Welcome to the Black Girl Burnout podcast, Kelly here. And today I want to talk about how to opt into freedom. I've probably mentioned this before in the podcast. I mean, I've done at this point 180 episodes.

So if I'm repeating myself, bear with me. But I have a favorite song by an artist called Maraba,

and the song is called Get Free. And the lyrics are, I don't want to get by. I want to get free. And so today, I want to affirm for you

that you are free. And have that be the affirmation for you, that I am free. I keep affirmations

all over my bathroom mirror. I have them in journals, and they help. They don't

change your life overnight, but repeating kind words to yourself, making a statement true

through affirmations helps your body and your mind and your emotions catch up to your

phrase. And so the affirmation for this episode is, I am free. And if you said that affirmation

to yourself, or you might have rolled your eyes and said, sure, like I have done in the past about that kind

of notion, I want to unpack for you today how you can get free, how just like Marraba says,

you don't have to get by, you can get free. And we're going to look at three ways you can do

this. By letting go of past disappointment,

by letting go of limiting beliefs, and as always, as I emphasize on this podcast, by embracing joy.

Freedom is a state of mind. It really is not a physical, necessarily tangible thing. Yes, when we look at

our historical context and legacy, freedom has long since been a battle. It is linked with blackness,

unfortunately. When we look at the impacts of slavery across the globe and just the impacts of slavery,

not just on black people, but on black women, freedom feels at times like an impossibility.

And while we may be legally free, right?

Slavery is illegal.

Many of us are still emotionally and mentally enslaved and stuck and imprisoned.

And there's good reason for that.

There's been policies and movements and messaging that are aimed to make us feel as black women less than

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