What happens when you build a life that looks like everything — and still lose yourself inside it? In Episode 710, Kimberly sits down with Myesha Chaney, author of the memoir Honest, for a raw and grounded conversation about identity loss in marriage, the quiet cost of silence, and what it takes to finally tell yourself the truth. This one is for every woman who has been performing her life instead of living it.

SHOW NOTES:

In this conversation we talk about:

• What it feels like to lose an identity you built your whole life around
• The moment she realized who she had been was no longer who she was
• What nobody tells you about rebuilding after everything falls apart
• What silence actually costs us — and what telling the truth can set free

This episode is for the woman who has been performing okay. The one who built the right life and still feels like something is missing. The one who is ready to come home to herself.

Links mentioned in this episode:

• Myesha Chaney's memoir "Honest" → https://amzn.to/4upMjfD
• Myesha's website → https://www.myeshachaney.com/
• Myesha's Instagram → @myeshachaney
• Join the Come Back to Yourself Reset (FREE 5-day email reset) → bit.ly/comebacktoyourself5
• The Becoming Circle → https://ihearthatgirl.com/becoming-circle-waitlist
• The Dope Black Chick on Instagram → @thedopeblackchick

Episode Tags: mental health, identity, Black women, healing, divorce, rebuilding, memoir, faith, becoming, self-discovery

This Mental Health Awareness Month, we're not recounting the weight.

You already know the weight.

This episode is about what becomes possible when you heal.

Because here's what I've come to understand — a Black woman who knows she is enough, who is no longer available to shrink, perform, or seek validation from a world that was never going to give it anyway — that woman is dangerous. In the best possible way.

In this episode, we're having the conversation that goes deeper than survival. We're talking about healing as reclamation. As power. As the most radical thing a Black woman can do in a world that profits from her exhaustion.

I'm also sharing something personal — a realization that honestly rearranged me. That the self-sufficiency I once saw as a flaw was actually the fullest expression of who I am. That I was never lacking anything. I just hadn't healed enough yet to trust what was already inside me.

When that shifts — when you stop seeking from a place of lack and start attracting from a place of overflow — everything changes.

This episode is for the woman who is tired of being strong for everyone else. The one who has been seeking something she couldn't name. The one who is ready to stop managing her power and start moving in it.

You were never the problem. You were always the power.

What we cover in this episode:

• Why the world has a vested interest in Black women staying exhausted
• How healing gives you back the truth about who you always were
• Why self-sufficiency isn't loneliness — it's wholeness
• The shift from seeking to attracting — and what changes when you make it
• What it means to be so rooted in yourself that nothing external can shake it

This episode is for you if:You're done surviving and ready to reclaim. You've been performing strength for so long you've forgotten what it feels like to just be. Or you're on the other side of your healing and finally starting to understand what it unlocked.

Ready to go deeper? The Becoming Circle membership is where women doing this exact work come together — not to be fixed, but to be fully seen and fully unleashed.

Click HERE.

Connect with Kimberly:www.thedopeblackchick.com

IG: @thedopeblackchick

Email: hello@thedopeblackchick.com

This is a Rewind. And it's intentional.

Episode 61 — "Bruised But Not Broken" — was first released in January 2020. But the revelation at the center of it doesn't have an expiration date. In this episode, Isis shares a word she received from the Creator: Nothing I've ever made has broken. Not bent. Not damaged. Broken.

In honor of Mental Health Awareness Month, we're bringing this one back — because some truths need to be heard more than once. If you're in the middle of a hard season right now, this episode is for you.

New to the show? This is a great place to start.

🔗 Ready to do the work?The Becoming Circle is a membership community for women navigating identity, healing, and becoming. This is your safe space to just be: https://ihearthatgirl.com/becoming-circle-waitlist/

You did everything right. You built the career. You earned the title. You showed up, performed, and proved yourself — over and over again.

And then one day, the structure was gone. Maybe you left. Maybe they left you. Maybe it happened so gradually you didn't notice until the silence hit.

And in that silence came the question nobody warned you about:

Who are you when the title is gone?

