I’ve been sitting with this question lately: Who are you outside of the roles you’ve had to play?

What do you say when someone asks, “Who are you?”

Do you lead with “mother,” “caretaker,” “child of God,” “strong Black woman”?
Do you find yourself naming all the things you do for everyone else… without naming you?

Most of us have never been asked, “Who are you outside of the roles you’ve had to perform just to be accepted, or safe, or taken seriously?” And if we were asked, we wouldn’t even know where to begin.

In this episode, Shirl reflects on a powerful video clip that cracked something open and got her asking herself that exact question.

She talks about what happens when our identity gets built around survival, family expectations, and being the one who always holds it all together. And how slowly… silently… we start to disappear into the roles we’ve been praised for.

Shirl also shares how this moment inspired the creation of her new storytelling series: 26 Black Women — a space to tell the truth about what being strong has cost us.

Who Are You Outside of the Roles? Why the Question Still Hurts. What You’ll Hear In This Episode:

• Why the question “Who are you?” is harder than it seems

• How our stories are shaped by survival, not choice

• What it means to tell the truth beyond the roles we play

• Why Shirl created the 26 Black Women Storytelling Series

• A soft invitation to tell your truth — out loud
  

Submit your story for the 26 Black Women Storytelling Series → https://forms.gle/VsfFMjNjMt6eVLJp7

• Schedule a 1:1 Support Session
• Get the Guide: “You Know Your Support Language™—Now What?”
• Take the Support Language™ Quiz. and learn how you actually receive support best.
• Get Support Right in Your Inbox: Gentle words, real-life reflection, and soft reminders every week

Let’s Stay Connected:

• Subscribe to Shades of Strong on Apple Podcasts or your favorite platform
• Share this episode with a sista who’s tired of being the strong one
• Leave a review if the episode spoke to your spirit — it helps more Black women find this space
• Join Shades of Strong on Substack for deeper convos that don’t always make it to the mic
• Follow Shades of Strong on Instagram for daily reflections on what it means to be suppoted
• Be a Guest on the Show
• www.shadesofstrong.com

Shirl is the creator of Support Languages™ and host of Shades of Strong® — a movement shifting the narrative from Strong Black Woman to Supported Black Woman™ through language, rest, and real support.

2025 had hands… but it also had layers. This 2025 reflection for Black women holds space for all of it — the joy, the grief, the growth, the tiredness that doesn’t always go away with sleep. In this season of goal-setting and high expectations, this episode offers something different: a pause.

In this deeply personal check-in, Shirl holds space for everything this year brought with it — the beauty, the heartbreak, the quiet resilience. It’s not a list of to-dos or a highlight reel. It’s a short conversation about what it means to survive a year that asked so much of you… and still show up with love in your heart.

Just truth, reflection, and an invitation to lay some things down before you step into 2026.

If you’ve been feeling unseen, unheld, or just plain tired, this episode with created with you in mind.

In this episode, Shirl reflects on:

• Why both the hard and the healing matter

• The emotional cost of being “the strong one” again

• The quiet things you might still be carrying into the new year

• Five questions to help you release what no longer serves you

• A reminder that you don’t have to earn rest, support, or peace

This isn’t about pretending 2025 was easy — it wasn’t. But this 2025 reflection for Black women is about telling the truth about what it asked of you and how you kept showing up. It’s an honest, layered moment to release what you’re not taking into 2026.

• Schedule a 1:1 Support Session
• Get the Guide: “You Know Your Support Language™—Now What?”
• Take the Support Language™ Quiz. and learn how you actually receive support best.
• Get Support Right in Your Inbox: Gentle words, real-life reflection, and soft reminders every week

Let’s Stay Connected:

• Subscribe to Shades of Strong on Apple Podcasts or your favorite platform
• Share this episode with a sista who’s tired of being the strong one
• Leave a review if the episode spoke to your spirit — it helps more Black women find this space
• Join Shades of Strong on Substack for deeper convos that don’t always make it to the mic
• Follow Shades of Strong on Instagram for daily reflections on what it means to be suppoted
• Be a Guest on the Show
• www.shadesofstrong.com

Shirl is the creator of Support Languages™ and host of Shades of Strong® — a movement shifting the narrative from Strong Black Woman to Supported Black Woman™ through language, rest, and real support.

When it comes to holiday support for Black women, it often looks like doing everything for everyone else — with little space to be supported yourself.

In this short but powerful Support Snippet, Shirl offers a tender nudge to come back to yourself. To stop waiting until everything’s done to take a breath. And to remember that being supported isn’t something you have to earn.

If you’ve been running on fumes, putting everyone else first, or quietly holding a lot behind your smile — this one’s for you.

• Why this time of year feels especially heavy for strong Black women

• A reframe on what support actually looks like during the holidays

• A quiet invitation to make room for you — even if just for five minutes

Support doesn’t have to be big, expensive, or aesthetic.
It can be five quiet minutes.
It can be saying no.
It can be choosing you without guilt.

• Schedule a 1:1 Support Session
• Get the Guide: “You Know Your Support Language™—Now What?”
• Take the Support Language™ Quiz. and learn how you actually receive support best.
• Get Support Right in Your Inbox: Gentle words, real-life reflection, and soft reminders every week

Let’s Stay Connected:

• Subscribe to Shades of Strong on Apple Podcasts or your favorite platform
• Share this episode with a sista who’s tired of being the strong one
• Leave a review if the episode spoke to your spirit — it helps more Black women find this space
• Join Shades of Strong on Substack for deeper convos that don’t always make it to the mic
• Follow Shades of Strong on Instagram for daily reflections on what it means to be suppoted
• Be a Guest on the Show
• www.shadesofstrong.com

Related Episodes

• When Black Women Are Well, Everybody’s Well
• When You’re All You’ve Got

Shirl Hubbard is the creator of Support Languages™ and host of Shades of Strong® — a movement shifting the narrative from Strong Black Woman to Supported Black Woman™ through language, rest, and real support.