Ep. 0: Welcome to Joyfully Black

Joy 0:00

Hey there! Welcome to the Joyfully Black podcast!

I'm your host Joy Dixon, a public health professional turned woman in tech who rarely turns down a volunteer opportunity and lover of seeing people thrive in their zone of genius.

I've been passionate about the state of mental wellness of Black Women after learning my late grandmother's own techniques for coping with anxiety. She was a fiercely independent, community-oriented woman who seemed to be everything to everyone. It made me look at myself and friends who are striving, making the things happen, but feeling like the proverbial balancing plates act could come crashing down at any moment. We'd often sort of shrug and say, "meh, that's life". But in the back of my mind, I knew there had to be a solution.

Fast forward to the Summer. Naomi Osaka decided not to participate in the French Open to protect her mental well-being. The world watched Simone Biles, the GOAT of gymnastics, speak out about how her mental health impacted her performance and bravely opt out of one of the events. I was both incredibly proud and in awe of these women who are at the top of their game and took a stand to protect their mental health.

It made me wonder how many other Black women struggle with their mental health in silence. Highly functioning, thriving in their career women, being of service in their communities women, and yet feeling isolated when so many other ladies are struggling too.

I mean, where can we go to find community? Where are the women who have been there and have found ways to find inner harmony in spite of competing priorities? Where are those women? The more I thought about it, the more the phrase "being in the black" kept coming to mind.

True, "being in the black" is typically used in the financial wellness sense. In fact, it describes a financially profitable condition. Our mental and emotional well-being doesn't occur in a vacuum so I want to expand upon that definition to include physical, professional, and life experiences as well as guidance that adds value to our lives. As you can hear, I did a WHOLE lot of thinking, especially after hearing more friends research how they could take better care of their mental health.

I then decided to set myself a date, work on a list of potential ideas and guests… and a podcast name. So, here I am, presenting to you my first podcast episode! I'm really excited to announce I'll be releasing this podcast once a week, and I'll be talking with guests, who will share their self-care journey balancing career, community care, and family, and other ways we can protect our mental health.

As you can imagine this podcast will evolve with each episode. I'll add in segments as time goes on. Your girl loves a good segment! I welcome listener feedback, so please let me know if there's a guest you'd like to hear or a topic you want clarity on. In this show, we will delve into conversation that can keep us in the Black, we can be joyfully Black.

Now, if you like the sound of this, please subscribe to this podcast wherever you listen to podcasts and follow the website joyfullyblk dot com. Also, follow @joyfullyblk on Instagram to let me know how you're staying in the Black!

Thanks so much, and I'll see you in the next episode!