hood therapy vol. 10

Celebrating the consistency of publishing 10 volumes of Hood Therapy got me feeling like Kayne in niggas in Paris...

I live downtown in Oakland above a nightclub and cannot lie Saturday night around 9 when the DJ is setting up and getting the playlist going I am in the crib vibing with them. One of these days I’m going to throw on a cute fit and go downstairs to have a drink and scoop the scene. I miss hosting Hood Therapy events and booking DJs and bands with artists, and I missed the downtown living lifestyle.

The 10th Volume of Hood Therapy is a special one for me so it feels right to make this newsletter feel like a celebration, of my success because I am self-made. Year after year for the past four years I have been going after my dreams and accomplishing them! Since 2020 when I launched The Trap Goddesss, LLC I have been going after my big dreams not holding back. People have always asked how I overcame my fears and did it, the truth is I never overcame the fear until I did it.

I admire my willingness to share my story authentically because of my dedication to my inner purpose and mission. Untrap the hood to me means to impact the people I come in contact with by equipping them with the tools and resources I found that are normally gatekept. It’s something I do naturally without forced effort. Hood Therapy has always been my way of connecting the community through our creativity, and to continue this through my pivot into writing makes it so much more rewarding.

It’s like I just stepped foot in Paris with my gold-trimmed grills adorned in gold jewelry with my stacked gold necklaces with 2 to 3 rings on each finger blending my flirty and comfortable style proudly showing up as an nigga-American in Paris! This one is for the culture, the culture that some are ashamed of and others live by its chokehold.

Let me just explain this a little more so you can understand why I’m feeling on top of the world today.

Four years ago, I dedicated my life to walking in my purpose. At the time, I didn’t know what that meant but I knew I was running from a higher calling over my life and I was going to continue to have these setbacks in life that would delay me until I surrendered. In the spiritual community, we talk about surrender so much but rarely do people see someone in action surrendering. That has been my dedication, to show the people that I connect with how to surrender to your purpose. And to me, walking in my purpose simply means to live a life that is authentic to me.

My purpose has pivoted many times but the pivot was to help me strengthen the skills that I lacked development in, a few being resilience, faith, and trust, and a big one was and still is compassion.

The deal I made with the Universe was if I dedicated my life that I would be able to live the life of my dreams. Basically, I believe that when you follow your purpose, and live your life authentically, the Universe responds by aligning you with the lifestyle you desire.

Frequency. Vibration. Energy.

That’s Hood Therapy. Teaching, showing, and educating my community that may not understand it or have not seen someone who looks like they do it. We don’t see us using this practice to pull ourselves out of the mud. The only success stories we hear about niggas in Paris are music deals, sports drafts, or street entrepreneurship.

When have you seen a ghetto girl who smokes weed, nicknamed Trap, write a book and publish it while moving across the country to California to start over?

I remember the first Hood Therapy in the Instagram post below. The feeling that I made it, I cultivated community with my peers and we all felt a little more whole leaving that night. The music vibrated on a frequency that elevated us, the creativity sent healing to our wounds, and the sounds of laughter softened us all and in the moment we felt safe to let our guard down and enjoy ourselves.

jacquieverbal

A post shared by @jacquieverbal

I paid each band member $75, purchased all of the creative outlet art supplies, and organized putting together a band, artists, and rehearsals in my one-bedroom downtown apartment and the turnout was worth it all!

There were over 100 people in foot traffic that night and each month I continued to bring Hood Therapy back allowing my passion for what I curated to fuel the event. I wanted to experience an event like this so I created it, and the community loved it.

Untrap the Hood was a mission that I had for my business as a Black Reiki Master, I thought I would reach the mainstream rappers to help them heal and use their creativity to make music that would heal the culture with the frequencies from the vibration of the music. That was the start of untrapping the hood because I would reach us through the music which is our coded language.

Turns out in 2023 when I grieved thinking that I was ending my era of Trap Goddess and Hood Therapy I was going through my butterfly era for THIS SEASON!

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You mfing right I am proud of myself!

