The Well with Dr. Wendi

Today I am joined by Dr. Thema Bryant, a trauma psychologist, an author, and a teacher. Dr. Bryant has shared the truth about her own healing and we have a conversation about what it takes to recover when your identity is built around being available to everyone else.

Dr. Bryant’s powerful final words for us are that we are worthy of joy, of rest, of liberation. It is not for us to wait for other people to give it to us, but for us to go after it and receive it ourselves.

Connect with Dr. Bryant

Learn more at drthema.com. Follow @dr.thema on Instagram, Thema Bryant on LinkedIn, and listen to The Homecoming Podcast with Dr. Thema.

Enter The Well & Connect with Dr. Wendi

Learn more at drwendiwilliams.com and book a discovery call here. Follow @drwendiwilliams on Instagram, drwendiwilliams on LinkedIn, and subscribe to the newsletter on Substack.

Welcome to The Well, a wellness-centered leadership podcast and I’m your host, Dr. Wendi Williams.

Throughout this podcast, I will be referring to The R-Cycle, which is a renewal practice for cultivating sustainable leadership, especially in difficult times. The R-Cycle is Remember → Repair & Recover → Regenerate → Reemerge. This is a Remember episode.

I share my own dispossession story. I acknowledge that this situation is similar to what many people are facing and I share data that highlights the current and projected trends.

Replenishment Assignment

I provide a two-part Remember assignment to create some space for you to replenish. As you remember your own loss, 1) name what it cost you and 2) name the architecture to pivot you out of the situation.

When loss happens you can feel alone. But you are one of many. And you can get through this with community. Because much of what you are carrying was never meant to be carried alone.

Enter The Well & Connect with Dr. Wendi

Learn more at drwendiwilliams.com and book a discovery call here. Follow @drwendiwilliams on Instagram, drwendiwilliams on LinkedIn, and subscribe to the newsletter on Substack.

Resources Referenced & Further Reading

• "Barriers, Not Bootstraps: Job Prospects Are Uneven for Young Black Women" — IWPR, 2026. The report behind the ~600,000 figure; systemic barriers, not qualifications, drive the push-out. → https://iwpr.org/articles/barriers-not-bootstraps-job-prospects-are-uneven-for-young-black-women/
• "Black Women Disproportionately Sidelined in Year One of Trump's Second Term" — IWPR, Feb 2026. The net 113,000 jobs lost and the 54.7% share of all women's job losses (vs. 14.1% of the female workforce). → https://iwpr.org/press/iwpr-new-report-black-women-disproportionately-sidelined-in-year-one-of-trumps-second-term/
• "One Year Into Trump's Second Term: Black Women Face Disproportionate Job Losses" (Quick Figure, PDF) — IWPR, Feb 2026. The 251,000 (Jan–Aug 2025) figure and federal-sector loss rates. → https://iwpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/One-Year-Into-Trumps-Second-Term-Black-Women-Face-Disproportionate-Job-Losses-QF-2026-1.pdf
• "Black women suffered large employment losses in 2025…" — EPI, Feb 2026. The 1.4-point drop to 55.7% (sharpest in 25 years), the public-sector concentration, and the cross-group comparison (losses not transferred to white men). → https://www.epi.org/blog/black-women-suffered-large-employment-losses-in-2025-particularly-among-college-graduates-and-public-sector-workers/
• "A snapshot of Black employment trends under Trump 2.0" — EPI, 2026. First-quarter 2026 update on Black women's and men's employment. → https://www.epi.org/blog/a-snapshot-of-black-employment-trends-under-trump-2-0-black-workers-particularly-men-are-experiencing-lower-employment-compared-with-a-year-ago/
• "What's behind rising unemployment for Black workers?" — EPI, Sept 2025. Early tracking of the sectors driving the decline. → https://www.epi.org/blog/whats-behind-rising-unemployment-for-black-workers/
• Congressional Caucus on Black Women and Girls — Letter to the Department of Labor (PDF), Nov 2025. The 106,000-in-April-2025 figure and the call for accountability. → https://pressley.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/DOL-Black-Women-Unemployment-Letter.pdf
• "600,000 Black Women Pushed Out of the Workforce" — The Black Wall St. Times, Aug 2026. Popular coverage; notes the on-paper unemployment rate fell even as women were pushed out entirely. → https://theblackwallsttimes.com/2026/08/05/600000-black-women-pushed-out-of-the-workforce-new-iwpr-report-examines-why/
• The Miner's Canary: Enlisting Race, Resisting Power, Transforming Democracy — Lani Guinier & Gerald Torres (Harvard University Press, 2002). The canary framing: the distress of the most vulnerable is a diagnosis of the whole system.
• "Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex" (1989) & "Mapping the Margins" (1991) — Kimberlé Crenshaw. The origin of the intersectional lens.
• "Status Threat, Not Economic Hardship, Explains the 2016 Presidential Vote" — Diana C. Mutz, PNAS 115(19): E4330–E4339 (2018). The status-threat engine. An influential and debated finding — cited as one account, not the last word. → https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.1718155115
• Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in America — Melissa V. Harris-Perry (Yale University Press, 2011). On recognition and citizenship — being seen beyond one's labor.
• "Workism Is Making Americans Miserable" — Derek Thompson, The Atlantic (Feb 24, 2019). On work as the source of identity and meaning. → https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/02/religion-workism-making-americans-miserable/583441/
• The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class — Guy Standing (Bloomsbury, 2011). Precarity and the basic-income conversation.
• Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During This Crisis (and the Next) — Dean Spade (Verso, 2020). Communities holding one another when institutions withdraw.

Welcome to The Well, a wellness-centered podcast for leaders.