Episodes Archives - Shades of Strong

Neglecting Ourselves: A Quiet Drift We Don’t Always Notice There are quiet, subtle ways we start neglecting ourselves, and ma ny of us don’t notice it right away. This Support Pause sits with that gentle drift — the shift that shows up when old patterns try to pull us into versions of ourselves we’ve already outgrown. This isn’t just about relationships. It’s about the moment you realize you’ve st...

Why Your Body Doesn’t Feel Safe Enough to Receive Support When your body doesn’t feel safe enough to receive support, it’s usually not about your mindset. It’s your nervous system responding to what you’ve lived through. In this episode, we get into why your body pulls back, why that reaction makes sense, and how Black women can slowly relearn receiving in ways that feel steady and supportive. Sup...

Questioning Whether What You Do Matters as a Black Woman If you’ve been questioning whether what you do matters as a Black woman, you are not alone. There are days when the work feels invisible. The showing up. The caring. The building. For many Black women, impact does not always come with applause. It comes quietly. It comes later. Sometimes it comes in ways you cannot measure. In this Daily Sup...

When the Pressure to Create Balance Starts Wearing You Down If you’ve been waking up every day feeling like you’re falling behind before the day even starts, this Support Pause is for you. So many Black women are carrying the pressure to “create balance,” even though our lives were never built to be balanced in the first place. In this Pause, Shirl takks about the truth behind that pressure and wh...

Galentine’s Day often comes with group photos, brunch tables, matching outfits, and long captions about sisterhood. And while it’s sweet, it can also make you pause. In this Support Pause, we slow the moment down and reflect on what community really looks like for Black women. Not the loud moments. Not the highlight reel. The quiet, ordinary ways people stay connected to you in everyday life. Real...

This Support Pause sits with what it really means to be finding your free as a Black woman.. If you’ve been thinking about what it means to be finding your free, this pause might sit with you differently. There are moments when your body softens before you even know why, and it feels like the closest thing to freedom you’ve had all day. This Pause sits with that feeling, the quiet kind of ease tha...

Why Trust and Letting Go for Black Women Feels Complicated There’s a certain kind of exhaustion that shows up when people tell you to “just trust” or “just let go,” like it’s supposed to be simple. But if we’re being honest, trust and letting go for Black women comes with a different weight. It touches the places where you’ve had to stay alert. It bumps up against the moments where letting go didn...

Intuition vs Overthinking: How Do You Tell the Difference? In this Support Pause, Shirl responds to a listener who said, “I be in my head a lot… and I can’t tell if it’s truth or just noise.” A lot of us wrestle with this same intuition vs overthinking question, even if we never say it out loud. If your thoughts get loud, if your mind won’t settle, or if you constantly question whether that voice...

Support for the Exhausted at Work Black Woman If you’ve ever sat in your car dreading the walk into work, this one’s for you. This Support Pause holds space for the Black woman who’s exhausted — not because she isn’t strong, but because she’s carrying too much alone. You’re doing what you have to do. You’re showing up in a job that drains you, and you can’t afford to walk away. That’s real. And yo...

You ever feel so emotionally full that you can’t even find the words for what you’re carrying? That’s when I started realizing how music can show up as emotional support — not background noise, but something that actually holds you. In this pause Shirl gives a peek into how we can use music as emotional support when talking just won’t do If you’ve never thought about music as emo...

Being strong as a Black woman has always come with expectations — and a cost. I’m not knocking being strong, but… I am saying you don’t have to disappear inside of it. In this Support Pause, Shirl is calling out the kind of strength that gets celebrated while you suffer in silence . You know the one. The strength that keeps you holding it together at work, at home, for your kids, for y...

Support was our first language.  They’ve been telling us love comes first — but that’s not the truth. Before you knew how to speak, you knew what it meant to be held. And somehow, along the way, they made you forget that. This pause  is not about learning anything new. It’s about remembering what your body already knows — that support was your first language. Not love. Support. And if love has bee...

