You know how after you have the most delicious multi-course meal, you always leave a little room for something sweet? Episode 6 is that something sweet. In the season finale of the “Oh, You Want to Go There?” podcast, Jasmine and Melissa inspire listeners to be intentional about inviting sweetness into their lives. Life isn’t just about trauma, hardships, and healing from generational wounds—joy, deep love, and expanded possibilities are also part of your story. Inspired by the book and show adaptation of Black Cake, they share their own cultural tradition of Pound Cake and how it has been used as a tool for healing grief and reconnecting with joy.
In this episode, Jasmine and Melissa share stories to uncover the roots of their relationship with hyper-independence as a trauma response and their struggles with overgiving and discomfort with receiving. Listeners are reminded that their worth is not tied to what they can produce, their status, or the identities we over-identify with, you can’t earn worthiness. You are deserving of good things, because you, as you are, are worthy.
After the separation came a reunification—and that, my friends, was indeed a journey. Jasmine details her move to Columbus, Ohio, to live full-time with her mother and the pieces of herself that got lost in translation during this transition. This period initiated a longstanding pattern she is still working to reclaim: the stifling of her voice. Jasmine and Melissa explore our voices and how we can use words to break generational agreements and shift our realities.
Somewhere in the world there is a Black momma telling their child to “stop all that crying before I give you something to cry about’. In this episode, Jasmine digs deep into her internal vault of vulnerability to share her "something to cry about"—her first mother wound, an abandonment wound. She details the experience, the insights gained, and the impact it has had on her adult relationships.
"Healing Little You" is an ode to giving space and voice to the younger version of yourself—the one who needed safety, and protection, to be heard, to feel love, and to be held with care. In this episode, we share our stories of navigating girlhood—the challenges, the wounds, and the joy. We provide strategies to support listeners in creating space for and centering the healing of their younger selves.
In the inaugural episode of the OYWTGT podcast, we explore Melissa’s journey into motherhood at the tender age of 14. Having been made to give her baby up for adoption, this story reveals how the experience shaped her evolution as a young woman, and the way she mothered her daughter, Jasmine. Together we uncover the ways we’ve embodied other’s projections, labels, and expectations and the ways they have kept us both living as mere outlines (Silhouette’s), never fully allowing ourselves and others to witness us in our entirety.
Available on YouTube and wherever you listen to podcasts on September 11th.