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.

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.

(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.

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.

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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.

• 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.

• 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

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.

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In this manifesto-style year-end episode, Kelley closes out 2025 by naming the new foundation of Black Girl Burnout: five gentle “commandments” designed to help Black women opt out of struggle and choose softness, joy, and liberation. Reflecting on a year of global change, personal evolution, and collective exhaustion, she reframes rest, ease, joy, softness, and freedom from unnecessary pain as non-negotiable truths—not rewards. This episode sets the tone for 2026 and introduces the four pillars guiding the podcast forward: soft life liberation, practical healing for real life, joy and creative living, and sustainable money, work, and productivity without burnout.

• Rest is not a reward—it is the first response and a necessary foundation for clarity, creativity, and survival.
• Ease and excellence are not opposites; joy- and ease-led living creates more sustainable success.
• Joy is not frivolous—it is data that helps guide decisions, boundaries, and aligned living.
• You are allowed to choose a life that does not hurt, even if no one around you ever has.

• 00:02:44 – Introducing the Black Girl Burnout Commandments and why this moment calls for a new foundation
• 00:05:10 – Commandment #1: Rest as the first response, not the last resort
• 00:06:30 – Commandment #2: Why ease is not the enemy of excellence
• 00:08:09 – Commandment #3: Joy as a powerful and necessary data point
• 00:13:00 – Commandment #5: Choosing a life that does not hurt—and opting out of inherited struggle

If this episode resonated, choose just one commandment to carry with you into 2026. Let it be a quiet anchor rather than a checklist. And if you want to go deeper, you’re invited to join Kelley on Substack for monthly workshops and Q&A—designed with joy, ease, and sustainability at the center.

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In this episode of Black Girl Burnout, Kelley revisits the idea of the Soft Lock-In as a gentler alternative to end-of-year hustle culture. Designed for moments of deep exhaustion and burnout, this conversation offers a compassionate December reset rooted in nervous system safety, realistic expectations, and care-first productivity.

• You don’t need to “finish the year strong” — you need a reset that supports your body, not pushes it.
• The Soft Lock-In centers gentle consistency, not discipline, shame, or hustle.
• Small, nervous-system-safe actions can create meaningful emotional and energetic relief.

• 00:00–03:00 — Reframing the “lock-in” and why hustle culture no longer fits this season
• 07:00–08:45 — Shifting from “fix your life” thinking to self-support and care
• 09:00–13:45 — The four pillars of the Soft Lock-In: soft structure, expectations, productivity, and rest
• 14:30–18:15 — Creating a simple December reset plan with one thing to finish, maintain, release, and rest around

As you move through the end of the year, try creating your own Soft Lock-In. Choose just one thing to finish, one thing to maintain, one thing to release, and one place where you’ll stop pushing yourself to have more energy than you do. Let this be an experiment in kindness — a reminder that you’re allowed to reset softly, without earning rest or proving your worth.

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In this episode of Black Girl Burnout, Kelley explores how empowerment has quietly shifted into performance — and why that shift is especially exhausting and harmful for Black women. She unpacks the cultural, economic, and patriarchal pressures driving hustle culture, aesthetic wellness, and performance-based worth, while offering a softer, more liberatory way forward as the year comes to a close.

• Empowerment loses its power when wellness, beauty, and productivity become performances instead of choices rooted in joy.
• Black women are uniquely impacted by overlapping pressures to be exceptional, desirable, resilient, and endlessly productive.
• Grief over unmet expectations (partnership, motherhood, timelines) is valid — but it is not a measure of worth.
• Soft Life Liberation is about choosing ease, rest, and humanity without needing to earn them.

• 00:00–02:00 — Why ending the year softly matters, and how performance culture is fueling burnout
• 03:00–05:15 — When wellness becomes an aesthetic and self-improvement turns into exhaustion
• 08:49–10:00 — The unique pressure Black women face at the intersection of worth, desirability, and resilience
• 19:54–26:00 — Introducing Soft Life Liberation and a gentle practice to release performance-based worth

As you move through the end of the year, notice one message you’ve absorbed about who you “should” be. Gently ask yourself who benefits from that belief — and then offer yourself one softer truth instead. There’s no rush, no fixing required. Just space to choose ease, even in small moments.

