Joy Is Resistance: Why You Can’t Wait for the World to Feel Good
Black Girl Burnout
Kelley Bonner
4.7 • 763 Ratings
🗓️ 8 April 2026
⏱️ 22 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this episode, Kelley explores the idea that joy is not something we wait for, but something we actively practice, especially in difficult times. Drawing from personal reflection, cultural history, and evidence-informed healing, she unpacks how constant exposure to outrage and hardship can disconnect us from our humanity.
She reframes joy as both a survival tool and a form of resistance, rooted deeply in Black cultural traditions and ancestral wisdom. Through storytelling and practical insight, she invites listeners to build intentional “structures of joy” that are accessible, sustainable, and grounding.
This conversation is a reminder that staying human in a harsh world requires choice, practice, and softness without losing awareness.
Key Takeaways
- Joy is not something you earn after things get better. It is something you practice to survive what is happening now.
- Constant outrage may feel productive, but it often disconnects you from your ability to rest, create, and love.
- Building simple, repeatable practices of joy makes it easier to access when you need it most.
Episode Highlights & Timestamps
- 00:00 – The mantra: “I’m not waiting for the world to be good to feel good”
- 03:00 – The weight of current realities and how it impacts joy
- 09:30 – Why outrage is not the same as action and how it changes you
- 15:00 – Joy as resistance and how to begin building a practice of it
A Gentle Invitation
What would it look like to stop postponing your joy?
This week, choose one small, repeatable practice that brings you back to yourself. It could be music, movement, rest, or laughter. Let it be simple, accessible, and yours.
You are not waiting for the world to soften before you do. You are practicing staying human, right here, right now.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Black Girl Burnout podcast. |
| 0:12.3 | Kelly here. |
| 0:13.6 | And I want to start off this episode with a sentence I've been saying to myself over and over and over again. It's this. I'm not waiting |
| 0:24.5 | for the world to be good, for me to feel good. That's it. But those words have given so much |
| 0:33.3 | power to me. It's come from a hard-earned realization that I've been sitting with. And I want to talk |
| 0:40.1 | today about why it matters more than ever that we practice joy and that we give it some structure. |
| 0:46.7 | Because sometimes joy is the only way to resist what's happening in the world around us. But first, I want to tell you how I got here. |
| 0:56.0 | I want to talk about what's making us joyless right now, |
| 0:59.0 | and I want to talk about our culture, |
| 1:01.8 | because when it comes to finding joy in the darkest of times, |
| 1:05.5 | it's literally in our bloodline. |
| 1:08.0 | So one of the things that brought this phrase to life for me, this, |
| 1:12.4 | I don't want to wait for the world to be good, to feel good. That mantra came about because of music. |
| 1:22.5 | Ray just dropped her latest album, which is actually called This Music May Contain Hope. And it has |
| 1:30.1 | quickly become my entire personality. I will not apologize. At any given moment, you will hear me |
| 1:35.9 | singing. Some song at the top of my lungs, probably a little off key, but that's my business. |
| 1:43.5 | But there's one particular song called Life Vote. And what makes |
| 1:48.3 | this song so special to me is that there's this line that just says, I don't know how I'm |
| 1:53.8 | going to get there, but I'm not giving up. I'm not giving up yet. And it's a very kind of call |
| 2:00.0 | and response type song. There's all these |
| 2:03.7 | different voices from younger people, older people, people from different cultures and different |
| 2:08.3 | accents, all saying what feels like this rallying cry, that even in a harsh and difficult |
... |
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