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With college acceptance letters arriving in mailboxes and inboxes around the country, a new chapter begins for many students and their families. However, the excitement of college acceptance often comes hand in hand with the daunting question, "How are we going to pay for this?"
Creative entrepreneurship can be a thrilling journey because you're not just pursuing a passion, you're stepping into a lifestyle that offers unparalleled freedom and opportunities. However, navigating the path of a creative entrepreneur requires more than just talent and determination. It involves a strategic approach to financial management, self-discipline, and an understanding of the unique freedoms this path provides.
We are pleased to introduce the newest group of contributors to Spoken Black Girl Magazine Issue 5: Motherhood. Read about them and follow their journeys!
Today we’re talking to actress, producer, and multitalented creative, Andrea Lewis. Andrea Lewis is the Executive Producer of The Black Beauty Effect on Netflix.
Spoken Black Girl is teaming up with Rewrite London this October for a healing writer’s retreat in Playa Negra, Puerto Viejo 20th October – 27th October 2024!
Marsai Martin continues to shine a light on a unique style of beauty in her “Four Eyes Are Better Than Two” collection of eyeglasses from GlassesUSA.
Are you ready to release and heal through writing? Journaling is one of the best ways to take care of your mental health.
Do you ever find yourself feeling sorry and saying things like "When I get my big break? It seems like my moment never comes."? Well readers, so do I.
Hello Reader! Hopefully, if you are here, that means you’re reading or considering reading my novel, Departure Story. First of all, thank you for supporting a proud Afro-Caribbean woman entrepreneur and independent publishing house.
The experiences of Black immigrants are largely invisible to Americans, despite their growing numbers – 4.2 million throughout the country (The Immigrant Learning Center, 2020).
Scarcity mindset is what I like to call the feeling of not-enoughness that holds us back from unleashing our full potential. You might think there aren’t any clients who want to work with you or no customers who would be interested in your product. You might be unconsciously putting a cap on what you can achieve or earn.
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Recovery life coaching services and Emotional wellness coaching, support groups, and yoga
Therapeutic Freedom is a place for peace and healing. My continued goal is to provide a safe space for my community, especially women of color, to heal, gather resources and spread joy amongst ourselves.
Holistic, therapeutic services including holistic consultations, therapy, trauma Conscious Yoga, and community workshops
More Mental Health Stories by Black Women Writers
By understanding the foundations of our society, we understand that this trauma has shifted DNA, familial patterns, mental health, societal roles, and daily experiences. Understanding the history and the foundations of our society is necessary to understand the complex ways in which these formative actions impact mental health. The dance of injustice has been a long narrative in this country and has shaped the mental health of a people.
What originally began as a brief visit quickly became a sister circle where vulnerability and support converged to create a healing experience none of us knew we needed. We spent the next several hours, yes hours, discussing relationships (familial and romantic), trauma, forgiveness, self-worth, and other topics important to women.
I recently revealed on my popular Instagram reel show: Search for Serotonin that I went on a date. People in my DMs congratulated me and said they were proud of me for taking this step. I thought it was funny all the fuss people made, but I had been very vocal about not trusting anyone ever again and remaining single to protect myself. And now here I am, allowing a man to give me butterflies.
When most people think of a person with Autism, they think of a white male. My second child is an African American female. This is our story. From the moment my husband and I brought her home from the hospital, she was extremely sensitive to light and sound.
PTSD nightmares are a reality for many survivors of trauma, whether you experienced trauma yourself or witnessed a traumatic incident. Every day millions of people are impacted by PTSD, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, which can affect anyone who has experienced physical or psychological trauma.
As a full-time student and international student dealing with depression and anxiety daily, it is a struggle, primarily when you continually deal with hardships: homesickness, social difference, and all-around stress. Sometimes there are difficulties within people. Students who have experienced anxiousness or depressed feelings should know that they are not alone. It merely is not uncommon to feel this way—in particular, being involved in the university community.
More than ever, individuals are beginning to reclaim their power and understand the importance of personal wellness and caring for one’s mental health. This is especially important for Black women, as we are often expected to go above and beyond in the workplace. We are seen as most useful because of our labor, and our humanity is rarely taken into account.
Writing any self-help book is an ambitious feat, but what Julie Lythcott-Haims has delivered in “Your Turn to be an Adult” takes a huge bite out of a broad and existential topic, “what does it mean to be an adult?” I’m 29 and every day, I observe my friends who are all around the same age, wrestle with the tough breaks of adulthood or enjoy its glorious moments, whether it’s getting married and having a baby or buying your first home.
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Issue 4 Freedom Visual Art
Freedom Essays, Fiction & Interviews
It’s been over a decade since I’ve visited, and even though I’m accustomed to New York’s 90-degree summers, I am taken off guard by the island’s heat and humidity. As my eyes are getting adjusted to the tropical climate, I find myself choking up, overwhelmed by the sheer Essence of the island.
The Olin Nature preserve is eerily quiet. So quiet you can hear fallen leaves crunch beneath your feet. I imagine the courage it must have taken for our ancestors to walk these woods at night, guided solely by the faith they were headed toward something better than the violence they were leaving behind.
