The In-Between Season

When Purpose No Longer Feels Aligned

There are moments when nothing is technically wrong—and yet something doesn’t feel right.

You’re not in crisis. You’re not unraveling.

You’re simply in an in-between season.

For many high-achieving Black women, this feeling is easy to dismiss. We’ve been conditioned to push through discomfort, to normalize depletion, to interpret endurance as purpose. We learn how to function while disconnected from ourselves. How to keep producing even when our inner world is asking for pause.

So when misalignment appears, we rarely meet it with curiosity. We diagnose. We correct. We push harder.

But misalignment is rarely a failure. More often, it’s information.

The work is not to fix it immediately—but to understand what it’s pointing toward.

When It’s Burnout

Burnout doesn’t mean you chose the wrong purpose. It often means you’ve been faithful to it for a very long time—without being equally faithful to yourself.

Burnout emerges when rest becomes conditional, when boundaries erode quietly, when your worth is tethered to how much you can carry. Even meaningful work begins to feel heavy—not because it lacks purpose, but because you are carrying it without enough support, acknowledgment, or renewal.

Burnout isn’t asking you to abandon your calling. It’s asking what it would look like to sustain yourself, not just the work.

When It’s Overwhelm

Overwhelm is not a failure of capacity. It’s a signal that too much is asking for your attention at once.

When everything feels urgent, clarity doesn’t disappear—it gets crowded out. Competing expectations, constant decision-making, and unrelenting pace compress even the most grounded sense of self.

In seasons of overwhelm, purpose can feel suffocating—not because it’s wrong, but because there is no space to hear yourself think, feel, or choose.

Overwhelm asks gently: What needs to be released, delegated, or delayed so you can breathe again?

When It’s Disillusionment

Disillusionment carries a different weight. It often arrives with grief.

Not because you were naïve—but because you believed.

You believed the role would honor your values.

You believed excellence would be enough.

You believed you wouldn’t have to fracture yourself to belong.

Disillusionment doesn’t mean you failed. It means you are awake.

What once inspired you may no longer fit—not because it was meaningless, but because you have evolved. And evolution has a way of revealing truths we can no longer ignore.

Disillusionment asks: What am I no longer willing to normalize or negotiate away?

And Sometimes, It’s None of These

Sometimes you are not burned out, overwhelmed, or disillusioned.

Sometimes you’ve simply drifted—quietly, gradually—away from the why that once anchored you.

Purpose is not static. It isn’t a destination you reach and remain at indefinitely. It is a relationship—one that requires revisiting, renegotiating, and returning as you grow.

You don’t lose your purpose. You return to it.

Finding your way back rarely requires a dramatic pivot or public declaration. More often, it begins privately—with listening. With honesty. With allowing yourself to admit that something in you is asking for attention.

Alignment isn’t about doing more. It’s about remembering.

And trusting that this remembering—this quiet inquiry—is not a detour from your purpose, but an expression of it.

be well, sis