On this episode of the Choose Yourself Channel, Hakeem sits down with Clarq : (artist, producer, writer, creator) and walking proof that your lowest chapter can become the foundation of your rise. She was raised by a 16-year-old mother, grew up in chaos, and faced the type of trauma most people never talk about: instability, financial struggle, physical and sexual abuse, fear, anxiety, depression, and the loss of her creative spark.

Adulthood brought its own storm of overmedication, addiction, isolation, self-doubt .. until one day she realized:

“Nothing outside of me is fixing what’s inside of me.”

That’s when the real healing started. Not the pretty kind. The honest kind.

This episode is part poetic storytelling, part comedy, part neuroscience, and full Choose Yourself philosophy. Hakeem and Clarq go deep into her transformation while still laughing at the absurdity of trying to selfie-angle your way out of trauma. Spoiler: you can’t.

💥 What You’ll Hear in This Episode

• Her journey from chaos to clarity Raised by a teenage mother, surviving unsafe environments, and learning how her story shaped her strength instead of her suffering.

• When coping stops working Therapy, meds, avoidance and the moment everything resurfaced louder than before, forcing her to turn inward.

• Her radical healing shift 90 days raw vegan. 8+ years plant-based. Meditation. Yoga. Water. Nature. Silence. Toe-in-the-grass spirituality. Small habits that pulled her out of the fog and helped her meet the real her.

• TEFIC in real-time Hakeem breaks down how the Choose Yourself Process showed up in her life.

• The dopamine disaster A hilarious, brutally honest breakdown of instant gratification (sugar, liquor, weed, porn, nicotine, gambling, scrolling) and how they fry your brain like carnival food.

• People-pleasing & vocabulary detoxing Why everyone isn’t your “friend,” why everything isn’t “amazing,” and why using your strong words too often weakens your relationships.

• Her 60-day self-designed learning journey A daily self-development curriculum that boosted her creativity, awareness, and confidence.. including the moment she heard her own song blasting in a stranger’s car.

🐬 Tap in with Clarq

IG: @clarq.music Creative blog & music: bttrsnc.com

🚀 Your Choose Yourself Resources

• CYC Zoom - Every Tuesday @ 10 a.m. EST Your accountability family.

• Choose Yourself Webinar - Saturdays Learn TEFIC, gut health, story work, and the systems behind the movement.

• 30-Day Speed Foundation Reset your habits and environment fast.

• 90-Day Foundation Program Walk the full identity shift.

• Book - Choose Yourself To Be Chosen -The philosophy behind the entire movement.

This 10–15 minute preview is your warm-up lap before the full conversation with Clarq drops and trust me, it’s a mix of comedy, chaos, raw truth, and those “damn… he’s talking about me” moments.

Hakeem opens the episode in full Choose Yourself Channel fashion - loud, laughing, and roasting everything from your bad angles to your bad habits. He cracks jokes about rock bottom, skin care, fake dopamine, and the way we all try to selfie our way out of suffering. It’s hilarious… but it’s also the truth: you can’t filter your way out of your foundation.

We touch on Clarq’s upbringing with a mother who had her at 16, the chaos she grew up in, and the patterns adult life forced her to confront. Not in a heavy way, but in the “we’ve all been through something, now let’s talk about how we turned it into something” way.

Hakeem breaks down the TEFIC process in simple, funny, punch-you-in-the-face truth: your triggers repeat until you actually deal with them your environment exposes you your foundation saves you your investments shape you and your contribution is the real freedom

There’s laughter, there’s science, there’s a spiritual lesson somewhere between “brush your tongue” and “your dorsal cortex needs reps.” This preview gives you the vibe of the full episode — raw, relatable, revealing — without giving away all the gems.

🎯 What This Preview Sets Up

This mini-episode gives you the funniest, most triggering, most relatable moments before the full interview drops. You’ll hear:

• the TEFIC breakdown
• self-awareness cravings
• how healing actually works
• what Clarq did to rebuild her mind
• and the jokes y’all definitely weren’t ready for

The full episode goes deeper and hits harder — this preview is just the warm-up set before the heavy reps.