What This Episode Reveals About the Being Heard Support Language Sometimes, when Being Heard is your Support Language, the smallest things hit the hardest. Like one dish left in the sink. A simple ask ignored again. You tell yourself it’s not that deep… but it lingers. Sometimes it’s not about the thing. It’s about the pattern. The silence after your ask. The way your voice seems to land wit...

When you’re used to being the strong one, it’s hard to imagine what life looks like when you’re not being all things as a Black woman . This episode invites you to pause and reflect on the parts of you that feel overextended, overwhelmed, or overlooked. Inspired by a single line from a daily meditation, Shirl explores what it means to sit with the question instead of rushing toward a solutio...

Asking for Support as a Black Woman and Reciprocity This Support Pause is a reflection on asking for support as a Black woman, and what reciprocity really looks like when you’ve been the one carrying the load . Shirl reflects on a question that lingered long after it was asked: when a woman finally asks for support, does it mean more people will start asking her for things? This episode explores a...

You Don’t Have to Be Strong for Anyone Today. How many times have you been told to be strong — even in the middle of your own grief? For your kids. For your mama. For everybody but you. This Support Pause is for the moments when you feel yourself unraveling… but still feel like you have to keep it together. In this episode, Shirl tells the truth about what it means to be “the strong one,” and what...

Boundaries and Being Called Mean: The Lie We’ve Internalized You ever ntice how fast folks start using the word mean the moment a Black woman starts choosing herself? Like boundaries suddenly make us the villain. But here’s the truth — when you’ve been taught to serve, stretch, and self-abandon… even the smallest no can feel like an earthquake to somebody who benefitted from your silence. There’s...

The voice in your head is always talking… but have you ever stopped to ask who she really is? We don’t talk enough about the voices we carry inside. And yet, the voice in your head shapes how you show up every single day. Whether she’s whispering self-doubt, pushing you to do more, or shutting you down when you need rest — she’s always there. But that voice doesn’t have to stay hardened by surviva...

What does support look like when you don’t even know what you need? In today’s Support Pause, Shirl is talking about a moment with a friend who was carrying so much, she couldn’t even answer that question. And that’sreal,  because sometimes, “I don’t know” is all you’ve got left. But just because you can’t name it yet doesn’t mean your needs don’t exist. Sometimes your body’s been saying it...

Emotional exhaustion is something Black women know too well. And not just the kind that comes from work, parenting, or never-ending to-do lists. I’m talking about the exhaustion that lives deep in your body because you’ve spent years explaining yourself in rooms where no one was really listening. You ever have whole conversations in your head that never leave your mouth? This Support Pause is for...

Sometimes you’re so deep in the day-to-day that you don’t even realize you’ve left yourself behind. You’re showing up, doing all the things, saying yes, holding it down… but something’s off. You don’t feel like you. Not fully. Not lately. This pause is about coming back to yourself as a Black woman when everything around you has made it easy to forget who you are. Coming Back to Yourself as a Blac...

“If you’ve ever whispered ‘I have to’ while dragging yourself through another day, this one’s for you.” You know that moment when someone asks how you’re doing and your mind just goes blank because… you don’t even know where to start? That’s what “I have to” sounds like in real life. “I have to show up…keep going…handle it.” But who told you that? And when did “I have to” become...

Some things you’ve been through? Only you and God know the full weight. But here’s what I’ll say: God don’t play about you. And when you listen to this one, you’ll feel that in your bones. If you’ve been carrying a lot lately — quietly, heavily — come take this pause. Come take this pause with me — let me remind you why God don’t play about you , even when it felt like everything was falling apart...

I’ve been sitting with this question lately: Who are you outside of the roles you’ve had to play? What do you say when someone asks, “Who are you?” Do you lead with “mother,” “caretaker,” “child of God,” “strong Black woman”? Do you find yourself naming all the things you do for everyone else… without naming you ? Most of us have never been asked, “ Who are you outside of the roles you’ve had to p...

2025 had hands… but it also had layers. This 2025 reflection for Black women holds space for all of it — the joy, the grief, the growth, the tiredness that doesn’t always go away with sleep. In this season of goal-setting and high expectations, this episode offers something different: a pause. Because before we move into “new year energy,” there’s power in naming what this year truly held — not ju...