Emotional Labor in Relationships: The Silent Weight of Always Being the Strong One

Are you always the one who checks in, remembers birthdays, holds space, and keeps the peace in your relationships? In this episode of Shift Happens with Shay, we explore the concept of emotional labor—what it looks like, why it’s often invisible, and how it silently weighs on the women who carry it.

We unpack how emotional labor shows up in romantic relationships, friendships, and even family dynamics, and why it can leave you feeling unseen and emotionally depleted. You’ll learn how to set healthier boundaries, ask for mutual support, and recognize when it's time to shift from being "the strong one" to being your whole self—softness, struggle, and all.

This episode is your permission slip to let go of the pressure to be everything for everyone. Your needs matter too.

🔑 Keywords: emotional labor, relationships, burnout, boundaries, women’s mental health, people pleasing, strong Black woman, self-worth, communication

Continue the conversation with Shay on her Instagram, Facebook page, website, and linkedIn! You can also email Shay at shifthappenswithshay@gmail.com if you are looking for insight about your life, send your stories, or request topics you would like to address.

Please note this podcast is not a substitution for therapy, if you require assistance with exploring trauma, deeper relationship issues, or more please reach out to establish care.

Transcript

0:00

Hey there, and welcome to Shift Happens with Shay. I'm Shay, your host and licensed marriage and family therapist. This podcast is where we dive into all the shift life throws our way, whether it's relationships, mental health, personal growth, or just figuring out this crazy journey of adulting here. We're all about honest conversation, real stories, and a whole lot of laughs as we tackles life's challenges together. This is your space to grow, explore, and feel seen. So grab a cozy spot, maybe a cup of coffee or wine, and let's get ready to shift through it all. Thanks for tuning in, and remember, no matter what life brings us, we're in this together.

Shay: 0:39

Hello everybody. I'm so happy to see you and be back. I am going through it. I've been quiet lately just because I honestly just been going through it. I posted a little snippet about it on my Instagram page where it's crazy because that's after I posted the podcast where we talked about the power of vulnerability. You know, being able to be vulnerable with others because it's necessary for true, meaningful connections, which we've been talking about a lot on this. Embracing Yourself and Embracing Change and Growth Series. So this is just me being vulnerable with you guys. I didn't post a podcast. Last week, well, two weeks ago, because I was in a very deep depressive state since just going through everything with my health and seeing symptoms come back and fighting constant fatigue, and of course having those thoughts where kind of despair like, does this get better? Please tell me there's a way out. I'm just so tired. I wanna be able to move, be again. I wanna be able to feel light. I want to be able to not feel tired all the time. And it's just been really hard though. I'm still going out. I'm not isolating myself all the way, but I'm not able to do things. I'm not gonna say I'm not able. It's been difficult to initiate doing things that typically bring me joy, like playing video games or reading, doing my affirmations daily, even journaling even just walks. I usually love going on walks. I'll go and take my beautiful little murky out and I just. Find it hard for myself to go outside. I did it to go to the mailbox a few times, and when I was at my mom's house and was able to be out in her patio, and I did that one day too with Mona in my own patio, just sitting outside and listening to affirmations and doing a guided meditation, and that was nice. So I'm gonna try and do a little bit more of those. But yes, that's why I've been kind of MIA, I'm just. Human. I am a therapist who still needs to get through it. No matter how many tools I have in my toolbox for coping or managing, it's still difficult, so with that all being said, we are going to be talking about burnout, of course. More emotional awareness and emotional labor and relationships. Because the silent weight of always being the strong one is crazy. And this relates to what we were talking about before. I'm not saying that my friends aren't, mindful they do check in on me, those that, understand what I'm going through. But I am typically the silent warrior type of person where it is just I just gotta find a way. I just gotta do it. I just gotta make it happen. No excuses. We're not here for those because. Who wants to hear an excuse? Nobody. Everybody thinks that we have all these resources, so why don't you just use them? I'm a person that uses all my resources before I go and ask somebody else. Like for instance, when my family, I'm, they're really the last people I call on and not because they're not reliable, but because I have this thing where I feel like my mom. It should really be my emergency contact. Like I really tried my best. I didn't figure it out. I went through A, through ZII went through double letters at this point, and honestly, I'm working on that and she tells me I'm here, just talk to me asking questions and I'm getting better at that, but sometimes. I just don't wanna put more on people, but by doing that, I end up putting a lot on myself. So we end up having a lot of pressure with, ourselves. But yeah, that's for me. So I used to think being strong meant I couldn't ever fall apart. I have to hold things up. I have to be the pillar of strength, and I developed that. Like I mentioned in my last podcast, our last session, how I developed that thinking around honestly the age 15, 16 ish. And it's just stuck with me. Find all the options, be solution focused, like you don't have time to cry. Crying doesn't solve anything, but. Crying releases so much stress. It is your body literally saying, I can't hold this. We need to release, and that's powerful in itself. So let's go into emotional labor because this is the unseen mental and emotional efforts to care for others. Yeah. Nobody sees it. Nobody notices because you're not breaking a sweat, you're not crying, you're not breaking down. So you're always a strong, when people come to you for your advice, your insight, because you look like the person who's got it all together. You do have it all together according to everybody else, but you're human just like hello the rest of them. But people have this idea because you don't always crumble or fall apart, that it just means you're not going through anything. That it can't be that serious because they've never seen you at your lowest. And to be quite honest, everybody doesn't get access to that. Not everybody deserves to see that side of you. You get to choose who are your safe places in your safe people, as we talked about in our vulnerability episode. So I understand that 100%. You have every right to define and identify who those people are for you. Yes. So sometimes you'll find us in the workplace, that's where it comes from because we're always talking about mental labor, we're always talking about physical labor. And when it comes to work, all the moving around the lifting, maybe having to do it on your own or maybe at work you're the supervisor or you are the go-to person, not even the supervisor, but you're the go-to person at your job and everybody's always asking you where to go, how do I do this? And then over time it's like people just stop relying on their own instincts and their own knowledge and their own capacity and start going to you all the time. Like you're the option. Everybody just forgets that they have the capacity to think and make quick decisions just as you do too. But now we lean into that whole fame ignorance. It's just. And that's a lot because you're trying to hold up everybody else and be aware and mindful of everybody else's emotional needs, their mental needs. Oh, maybe they don't have the capacity to do this. I'll take this on. Oh, I'll just help them, guide them. Oh, I will hold their hand through this. Instead of challenging people to be accountable for their own feelings, they need to be accountable because everybody needs to learn to sit with discomfort. Hard, like all those big emotions, anger, sadness, and justice violation, despair, powerlessness, overwhelmingness, all of that. Everybody has to learn at some point to sit with that and make a determination that they're going to change, they're gonna make a change. They're gonna create their own solutions. If a old solution that somebody else have given has not worked, that they know that they have the capabilities to do it. So yeah, some other stuff besides managing other people's emotions is, anticipating other people's needs. Being the peacekeeper and emotional labor can show up in romantic, platonic and family dynamics. It's not only just with. You know your partner. That's a big example because usually in relationship we as women, we tend to feel that it's a mental load. It's when you reach it and you're just like, I can't think of another appointment. I can't be bothered to think of what to make for dinner. I can't come to think of after work I've been giving and giving and giving all there, and then I gotta come home and you want me to think about what to feed you, what to like, why didn't I buy this on the way home? Or why didn't I think of everything? And I was so rude to have you think of it, my dear. I am human. If you thought about it, go do it. But again, we think that if we don't anticipate other people's needs, we're being dismissive. We're neglecting our partners, we're neglecting our friends. We're not being mindful, and that's not it. It's just we all have limits. When you're the one constantly doing everything, you're going to run out of space. For yourself, then there's no space for you to regroup, recenter, take that nice deep breath and release because you're too busy thinking about everybody else's needs, and your needs are all the way there in the back burner. That's not fair to you. And if they loved you, they would know. That's not fair to the relationship either. And family dynamics. It could be every time that there's some kind of crisis or monetary needs or just anything, like something goes down. Just the smallest things to the biggest things. You're the first person. Someone calls for comfort, for reassurance, and sometimes that feels good, but then you realize you don't get the same thing back. That maybe there was a time that you try to open up, you try to release. But you realize that person couldn't hold you, so you figured you'd rather just continue to do it by yourself. And that's different. I can hear that, but stick with me a little bit because being the strong one always is going to drain you. We are not meant to go through this life by ourselves. Even coming into this world, there is assistance from people bringing us here. We didn't get here by ourselves. We may have came out by ourselves physically, but. We weren't brought here by ourselves. So if that's in birth and you know, in life, you definitely do need somebody just saying. Just saying. So some of the things that we talk about, the toll of always being the strong one, is that there is burnout and resentment. After a while that bitterness starts to kick on up because it's just i'm always there for everybody else. I can anticipate their needs. I can tell when they're having a bad day. I can tell when they're attacking themselves in their minds. I can tell when they're being really nasty with themselves. I can tell when they're off. I pay attention to the people around me, and nobody even thinks to give me the ounce of slither of the same thing. Why does nobody else notice when I'm about to break down? Why does nobody else notice my cues when I'm overwhelmed? Why does nobody check in on me after a while? It goes from oh it's okay to, no, I'm tired. But then if I say no, now I'm mean. And then when you're burnt out and then you just back away or you quiet, you leave your group chats or you're not really checking in on people instead of just being like, oh my God, are you okay? What's going on? It's she may be going through something, but she'll get it together. It's okay. You know, she'll always come back on top. Don't worry about her, that attitude instead of the first one. Are you okay? That's all we as strong people want. Also, to be quite honest, I don't wanna be considered strong because when you label a black woman, strong people don't humanize us anymore. They dehumanize us at that point because we're super women. We could just take anything. You could keep throwing it, throwing it, throwing it at her, and she's not gonna crumble. Absolutely not. And that is society trying to make us feel that we're not worthy of softness and we're not worthy of being cared for that it's our job to take care of everybody. History, like them forcing that even in the past we've had community, we all helped each other, checked on each other with families and birth and food and guidance, and that is a council job. That's not just a one person job. So it's absurd and crazy to know now in order to justify those disgusting behaviors that they do towards black women that. We're pretty much looked at as oh, she got it together. She got tough skin. That's okay. You don't have to check on her. She'll be all right. She could take it. Oh, she has a high pain tolerance. What? No. And then that leads to the emotional invisibility as if we don't feel as if just women don't have feelings because. We've always been told, and honestly, the societal expectation is to take care of everybody, is to be nurturing, is to show up all the time and be there for everybody else. And even the phrase of treat others like you want to be treated. But then that goes back to resentment, burnout, because you keep giving and ain't nobody giving the same level you giving. So then that phrase starts to look a little different. It's no, I don't wanna keep giving. Why keep giving into an endless pit that all they do is take but never replenish me? I'm not endless. And you're not endless either. So going back to emotional invisibility. Yeah, this is my little blankie. It's comfortable. It's from my mom. Going back to emotional visibility. Yeah. Now nobody sees it. Everybody acts like your pain's not there. Like it's right in the face. You're not talking as much. You're withdrawing, you are keeping to yourself. You're not contributing as much. You're just not doing all the things you usually would do in situations, and nobody is thinking to check on you because they just assume you'll get it together. You always have it together, so this will be no different instead of just, it takes just one person to check on you. It just takes about five minutes. If so, yeah, it just, yeah, so emotional invisibility is hard. The also us being, going back to, like I said, we're meant to be nurturers carers, and that's the identity wrapped up in ourselves. We're taught that from a young age. Baby dolls, cabbage patch dolls, oh my God. Showing age, but you know, wanting to be family. You wanna be a wife. That is your goal in life, to care for your husband, your significant other, whatever you love, like that is your goal to pretty much take care of your significant other and children for the rest of your life. And then you will have ascended into being an amazing, decent person because that is the purpose of woman reproduce and care for others. And don't think about yourself because that's selfish. You weren't put on this earth to just think about you. It is asinine. It's just so crazy to me. But we've all gotten that and then we all end up becoming fixers. You can't fix nobody That doesn't wanna be fixed. We're not here to fix nobody. Everybody is responsible for themselves. We are not here to make somebody be more accountable, to make them more reliable, to make them more dependable, to make them be the person that you need. People don't need fixing because when you try and fix they rebel. People gotta believe that they wanna change something. It's not your job to change. Nobody Save nobody Fix nobody. If they wanted to, they would. Especially with you. Lying. Lying all the, pretty much putting out all the resources out for them and they don't want to because why? Take that up when I could just go to you just saying. Just saying. So we need to. Let that go and release that. And for us as women of color, that's in us really deeply because even in today messages online, social media or whatever, it's still oh, you need to be there for black men, or We need to show up for this person or this group and this ethnic or, ethnic group, this demographic. And, but nobody shows the same thing to us. So it's crazy that finally we are giving ourselves permission to rest now, and everybody's upset about that. Or some people just feel that it's selfish. Nobody wants to be the strong one no more. And that's okay. That's a movement. I don't wanna be strong, I wanna be soft, I wanna be held, I wanna be seen, I wanna be heard. And that's okay. I feel that I get that 100%. So let's be seen. Let's be heard. But when we're not. It drains us always being taken from just always being take, take, take, take, take. There's no space for anybody else when you're at your capacity, at your load, and that's understandable. So don't force it. Do not force yourself to work from an empty cup. What are you giving? Smoke and air. Smoke and mirrors. I don't know. You're a magician. I guess at this point, bump that we're not doing that. Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope. We're not doing that no more. So there's no need to be the strong one. You do deserve that. You deserve to be light and airy and feminine. As we've mentioned in our previous sessions, you deserve that. You deserve vulnerability, you deserve softness, you deserve rest. That is not something you have to earn. And if we are earning based on merits, you damn well already did it. Then you have it already. What more are you about to give? Don't sacrifice your whole being. For people who wouldn't even think to sacrifice the shirt off their back for you. I'm just saying, so how do we recognize Shay when we're just doing too much baby? Emma doing too much? Yes. You all heard that song because Paula was doing too much in that song and you're doing too much in life as well. You aren't doing too much if you find that you are irritable. Just at the mention of somebody coming to you with a problem or seeing that person's name come up on your phone or shoot, just even seeing something in relevance to it. If somebody brings up their name, you're tired, you're burnt out. If you're exhaustion, you're so fatigued. Whether that's physically, mentally, spiritually, like you just don't have the energy, the space, nor the capacity for nobody. You're just tired. And then. The feeling of guilt. Guilt for wanting to rest, guilt for even thinking that, oh, I think I should lay down right now because it's been demonized. Rest has been demonized for so long to the strong one. How do you get to rest? You don't get to rest. That's not what you do. That's not a part of you. That's crazy. I think it's crazy, but when you feel irritable. Exhausted and guilty. It's time to look deeper. What's making me feel irritable? What is disturbing my peace? What is making it so hard for me to lay down at night and shut off my mind? What is it that no matter how much, even if I get sleep, I wake up and I'm still tired as if I didn't get an ounce of sleep prior? How, where and why? Boo, you deserve rest. That's all. Just be gentle at yourself is all I'm gonna say right now. Self-compassion. And I do wanna give you guys a journal prompt because hey, that's me. I love for us to write and self-reflect because self-reflection is empowering. And the more you know about yourself, the more you can manage and attune to different situations that come into your life because. There's nothing more powerful than you knowing more about you knowing exactly how you work. That's how you could prevent a lot of things. Honestly. That's how you manage life when people are not there for you. When people wanna label you strong and dehumanize you and see you other than just a person know you, because now you know how to be there for you and how to comfort yourself and how to teach others to comfort you. How can you. I expect people to show up for you if you're not showing up for you right now. So let's take this time for a journal prompt. Where do I feel emotionally overextended right now? Where do we feel that at this moment? So think about that. That'll be, you're a mini homework. But yeah, where do I feel emotionally overextended right now? And be curious with yourself when you start identifying these things. Go deeper. Why do I feel exhausted though? What is it about this area that is pulling me, that I feel that I'm pulled in different directions? Where do I feel misaligned? Where do I feel that I'm not enough Here? Where do I feel the guilt and why do I feel the guilt for rest? Be curious with yourself. Don't attack yourself while you're doing the journal prompt. That would be counterproductive. So I do want you guys to think about that. And then after that, think about where am I allowed to fall apart? Whoa, fall apart, miss, ma'am, I can't do that. Falling apart is a no-no. Falling apart is not allowed. Falling apart is no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. We can't do that. If I fall apart, you're afraid you won't get back up because you haven't allowed yourself to be there. Give yourself permission to fall apart. Give yourself permission to crack. Give yourself permission to lay it out. Release. If you are not releasing, where are all these feelings going? They just stay within you, and you keep building it up and penting it up and penting it up and penting it up, and you can't hold no more. You're drowning. So give yourself permission to fall apart. Where can I fall apart? Where am I allowed to fall apart? Take some time for that because you truly do, but you do deserve that. You deserve that time. So I also want us to re-author because I'm a therapist. I love narrative stuff. I love us empowering ourselves by reclaiming the narrative of ourselves. Instead of letting others tell us who we are and what we do. We tell ourselves it. We take back our narrative. I don't have to accept anybody else's narrative of me, just as you don't have to accept nobody's narrative of you. But in order for us to release society's expectation, family expectation, partner's expectations, friends expectations, we have to dig inside of ourselves. If I no longer wanna be the strong one, what do I do? Who do I want to be known as? And that's up to you. But first, we gotta let go of perfectionism crazy.'cause I started this saying how perfectionist I am. But look, I'm doing today. This way instead of the way I imagined my first video podcast being, and it's okay. I am having a vibe. I'm having a good time, and over time we will, get to where we need to. Same thing for you, let go of the perfectionism because when we let go of perfectionism, we become more human. If we keep making. Well, taking on the identity that I'm perfect or I need to be perfect or need, or this, that, whatever. With perfectionism, if you keep taking on that word, it's gonna be really hard for you to humanize yourself. You're not looking at yourself as a human, as just a woman, just a being let go of perfectionism that leads us to failure. Nothing in life is perfect. Be happy with yourself. Of course, if there's things you wanna change, that is perfectly fine, but stop moving the goalpost. Stop it. Okay? Give yourself permission to receive. Isn't that crazy? When we're too busy being the strong one, we think we always have to give to everybody else, but we gotta be open to receiving sometimes. Being the strong run has made it really hard for us. To accept help. Yeah. You already thinking about a time that you already told people numerous times? No. When you really should have said yes. When people offer, allow them to help, you are allowed to receive. If you're not open to receiving, you're going to always have the door shut. The door will never open for you. You'll never see relief, but be open to receiving somebody else's gift. Be open to receiving somebody else's words. Be open to receiving. In general when you have a receiving spirit atmosphere about you mindset, so many things will come to you, and then you can release this personification that you need to struggle in order to reap the benefits of a life, you do not need to struggle to achieve. Softness, release, perfectionism, release. Not giving yourself permission to receive, release it. This is crazy. But yes, just release it and rebuild that identity outside of being the one who holds it, who are you? Outside of that, if you took that narrative away from yourself, that role in your family relationship or friendships, then