I ache for a world where our wounds awaken us to compassion not strengthen our resolve to build walls. This is what pushes me to write, speak, protest (whether online or in-person) against all forms of oppression.
When the child was born they didn’t tell her mother and father she was cursed. As soon as she opened her eyes, they saw what would be the end of the entire village.
I knew that I only felt sexually attracted to or wanted to have sex with people that I actually felt an actual, deep connection with. But like, like I said, LANGUAGE IS EVERYTHING and I didn’t have the language.
I was born in the desert, under July monsoon clouds and mist. My parents were young, from different worlds, different means, and tried to make their obviously disjointed pieces fit together.
Freedom Poetry
Superb people,
I’m surrounded by them
I peek into their success, screens serenading them with praise
I didn’t post my smile yesterday.
It didn’t feel right with all the pain.
But alas I woke to find another daughter gone today.
i am my freest self on sunday mornings
when i am full of sweetwater/lips wet
i see my soul from the front of a poem/and meet myself/at the end
i put my waist beads back on
We, who came to transform barriers into bridges,
steadying the foundation with melodic rhythms of blues unspoken,
bars spit in cyphers shatter illusions
America fed us as truth.
Girls became protestors
Peacefully marched and preached for our rights
Tried to buy movie tickets for integration than segregation
I know why the caged bird still sings, Freedom rings, like liberty
What part of freedom is really free?
When the mind is shackled and the pain lingers from the past,
are we truly free at last?
So many people have died, suffered, been persecuted, wrongfully accused,
Abused and misused in this land of the free,
Wild to me.
That when I envision free or freed me
I see myself enveloped by the warmest of warm waters.
You are a space I’ve traveled
Not a familiar memory,
but an epigenetic occurrence embedded in my DNA
Freedom to be a tone rich of melanin / Accepting my genetic makeup with grace / Thick rooted locs and heavy with the masculine
Reflections
“It was only when I began to write in my diary to push that memory into the farthest part of my
mind that my metamorphosis gradually, like sand in an hourglass, came. Writing became a
therapeutic offering to myself as I chipped away at those parts of my life that were so confusing,
so ugly, so unkind.”
This is a Black girl rite of passage. We all have to endure the pains that come with “getting your hair done”. We’ve been taught there’s a certain amount of discomfort, from the tight pull of a braid to the burn of a relaxer or hot comb, that is to be expected. We suffer for beauty, and yet we’re still criticized and politicized for the choices we make when it comes to our hair.
After listening to Meghan and Harry’s interview with Oprah, I couldn’t stop thinking about Meghan identifying herself as a Black woman. I highlight this because, in my ignorance of what I know about The Crown, I would never have imagined at first sight that Megan could be considered a Black woman. However, having watched the whole interview, so many questions and the thirst for further investigation came to my mind.
As Black women, we have a habit of being everyone’s superhero and protector but for ourselves. There is one thing for sure: we, as Black women, are human beings: we’re vibrant, resilient, resourceful self-sacrificing humans. However, especially as humans we have the habit of saving everyone and then us.
I understand I cannot control my familial circumstances. I was adopted into a household of Christianity and emotional abuse. Black womanhood and toxic masculinity. Enmeshment and unavailability. Nor can I undo my family environment where I was rooted in Black superwoman strength and performance under all circumstances. And I definitely cannot forget the ways in which I was raised to be a “good girl”, obey, be nice, and one day, get married.
I walked away from violence and today I am here, many years after all that tragedy, stronger than ever, raw, with memories and marks in my mind and soul that would never disappear. They are emotional scars that I am not sure I could ever delete from myself. But I also have no regrets about the things I did. It was never my fault, this was the most important fact for me.
Six months ago, you laid there for the first time. The paper on the examination table sticks to your thigh with sweat making you shift uncomfortably. You knew you should be nervous, but the Ativan kept you calm. *knock, knock* three women came in and one began to explain that she’s the doctor who would be performing the abortion and that the other two were for support. She asked you to put each foot in the stirrups, and before you knew it, your mistake became a part of a stranger’s daily routine.
My pregnancy experience gave me insight into the cold and unfeeling approach that doctors often take towards the female body. It comes as no surprise that Black women are experiencing fibroids and unnecessary hysterectomies (removing the uterus) at alarming rates. I wanted to reclaim my body.
Brown Girl Poets We Love
I will protect you
I wanna protect what’s mine
I wanna protect because I wasn’t
Protected
Breeze flows through my hair. The clouds are big and puffy.
Podcasts hum in the background and children play outside.
I drift higher and higher as the cool air touches me reaching towards the sky.
A bird passes me and I realize I am flying.
Happy Halloween! To end this month’s theme of Transformation, we present to you three poems from an accomplished and talented poet, Safia Jama.
All the weight of the world is placed upon you as a Black woman.
Especially if you are a Black woman that is well aware of the intricacies of social inequalities.
Is there such a thing as a Black woman that could truly say she isn’t anymore?
The first step towards building a robust financial foundation is to focus on strengthening your earnings. Historically, Black women have been underpaid, which undervalues our immense contribution to the workforce. It's time to shift the narrative…