hood therapy vol. 4
Alls my life I had to fight...I'm fucked up, homie, you fucked up. But if God got us, then we gon be alright.
This week’s Hood Therapy is brought to you by a whole lot of Blackness. Juneteenth ain’t giving what it’s meant to give. But Kendrick Lamar won Juneteenth back from us as a culture with his popout concert, 4 times though he played the song back four times. I curated the space that I wanted to experience on this platform, and it was received very well so thank you to all the Black people that subscribed and followed BlackStack. It’s just a whole lot of nigga shit but in a new way in a soft gentle safe kind of way. The wholesome kind of way, like watching the Kendrick and Friends Popout concert on Juneteenth1 - it’s something about seeing us as Black people come together in a loving way no matter what set you from or what you represent. We united on BlackStack and offline in the arena on a day we see clearly will be mishandled like they do Black History Month.
Reading Instructions: The Hood Therapy newsletters are meant to cultivate an experience for the reader that will pick you up and place you in the scene of the story. To get the full experience be sure to utilize the hidden links in words or phrases that are underlined throughout the newsletter. The links include music, videos, gifs, articles, authors, websites, and anything with a link. In addition, use the footnotes to help put you in the scene for the storytime so that you get the full experience.
Ways to Support Me: You can purchase my book, Un-Trap da Hood, or buy me a coffee. And as always pouring love into me with likes, comments, and shares!
This week was a bit supernatural for me, in real-time right in front of my eyes, I saw myself cultivate an idea and nurture it to life. Not just with
either, all week behind the scenes my life has been playing out like the part of the movie where the plot thickens before the twist takes place. After being so vulnerable about my moves for the past few months this move I want to keep for my family to experience first and share after.But I will share the recycled gems that I’ve gained from this week. The stack of gems is a little blunt and kind of straight to the point so take it how it best resonates with you, they’re free to do with it as you please.
Recycled Gems: No one truly gives a shit about you the way that you think they do. No one will willingly save you especially because no one did it for them. At the end of the day you can’t control a damn thing about life and the way it happens, you can only control how you perceive life - is it happening to you or is it happening for you. Your dreams are really wants that you're too scared to go after so you make excuses as to why you can’t attain your wants now. We only view life as hard when things don’t go our way and we don’t know how to pivot. Always keep a backup plan, there is nothing wrong with a plan b that shows true resilience and teaches you how to master pivoting. Live your life how it’s best for you and stop trying to adapt to your environment. Take up space if people feel uncomfortable stop making it your problem.
After this week, I understand exactly why Forrest Gump said ‘Life is like a box of chocolates’, the older I get I start to appreciate and enjoy dark chocolate just as much as cherry-filled chocolates.2 I love chocolate so, therefore, I love life in its entirety rather than just the good parts, so whatever life gives me I can appreciate it and enjoy it.
he needs some milk.
I was strolling through my Notes feed the other day and saw this Note
posted that inspired me to make the connection to Hood Therapy newsletters and Un-Trap da Hood. Black culture and admitting that something is wrong do not go hand in hand. Although things are shifting and it’s beginning to be explored, it’s also being crossed off the list as an option after realizing again there is no safe space for us to freely express ourselves. So when I saw Tobi say when you get home you gotta use the tools I immediately thought about how excited I was while writing Un-Trap da Hood because it was a tool for Black culture to use at home and share as a resource within our community.Un-Trap da Hood is the resource that serves as the instruction manual for the tools we take home to use from therapy, while Hood Therapy serves as the online Q&A forum for those troubleshooting questions that arise. For the past four years, my life has been dedicated to revealing the discoveries explored in this book, and now through Hood Therapy newsletters, I have been able to further elaborate on some of these cultural conditioning in a nostalgic way that ignites curiosity to go within to explore your own discoveries on the topic. In the Hood Therapy Vol. 1 newsletter I wrote a letter to Black women and men and through those letters, I spoke honestly about the pain I’ve endured from our culture and its conditioning. In Hood Therapy Vol. 3, I openly discussed my struggles both being the daughter of a Black woman who has not yet discovered herself and being the mother to a daughter who I am raising to show up authentically as herself.
I believe if we can break free from the cultural conditions that have kept our minds trapped for so long then we can begin to free our culture from the FOMO associated with the American Dream and the attempt to obtain it.3 And it’s so many of us that are waking up to this reality and talking about it.
made some powerful points on this topic of being worthy of love, rest and freedom and how instead our respect is tied to our able-bodiness and productivity, or modern day slavery if you ask me.We are tired, Black people have been the lab rats for America since Christopher Colombus brought his white ass over here. They can wipe us out, they continue to erase our history, but they can’t erase us as a people. We survived through slavery, segregation, burning down our towns and cities, mass incaration of our men, poisioning our neighborhoods with crack and cocaine, ghettoizing our communities, and still we survive. They can’t break us, but we are tired. The way our culture has had to pivot and adjust to the next weapon formed against us as cause generational trauma and if we don’t start to address it, they may eventually win.