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In this episode, Kelley names what’s really behind the collective exhaustion so many Black women are feeling: layer after layer of crisis, an overworked nervous system, and the cultural push to lock in when we barely have anything left to give. Drawing from her lived experience and burnout expertise, she breaks down the three layers of the Great Crash Out of 2025 and offers a liberatory alternative: finishing the year softly. Instead of urgency, shame, or “push harder” thinking, this conversation ushers listeners into practical softness, lowered bars, micro-permission slips, and deep rest — a grounding reset for anyone who is tired in their spirit, body, or bones.

• Nothing is wrong with you — you're living through a collective burnout event.
• Survival mode is incompatible with high performance, and your nervous system is doing its best to protect you.
• Finishing the year softly is an act of liberation, not laziness.
• Practical softness > performative productivity, especially in seasons of depletion.

• 00:00 — Naming the Great Crash Out of 2025
• Kelley opens with a clear, compassionate framing of the exhaustion so many are feeling and affirms that nothing is wrong with you.
• 07:30 — “Me too, girl. Me too.”
• She shares transparently about grief, family stress, financial uncertainty, and her own nervous system overwhelm — offering shared humanity rather than performance.
• 10:31 — Survival Mode vs. High Performance
• Kelley explains why creativity, focus, and motivation go offline under chronic stress, grounding the conversation in evidence-informed truths about burnout.
• 18:00 — The Soft Pivot: Practical Over Productive
• She offers three soft-life strategies: lowering the bar, finishing the year softly, and giving yourself micro-permission slips.
• 22:43 — Your Only Goal This Month: Soften
• A liberatory reframing of December as a time to reclaim capacity rather than perform productivity or self-reinvention.

If this episode made you feel seen, relieved, or less alone, share it with another woman who deserves softness and liberation in this season. Leave a review on Apple or Spotify to support the movement — it’s free, deeply impactful, and helps this message reach more women who need it. And stay connected across platforms at Black Girl Burnout for community, softness, and what’s coming next.

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In this deeply grounding conversation, Kelley and author Tara Pringle Jefferson explore what it takes to stop “doing it all yourself” and allow support, softness, and ease into your life. Together, they unpack how burnout, community, and generational healing intertwine—and what it means to give yourself permission to bloom exactly as you are.

• Letting yourself be supported is not weakness—it’s relief and renewal.
• Community and vulnerability are essential parts of self-care and healing.
• Making life easier for yourself is an act of resistance, not indulgence.
• Blooming is both a personal and generational practice—when you flourish, others do too.

[00:03:00] Tara shares how burnout led her to “retire” from Team I’ll Do It By Myself—and how asking for help brought unexpected relief and community.

[00:12:20] The story behind Bloom How You Must—how a Lucille Clifton poem became the heartbeat of Tara’s message about Black women’s wellness and resilience.

[00:28:00] The revelation that “it’s perfectly fine to make life easier for yourself”—and how small shifts toward ease can radically change daily life.

[00:45:00] Tara and Kelley discuss generational healing, honoring their mothers and grandmothers, and redefining strength through softness and humanity.

Take a quiet moment to notice where you’ve been carrying things alone. Choose one place in your life where you can let something be easier—asking for help, softening a deadline, or loosening an old expectation. Let this be a small experiment in allowing support. If this conversation opened something for you, share the episode with someone who also deserves more ease and community.

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GRAB A COPY OF Bloom How You Must:

CHECK OUT HER SITE

SELF-CARE SUITE

TARA'S SUBSTACK - The Well Rested Black Woman

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In this episode, Kelley offers a gentle invitation to rethink gratitude and generosity in ways that honor your real capacity. Instead of pushing through exhaustion or defaulting to obligation, she explores how rest, presence, and honest boundaries can create more meaningful connection. This is a grounding reminder to slow down, soften, and practice generosity that does not require self-erasure.

• Gratitude does not need to look like labor or over-functioning; it can be quiet, slow, and restorative.
• Generosity is not depletion—true generosity flows from clarity, intention, and wellness.
• Rest is a powerful model for others and an act of generational healing.
• You are allowed to give less, move slower, and choose what aligns with your current capacity.

00:01 — Naming the pressure of gratitude and generosity: Kelley reflects on how cultural messages about being grateful and generous can encourage Black women to push past their limits, reminding listeners that gratitude does not require exhaustion.

02:36 — Reframing gratitude as rest and truth-telling: A powerful reminder that gratitude can look like slowing down, breathing, or closing the door for five quiet minutes.

03:31 — Redefining generosity without self-sacrifice: Kelley introduces a spacious definition of generosity—one rooted in values rather than guilt or depletion.

As you move through this time of reflection, take a quiet moment to find one small pocket of peace. Let yourself pause. Let yourself breathe. Let your generosity begin with you.

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