support the Show
Like, share, and subscribe on all platforms, and find us on social media
@blackgirlburnout
Subscribe to our newsletter: blackgirlburnout.com
Watch the episode on YouTube
Drop a review—help us spread the word that rest is not weakness.
Stay in Touch
Join our Substack family for weekly reflections, tools, and behind-the-scenes notes from Kelley.
Become a paid Substack subscriber ($5/month—the cost of a latte!) for exclusive resources to support your burnout-free life.
Our Sponsors
Check out PharmaNutra and use my code BGB for a great deal: https://pharmanutra-us.com
Savvy Ladies: https://www.savvyladies.org/
Advertising Inquiries: RedCircle
Privacy & Opt-Out: RedCircle

Our Sponsors:
* Check out PharmaNutra and use my code BGB for a great deal: https://pharmanutra-us.com

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy