For the last nine months, I've been building a framework and a business publicly. I've been through so many changes — branding, messaging, everything.
But something I didn't realize was how my identity was changing through all of it.
When I started this journey, I addressed all women who could relate. I thought that was the right thing to do. I didn't want to exclude anyone.
Not realizing that the one person I was excluding was myself. My story. My lived experience as a Black woman.
I suppressed myself at the expense of others. And what's harder than learning this truth was realizing I've been doing it for the last seventeen years.
What I Discovered
It started with research. I was looking into burnout statistics, trying to understand the patterns I'd been documenting for seventeen years. And I came across a study by Dr. Carey Yazeed.
Something in that study made me stop.
It wasn't just the data. It was the specificity. The way she was naming patterns I recognized. Patterns I'd been living. Patterns I'd been documenting without realizing there was already research on this.
So I kept digging. And I found Dr. Cheryl Woods-Giscombé. And her work on the Superwoman Schema. Then Dr. Thema Bryant. Dr. Daphna Oyserman. Dr. Joy Harden Bradford.
Black women. Researchers. Thought leaders. Doing work that sounded like what I'd been documenting for seventeen years.
And I realized: I'm not alone in this. There's a whole lineage of Black women who have been naming these patterns. Studying them. Teaching from them.
And I had no idea they existed. Because I'd been avoiding looking for them.
Not consciously. But I'd been keeping my work broad. Generic. "High-capacity people." "Depth-oriented individuals." "Meaning-makers." Language that could apply to anyone.
And while I was doing that, I was missing the through-line that had been there the whole time: I'm a Black woman. I've been documenting my experience as a Black woman. The patterns I've been seeing are patterns that show up specifically for high-capacity Black women.
And I'd been scared to say that out loud.
Why I Was Scared
This wasn't about strategy. This was something deeper.
If you're a Black woman, you know what I'm about to say. You've lived it too.
We learn early that being "too Black" is a liability. That if we want to succeed, we need to make ourselves more palatable. More universal. More acceptable. We learn to adjust our voice. Our tone. Our presence. We learn to perform a version of ourselves that feels safer in professional spaces.
The research calls it code-switching. And it's real.
34% of Black employees code-switch at work — nearly double the overall average. 61% report compromising their authenticity to fit dominant workplace standards.
But here's what the research doesn't always capture: code-switching doesn't stay at work. It follows you home. Into your relationships. Into your creative work. Into the voice in your own head.
And I brought it into ESSENTFLOW™.
Not on purpose. But when I started building publicly, I was afraid that if I made this work too specific to Black women, I would lose people. I would be "too narrow." I would limit my reach.
So I kept it broad. I kept it universal. And I told myself that was strategic.
But really? I was just doing what I've always done. Making myself more palatable. Translating my experience into language that everyone could relate to.
Even though the experience I was documenting — the patterns, the exhaustion, the specific kind of burnout that comes from sustained performance across every domain of your life — that experience is not universal. It's specific. And it's cultural.
What the Research Showed Me
The Superwoman Schema is a framework developed by Dr. Cheryl Woods-Giscombé, a Black woman researcher at UNC Chapel Hill. It describes five core beliefs that many Black women carry:
- The expectation to show strength at all times
- Suppression of emotions
- Resistance to being vulnerable or depending on others
- Determination to succeed despite limited resources
- Helping others even at your own expense
When I read that list, I saw myself. Completely.
The over-performance. The belief that I had to be twice as good to be seen as half as competent. The refusal to ask for help. The driving myself into exhaustion to prove I belonged.
That wasn't just "high-capacity." That was something more specific.
"These beliefs have helped us survive. But survival is not the same as thriving." — Dr. Cheryl Woods-Giscombé
Everything I learned about performing, about being excellent, about never showing weakness — all of it helped me survive. It got me through spaces that weren't always welcoming. It helped me succeed.
But it's not the same as thriving.
ESSENTFLOW™ isn't about survival strategies. It's about reclamation. It's about figuring out who you are when you're not performing anymore.
And I couldn't teach that clearly while I was still performing in my own work.
I also found research on identity incongruence — the exhaustion that comes from living in sustained misalignment between who you are and who you perform to be. Not for a day. Not for a project. But chronically. Across every domain. Work. Relationships. Family. Faith. Creative expression.
That's what I've been documenting for seventeen years.
The specific experience of being a high-capacity Black woman who learned early that her natural self needed to be managed. Who installed a performed version to succeed. And who is now trying to figure out how to come back home to herself.
What I'm Realizing Now
ESSENTFLOW™ has always been for high-capacity Black women.
The patterns I've been documenting — Superwoman expectations, sustained performance, code-switching exhaustion, multi-domain identity incongruence — these aren't generic patterns. They're cultural.
When I talk about ESSENCE — the phase where you reconnect with who you are underneath the performance — I'm talking about something specific. I'm talking about discerning your native self from your installed self.
Your native self is who you were before you learned that you needed to adjust yourself to be acceptable. Before you learned to code-switch. Before you installed a version of yourself that felt safer.
Your installed self is the performed version. The one that knows how to navigate professional spaces. The one that adjusts automatically. The one that over-delivers to prove she belongs.
ESSENCE is where you do the work of discernment. Figuring out which parts are yours and which parts you took on for survival.
That's not generic. That's specific.
And when I talk about FOUNDATION — building something fully yours — I'm talking about building in a way that doesn't require you to perform to succeed. Building platform-independent. Building on channels you own. Building something that honors who you actually are instead of who you learned to be.
That's sovereignty. That's reclamation. And it makes so much more sense now that I'm saying it clearly.
What This Means Going Forward
I'm going to be more specific. Not less.
When I talk about code-switching, Superwoman expectations, sustained performance across multiple domains — I'm going to name that these are patterns that show up specifically for Black women. Not because other people don't experience burnout or identity struggles. But because the specific combination of patterns I'm documenting is cultural.
And my lived experience as a Black woman? That's not a limitation. That's my credential.
Because I'm not observing this from the outside. I've lived it. I've documented it for seventeen years. My experience is the data.
That's what makes this work real.
And if you're a Black woman who has been listening and feeling like something was almost there but not quite — this is what was missing. The specificity. The cultural grounding. The permission to stop translating our experience into language that everyone else can digest.
I'm speaking to us now.
And if you're not a Black woman and this work still resonates? That's beautiful. Genuinely. I'm glad you're here. But I'm not going to keep making the work broader just to make sure everyone feels included.
The Invitation
If you're a Black woman who's been building after bedtime, with limited time and limited budget, trying to figure out how to build something real without performing someone else —
This is for you.
If you're navigating Superwoman expectations, code-switching exhaustion, and the specific kind of burnout that comes from sustained performance across every domain of your life —
This is for you.
If you've been told you're "too much" your whole life and you're finally ready to stop believing it —
This is for you.
You were never too much. The room was just too small. And we're building a bigger one.
ESSENTFLOW™ is for us. It's built from our experience. It honors our capacity instead of exploiting it.
And if you've been waiting for someone to do this work without translating themselves —
This is it.
You Found Your Room.
Start with the Read Your Room assessment to find your current capacity state — and the work that actually fits where you are right now.
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