17| Allowing Our Vision to Expand and Evolve

Have you ever found yourself taking an unplanned, but much needed, break from something? What about a break from something you genuinely enjoy?

Well, that’s exactly what happened with me and podcasting. Life happened (i.e. recovering from a toxic workplace) and my mind and body forced me to rest.

In this episode, I share: 

• What influenced the break in detail
• Some of the events and my reflections during the break plus a fun announcement
• Tips and words of encouragement to inspire you to allow yourself, your goals and the vision for your life to expand
• A FREE workbook designed to guide you through your vision casting journey

Download it HERE.

Click HERE to join the email list and receive your FREE Expanding Your Vision guide

Transcript

TaReon Jael: 0:00

Welcome to the Wellness for Black Girls podcast, a semi-monthly podcast designed to inspire Black women to honor the strength and beauty within by exploring wellness topics. I'm your host, TaReon Jael, a Certified Health Educator and Medical Lab Scientist. While I hope you enjoy listening to and learning from the podcast, please remember that it is not intended to be a substitute for a relationship with a licensed healthcare provider. Welcome to episode 17. I'm back from an unplanned and much needed break from producing the podcast. In this episode, I'm going to share what influenced the break and some things I learned during that time. You may remember me mentioning bits and pieces about my experience at my previous job. I didn't go into too much detail, but I can say that the work environment was toxic. It was not good for my mental health, so back in December I started a new job. I took about a week off in between jobs to give myself a little time to rest and prepare myself for my new gig at another lab at one of the major hospitals out here in Reno. It was interesting, because I started mid December during a time when there was a spike in COVID cases, which meant our COVID testing workload was heavier than normal. And because it was during the holidays, a lot of my new coworkers were out on holiday vacation. But despite a bumpy start, it was, and has continued to be a good work environment. So I'm happy with my decision. But there were two things that happened during my adjustment period that I did not anticipate. The first thing that caught me off guard was how long it would take me to adjust to my new work hours. Previously I've only ever worked eight hour shifts, but now for the first time I'm working 10 hour shifts. While I've worked various shifts, such as swing and graveyard shift and covering weekends and holidays. This is my first time working 10 hour shifts, so it's been an adjustment. My hats off to those that work 12 hour shifts or seven days on and seven days off. I don't know how you all do it, but my hats off to you for making it work. The second thing that I did not anticipate, and in my opinion is the biggest thing was how long it would take me to recuperate from the previous toxic workplace and adjust mentally to my new work environment. Back in episode 13, I interviewed my friend, Melissa Nikohl, you may remember her sharing about her experience leaving a toxic workplace and how she had to take quite a bit of time off before starting her next job. So I don't know why I didn't foresee that it might take me some time to adjust. I guess I thought that since I took a week off in between and would be out of the previous place, that I'd be completely fine and would hit the ground running. I'm sure there are people who are able to do that, but that's not me. And if I'm honest, that hasn't ever been me. While I was adjusting to my new job, I was mentally drained, but I managed to produce two episodes of the podcast back in February. So I was caught in this weird space of wanting to do the thing I enjoy, which is getting into a creative head space and working on this podcast, no matter what. But I also recognized that I was mentally drained and needed to rest. Self producing a decent quality podcast takes time and effort. So I would sit down and write out all of these podcast ideas. And then when it would be time to start fleshing out the episode details, I could not focus on the task. I just felt tired. So I decided to take a step back from podcasting to allow myself time to rest. In that time I made a new friend. And met with some friends. And I had an amazing visit with my mom and extended family. That time was much needed. I share all of this, not because I feel I owe anyone an explanation, but because I want to be a little vulnerable with you all and share what's really going on behind the scenes. I want to share my experiences with putting self care into practice. I want to get to a place where I don't just teach about health and wellness through the tips and practices I share. But I also want to share what practicing self care looks like in real life, in my life. During the unplanned break, the podcast turned one at the end of April. During that time, I did some reflecting on my vision for the podcast. As I've shared before I first decided to start Wellness for Black Girls out of my frustration with where I was in my career at the time. I felt like I had put my goal of being a Health Educator on the shelf. So I decided to create this podcast as my own health education platform. My vision was that through the information I shared on the podcast, that I could provide information that would empower us as Black women to practice self care while using the dimensions of wellness as a framework. I still hold that vision, but it has evolved since that time. So since I launched the podcast back