Welcome to the Black Girl Burnout podcast. Kelly here. And today we're going to talk all about how to opt into expectations. And what I mean by that is how to set expectations for others and for yourself as a Black woman.

We'll talk about why it can be so difficult to set boundaries and expectations, the painful consequences of not doing so, and strategies for setting expectations that align with all the things that you

value and need, that really align with you opting out of struggle and opting into community

and abundance and joy. Now, in the previous episode, I talked about loneliness, and I talked

about specifically how loneliness

can keep us in struggle. And it can be a real exercise and vulnerability to admit that we are

alone. But the second piece of that really is a larger conversation about having expectations.

I know I've talked about before how it can be a recipe for anger and dissatisfaction if we over-rely on others to give us what we need on the

inside. So setting expectations in an unhealthy way can harm us. But that doesn't

mean we can't set expectations and particularly of ourselves and of others. This has challenges,

of course, particularly as black women. As we talked about in the last episode, there is such a societal pressure that we have

to be strong, to be self-reliant.

We don't need anyone to help us with anything.

The result is, though, black women develop that attitude or have inherited that attitude

from hundreds of years of cultural myths and

oppression. And in reality, it's also borne out of the fact that oftentimes black women have

multiple roles and responsibilities that they are all trying to balance in their life, that there

is oftentimes a lack of social support or at least healthy social support.

And so the fallout of that is that we are trying to juggle everything on our own.

And that can be painful.

That can be frustrating.

And it can lead to other real life problems, like health issues,

...