Bonus Episode: When Thriving Makes Others Uncomfortable
Black Girl Burnout
Kelley Bonner
4.7 • 762 Ratings
🗓️ 15 August 2025
⏱️ 18 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this deeply honest Love Note episode of Black Girl Burnout, Kelley explores a side of healing we rarely talk about—the way it can strain, shift, or even dissolve relationships.
From friends who quietly drift away to loved ones who bristle at your boundaries, thriving can sometimes trigger discomfort in the people around you. Kelley unpacks why this happens, how to navigate the grief of changing connections, and why holding your ground is essential to moving forward.
If you’ve ever felt isolated, second-guessed, or misunderstood while on your healing journey, this conversation offers clarity, validation, and encouragement to keep going—no matter who can come with you.
Key Takeaways
- Healing can mirror others’ unhealed places, sometimes triggering defensiveness or withdrawal.
- Relationships built on shared wounds may feel threatened when one person starts to heal.
- Not all relationships can—or should—survive your growth, even when endings are painful.
- Grieving dissolved connections is natural and doesn’t mean you’re doing healing “wrong.”
- Aligned community awaits on the other side of loss.
Episode Highlights
[00:40] Why healing can feel like an “earthquake” in your relationships.
[02:40] The Michelle Obama lesson: not everyone can make the climb.
[06:30] Healing as a mirror—how your growth can trigger others.
[09:00] The hidden grief of losing relationships forged in struggle.
[10:17] Signs a relationship is dissolving in ways that serve your growth.
[12:51] Three ways to navigate the pain without backtracking: name the loss, hold your ground, and seek aligned community.
[14:39] Remembering that your healing is not up for debate.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Black Girl Burnout podcast. Kelly here. And today I am back with as promised, |
| 0:07.2 | another love note for you. Happy Friday. Today I want to talk about how to manage your healing |
| 0:16.8 | when it triggers others and when you feel like it is having a strain on your relationships. |
| 0:24.0 | As I promised all month long, I'm going to be dropping these little love notes on topics like |
| 0:28.7 | this that I feel on my heart to talk about that I hope are helpful, educational, inspiring, |
| 0:36.1 | and our throwback to the old format of the 15 minute or less |
| 0:40.5 | podcast, little micro doses of hopefully hope education and joy for your day. So as you close |
| 0:48.0 | out your week, let's talk about it. You're doing the work, you're healing, and then suddenly |
| 0:54.1 | it feels like everyone around you is |
| 0:57.5 | crashing out and falling apart. Your friends are ghosting, your family's a little shorter with you |
| 1:03.4 | or bristling or people you thought would cheer you on just aren't. And you end up feeling like your healing somehow is rocking their world and causing little |
| 1:18.9 | earthquakes in the lives of people you care about. |
| 1:22.3 | We talk a lot about the goodness of healing and why we should be healing and the benefits and there are so many benefits. |
| 1:32.9 | But I don't think I know for myself I've talked enough about it and I don't think other people talk enough about the other side of healing, which is what happens when your healing becomes a sore spot for other people, |
| 1:49.0 | while when it becomes triggering or aggravating for people in your life. |
| 1:57.3 | I can tell you that that has definitely been my case. |
| 2:07.3 | I have many, many times experienced when I've tried to heal parts of myself or even just make my life better and optimize parts of myself, |
| 2:11.3 | that I end up losing people in my life or it feels like not everybody can come along with me for the journey. |
| 2:20.7 | And that's very close to like what Michelle Obama has said before. |
| 2:24.0 | I never will forget she was talking about how not everyone can make the climb was the phrase |
| 2:28.3 | she used. |
| 2:29.3 | And she talked about how she got better professionally and personally and fell in love and had good moments in her life, |
... |
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