Welcome to the Black Girl Burnout podcast, Kelly here.

And today we're going to finish up this week's series on me, me talking about my own struggle to opt out of the struggle as well as how I center joy and

my professional. And today we're going to talk about my personal life. This week has been all

about getting to know me a little bit more than I typically have done in the past. But as this

community grows and as so many of you continue to say that

the podcast moves you, which I so deeply appreciate and I'm humbled by, I figured it was time that I

turn the tables on myself and interview me in a way to talk about and answer the questions that I ask so many

incredible women that come on the podcast. So part three is all about my personal life and how I

center joy in my personal life. And as with all things, it has been a journey for me to really

have what I believe to be now one of the most healthy

personal lives I could imagine. There were a lot of times when I was completely out of

balance in my personal life. I was always an overachiever. So professionally, I always did well

at jobs even though I was burned out and maybe not

appreciated the way I wanted to be. I was always able to have a success, a measure of success. In my

personal life, though, it was another story. That level of overwork, that level of not taking care of myself in my professional life

was full on display in my personal. And I found myself with a lot of uneven friendships,

unsatisfying relationships, poor boundaries, not a lot of rest time or the way I defined rest was not helpful or healthy. And I really

have taken with me a couple of lessons I'd love to share with you all about how I now make

joy in the center of my personal life. The first thing I did was I did a lot of boundary work. And I want to

be clear, this is something that's been in process in my life for almost two decades. This is not

something I came out of the womb being really good at. It's something that I was at times very out of balance with my boundaries.

And so the journey to reclaiming my boundaries has been a very long one.

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