Excerpt From: UN-TRAP DA HOOD
“We are healing from our culture’s conditioning. The generations before us were taught how to survive in a society that was designed to wipe us out. Our culture and the conditioning of it were formulated from thoughts and ideas becoming beliefs of how to save our culture. On one hand, it worked, but on the other, it created a domino effect of a culture that does not know itself.”
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Creative Expression: The Script
Earlier this week
posted his short story and invited me to join the fiction writing community when I expressed my interest in wanting to write fiction but I didn’t know how to. I don’t believe this is a true fictional true story but I enjoy scripting as a manifestation technique so I infused some scripting into my storytime.4 I enjoyed writing this so I can see this being a new feature in Hood Therapy moving forward. The moldboard was inspired by ’s mood boards she cultivates for her monthly drops.
“Stick to the script, stick to the script bitch.” I say this so much to myself now it’s become my go-to affirmation when it’s time to pivot. I can’t tell you why but I know that today whoever the ‘bitch’ is I have grown to refer to better be on her shit today.
Normally, I go to my Pilates class on Tuesday and Thursday mornings because it’s easier to go on the days I don’t have to be in the office. But this Tuesday I need to be in the office because I have a huge deal I just closed last month and today the client is coming into the office to do his intake, aka collect my first million-dollar check.
His manager reached out to me after I mailed him a copy of my book and asked if I was taking new clients. At first, I was under the impression he was going to work with me off the strength that I sent him my book and he was going to show love, but when I got on that Zoom call Kendrick said himself ‘No you are the truth I need you to be my creative director.’
I thought to myself, but I’m not a creative director what is he talking about? I mean this is Kendrick Lamar, not a local artist that I have experience working with. There is no way he gathered that I was a creative director. I guess my face must have said what I was thinking because he then went on to say that he knew I was not claiming the title of creative director but that was exactly what I naturally do. At this point, in my mind, I am freaking the fuck out because what are we talking about right now?
The man did his research on me, I was impressed. The way he was telling me about the things I’ve done and how I’ve been doing this with no team he had so much faith that with the resources he could provide, I would be the one to do my big one and un-trap the hood. After all, he wasn’t wrong, and after working for both Pinterest and Substack on contract partnerships I am so much more confident in my abilities to make shit shake.
Since moving to San Francisco life for me has been everything I dreamed of when I was little. I became the tatted girl I wanted to be, when I go to the tattoo shop me and Amber are excited to discover new areas of unmarked skin for her to get creative. I started working out and eating better and although I’ve always been thick this body is looking real nice now. I don’t even look like the same person I was in 2024 when I first moved to California. Granted it’s only been a year but writing Un-Trap da Hood, the first edition, paved the way for me to take writing more seriously and it’s landed me in a very interesting position in life. After I was titled a NY Times Bestseller, things have been falling into place like dominos. And it’s interesting because when I think of dominos the game, I would have never imagined it was taught to the enslaved West Indies by colonizers and plantation owners.
It’s like no matter what, we try to free ourselves, and somehow fucking colonizers find a way in our cultural traditions. Even though the game Spades has an unsettling history associated with it, Black troops created the game during WWII, the irony of us being in WWIII and shit ain’t changed with this country. History continues to repeat itself and Black folk continue to bail this hoe-ass country out. I didn’t mean to go into a rant about traditional Black household games, but I get so fired up when I think about how Black culture is constantly being monetized but that money is never touching our neighborhoods.
That’s what Kendrick wants to work with me on, he wants me to be the Creative Director for his new project. Because this is not just any new project, he wants to use my marketing strategy for my book tour that I did cross-country in 2024 and cultivate an experience that will allow me to make Hood Therapy the event I originally envisioned back in 2023. To bring resources into Black neighborhoods and stop relying on white corporations to provide the opportunities, and I’m not talking about handing out turkeys for Thanksgiving. I want to create the opportunities we need in an organized but strategic way. We have to be smart about how we execute something like this can be considered a threat to America. Hosting pop-up concerts aren’t on their radar, especially if the topic of discussion is had through the lyrics of a song written by Kendrick and the pages in a book written by me. And this is not a downplay on us in any way, what I mean is that the way we both layer history and facts with our words only the culture will understand, it’s like a coded language like Nipsey told us.