Paying rent on the 1st of the month felt good this month, cause it was my rent to my apartment freaking DOWNTOWN in California! When we moved out of our downtown apartment in Greensboro, NC in October 2023 I would not have believed you if you told me I would be paying CHEAPER rent in California still living downtown. I did it in less than a year only because I finally left and stopped waiting for the opportunity I followed the nudge.

If you had told me on May 31, 2023, when I posted the flyer for the last Hood Therapy event, although at the time I didn’t know it would be the last, that I would bring Hood Therapy back in the form of a newsletter on May 27, 2024, and people would tune in weekly to engage I would not have believed you.

Had you told me Trap never faded away, the branding was just so on point that I became the brand in the flesh and Un-Trap da Hood became a published book in of only being a mission statement. When I felt that my work was not appreciated or valued for its worth and I stepped away from the practice completely, that pivot was for this. That pivot gave me the freedom to experience life to the fullest and share my story authentically but with rewards. It feels like this time the Universe is responding to me by making things come with ease and minimum effort. Showing up is sometimes all that is required, and I’m learning to feel deserving of that.

That feeling when you are feeling yourself, looking good and it’s nice weather out. You call up your girls or your homies to make plans for the night, you don’t really care what y’all do you just want to be outside in the streets. Music is blasting through the speakers in your crib, you vibing while you get dressed then boom you activate a new level of fun, joy, excitement, and play.

Is it crazy to say that’s how I feel? Well, at least that’s the high I am riding these days.

This is the life I prayed for but never saw it within reach. These were my long-term goals and now my next lifetime goals seem even more within reach. I see my story as a ghetto Cinderella story for all the kids from the hood to be inspired by and see a little of themselves in me. That is the reason I keep my pieces so real, raw, and relatable because I need you to understand I am human just like you and if I am sharing the discovery with you it’s because I am holding my end of our soul agreement to share my discoveries to spark the transformation within you.

When this spiritual gift fell in my lap, I was praying for a way out of struggling. There were no Reiki Masters in my environment nor was there anyone even familiar with the term. To this day my mom still pronounces the word incorrectly. It was foreign to me and as the gift has continued to present itself I am reminded that I can only trust and rely on my inner guidance and allow my reality to be what serves as the evidence of my path and direction.

I pray you feel a spark to take one step today towards your dreams and let this be our phone call planning out of Friday night to celebrate us living our dream lives! Right now think about it. If you knew your path would be supported, what would you do today to let the Universe know you accept your path and you are ready?

Now hand me your champagne glass, or are you drinking straight from the bottle? Do ya thang just make sure you pour some out for the homies no longer with us.

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Anybody learned how to work the grill so we can start throwing cookouts but keep Percolator on the playlist!

I kind of chuckle as I think about my first experience learning to work the grill this spring when we were in San Diego back in March. I had to watch a series of TikTok videos to learn how to light the grill. On the farm, we learned how to light a wood fire, but this was a charcoal grill and I was no contact with my mom so I had to teach myself.

It's funny reflecting now but in the moment I was frustrated and my idea of a fun family cookout quickly started to diminish as the flame failed to catch the charcoal until I realized maybe the lighter fluid was necessary after all. Once I got the hang of it and lost a couple of hot dogs that rolled off the grill we grilled every other day in that RV in San Diego and enjoyed smores after over a fire pit.

Those are my daughter’s childhood chore memories, and I’m said they aren’t more cultured. An RV cookout? That’s some YT people ish, well growing up in my environment that’s what my daughter’s experiences would have been considered. It breaks my heart a little knowing she will never experience a grandfather’s pure and unconditional love because I never experienced that love from my father, nor does she from hers. Her memories of the person working the grill are not a Black man who has on the brown sandals with the white socks, and the signature sweat towel hanging over the shoulder or in his back pocket.

No cousins are reuniting at grandma’s house, no Auntie’s famous potato salad, or ribs that fall off the bone that your Uncle had marinated overnight and if you tell him they are good he will make sure you know that his special marinade that’s why it falls off the bone like that there.

You got to add that part, ‘like that there’ when are you speaking about a Black uncle learning you something you hear?

