Welcome to the Black Girl Burnout podcast, Kelly here, and today I'm excited to bring you our guest, Tara Pringle Jefferson.

She is the founder of the self-care suite, which is a digital wellness community for black women. She's a certified breathwork facilitator, wellness advocate, and her voice has been featured on some of the top magazines like New York Magazine, The Cut, Black Enterprise,

and Essence. She currently is releasing her first book, Bloom How You Must, and when I tell

you it is a beautiful, beautiful book, one I hope you all can grab a copy of. We're talking about that today. We're

talking about the concept of blooming as black women, how to heal intergenerational trauma,

and center self-care. This is a powerful, meaningful, tender conversation that we have that I think

is the perfect way to end this year.

Let's dive into the conversation.

I know you're going to love it.

Hi, Tara.

I'm so excited to chat with you today. I love your work. I love the book you wrote. I'm excited about what you're bringing to the world. And I'm just going to start easy by just asking you. How are you doing today? I am. Well, let me, let me pause. I feel like sometimes when people ask you that question, you're just like, I'm good. I'm happy. You know, I think today I'm in a really kind of grounded moment, a nice, almost like serene moment, if you will. I had a really great interview yesterday. And it really just reinforced some of the things that I'm

hoping to accomplish with this book. So I'm feeling good today. Oh, I love that. And I love that this is

a type of podcast where people hesitate before they just say that like, I'm fine. I've had people say,

I'm not doing great today, but I'm happy to be having this conversation. And we talk about that.

And I love that this is a space where people can be honest and kind of interrogate that question.

I'm saying like, before I say fine, am I actually okay? Yeah. And just, you know, just bucking up against that reflex a little bit. And that's helpful.

It's helpful.

And it's really like the crux of what we both talk about and what you do, right?

It's like that if we can create that moment, that pause in between things, right, where people can say instead of that reflex that so many black women have, just say I'm fine.

And so many people in general, particularly women, say, I'm fine. And so many people in general,

particularly women, say, I'm fine and don't unpack, right? Really what's going on and live

these kind of silent lives of whether it's pain or resentment or just over independence is like,

...