The Invisible Black Woman

I wasn’t even sure what I needed tonight, but I knew it wasn’t “push-through” energy. Not today. The room had that atmosphere—the kind where people walk in carrying the weight of things left unsaid and hearts too heavy to just “shake it off.” That was the mood. Everyone settled in, each one of us with our own load, some light and some downright crushing.

Someone shared, “I’m feeling… sad, angry, and just… agitated. My sister’s in the hospital, but she’s stable now. We had this whole weekend… trying to help, but things spun out of control. And now? I’m here, sad about it all.” Her words dropped, lingering in the silence. It was raw, the kind of honesty that cuts through.

I know all about invisible weights. About those unspoken, unseen burdens that drag you down, making each step feel like a marathon. You could tell in that room, everyone related in their own way.

Another person shared about being in hospital during the holidays. “I feel like a burden to my partner. I don’t want to lean too much, but it’s been hard. I’m used to taking care of things, but sometimes, the vulnerability… it scares me.”

There it was—that familiar fear that if we show too much of ourselves, we’ll lose the respect, the love, the place we’ve fought so hard to build. Vulnerability: it’s a word that sounds soft, but it’s sharp, isn’t it? Exposing your hurt is risky, like peeling back scar tissue that’s there for a reason. But there was no judgment in the room, just quiet empathy.

But what hit home the most was the tension between showing up here, leaning into healing, and then clocking in each morning like none of it exists. It’s strange, the mental gymnastics we perform to stay “presentable,” as if we’re on some stage where applause means keeping it all hidden. Behind that calm, collected demeanor, so many of us are barely holding it together.

Someone else added, “It’s like, I’m doing all this work here, but outside? It just unravels. Feels like it’s never enough. My partner supports me, but it’s like I’ve convinced myself that doesn’t matter unless I’m bringing in money. The idea of ‘enough’ is out of reach.”

I felt that. How many of us have spent lifetimes trying to justify our existence, bending over backward to earn approval that, truthfully, we already deserved? There’s that gnawing feeling that maybe, if we were just a little better, a little more, things would click into place.

And it makes me think about corporate America’s obsession with “deliverables,” “KPIs,” and “performance metrics.” It’s a toxic echo chamber where your worth is measured by how well you perform, not how well you’re doing. In that system, there’s no room for days when getting out of bed feels like an Olympic feat. No consideration for the quiet victories, the personal battles, the resilience that goes unseen but keeps us alive.

I sat there, wrestling with how to bring my whole self into spaces that only want the parts of me that “fit.” At work, vulnerability can feel like a career killer—a show of “weakness” in a space that thrives on strength.

One person put it plainly, “I feel like my life is a full-time job in itself. Just handling what’s in my head, dealing with me every day, feels like enough.” Others nodded, acknowledging the quiet work of surviving day to day without letting the weight crush you.

It’s powerful when you admit that maybe, just maybe, you’re okay right where you are, even when every voice in your head is screaming that you’re not. Maybe healing isn’t about becoming some ideal version of ourselves. Maybe it’s about honoring who we are, scars and all.

And if corporate America isn’t ready for all of us? Well, maybe it’s the system that needs to change. Because, honestly, how many of us are out here breaking ourselves down just to fit into spaces that never cared about building us up?

As we wrapped up processing, session one of three, a quiet acknowledgment hung in the room. The journey wasn’t linear. It was jagged, unpredictable. But maybe, in all this messiness, there was something worth clinging to. A small spark of “enough,” lighting the way forward.

Until next time, I wish you nothing but sunshine, rainbows, and unicorns, which are no less fictitious than the enough you are.