Welcome to the Black Girl Burnout podcast.

Kelly here.

And today I want to talk about how to opt out a fantasy and instead opt into a happy and healthy reality.

When I was thinking about this episode, a quote from Lauren Hill came to mind.

It was during her second album when she did the unplugged MTV session.

And she said the following. She said, see, fantasy is what people want,

but reality is what they need. And I'm just retired from the fantasy part. I remember hearing

that quote and thinking, wow, that is so deep. And then proceeding to live a life of fantasy

for the next 15 years afterward.

But now on the other side of that, since I have really worked hard on opting out of struggle,

those words definitely resonate with me today.

That I have a long time wanted fantasy in the past, but what I really needed was reality.

And I can effectively say, I've retired from the fantasy part. So today, let's talk about how to

distinguish between fantasy and healthy daydreaming, how fantasy keeps you

locked in struggle, and in what ways can we cultivate a healthy reality and opt out of fantasies.

First, let's talk about how fantasy keeps you locked in struggle. I don't think it's shocking

to hear the conversation about how oftentimes we project an ideal on a person, a place,

a job, to our own detriment.

How many of us have opted into the fantasy of a romantic partner and clearly ignored the reality of what they were presenting to us?

Or opted into the fantasy of a career choice only to later be slapped in the face hard by the reality of the career

or the job we may have chosen. How many of us hold on to fantasies about our family dynamics,

and we refuse to see the limitations or the reality of our family situations. Maybe we have deeply

...