27. When the System Breaks Your Heart - Grieving and Accepting Hard Realities

What do you do when the very systems that should protect you end up wounding you instead? When laws shift against you, when justice is delayed or denied, or when the “progress” you thought we made as a country starts to feel like it’s slipping away?

This episode continues our 3-part series Resilience in the Age of Division. Last time, in Episode 26, we named the storm — the weight of hatred all around us. Today, in Part 2, we lean into the hard truth: grief.

💡 In this episode, I share:

• The exhaustion of wearing a “mask at work” while carrying private grief


• The heartbreak of watching systems slide backward, even after generations of progress


• A personal moment of fear and hypervigilance that revealed the depth of my own grief


• Why grief is not weakness, but a holy process of release


• How to move toward acceptance without mistaking it for approval

✨ Journal Prompt:

“What expectation of this country, this system, or this season am I still grieving? And what would it mean for me to accept that reality without letting it steal my peace?”

🌿 Mentioned in this episode:

• The “Bounce Back, Black Woman” Podcast Companion Journal → https://a.co/d/gSYKbRi

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• Connect inside the Bounce Back, Black Woman! Facebook Community → https://bit.ly/BBBWFacebookGroup