Welcome to the Black Girl Burnout podcast.

Kelly here.

Today, I want to talk all about how to opt out of cynicism.

And in return, how to opt into curiosity.

I'm going to define what cynicism means to me. I'm going to define what I mean by curiosity in this case. I'm going to go into the ways that I have done this in my life and give you a couple of ways

to opt out of cynicism and to identify cynicism when it's done this in my life and give you a couple of ways to opt out of cynicism

and to identify cynicism when it's showing up in your life and how to opt into something different.

And as always, we'll end with a healing tool slash practice for you to engage in.

So what is cynicism for me?

You've probably heard this word before and people are cynical or it's just an overwhelming

feel of negativity around things, feeling like things are not going to work out, always

expecting the worst.

And a lot of times traditionally people have thought of cynicism the opposite of cynicism to be

optimism like you are the opposite whereas the cynic thinks that everything's going to go badly

and optimist thinks everything's going to go well and i'm not necessarily debating that

but what i do want you to consider is another way of thinking about what could be

the opposite of cynical or cynicism. And for me, that's curiosity. Because here's the thing,

a cynical person already knows how it's going to turn out. The answer is bad. It's going to go

wrong. This relationship's not going to work. This job is going to be

terrible. I'm never going to have a great relationship with my loved ones. You live in a space of

already knowing. And curiosity is the opposite of that. It is that you don't know. And because you are

curious, you lean in. Cynicism allows you don't know. And because you are curious, you lean in.

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