Protecting Your Energy as a Black Woman: Mental Health, Boundaries, and Healing
Protecting Your Energy and Mental Health as a Black Woman
Photo Credit: LaylaBird via iStockPhoto.com
By: Jamila Gomez
Protecting your energy isn’t a luxury — it’s survival. As Black women, we carry expectations that were handed to us long before we had the chance to name ourselves. We’re expected to be resilient, unbreakable, endlessly available, and grateful for whatever space we’re given — even when that space drains the life out of us. Protecting your energy and mental health starts with rejecting the lie that your worth is tied to how much pain you can hold or how much you can endure for everyone else.
The first hard truth is this: no one is going to guard your boundaries for you. People will take what you keep giving, especially when you’ve trained them to expect your labor, your listening ear, your time, your emotional care — all without question. Protecting your energy means noticing where you are overextending and being honest about the cost. If every conversation leaves you exhausted, if every relationship feels one-sided, if every room you walk into demands that you shrink just to keep the peace, something has to change. You don’t owe your sanity to anyone’s comfort.
It also means getting clear about the difference between being “strong” and being supported. Strength without support becomes isolation. Too many of us are praised for our endurance while suffering in silence. There’s nothing empowering about carrying what is slowly breaking you down. Protecting your mental health requires unlearning the habit of pushing through every storm alone. Ask for help. Say when you’re not okay. Choose friendships and communities where vulnerability is not treated like weakness, but like truth-telling.
Another part of protecting your energy is walking away from constant survival mode. When you’ve spent years fighting to prove yourself — in workplaces, families, relationships, and even spiritual spaces — rest can feel like guilt. Stillness can feel like laziness. But your nervous system is not a machine. Rest is not a reward you earn after you’ve almost collapsed. It is a necessity. Give yourself permission to log off, decline invitations, say “not today,” and step back from environments that thrive on urgency and chaos. Peace isn’t passive — it is intentional.
And let’s be honest: some of the harm comes from spaces that claim to love us. Family, church, friendships, or communities that refuse to respect your boundaries will frame you as selfish when you finally choose yourself. Protecting your mental health as a Black woman means accepting that some relationships will not survive your healing. That grief is real — but so is your freedom. You are not abandoning anyone by refusing to abandon yourself.
Pay attention to your body. The headaches, tension, fatigue, irritability, emotional numbness — those are signals, not inconveniences. Your body tells the truth even when you try to push past it. Therapy, journaling, movement, breathwork, medication if needed — these are tools, not admissions of failure. You deserve comprehensive care, not just encouragement to “be strong.”
Protecting your energy also means honoring your voice. Stop minimizing what hurts you just to avoid being labeled “difficult.” Advocate for fair pay. Challenge disrespect. Leave workplaces that drain you without remorse. You are not required to shrink to remain employable, lovable, or acceptable.
Most importantly, protecting your mental health requires envisioning a future where you are more than what you’ve survived. Healing is not just about recovering from the past — it’s about choosing a life that aligns with your values, your capacity, and your joy. Say yes to spaces where you feel seen. Say yes to softness, to laughter, to friendships that pour back into you. Say yes to a version of yourself that doesn’t center struggle as an identity.
You have one life in this body. Your energy is sacred. Your mind is not a battlefield for everyone else’s expectations. Protect it — boldly, unapologetically, and without delay.
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