He was so impressed with how I took my event cultivated a book tour from it and turned it into a weekly newsletter he wanted to see how I could cultivate it into a full experience with unlimited resources. The part that I am just losing my shit about is that he wants to create Hood Therapy ‘prescription boxes’ that would have MY recommendations as ‘the Hood’s Therapist’ for creative outlets to replace some of our toxic habits, and include his number one pick included in the box. During the concert in between sets, there will be creative outlet stations set up for everyone to find their creative rhythm while DJs curate a vibe through the Hood Therapy playlist. From those creative outlet stations, there will be little stater kits for at home use for you to take and fill your own prescription custom to what creative outlet felt good to you. Once the book is filled it will resemble a brand new Legos box with a collection of individual pieces activities that make up one bigger creative piece collectively, with Un-Trap da Hood serving as the instruction manual to experience freedom.
Of course his number one pick is Un-Trap da Hood Vol. 2, and may I point out that I just fucking published the book. That book that I mailed to him was a part of my marketing strategy for the launch! Remember this is book number two, the first copy did so well - I self-published the book then self-funded the book tour.
I signed the title page and embossed my custom plate with my name under “Author-Signed Copy” in the bottom right-hand corner. For the first book launch, I learned calligraphy for my signature to add a luxury detail, and I made this a signature detail for all of my author-signed copies. The book was carefully placed in a clear plastic book cover slip bag and secured in a book packaging box before being placed in a custom shipping bag to stand out from other fan mail. I guess you could say it worked, he reached out to me for a collaboration, right?
He wants me to recreate my strategy for his series of popout concerts and he is going to sign the book too for them to be exclusive! It’s like I’m about to go sign my first book deal but following through with my dream when the title of the book was the mission for my business years ago.
So yeah I need this little bitch in my head to get her shit together because this is bigger than when I got that first little cute one-bedroom apartment that was like a tiny house in Oakland and accidentally landed both jobs at Substack and Pinterest.
It still blows my mind that I went from traveling the country on a fixed income that was less than $3k a month to making over $10k a month after taxes within 30 days of packing my family up to leave my father-in-law’s crib. That’s why I had to write Un-Trap da Hood Vol. 2 because my life is a fucking movie.
…and the blind faith and trust I had on this journey to Cali put me in a position I could have never imagined or planned for. I’m so glad my ass got up that morning and was cooking dinner at 6 AM because the switch that took place in that kitchen that morning changed my life forever. It’s something about being in a position that feels like there is no way out, and boom you bust through the concrete as a beautiful fucking rose, delicate but a threat if you aren’t careful.
*** to be continued ***
gatekeeping the culture until further notice.
Black girl magic is dead. This has been living in my head rent-free since I read
’s most recent piece is about the pressure that comes with being exceptional as a Black woman in America. I remember being groomed as a child to be exceptional as a trade offer to be accepted by White America. The pressure was placed on me early on to not be ‘ghetto’ and to speak properly, no slang was allowed. I had to be the token Black girl growing up to make sure I wasn’t mistaken for a child who was not well-kept. Pushing myself beyond my limits to exceed the narratives placed on me because of the color of my skin. 'Everything is working out. I will be ok.’ 5When I think about Black girl magic being dead I immediately drift into a relief, weight lifting off my shoulders. I imagine a reality where I do not have to perform, I don’t have to be ‘on’ and overly happy to suppress the ‘angry Black woman’ that is weaponized without a second thought. I want to be free, I desire to be me and show my authenticity. That’s why I have always admired ghetto culture because hood rich to me is our standard of wealth that we cultivated for ourselves. I love the custom grills with the big bamboo earrings, the long colorful nails, and long ass braids down her back or bust down 26-inch wig. I love to see niggas in chains and rings iced out. I love hood fashion, it’s the baseline for street fashion. All trends start in the hood. Ghetto until considered fashionable.
But when do we as Black women stop performing and lay our masks to rest? How long can we continue performing to be the hinged and tamed Black girl before we break? Either lashing out, blacking out, or physically becoming ill in various ways, I mean how long can we continue praying for endurance and ignore our true needs?
Praying for endurance to continue this practiced pattern into adulthood and later it would spill over into motherhood. I overworked myself to be the perfect adult to have a comfortable life while being the perfect mother so my child doesn’t have to heal from me when she gets older.
is vulnerable in her piece about being exhausted from the extended survival mode that we have all grown to know better than we would have preferred. Shit is rough out here in these streets, and it’s hard to compare them to the 1970s, 80s, and 90s because if the same technology was available I am sure we would see more than the good times posed for the VCR tape recorder.I’m grateful for the records we do have of Black freedom movements that give us hope and inspiration to continue the work of our ancestors and cultural leaders. At this point the work has to be continued, no one is coming to save us and if we continue this mindlessly following this cycle we’ve been looped into our culture’s history might be erased forever. In the words of
, we have to start gatekeeping our culture.6#BlackStack
BlackStack is the gatekeeper. BlackStack is the underground railroad that was the portal for our ancestors journeying to freedom. As I say this aloud I pause. I’m on a physical journey for my freedom. And my work is passionately fueled by freeing my people, Black people.