🐬 Tap Into the Movement

• CYC ZOOM every Tuesday at 10 a.m. EST
• Choose Yourself Webinar Saturdays
• 30-Day & 90-Day Foundation programs
• Choose Yourself To Be Chosen (the book)
• CYC Retreats (2x a year)

Hakeem and Ashley dive deep into modern relationships through the lens of the TEFIC Process ( Triggers, Environment, Foundation, Investment & Contribution ) and how your internal world shapes every connection you enter.

This episode is raw, funny, and uncomfortably honest. You’ll laugh, rethink your patterns, and question every “situation” you ever justified.

Ashley specializes in helping people build healthy internal relationships ; the kind that keep you grounded, calm, emotionally aware, and able to love without abandoning yourself. Together, they break down:

💥 The Self-Relationship Blueprint

Why your relationship with yourself decides who you attract, what you tolerate, and how you show up in love.

💥 Love Within vs. Love You Chase

If you don’t develop love internally, you’ll overvalue temporary attention and undervalue real intimacy.

💥 Friends, Identity & Independence

Why maintaining friendships OUTSIDE the relationship protects your sanity and your connection from codependency and emotional suffocation.

💥 Opposite-Sex Friendships & Boundaries

The truth nobody wants to talk about: If they weren’t in your life before… why are they auditioning now? Ashley and Hakeem break down transparency, digital respect, emotional cheating, and the difference between honesty and loopholes.

💥 Authenticity, Influence & Content Creation

Your relationship doesn’t just exist offline.. it also lives in your posts, comments, DM habits, and online persona. They talk about how to show up authentically online without sabotaging what you’re building in real life.

💥 TEFIC Applied to Love

• T — Triggers: Partners don’t create your wounds; they reveal them.
• E — Environment: What you consume shapes how you connect.
• F — Foundation: Your routines determine your reactions.
• I — Investment: Healthy love requires time, presence, and emotional effort.
• C — Contribution: Real love gives from overflow, not exhaustion.

This episode is for anyone navigating dating, healing, relationships, identity, or trying not to repeat the same cycle with a different face.

🐬 Join the Movement:

• CYC every Tuesday at 10 a.m. EST — heal, grow, and build emotional discipline.
• 30-Day Speed Foundation Program — reset your habits & internal relationship.
• 90-Day Foundation Program — identity reconstruction through TEFIC.
• Book: Choose Yourself To Be Chosen — the blueprint for healing your story so you stop repeating it in love.

This quick 10-minute solo episode sets the stage for the full conversation with Ashley Maland. Hakeem breaks down the real relationship work: loving yourself before you expect anyone else to survive you.

Topics include:

• Why the relationship you have with yourself shapes every relationship you enter
• Loving from overflow, not emotional overdraft
• Friends, boundaries, opposite-sex dynamics
• How your content + lifestyle becomes the environment your relationship lives in

🔥 This is your warm-up for the full episode with Ashley - where the conversation gets deeper, funnier, and way more uncomfortable (in a good way).

Tap in to the next episode for Hakeem's convo with Ashley Maland

Grow with Ashely ⬇️

Podcast : This is Where We Heal

Ashley on IG

🐬 Join the CYC every Tuesday at 10 a.m. EST - grow your mind, strengthen your identity, and heal the patterns that keep showing up in your relationships.

🔖 This episode is the final evolution. The moment where you stop performing for the world and start creating from the person you actually are not the persona you’ve been programmed to play.

Most people are building a character for society but real contribution comes when you build a character for your soul. That’s the whole point of this pillar: Create & Contribute From an Overflow.

💥 If you don’t choose who you’re becoming… your past will choose for you.

In this raw and hilarious finale of the TEFIC process, Hakeem breaks down how your identity, discipline, healing, and environment all stack into the creation phase : the phase where purpose becomes public and authenticity becomes a strategy.

