You Can Be Exactly Where God Called You To Be And Still Be Tired
Why I'm taking the month of August off, and what I want Black women to understand about rest.
I'm taking the entire month of August off.
Not because everything is falling apart. Not because I'm giving up. Not because I stopped loving the work.
I'm taking it because, for the first time in a long time, choosing myself feels aligned.
And if I'm honest, that sentence makes me emotional. Because so much of my life has been about choosing everybody else. My clients. My son. My business. My community. The women I know God called me to serve.
I don't regret that. I believe everything I build is connected to healing. Therapy, this podcast, Hustle and Heal, the trainings, the books, the speaking. I believe God attached purpose to my life and healing flows through the work He gave me.
That brings me joy. I do not wake up wishing I had a different calling.
But purpose does not make you immune to exhaustion.
Somewhere along the way I realized something. You can be exactly where God called you to be and still be tired. You can love your purpose and still need to put it down for a minute.
I don't have a plan for this, and that's the point
Old Tyra would have had a color coded schedule. A reading list. Goals. Metrics. Reflection prompts. A framework. Maybe even a workbook.
Because that is who I had to become. The one with the answers. The therapist. The CEO. The leader. The fixer. The woman who always knows what is next.
This time I don't want another project. I don't want to optimize my rest. I don't want to perform healing. I want to experience it.
What I'm actually resting from
There are parts of myself I abandoned while building this life.
Parts of me that learned to wait because somebody else always needed me first. Parts of me that accepted "we'll get to you later." And later turned into years.
I don't think I intentionally betrayed myself. I think I survived. I think I became incredibly good at carrying responsibility. Incredibly good at producing. At showing up. At helping other people process their pain.
But somewhere in all of that, I forgot I deserved to be held too.
So maybe this sabbatical is less about recovering from burnout and more about rebuilding trust with myself.
I want to remember who I am when I am not creating content. Who am I when nobody needs a session? Who am I when I am not answering emails? Who am I when I am not trying to grow something?
Who am I when there is nothing to prove?
What I want you to hear
Some of you do not need permission to work harder. You have mastered that. You have mastered survival. You have mastered responsibility. You have mastered carrying generations of expectations.
What you have not mastered is receiving.
Resting. Trusting that the world will not fall apart if you stop carrying it for a little while.
Rest is not laziness. Sometimes rest is obedience.
Sometimes God does not need another product from you. Sometimes He just wants you. Not your wisdom. Not your labor. Not your gifts. You.
That is uncomfortable because we learned to measure our worth by what we produce. I don't want to live like that anymore.
I want a life where my work flows from fullness instead of depletion. Where my purpose does not require my self abandonment. Where success is not measured by how exhausted I am.
If you have been waiting for permission
This is it.
Take your vacation. Take the nap. Take the day off. Take the walk. Take the therapy appointment. Take the boundaries. Take your joy. Take your life back.
Because rest is not something the world is going to hand to Black women.
Sometimes we have to take it ourselves.
I'll see you after August. And I have a feeling she'll be somebody I've been missing for a long time.
While I'm resting, the community is still open.
Hustle and Heal is a free space for Black women who are tired of holding everything alone. We're talking about rest, boundaries, and what it costs to keep abandoning yourself.