what is your role? Who are you without it?'cause sometimes, despite how. It hurts us to be the strong one. We hold onto it because we feel that's what brings value or how we bring value to a relationship because we're able to weather every storm. But I'm not trying to weather a hurricane. I'm not trying to be outside. I'm trying to be inside. I'm not trying to fight a tornado. What do you look like? Throwing hands with air. Doesn't it look ridiculous? Because it is ridiculous. There is more to you than just being the strong one. There's more than you just being the one who can hold it all. There's more to you. Yes you can. You are great with problem solving. That's a beautiful thing. But there's more to you than being a project manager of your family. There's more to it. You don't need to do that. Humanize yourself. Who are you? You're creative. You're animated, you're funny you're adventurous. You bring experiences to your family. There's just so many more things you can do than to hold your family's trauma. I so much more. So much more. Yes. And then of course that leads us back to boundaries. I don't know how many times I gotta talk about it with y'all, but I'm gonna keep bringing it up because it feels like it's always reoccurring because when it comes to being the strong one, we are not having really good boundaries. They're either too loose or they're too tight. When you're not receiving, that's a tight boundary nobody can get through. When you're letting everybody just dump things on you, that's a loose boundary. You just letting everybody in them on the end, and that's when that's a no go. We need to have moderation. Not everything can come in, but not everything can come, out. Like it's just, it's the same way. Okay. Boundaries. So some things for emotional boundaries, like if you just don't have the capacity for somebody, whether it's friend, partner, or loved one, you can just say, I wanna support you, but I'm also feeling drained. Can we check in later? Something like that works too. This is how we protect our heart because we just genuinely don't have the space to take in somebody else's conflict. Right now. Somebody else's hurt their pain. We just don't have it in us. And I say that as somebody who is a therapist because my job is to hold space for people, but I too am human and sometimes I don't have it. Sometimes a session's gotta be cut short. Sometimes I gotta cancel. Sometimes I gotta cry in between a session. Sometimes I need to just vent. Sometimes I need to play a game just to decompress. You gotta be in tune with yourself. It's okay to tell somebody no, to give you space and say yes to you. So again, if you need help with emotional boundary script. It's okay to acknowledge that you wanna be there for somebody, and then also acknowledge that unfortunately at this time you don't have the space for them, but that later, if y'all could check back in, you'll have it. And if your friends, your partner, or your family don't understand that, well, we about to train them so they can understand it. And if they're not willing to understand, they'll never understand. And that's where you put in more boundaries. Because if somebody's not willing to understand you or want to get to know you, they never will, and they'll always just wanna take from you back away. Build your discernment. We wanna build reciprocal relationships. I wanna be there for you, and I want you to be there for me. For you. Give me space. I give you space. I respect that because you need consent. Your friends need consent before they just dump the world on you. Everybody honestly needs consent before they dump the world on you. There's not no open sign. There's not no, hey dump whenever 24 7. No, absolutely not. We build healthy, reciprocal connections when people who understand us, see us, feel us, are attuned to us too, that check in, Hey, I have something on my heart I wanted to check in. Do you have room for me today? How's your heart space looking like? Because girl, it's been a day for me. And at first, when you're not used to this, you and your friends or whoever you're doing this with, may feel sad, may feel hurt because you're not used to you saying no at this time. And that's okay. But we have to be used to sitting there with that discomfort. We have to be okay with that. To a degree we can't. And that takes time. I'm gonna stop right there because it just takes time. We are training each other on how to love ourselves, love each other accordingly, and support one another. And this is also releasing you from the role that you are the strong one. I say this as someone who has practiced this with one of my best friends. We have been through a lot of stuff in the past year, and our friendship has changed dramatically. But if there's one thing for sure. She's learned to check in if it's okay to vent to me, just because of the emotional toil that it took on me that she kept coming and coming to me because I though she respects and loves, my insight and my thoughts. I did feel she was