Welcome to the Black Oburnup podcast.

Kelly here.

And today we are continuing the discussion about myself, where I'm telling you all the answers to the questions I usually am asking others. It's

Mental Health Awareness Month, and I think it's time that some of you all got to know a little

bit about me. I talked about last episode, how I don't typically, I talk about myself, but in a very

kind of generic removed way about my experiences. I don't really talk about me and my

day-to-day life or my own struggle. And while that's not my nature really to talk about myself

that way, I think it's important when talking about how I came to this podcast, how I do what I do,

what it is meant for me to start Black Girl burnout, and how I came to this podcast, how I do what I do, what it is meant for me to start Black

Girl Burnout, and how I have opted out. And so today, if you have been patient and I haven't lost

you already, I am going to talk about how I center joy in my professional life. It's the question

I ask everybody who comes on the podcast

as a guest. And now it's my turn to answer that and to tell you a little bit more about myself

and what I do. So like I said, in the last episode, the real turning point for me is I had my own

incident of spectacular burnout where I left a job that I thought I would spend my whole life

doing in a puddle, basically.

I was not really functional.

And recovery from that burnout took at least a decade to get through.

And it was a series of starts and stops and have a healthy relationship with the

work that I was doing. I was constantly burning out in little ways. So instead of a big burnout,

I had a bunch of small ones. I was working jobs that were pushing me to my limit, making me

ignore my own health. I was working for

...