The Cost of Emotional Labor

Backstroke & Breakthroughs – Post #25

Some of the hardest work I’ve done in public media didn’t show up on my job description.
It wasn’t in my contract, and no one offered extra pay for it.

But it showed up in late-night texts.
In the “do you have a second?” walk-by conversations.
In the look someone gave me after a racially charged incident, hoping I’d say something first so they wouldn’t have to.
It was emotional labor, and it cost me.

If you’ve ever been the “go-to” person in your workplace for processing harm, smoothing over discomfort, or translating trauma into digestible language, you already know what I mean.

When you’re Black, brown, Indigenous, queer, trans, neurodivergent, or part of any marginalized identity in a predominantly white institution, emotional labor often becomes expected, not respected. You become the resident therapist, translator, motivator, and moral compass. Not because you applied for it, but because the system never built that support into its infrastructure.

And because you care, you say yes.
Because you remember what it felt like to be alone, you show up.
But over time, that labor accumulates. It pulls from the same well you’re trying to protect.

I’ve been in rooms where my presence was asked for but my leadership wasn’t valued.
Where my lived experience was mined for insight but never compensated.
Where I created toolkits, led conversations, supported grieving colleagues and still had to clock in the next day like it never happened.

Let me be clear:
That is labor.
It is skill.
It is heart.
And it deserves to be honored.

This week’s takeaway:
You cannot build equity on unpaid emotional labor. And you cannot sustain people by extracting their care while ignoring their expertise.

If you’re reading this and you’ve ever felt stretched thin trying to hold a space that won’t hold you back let me, say what others may not:
You’re not weak. You’re overextended.
You’re not ungrateful. You’re unprotected.
You’re not “tired all the time” because you’re doing too little you’re carrying too much.

I’ve started setting boundaries not out of anger, but out of survival.
I’ve stopped showing up to every fire expecting to be the water.
Because I’m not just a DEI faciliator I’m a whole person.
And I can’t model restoration for others if I’m bleeding dry behind the scenes.

To every leader reading this: Pay us. Protect us. Promote us. And don’t make our humanity the justification for your inaction.

Still healing, still here,
– J.R.