We talk about how your story turns into service, how your scars turn into strategy, and how your authenticity hits harder than any aesthetic. He pulls from his own life (the setbacks, the disciplines, the healing work, the environments he had to escape) to show how contribution is not performance… it’s overflow.

Expect truth. Expect laughter. Expect accountability that slaps your excuses in the face with affection.

🔥 TEFIC — The Choose Yourself Process (Full Breakdown):

T - Triggers: Face the patterns before the patterns erase your peace.

E - Environment: Detox the toxins : food, people, places, playlists.

F - Foundation: Your routine is the real religion. Consistency is the altar.

I - Investment: Time, energy, money, discipline .. where you put it, you become it.

C - Contribution: Give from overflow, not exhaustion. Create from the character you chose, not the character the world forced on you.

🐬 Join the Movement:

• CYC Zoom Every Tuesday at 10 a.m. EST : accountability, mindset reps, innercise.
• Costa Rica Retreat : transformation in paradise (June 18th).
• Book: Choose Yourself To Be Chosen : the full blueprint for choosing your identity, your habits, and your life.
• 30-Day Speed Foundation & 90-Day TEFIC Program : the systems that turn self-awareness into self-mastery.

This episode hits the heart, the humor, and the honesty. If you’re ready to build a life from authenticity, alignment, and overflow - tap in.

Contribution is not what you give the world… It’s what your evolution creates for the world.

In this episode, Big Dream Hakeem breaks down Pillar 4 of the Choose Yourself Process (TEFIC)

Pillar 4 : Invest in Yourself Intentionally a.k.a. the art of putting your time, energy, and money where your future mouth is.

We get into the uncomfortable truth: Most people don’t have a financial problem, they have a focus problem. They’re broke in discipline long before they’re broke in dollars.

Hakeem breaks it all down with comedy, science, and a little holy side-eye:

💥 Time Investment: You can’t say you want a new life when you spend your mornings cuddling with the snooze button. Your hours are a budget and half of us are overdrafting on distractions.

⚡ Energy Investment: Energy is expensive. Stop giving free samples of your peace to people who drain you like emotional vampires that still live with their mom. Protect your vibe like it’s your SS number.

💸 Resource Investment: If you can spend money getting lit but can’t invest in your growth, that’s not “can’t afford it”… that’s “I don’t prioritize it.” Your purpose is not Amazon Prime.. you can’t overnight success.

🚫 The Hidden Investment: Elimination: Quitting sugar, weed, gossip, or your toxic ex is not punishment, it’s PROFIT. Every vice you drop increases your bandwidth, your confidence, and your brain cells.

Throughout the episode, Hakeem shares moments from his own story- the late nights he traded for early mornings, the vices he killed to reclaim discipline, the investments he made that scared him but saved him.. proving that the ROI on self-respect is undefeated.

🔥 Key Takeaways:

• Invest time where it compounds, not where it evaporates.
• Energy is a currency- spend it like you want receipts.
• Money is a tool - stop using it to numb your wounds.
• Elimination is a flex - subtracting is sometimes the real upgrade.
• You don’t need motivation - you need maintenance.
• Your future self is watching… and he’s judging you.

This episode is raw, hilarious, and uncomfortably honest - the kind of truth that makes you audit your bank account, your friendships, and your browser history.

🐬 Welcome to The Choose Yourself Channel ..where self-investment stops being optional and starts being oxygen.

In this episode, Big Dream Hakeem breaks down the unsexy secret to success ...your foundation! Everybody wants breakthrough but nobody wants bedtimes. You can’t pray for peace if your schedule looks like chaos. This is the realest construction zone on the internet- where we rebuild consistency, identity, and accountability brick by brick.

💥 The Six Pillars of the Foundation:

1. Curfew / Kick-Out Time – Because nothing godly happens after 11 p.m. but overthinking and DoorDash.
2. Digital Sunset – Turn off the phone before it turns off your focus.
3. Reading Bedtime – Your brain deserves better than blue light and booty reels.
4. Wake-Up Time – If you hit snooze on purpose, that’s just spiritual procrastination.
5. Morning Routine – Start your day on offense, not defense.
6. First Obligation – Handle your priorities before your distractions handle you.

