Black Burnout: How Indigenous workers combat stress and foster wellbeing

In this episode Mikayla sits down with proud Mbarbrum women Caroline Kell. Caroline is the Founder and Managing Director of Black Wattle Coaching, an Aborginal owned business that uses ancient Aboriginal wisdom, such as deep listening and reciprocity to build healthy and safe interpersonal relationships at work.

Caroline Kell is a Mbarbrum woman working to improve the social and emotional wellbeing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

For Indigenous workers the tension between kinship and familial responsibilities and those of the workplace are often keenly felt.

Strong family ties have been a key to survival for many Indigenous peoples, but financial and emotional obligations to large family networks can cause stress.

And workplaces can be alienating when you're one of few, or the only, Indigenous staff member. This can also create extra burdens.

There's this kind of work that's just expected of us.. Can you do this acknowledgement? Can you sit on this RAP? What's your perspective on the Voice? All of those miscellaneous cognitive loads, that is still creating an emotional response in the body..

Caroline Kell

Mikayla and Caroline yarn about black burnout, what causes it, and how it differs from burnout felt by other communities.

We have thrived in equilibrium with our family groups, our tribes and the environment at large for a very long time, and so this notion of grossly overworking to accumulate more and more wealth and status is an entirely introduced concept for us

Caroline Kell

BLA.C.K. Medicine is a health podcast for Indigenous peoples by Indigenous peoples, hosted by Dr Mikayla Couch. Follow the podcast on the SBS Audio App or wherever you get your podcasts.