This week on The Michelle Majors Show, I’m sitting down with my friend Marlon Brown for a conversation that hit closer to home than I expected.

Marlon and I both built careers around work that changed almost overnight. DEI/Equity and while I’ve talked a lot about what comes next, Marlon gave me language for something I hadn’t fully considered: sometimes you have to grieve the life you thought you were going to have before you can build the next one.

We talk about losing work, money, identity and certainty. We talk about faith when the plan falls apart, making peace with what happened, knowing when it’s time to pivot, and finding your way back to the work that feels like your true zone of anointing.

Marlon also shares what it has looked like to return to Seattle, rebuild Bessie’s Cakes, support his marriage through an incredibly difficult season, and discover that even after everything burns down, you still have what you need to get to the other side.

This one is about grief, faith, reinvention, humanity and rising from the ashes.

And maybe most importantly, it’s about realizing that starting over doesn’t mean starting from nothing.

I was asleep when my Ring camera went off: “You have a person in your foyer.”

I looked at my phone. Hoodie. Flashlight. Someone was inside my house.

And the first thing I thought was: Oh. My ex finally did it.

What happened over the next few minutes—and what happened to me in the days afterward—opened up a much bigger conversation about safety, brain fog, fire arms, profound overwhelm, rage, sadness, peace, and what it means to be in the middle of becoming.

Because lately, I’ve been wondering if something is wrong with me.

Now I’m beginning to wonder if, for the first time in a very long time, things are actually becoming right.

What if the reason I’m exhausted isn’t because I’m doing life wrong—but because the life I was taught to build no longer makes sense?

In this episode of The Michelle Majors Show, I sit down with my friend, author, public theologian, and founder of Emerging Human Lab, Carmen Michael Smith, for a conversation inspired by his article, The World Silently Ended: Welcome to the Post-Notification Era.

Together, we unpack what happens when the old promises—work hard, get the degree, build the career, achieve more, and eventually you’ll arrive—stop delivering the life we were promised.

We talk about grief, work and identity, AI, our addiction to productivity, and why even vacations and self-care aren’t enough when your spirit is simply fed up. As Karmen puts it, we’ve been taught to become human through our work—and now we’re being challenged to discover who we are without our accomplishments defining us.

But this isn’t just a conversation about what’s ending. It’s about what we’re building next.

What kind of life am I actually creating? What would change if we stopped organizing our lives around productivity and started organizing them around being fully human? And who must we become when the people we were trained to be are no longer enough?

This is a conversation about rest, freedom, identity, faith, intentionality, and giving ourselves permission to actually experience our lives while we’re here.

Season 55 is a walk in the sun. This feels like the perfect place to begin.

* Link to Karmen’s Full Article: https://lnkd.in/g8KdvPZN

* Karmen’s Website: https://karmenmichael.com/

* Karmen’s Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karmen-michael-s-a83149409/

Season 55 came in HOT.

I called the IRS about a form. That’s it. A FORM. The woman explained it to me over and over and my brain simply would not process what she was saying.

And then I started crying.

Not cute crying either. I BROKE DOWN.

And somewhere in the middle of trying to explain to this poor woman that I actually am an intelligent person 😂, I finally said it:

I’m. So. Tired.

And whew. Apparently my whole body had been waiting for me to admit that.

The divorce is over. My mom is settled. The emergencies have slowed down. And now my body is basically like, “Great. MY TURN.”

My turn to be tired.My turn to be angry.My turn to admit that I’m gutted and broke down.My turn to admit that I’m afraid of whatever is coming mostly because I don’t know what it is.My turn to stop making excuses for people because I understand why they are the way they are.

Because understanding why somebody hurts you does not mean you have to keep letting them hurt you.

So yeah. Season 55 starts with me crying on the phone with the IRS, being mad at my ex, (and myself) rethinking relationships, questioning why I’ve tolerated certain things for so long, and realizing that maybe I haven’t actually been “fine.”

And for once?

I’m not trying to hurry up and turn any of it into a lesson.

I’m just letting myself feel it.

Welcome to Season 55. Dear Lord.

Yep, Season 54 of The Michelle Majors Show is a wrap, and boy have I learned a lot.

In this season finale, I’m reflecting on a year shaped by divorce, fear, faith, freedom and some painfully expensive lessons. I’m sharing what I learned about doing the hard things, letting people be who they choose to be, refusing to measure love by how much dysfunction I can tolerate, and becoming fiercely protective of my time, peace and freedom.

Season 54 was hard—but I’m still standing.

And as I step into Season 55, I’m clearer than ever: this is my show, I am the writer, and I get to decide what happens next season—one episode at a time.

I went to Belize looking for answers—and I got one I wasn’t expecting. Time. Health. Freedom. I have all three right now, and I realized I’m done spending them on things that drain me. In this episode, I share what I’m walking away from, what I’m choosing instead, and why sometimes the most powerful thing you can say is: I’m out.

This episode is a goodbye—but not just to a place.

I return to San Pedro, Belize, one final time to the island that became my refuge during one of the hardest years of my life. This is where I came to breathe. Where I walked the beach at midnight. Where I talked to God. And where, one year ago, I sat by the water and began writing I’m Leaving Now—not knowing what the next year would bring.

And what a year it has been.

The divorce became harder and more expensive than I ever imagined. Life changed. I changed. And now I’ve returned to the place that helped me find myself to ask a different question: What’s next?

Do I stay? Go? Travel? Sell everything? Leave the country? Build something completely different? I don’t know yet. What I do know is that I want less stuff, less noise, less urgency—and a life that feels lighter, freer, and more aligned with who I am becoming.

So I came back to Belize with one commitment: talk to God, get quiet, and listen.

This episode is about letting go, the strange discomfort of not knowing what comes next, and what happens when you stop trying to find answers inside the chaos and give yourself enough distance to actually hear yourself.

And somewhere along the way…I got my answer.

Just one little warning: when you ask God to reveal something to you, you might want to specify that you’d prefer the revelation to come comfortably.

Mine didn’t.

That story comes in next week’s episode.

Are we “all that”... or are we just finally taking up the space we were meant to?

This week I’m unpacking what came up for me after talking to friends about renaming my podcast to The Michelle Majors Show—and whew... it brought up some stuff.

I’ll talk about why so many of us, especially Black women, have been taught that being seen is dangerous. We talk about why people get uncomfortable when someone owns their gifts. And we talk about one of my favorite reframes yet:

You are the writer, producer, casting director, and star of your own show.

So who’s in your cast? Who’s getting way too much screen time? And are you still the main character... or did you accidentally hand someone else the lead role?

Let’s talk about it.

Am I bougie? Like bougie-bougie?

This week I'm admitting something I hate to admit: I went full-on NIMBY with my new neighbors.

NIMBY: Not In My Backyard.

As someone who teaches difficult conversations and bias for a living, I had to confront my own assumptions before I confronted anyone else. It was uncomfortable... and it taught me more than I expected.

Everyone is talking about emotional intelligence. Almost no one is talking about relational intelligence. In this episode, I unpack the difference—and why it may be the missing ingredient in how we lead, love, and repair relationships.