In this episode, we're sitting with the identity loss that follows a corporate exit — the grief that doesn't make sense, the disorientation of losing a structure that was quietly holding your sense of self together, and the deeper truth underneath all of it.

Because here's what I've come to understand: proving is what we do when we don't fully believe what God said about us. Corporate gave us a stage. A way to earn, perform, and demonstrate our worth. But you can spend an entire career proving something you were already given.

And when the stage disappears? You find out real fast whether your identity was built on something solid — or something that could be taken away with a reorg.

This episode also gets honest about the tension between the comfortable life and the called life — because a lot of us built something good and still felt the pull of something more aligned. Something that fit the actual us, not the version we performed for twenty years.

The becoming that follows an exit isn't a crisis. It's an invitation. And this conversation is for every woman in that in-between — whether you just walked out, got let go, or you're still in it and already unraveling on the inside.

You are not behind. You are not broken. You are becoming.

What we cover in this episode:

• Why identity loss after a corporate exit hits harder than anyone warns you
• What proving really reveals about what we believe about ourselves
• The difference between the comfortable life and the called life — and the grief of choosing between them
• Why the unraveling isn't the problem — it's the portal
• How becoming is an arrival, not a crisis

This episode is for you if:You've recently left corporate — or been let go — and you're still trying to figure out who you are without the title. Or you're still in it, and something inside you is already shifting.

Connect with Kimberly and the Dope Black Chick community:Becoming Membership: https://ihearthatgirl.com/becoming-circle-waitlist/

Instagram: @thedopeblackchick

The permission slip you've been waiting for? Nobody's bringing it to you. And this episode is about why.

If you already know what you need to do — let go, rest, stop holding everything together — but you still can't make yourself do it, this isn't about information. It's about identity. You've been the strong one for so long that stopping feels like a betrayal. Of yourself. Of everyone counting on you.

In this episode, we get honest about the gap between knowing and doing. We talk about how strength becomes a cage, why we've been conditioned to wait for outside permission, and what it actually looks like to surrender — not as a collapse, but as a choice.

If you've been carrying something you were never meant to carry alone, this one is for you.

In this episode of The Dope Black Chick Podcast, I’m getting honest about something many of us are feeling but rarely say out loud: the exhaustion of performative living.

For years we’ve been told to optimize everything.

Optimize your content.
Optimize your brand.
Optimize your life.

But somewhere along the way… life started to feel like a performance.

As a strategist and storyteller, I understand the value of intention and planning. But lately I’ve been asking a deeper question:

What happens when strategy replaces authenticity?

What happens when you stop living… and start performing?

This conversation explores:

• The pressure to perform in the age of algorithms
• How social media turned self-expression into optimization
• Why even strategic people get tired of strategizing
• The difference between authentic living and performative culture
• Returning to the joy of creating, sharing, and connecting

This episode is a reset.

Not a rejection of strategy — but a reminder that your life is not a marketing plan.

Sometimes the most powerful thing you can do is stop performing and start living.

If you’ve ever felt like you’re curating your life instead of experiencing it… this conversation is for you.

In this episode of the Dope Black Chick podcast, Kimberly speaks with Karimah Westbrook about her transition from the CW's All-American to her new project, Dream House. They discuss the emotional journey of closing one chapter and opening another, the importance of creative control, and the challenges of storytelling in a saturated industry. Karimah shares her insights on navigating fear and uncertainty, the significance of creating one's own opportunities, and the power of storytelling as a means of empowerment. The conversation emphasizes growth, evolution, and the courage to embrace new paths.

There’s a moment many of us reach where we realize something has to change — even if we can’t fully name what that change is yet.

In this episode, I sit down with Joel Steele, author of the book, Life Switch: How to Experience the Power of Living on by Discovering Your Potential, Passion, and Purpose,for a grounded conversation about those life switch moments — the quiet realizations, internal shifts, and wake-up calls that move us out of autopilot and into intention.

We talk about recognizing the moment, trusting yourself when clarity hasn’t fully formed, and what it looks like to choose a different way of living without pressure or performance.

This episode is for anyone standing at the edge of change, feeling the nudge, and learning how to listen to it.