using my title as a therapist to forget that I'm also human inside and that I'm your friend. I'm a person. I'm not talking to you as a therapist. I'm coming to you, I'm talking to you as a friend, but you're seeing this as a therapy session, and that's unfair to me, especially when I don't have to respond to you as I would my clients. I, I don't have to hold space for you if I don't want to. I didn't consent to you to always dumping on me and then you never making any changes because we talked about that too. There's a difference between venting and complaining as soon as you start complaining.'cause after the third time, and you talking about this with me and you haven't made any efforts to change anything, you're just complaining and you're sucking me dry, and that's a no hope for me. But with that friend, she understands now she has to check in on me because I am still too healing from that. And it's okay as a strong one. To be healing from the emotional toil and emotional burnt out. The emotional labor people have put on you for the years, they gotta check in with you. We ain't open 24 7. And that's a okay. And just going back to our previous session, vulnerability is a strength. We talked about that. This is when you have to be vulnerable. This is when you gotta speak up for yourself, advocate for yourself, and if somebody wants to receive you, they will. And if somebody just out of their way, don't want to. Then we gotta learn to cut them out or lessen our time with them. Because right now, as the strong one, when we don't wanna be strong no more, we gotta practice vulnerability, we gotta practice it. We gotta practice being softer with ourselves because we deserve softness, we deserve it. So with that being said, I'm going to come to a close and an affirmation I have for you guys, I'm gonna look at it. Okay. I release the need to hold it all. I'm allowed to receive love, care, and rest. Say it again with me. I release the need to hold it all. I'm allowed to receive love, care, and rest. Because you truly do. Beautiful. You deserve it so much. Stop allowing others to take from you and start allowing yourself to fall apart. Get back up, take care of yourself, rest, because rest is not something you earn. It's something you deserve. If this hits you today and you needed to hear that word, awesome, I'm so happy that I could help you with this. If you feel this is something that maybe you're like, oh, my friend needs to hear this. I've been telling her to let go. Go ahead and send it to her. Come my way. So I'm also going to put our journal prompt that I mentioned earlier in the episode. But as always, I will be putting these reflective thoughts on the ig. So follow me at Shift happens with Shay if you're not already doing so. I'm at YouTube. Shift happens with Shay, Instagram Shift happens with Shay. And if you are looking for a professional link up with me, you can definitely follow me. At Shantanique Moore King on linkedin.com. Okay. If you would like to work with me, whether that is in a therapy or I guess coaching aspect or whatnot just reach out. You can honestly look up my name and you'll see the company I work for. I'm not gonna give'em a plug, by all means No, but you can find me and begin work with me that way. But, yeah, so ig I'm also doing some cute little Pinterest and whatnot. Yay. But yeah, so the journal prompt, it's going to be on ig, interact with me on there and we'll get into it and talk about our feelings. I definitely want us to keep building this community so that we can keep sipping and shifting with each other. Woohoo. Also, I am making progress on my shop. Like I mentioned to you guys, rose in shift. I know you guys wanna know the meaning behind that, but. We'll get there. We'll get there. Okay. Once I launched a website, I'll tell you guys to go over there and read all about it. Gimme your thoughts, but I'm really excited because the products that I'm going to be giving out, I think they're gonna be really great on your healing journey, especially for those of us who are coming from very traumatic backgrounds of not knowing how to be soft and not allowing ourselves to rest and let go to being this impenetrable. Wall when that's not who we ever were. This is going to allow ourselves to reconnect with our bodies, and I'm using the power of scent to do so. So a lot of my items will be like shower steamers, red diffusers, car diffusers, possibly room sprays bath salts, because I want us to get reintegrated with ourselves to being a safe space again for ourselves. If you can't designate yourself as a safe space, it's gonna be very difficult for you to do that with other people. Okay? I'm so excited about bringing that to you guys. I hope you love today. I love you guys. I enjoyed this. I'll probably maybe get this together. If not, this is just what we're gonna be doing. But knowing me, I'm gonna go find a way. But anyways, I adore you. I love you guys. Keep shifting'cause you deserve it. We're gonna thrive through what we go through and I love you.