There are parts of you that are sacred.
Not secret. Not hidden. Not shameful.
Sacred.
And everybody does not need access to them.
I’m Tyra Steverson, a Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor, founder of 290 Therapy, and creator of Dear Burned-Out Black Girl. Through my work, I help Black women process pain, understand themselves more deeply, and build lives that don’t require them to constantly betray themselves just to maintain them.
And lately, I’ve been thinking about what it means to be deep without constantly giving away your depth.
Because I am a deep person.
I think deeply. I feel deeply. I process deeply. I notice the thing underneath the thing.
And for a long time, I think I confused authenticity with giving people access to all of that.
But authenticity does not require complete exposure.
You can be completely honest with yourself and never say the thought out loud.
You can notice something about somebody and not confront them with it.
You can understand the deeper meaning of an interaction and still let the interaction remain simple.
You can have an entire internal world that belongs to you and God.
Depth requires stewardship
The older I get, the more I realize I don’t necessarily want people pulling depth out of me.
I don’t want people poking around just because they’re curious.
Because people are messy.
Someone can ask you a question that opens something they don’t have the capacity to hold. They can stir up emotions they don’t know how to sit with. They can invite vulnerability, receive it carelessly, and then walk away while you’re left cleaning up the emotional mess.
That’s not intimacy to me.
I want people who understand that being invited into someone’s inner world is a privilege.
Choose people who can enter your depth without disturbing your peace.
People who know how to sit with what they find.
People who don’t need to fix it.
People who don’t make your vulnerability about themselves.
People who can be curious without excavating.
People who understand that sometimes the most loving response to something sacred is simply to witness it.
You don’t have to give everybody the deepest version of you
This is especially important for those of us who naturally know how to hold space.
When you’re insightful, caring, emotionally aware, or professionally trained to understand people, depth can become something you automatically offer.
A friend tells you something, and you’re processing.
Your partner is struggling, and you’re searching for what’s underneath it.
Someone you love repeats a pattern, and you’re trying to help them see it.
Eventually, everybody is getting the therapist, coach, teacher, fixer, nurturer, or wise version of you.
And you are exhausted.
I’m learning that capacity is not responsibility.
Just because I can go deeper doesn’t mean I have to.
Sometimes my friends just need my friendship.
Sometimes my family just needs my presence.
Sometimes the people I love just need the human version of me.
Sometimes I don’t need to turn an observation into an intervention.
And sometimes the deepest thing I can do is keep something between me and God.
There is no scarcity in what is sacred
Protecting your depth doesn’t mean becoming guarded.
It means learning stewardship.
The goal isn’t to build walls so high that nobody can reach you. I still want intimacy. I still want to be known. I still want relationships where somebody can come into the deep water with me.
But I don’t want to confuse access with intimacy anymore.
You don’t get to come into my inner world simply because you knocked.
And when I do invite you in, I shouldn’t consistently have to clean up after you leave.
Dear Burned-Out Black Girl, you don’t have to become shallow to become lighter.
Keep your depth.
Let some of it belong only to you and God.
And choose people who can enter the rest without disturbing your peace.
Come Hustle & Heal With Us
If you’re a Black woman learning how to build, heal, become, and create a life that actually belongs to you, I created Hustle & Heal: A Community for Black Women Building and Becoming for us to have a place to do exactly that.
It’s a space for Black women who are building something on the outside while becoming somebody new on the inside.
And we’re taking that community beyond the screen.
The Hustle & Heal Summit is coming.
A space centered on Black women, healing, building, becoming, connection, and what it looks like to create lives that are sustainable enough for us to actually live in them.
Save the date and stay connected to the Hustle & Heal community for summit details, registration, speakers, and everything we’re building next.