Caribbean at Work: Ambition, Burnout and Perimenopause
This conversation continues directly from Part 1 with Dr. Kerriann Peart; where we explored how Caribbean cultural identity shapes our experience in professional spaces through CDEM Lens 5: Culture Influences How We Show Up at Work.
In Part 2, we move from naming the experience to interrogating it. Because once you recognize that culture is shaping how you show up at work, the next question becomes: at what cost?
One of the most important threads in this conversation is ambition. For many Caribbean women, ambition isn’t optional, it’s cultural. We are raised in environments where hard work, discipline, and striving are not just encouraged, they are expected. Being called “lazy” or “idle” carries weight. So we push. We achieve. We endure.
But what happens when that same cultural wiring leads to burnout?
Or even more subtly — what happens when it leads to boreout – being under-stimulated, under-utilized, yet still operating at a high level?
And then there’s a layer we don’t talk about enough: how biological changes, like perimenopause, intersect with our professional lives.
In this episode, we explore how physical and emotional shifts — brain fog, fatigue, changes in focus can show up at the same time we’re expected to perform at our peak professionally. And because we’ve been conditioned to push through, we often don’t stop to ask what’s really happening.
This is where recalibration comes in. Not quitting. Not shrinking. But redefining what ambition looks like at different stages of life.
As Lens 5 of CDEM teaches us, how we show up at work is not just about skill or opportunity. It’s about:
- what we’ve been taught about effort
- how we define success
- how we regulate ourselves under pressure
- and whether we give ourselves permission to evolve
If Part 1 was about awareness, Part 2 is about adjustment.
And maybe the biggest takeaway is this, we don’t have to abandon our ambition. But we do have to learn how to recalibrate it so it doesn’t cost us ourselves.
Connect with Dr. Kerriann Peart: Website | LinkedIn
The Six Lenses of CDEM
The Caribbean Diaspora Experience Model™ (CDEM) is a new way to understand how our Caribbean identity forms, evolves, and expresses itself in the diaspora. Created through real-life experiences, this model provides the language many have been missing to describe their complex cultural journeys. At the heart of CDEM are six interconnected lenses that help individuals understand their relationship with Caribbean culture.
Here’s a brief overview:
- Where You Start Shapes the Journey: Whether you migrated as an adult or were born in the diaspora, your connection to Caribbean culture starts somewhere. That starting point matters.
- Where You Live + What You Seek = How You Connect: Living in Brooklyn versus Milwaukee isn’t just geography, it’s a different experience of Caribbean culture. Where you live + your intention shapes your connection.
- Cultural Anchors Keep Us Rooted: Food, music, language, celebrations, spirituality, and family. These are the touch points that carry memory and transmit knowledge.
- Your Identity Will Shift, That’s the Point: As we age, our relationship with culture evolves. It’s not loss, it’s recalibration.
- Cultural Identity Influences How We Show Up at Work: Our work ethic, ambition, and how we navigate professional spaces are all shaped by cultural values.
- You’re Not Either/Or, You’re Both/And: Being fully Caribbean and fully American/Canadian/British at the same time is not a contradiction, it’s our strength.
Stay Connected
Connect with @carryonfriends – Instagram | Facebook | YouTube
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