in April 2020, I've received great feedback from you all. A lot of you resonate with the emotional wellness topics. So the topics within mindset and mental health. So going forward, we're going to continue to move through the dimensions of wellness, but from a mental, emotional health perspective, which was the direction I've started going in anyways, especially within the last few episodes. So that leads me to a little bit of an announcement. I figured that a more focused niche deserved a new name and a new look. So the Wellness for Black Girls podcast is now Black Woman In Bloom. I was able to work with a really dope artist named Destiny Darcel who designed new podcast cover art. So be on the lookout for that, and just a little bit of a brand refresh. During the break I've also been thinking about the way I want to show up in the online space and in real life. I previously mentioned that I want to be a little vulnerable and authentic while honoring my boundaries. So several years ago, one of my mom's friends once told me that I have a presence about me that draws people in. And if I choose to acknowledge, accept, or step into that, my challenge would be to learn what to do once people have been drawn in. I understood what she was saying at the time, but I didn't see that quality about myself. I thought,"Who me? People are drawn to me?" People that know me in real life know that I'm quiet and kind of shy. When I was younger, other kids who were not so nice would tell me that I was boring, which could be another topic to unpack in another episode. But anyway, I couldn't figure out what qualities she saw in me that made her share that. But as I've grown older and met more people, I've observed how people tend to open up to me about things they're feeling and things they've been thinking about, both the good and the bad, and people do this without me prying or asking them any personal questions. Perhaps it's because I tend to share and open up to others about my thoughts and feelings in a way that makes people feel safe and comfortable to show up that same way with me. In those moments, I try to be a listening ear and a source of encouragement. I've recently come to the realization that the desire to create the podcast stemmed from this part of me that wanted and still wants to be a resource for others and for Black women on a large scale. I want to encourage Black women to allow their vision for their lives to evolve and expand when and where they feel safe. And I want this podcast to be a resource for Black women throughout the process. I want to see Black Women Bloom. A part of self-care is allowing ourselves to grab hold of a vision for our lives and then setting goals that will help us slowly bit by bit, bring that vision to life. And with each step we take towards that vision, we'll find ourselves expanding and evolving and our vision will do the same. So I want to challenge you as I challenge myself. Let's start taking those steps towards allowing ourselves to expand, to reach that higher vision. For me, this will look like finding ways to show up for you all as your encourager. I know that's not a word, but I'm going with it. So I'm looking into ways to curate this space, to be a resource for you on your emotional wellness journey. For you allowing yourself to evolve and expand may look like taking steps towards going back to school or asking for that promotion or launching that business. Or finding a way to safely leave that toxic situation or scheduling that appointment with the doctor or therapist or reaching out to a financial planner. I want to share some tips on starting the process of allowing our visions for our lives to expand and evolve. The first tip involves letting go of the narrative others have fed to us. Take the time to look at your goals and be honest with yourself about why you have those goals. Sometimes we set goals based on things others have presented to us without ever taking the time to determine if we really even want that thing. The second tip is to define who we are for ourselves. As Black women, we get bombarded with society's preconceived notions about us and who we are as women. For example, we may hear people say that we are too loud or too aggressive or not feminine, but we can let go of that narrative because we know that we are, multi-dimensional just like anyone else. We know ourselves better than anyone. We know that there is so much more to us than what's on the surface. And we know that as Black people, we are a people with a rich and vibrant history and ancestry. In his 2015 piece, The Coming, Daniel Black says this when speaking of our ancestors,"We didn't know, we wouldn't return. We simply believed some terrible calamity had befallen us, that our gods had let tragedy come because we had not honored them. But we were wrong. We were warriors and hunters, poets and jali, farmers and soothsayers. We were magicians and healers, artisans and thinkers, writers and dancers. We were fathers and mothers, sisters and brothers, cousins and kinsmen. We were lovers. And we were home. We loved the land and it loved us. We were Black like the land, and kissed by the sun." Thank you so much for listening to and supporting this podcast. And thank you so much for sticking around through the planned and unplanned breaks. I appreciate you. I've created a little workbook designed to help you do some personal vision casting It's completely free. Head to blackwomaninbloom.com/episodes/seventeen to download. There you'll find links to the references and resources I mentioned in the episode. If you're not already go ahead and follow the podcast@blackwomaninbloom and follow me at@tareonjael.