I built Beneath the Bloom because I lived the alternative—and it nearly killed me.

All my life I followed societal rules: Military service. College education. Climbed the corporate ladder to executive-level HR. I was the strong one everyone leaned on—at work, in my relationships, with family, at church. Collected degrees, certifications, accolades. Showed up. Held it together. Kept going. On paper, I was thriving. In my body, I was barely holding on.

I was the Strong Black Woman everyone praised while no one saw. The go-to person who held everything together while quietly unraveling. The high performer whose excellence was expected but whose exhaustion was invisible.

And then my body said no more.

Not dramatically. Not all at once. Just a slow shutdown that started with anxiety and depression and ended with a truth I couldn't ignore: the problem wasn't my capacity. It was the demand that I carry what was never mine.

The demand came from everywhere.

At work, where I had to be twice as good to get half the recognition. Where my boundaries were seen as resistance and my exhaustion was proof I was "finally being realistic" about my limits.

In my relationships, where emotional labor was expected but never reciprocated. Where I was the strong one who held everyone else together but rarely got held myself.

In my family, where being the responsible one meant being the one everyone leaned on—without asking if I needed someone to lean on too.

In my community and church, where my service was celebrated but my rest was questioned. Where saying no felt like betrayal and self-care looked like selfishness.

These weren't isolated problems. They were patterns. Structures that ran on my over-functioning. Expectations that treated my depletion as devotion.

I walked away from corporate America. Not because I failed, but because I finally understood—excellence doesn't have to cost me everything. Not at work. Not at home. Not anywhere.

That's why BTB exists. Because too many of us are still caught in these patterns across every area of our lives, believing if we just work harder, give more, prove more, it will get easier. It won't. These structures aren't designed to ease up. They're designed to extract everything until there's nothing left. Born from The Bloomkeeper’s own journey of leaving behind a world that was never built for her, this space stands as a testament to what’s possible when we stop asking for permission and begin cultivating our own.