⚙️ Hakeem breaks down the science of stability.. how your nervous system thrives on rhythm, not randomness and why your body can’t keep up with dreams your discipline won’t fund. He also drops the difference between your:

• Mini Foundation: When life’s chaotic, keep 3 pillars solid,survival mode.
• Full Foundation: All 6 firing... thriving mode.
• Recovery Foundation: For when your 20% fun gets a little too fun.

🔥 You’ll also hear how the 90-Day Foundation Program helps you rebuild structure for long-term transformation, while the 30-Day Speed Foundation gives you the quick reboot to stop spiraling and start showing up again.

And if you haven’t already grab the book Choose Yourself to Be Chosen and the Foundation Module inside the CYC Academy. Because truthfully? Your habits are either building your dreams or breaking your discipline. The foundation decides. 🧱

🐬 Welcome to The Choose Yourself Channel - where healing comes with humor, and accountability hits harder than caffeine.

#CYC #chooseyourself #motivation #accountability #discipline #transformation #growthmindset #foundation #community

Summary

In this episode, Big Dream Hakeem gets real about the environments we marinate in : the foods, the feeds, the frequencies, and the fools. Most people don’t need a juice cleanse, they need a people cleanse.

We’re talking about mindful consumption (from your gut to your group chat) and why detoxing from dysfunction is the real flex. Hakeem breaks down how your gut isn’t just digesting food, it’s digesting your feelings, your habits, and sometimes your ex’s drama.

Self-Choice Layer : that sacred pause between your emotions and your next dumb decision. That’s where freedom lives because reacting is easy, but responding spiritual athletics.

This one covers everything from dopamine addiction and delayed gratification to the art of celebrating without self-sabotaging. It’s funny, it’s triggering, and it’s real enough to make you side-eye your pantry and your playlist.

💡 Takeaways (a.k.a. Truth Reps):

• 🧠 Choose yourself and take accountability for your environment.
• 💩 Your gut is your first brain and it’s tired of your excuses.
• ⚡ The gap between emotion and action is where power lives.
• 🔥 Detoxing isn't cute - it’s uncomfortable, necessary, and overdue.
• 📱 Mindful consumption starts with muting chaos.
• 👃 Your five senses are the five doors to your peace ..lock the ones that let toxins in.
• 🧂 “Good mood food” isn’t just a quote .. it’s chemistry.
• ⚖️ Balance isn’t boring ..it’s the only way to survive this simulation.
• 🚭 Breaking free from addictions is how you make space for evolution.

🐬 Listen now on The Choose Yourself Channel : where growth is hilarious, healing is uncomfortable, and your accountability coach just might roast your bad habits.

If you don’t face your triggers, you’ll just keep reenrolling in the same emotional class with a new teacher and a better outfit.

In this episode, I break down Pillar 1 of the Choose Yourself Process:

Recognize Your Trigger Points - the foundation of every glow-up that actually lasts. I use pieces of my own story to show how unhealed triggers turn into repeated breaking points… until you finally learn the lesson.

You’ll walk away with the 3P Reflection Method and other practical ways to calm your ego before it starts its usual monologue.

Raw truth. Real laughs. No spiritual bypassing. Just straight talk about how to stop letting your pain run the playlist.

Welcome to The Choose Yourself Channel, where we turn triggers into teachers and healing into humor. 🐬

You can’t turn your pain into power if you keep sprinting from the source. Life keeps replaying the same lessons until you pass the test and this episode is your study guide.

In this 10-minute talk, I open up about my story, the dark days, the losses, the lessons and how facing what broke you is the only way to rebuild what’s real.

We’ll also touch on The Choose Yourself Process and list the five pillars that changed everything… but we’re saving the deep dive for the next five episodes.

This one’s raw, hilarious, and unfiltered because healing isn’t pretty but it is powerful.

Welcome to The Choose Yourself Channel, where your pain gets promoted and your excuses get fired. 🐬