When Black Girl Magic started trending as a hashtag a few years ago, I loved it. “We are magical”, I thought. “Look at all we do while we smile and make it look effortless.” But over time, I have come to realize that I am not magical. The plot twist? It costs a lot to even try to appear this magical. Yes, as Black women, we are extraordinary, but there is an invisible tax we all pay for this normalized overfunctioning that is so expected of us.
I know this all too well. On paper, I have the dream life. By the time I turned thirty, I had two degrees, was happily married, and lived in a beautiful home. By the time I turned forty, I was leading a communications firm that served Fortune 500 clients. I was the epitome of Black Girl Magic. People saw the pieces of a “put-together” life but did not realize that I was utterly miserable beneath it all. Time and time again, I was pushing past every so-called “boundary” I had to make all the pieces fit together. I was forcing a smile on my face as a form of self-protection and self-preservation, so that I never had to confront the truth that this way of life was coming at a huge cost.
Ultimately, this landed me in a psychiatric hospital after suffering from a horrible psychotic break in the middle of Barcelona, on what was supposed to be a relaxing vacation. Instead of enjoying papas fritas, my mind was collapsing under the weight of all the mental and emotional strain I was carrying. Stress from scaling my business too fast, months of insomnia and sleepless nights spent worrying about payroll, unmanaged grief from the loss of a failed adoption, the unexpected loss of my father years early, and ending a four-year emotionally abusive relationship. Combined with the sadness from no one noticing, it all met me there in Barcelona and my mind swirled into the most beautiful cacophony of paranoia, delusions, and paralyzing fear that I was going to die, all while experiencing awful auditory hallucinations. The worst part? This was not my first psychotic break. It was my third. This was and is my reality living with high-functioning depression with psychotic features and generalized anxiety disorder. Despite years of therapy and psychiatric care, starting with my first mental health crisis in 2005, sitting in that dark hospital finally proved I was not some mythical magical Black woman. I was overwhelmed, tired, and collapsing as I tried to carry the world on my shoulders while everyone told me how great I was. No one seemed to notice that somewhere inside of that magic was a regular human being.
Eventually, enough was enough. I finally waved the white flag of surrender and began to re-examine how I defined success. Not under the facade of magic, but in the honesty and purity of joy. I realized that up until this point, I never really thought about what made me happy. I was too busy thinking about making everyone else happy. To me, joy was a byproduct of the hard work, not something that should be an integral part of building my business. So, I did a complete 180° and decided I could no longer keep this part of myself private for the sake of being perceived as some invincible superhero.
I allowed myself to be fully me at work, at play, and at rest. To my surprise, this resonated. People no longer saw me as infallible and, in that reflection, I met so many other magical women who, like me, were silently suffering too. What is more, my business thrived, employees worked harder, and we grew because of the currency of joy, not in spite of it.
Today, joy is the only way I measure my success. I call this philosophy JOY Economics®. I let go of strength as my nervous system default, passed down through generations of trauma and oppression, and I am better off because of it.
You do not have to hit a breaking point to consider what the idea of Black Girl Magic might be costing you. This Mental Health Month, I encourage you to give yourself permission to be human, not magical.
Here are a few lessons I learned the hard way about shifting out of survival mode and into something more sustainable:
Learn to thrive within your boundaries.
Black women are raised to be self-sacrificing, conditioned to believe that we should be strong enough to constantly deny ourselves and give to others first without feeling the effect. We have historically endured conditions that did not allow for collapse, let alone boundaries. This lives in the body. But when we avoid setting boundaries, we show people how to treat us through our actions, reactions, and non-actions.
Reaching the million-dollar mark is a dream for any entrepreneur. But while my friends and family applauded my success and bragged to everyone they knew, I failed to realize that reaching this milestone came with certain expectations that would pressure test my boundaries. In four short months, my communications firm grew from four 1099 contractors to a team of fourteen W-2 employees. Up until then, my clients were used to me being a hands-on entrepreneur. So, they resisted the growth, not wanting me to let go of managing their work.Even though I knew I could not do that and successfully scale the company at the rate it was growing, I tried anyway, sacrificing good client service for my personal mental health. And it left me utterly exhausted and depleted. I kept wondering what was wrong with me. I had followed the plans, dotted the i’s, and crossed the t’s. So why did I feel this bad?
It was because I was sacrificing my own boundaries to make other people happy. Boundaries are necessary in business to succeed not despite stress, but because of it.
Pressure does not produce growth. Support does.
My business had really taken off when my dad passed away in his sleep unexpectedly. In the past, I would have been reluctant to reach out for help during such a sensitive time. But I knew I could not get through this without some support. So, I notified my clients and asked a mentor to take over running my company. It was incredibly vulnerable for me. But the outpouring of love was unbelievable. Some team members from one of my long-time clients even showed up to my father’s funeral to hold space for this sacred moment. Although my heart was in excruciating pain, their presence is something I will never forget.
From this moment, I realized that pressure is not what leads to success, fulfillment, or joy. It is support. Instead of trying to hold it all together and put on a brave face as the strong Black girl, I let people show up for me. I have released the idea that proving my strength means doing everything alone.
Contrary to popular belief, Black women are not invincible heroes, but human beings made of flesh and blood. This sentiment that we are magical might look nice on paper, but it discredits our mental and emotional health. Trust me, there is so much more to life than constant overfunctioning. There is so much joy. And here is the thing: Black women are magical. But it is because of who we are, not what we do.
I know the price I have paid for this kind of magic, and I have learned I can no longer afford it. Can you?
About Shani Godwin
An entrepreneur, speaker, author, and Chief Joy Officer, Shani Godwin has spent more than two decades building businesses that challenge how we think about productivity and well-being. She is the founder of Communiqué USA, a high-growth marketing firm that has served clients like Chick-fil-A, Cox Enterprises, and Party City. She is also the creator of Joy Economics®, the coaching and speaker platform that helps women entrepreneurs scale to seven figures while prioritizing their well-being.
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https://shanigodwin.com/
