By Dr. Domenique Harrison, MPH, LMFT, LPCC

Overcoming fear and stepping into our most authentic selves will always come at a cost, but the beauty lies in the long-term gains. We all have a story of overcoming fear and seeing something come to fruition with intention, courage, and consistency. However, staying motivated, energized, and encouraged to be our authentic selves—especially as BIPOC women—where the risk of being whole, and our worth and value are consistently questioned—is overwhelming. 

BIPOC women, whether in our professional or personal relationships, are asked to live the most incongruent lives. We are praised for an act of strength in one area of our life and decimated for small moments of vulnerability and humanness in another. Receiving conflicting messages confuses us and limits our perceived communal, relational, and self-acceptance. 

And sadly, these discordant messages have been with us all our lives, beginning in childhood. The messages received from maternal guardians were about remaining in our feminine energy – clean, vibrant, petite, proper, pretty, put-together – to obtain the ultimate prize of being chosen by a man: prioritizing cis-hetero-monogamous partnership over all things. Simultaneously, we were then rigidly taught to remain in our masculine energy and hold full and singular responsibility for our safety, finances, employment, housing, and future because “men cannot be depended on.”