The part of ‘Making it out’ no one talks about
Rest in peace to all the friends we lost too young.
If you grew up in the hood — or anywhere close to it — you know that kind of pain hits different. Losing people before they ever got to see life unfold is a wound that follows you. Like Kendrick said, “The lost ones keeping me up at night”, I relate to that lyric more than I’d like to. I think about the people we lost way too soon and wonder: What would they have accomplished with more time? Who would they be today? Who could they have become if they weren’t living in survival mode, fighting just to make it out?
That pain never goes away forreal — you just learn to live with it and do your best to make them proud.
If you're reading this and you FEEL this, there’s something I need you to understand:
Making it out is deeper than changing your zip code, stacking your bank account, or wearing designer.
Because when you really make it out, you learn fast that the trauma doesn’t stay behind.
The pain still lingers.
The memories still replay.
The habits — the ones you developed just to survive — don’t magically disappear.
It doesn’t matter how far away you move, how successful you become, or how “grown” life looks on the outside. If you don’t heal, you’re just carrying the hood with you in silence.
And I know this because I lived it. Even beyond me, look at the celebrities, athletes, influencers, etc. who made it out, yet still wrestle with addiction, in the headlines for drama, and/or the law, etc. – why do you think that is? Because this shit doesn’t just disappear simply because you have a new address or extra zeros in your bank account. Yes, success is great, but success with a sound mind and healed heart is even better.
On paper, I made it out:
I went to college.
I got the degrees.
I built a career.
I moved across the country.
I had the good job, the nice apartment, the stability.
But the truth?
Everything I thought I was escaping followed me.
The fear.
The anger.
The survival mode.
The pressure to do everything on my own because that’s all I ever knew.
There were voids that success couldn’t fill.
There was trauma I had to stop avoiding.
There were parts of me that needed healing long before I could ever reach my full potential.
That’s why I need you to hear this:
If you’re still in the trenches, you can start making it out right where you are.
Because the real journey doesn’t start with moving out — it starts with looking within.
Healing is the key.
Breaking generational cycles is the key.
Choosing to grow, choosing to face your pain, choosing to build a different future — that’s making it out.
This isn’t to downplay the beauty of physical success or the pride we feel when one of us “makes it.”
This is to name the part we hardly talk about, breaking the cycles from within.
You can make it out.
You can rise.
You can rewrite the story — starting from wherever you’re standing today.
And when you make it out from within, that’s when everything external finally begins to change.
This blog, this website, this movement is meant to help guide you through so that you too can experience the soft life internally and externally.
