3 Things Dr. Joy Harden Bradford Wants You To Know About Transitions

There’s nothing like a powerful and therapeutic girl talk, especially when Therapy For Black Girls host Dr. Joy Harden Bradford is leading the conversation.

This week during the 2020 virtual ESSENCE Festival of Culture Wellness House kickoff, Dr. Joy and friends dug into the topic of Black women and handling transitions—an important one for anyone moving between life stages.

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Bradford is a licensed psychologist in Atlanta Georgia and the creator of the super popular Therapy For Black Girls podcast that we all know and love.

During this intimate conversation, longtime community members Jasmine Jones and Mikki Asberry joined Dr. Bradford to talk about dealing with transition. She kicked off their session by breaking down three very important things every Black woman should know about transitions.

It’s Going To Be Hard

“Transitions can be difficult even when they are things we’ve been looking forward to; things like buying a new house. Getting married. Having a baby.”

You Have To Look Back To Move Forward

“In order to really process what it means to go through a transition you really have to grieve what was for what’s next. So again, even though we may be looking forward to the transition, there’s still a piece of us we may have to leave behind. So when we think about maybe becoming a mom or getting partnered long-term, there’s a piece of our lives that are never going to be the same again. And so that type of transition, we have to grieve what was to really look forward to what’s next.”

Give It Time

“Even though they may be difficult, it doesn’t mean that you’ve made a mistake. I think this happens especially when we have new jobs. We got on the new job and we’re like, ‘oh, was this really a good idea?’ Right? So, we haven’t even given ourselves a chance to get acquainted with the new role and those kinds of things. And so, we start thinking: Oh, was this a mistake? But it doesn’t necessarily mean that this was a mistake, it just means you need to give yourself a little bit more time to wade into the transition process.”