On Juneteenth, I launched an exclusive Black online community called
with my Substack sister . The corner of Substack we carved out where we can say niggas without looking around to see if it’s acceptable, we can cuss, let out guard down, and comfortable enough for you to come in with your bonnet cause we family and you at home. Conversations about Black girl magic being dead and why Juneteenth, like everything else, has to include everyone. Holidays meant for us are extended to races that benefit by getting the cake and eating it too, but we were the ones who bought the ingredients and baked it. We can express ourselves unapologetic without being told to stop complaining.It’s more than that, it’s community. Of course, there is always a vision for something but when community is formed it will be what it’s meant to be. Our culture is the only thing we can hold on to as Black people but the truth is Black culture is Black American culture. We are cultivating and creating it as we go because we don’t own our own, it was whitewashed like everything else that once belonged to us.
hood therapy vol. 1
hey! welcome if this is your first time visiting, and welcome back if you are returning! I love community discussions on topics that keep my thoughts racing and my fingers moving at lightning speed to keep up. my Scorpio energy loves intensity and depth when it comes to communication. this post is different it may become a series of my collective ideas …
hood therapy vol. 2
hey y’all! It’s exciting to write this post today because I feel the community that’s been cultivated. I reflect on the way y’all showed up for the first hood therapy newsletter. The response was overwhelming, to say the least, and I appreciate every single one of you for the likes, comments, restacks, and shoutouts! I am forever grateful for the love an…
hood therapy vol. 3
Wow, I am cultivating Volume 3 while Volumes 1 and 2, are reaching groundbreaking numbers. I will be amazed by the engagement for weeks as I continue exploring this creative form of writing. KanikaXx commented on Volume 2 saying “…the way you meshed these worlds of memory and current explorations together was truly masterful. I certainly entered a portal to the…
Kendrick Lamar put together a concert that took place in Inglewood, CA on Juneteenth, Kendrick and Friends Popout Concert. The concert symbolized the unity of Black culture and he shared a moment during the concert with the arena about how nothing mattered other than that particular present moment, all of them being on stage together united. If you click the hidden link paired with this footnote you can see the livestream recording of the concert.
The American classic movie Forrest Gump has a famous scene where Forrest is quoting his mother’s quote that life is like a box of chocolates because you never know what you are going to get. I am comparing the different chocolates that come in a box of chocolates to the obstacles we face in life. I have reshaped my mind to rest in the understanding that I cannot control life and so therefore if I can master experiencing life and pivoting when I need to then I will be able to enjoy life just as I have grown to enjoy the dark chocolate pieces that come in a box of chocolates. If you click the hidden link paired with this footnote there is a link for you to see the scene from the movie in which I am referring to.
A few weeks ago I wrote a thought piece that did not get as much conversation as I thought it would, but the topic is a little triggering for the culture. In this piece FOMO is the real gag, I talk about how growing up I was passed down the FOMO of my maternal grandmother and how everyone passed it down like a tradition. When it came time for me to pass it to my daughter she questioned the FOMO which led me to start opening the pile of fears and do the hard work that no generation before me had done. As I uncovered the fears that have kept my bloodline bonded I also discovered some of the cultural fears that have suppressed us and opened the topic for discussion in this piece. If you click the hidden link paired with this footnote you will be redirected to this piece to review.
Check all of the hidden links throughout the short story, The Script. I used the manifesting technique, scripting, to tell a fictional story about a dream coming true. Although the story is fictional there are parts of the story that directly connect to my personal experiences throughout the year on my physical journey home. The hidden links share music, some of my previous pieces as well as the link to purchase my book, Un-Trap da Hood.
This is an affirmation shared in
’s piece Extended Survival Mode. This affirmation stood out to me because this is been something I have also grown to tell myself over and over as life throws me every which way, but lose. If you click the link following this footnote you will be directed to ’s piece.A conversation in the chat on Juneteenth in
was therapeutic as we openly and honestly discussed our emotions around this year’s Juneteenth compared to when it was a holiday celebrated privately by us as a culture. The thread is still up so feel free to subscribe to and join the discussions, but wait only if you are Black. This space is exclusively for Black people this is not a community for all POC or all lives, this is specifically for Black writers and readers on Substack. (Others will continue to be blocked).
Hey Jacquie, this is awesome! I love how you’re taking Hood Therapy to the next level! Also, I watched the full popout show on YouTube and it was amazing! I loved seeing the whole city of LA come together, celebrate the culture, and have a great time! Kendrick is another person I gotta see it concert lol! Hope you enjoyed it! Thank you for posting this! I love your newsletter! Just subscribed! :)
Love this! Reading what came after writing your book is so inspiring woah. I will be tuned in for more.