Welcome to Black Girl Burnout. Kelly here. Today we're going to talk all about how to opt into a life of reciprocity. We're going to define what reciprocity is.

We're going to talk about the three kind of areas of life where we should pursue reciprocity or

reciprocal relationships. And we're going to end, as always, with a practice, a healing tool to help you determine

where in your life you can get a little more reciprocity.

This conversation I've been having, as a lot of the material I have for this podcast,

comes from conversations with the women, the black women specifically in my life.

And I remember having this conversation with one of my friends and saying to them,

I am no longer interested in relationships that are not reciprocal.

And her kind of pausing on that and me really defining what that meant.

I know the basic definition of reciprocity is the practice of exchanging things for or with others

for mutual benefit.

And how I meant that in my life is that I really was no longer interested in having friendships, family dynamics, or business and career relationships that were not reciprocal.

And to be able to define that, I kind of knew what I didn't want anymore, right? We've all been in situations and in

relationships with people where it has felt one-sided, whether it's partnership or friendship

or family dynamics, our career. There have always been moments in time where we have felt

like we have given more than

we have gotten. And I want to separate reciprocity from selfishness, which a lot of people think it is,

that reciprocity and generosity are not the same thing. You can choose to be generous any day of the week, any moment you choose to.

You are in the line at the coffee place and you want to pay it forward and grab the next person's

coffee. That is an act of generosity and that is separate from the conversation about reciprocity

or what I meant when I said I'm no longer interested in reciprocal

relationships. That generosity never goes out of style, kindness never goes out of style, and not

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