She will not have those Black cultured experiences not because we moved away from them, but because that’s no longer who they are. That is why we had to move away. My mother has experienced so much pain and grief in my 33 years of witnessing her age, the version of her that I remember who taught me how to do the percolator is a distant memory for her now. I think we all see it in our loved ones who have worked to survive their entire lives. The blue-collar employees who worked overtime to make Christmas special, and who made sure you understood that $20 at McDonald’s can get you 2 or 3 burgers at home if you spend that same $20 in the grocery store.

I didn’t come from a wealthy family, but the family who raised me was rich in tradition. That tradition molded me and defined my Black culture experience. Cookouts for my family growing up were celebrations, for my high school graduation we had a huge cookout at my house, any holiday because we didn’t know about Juneteenth just yet early 2000s, or sometimes when my mom had a grill craving so she would pull the grill out the shed and that would be our random dinner on a Tuesday.

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Music is the coded language for Black culture, it’s our activation for our magical spark.

Music is therapy for me, but not just me I don’t know one Black person who doesn’t feel the same way. When I write Sunday Service Announcements for

BlackStack

I listen to a couple of Black Church songs and the words flow like water through me.

It got me thinking about how music has always been the healing component of Black culture. Hymns during slavery, gospel music in church, hip-hop for the new youth and young adults, jazz for vibes, and the feeling you feel when experiencing live music being played.

I find myself catching this feeling, the fix of music. I love all things music, the creative process of a song or project being curated, the sounds of development of the track, how the song makes me feel, and the emotions that the song triggers are what determine if the song will make my playlist. I believe this is why songs serve as timestamps for our nostalgic experiences.

For example, Sexy Lady by UCB always takes me back to my freshman year of college at NC A&T University at the campus parties and homecoming concerts. The first time I heard this song it immediately became my favorite song. I was familiar with gogo music but not in this way, my dad and even my step-dad both listened to Overnight Scernio and the older bands all the time.

Do you remember the era of choreographed dancing?

This was around the Ciara rise, One, Two Step had us jumping out of our seats to get on the floor and one, two steps. Did we start the little frown when we dance?

Oh wait do you remember this one? “I like the way you do that right there”

But I want to share something that most people don’t know about me. In the 2000s my choice of music was anything gangsta and trap. I was the Pretty Girls Love Trap Music poster girl growing up.

When 50 Cent came out! OMG! Why was Many Men my favorite song and still to this day I damn near know every word of the song? He was truly speaking FACTS when I go back and listen from an adult perspective. My mother had no business buying me this album when I was young.

“Have mercy on my soul so when my heart turns cold have mercy on me”

But I can’t lie Gucci Mane has always been my FAVORITE, please don’t ask me why because I don’t know. I love Dolph and Key Glock too cause they have that same rawness that old Gucci had. Again why was THIS song my favorite song, I knew nothing about this lifestyle but I was locked in and convinced that was the real music.

For years trap music defined my Black experience. In college, I aligned with the right guys to teach me how to be the lady version of Gucci from shooting a gun to starting my street entrepreneurship.

Dropping out of college seemed like nothing to worry about because I had life skills, I was cultured finally after being whitewashed in the country where they called us ‘niggers’ hard ‘er’ as our senior prank. I learned to be careful with music because songs like Shooter manifested in my reality in 2011 when I was set up by someone I called my friend. You would have thought surviving a gun to my face would have steered me in a new direction but it took about 15 years for me to realize I had no business listening to some of the songs I was drawn to.

Speaking of songs I had no damn business listening to…

I’m not even going to go further because I’m pretty sure we are all there and have stories to tell for DAYS over this song, or the Pretty Ricky era in general.

Embarrassing lol.

Who was your crush? I’m not telling y’all who mine was because again EMBARRASSING!!!

Okay, this is the last one, but do y’all remember when Jmaie Foxx was going IN with his singing career? He had us all jamming to his whole album, am I lying?

What memory do these songs bring back for you? Tell me in the comments and see if anyone shares a similar memory!

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In case you missed Hood Therapy Volumes 1-9 here is a recap:

Thank you for celebrating with me, it’s a celebration every time we link up vibes!

Cheers to 10 consistent Hood Therapy Volumes!

Love always,

Jacquie