Writing is a soul assignment and labor of love for me. I invest lots of energy here. I would love to be nourished financially and receive fuel to keep going. I dream and weave a new paradigm reality — one where all are abundantly supported in offering our highest gifts to humanity, without selling out to mass extraction. If you appreciate what you read, please recommend my writing channel (words.heywendymay.com) to friends and become a paid subscriber today.
How much changes in a year. A year ago, I made the life-changing decision to make a provocative opinion post on Facebook, which blew up in my face. Since then I have been on a roller coaster ride of reckoning and reinvention — both as a writer, and human being. I have been through a deep initiation into my personal power. I have tested the outer limits of my self-love and self-acceptance. I have changed the way I engage with social media, radically and permanently.
TRIGGER WARNING: You might want to stop yourself from reading further if you are only interested in consuming or performing the “love and light” version of femininity. The essay series in review here dives deep into the shadowy mess and muck of the women’s empowerment movement and its distortions. It asks us to consider how promised liberation can perpetuate suffering.
For those who are new here or have simply missed parts of the story — below you’ll find a review of the essays detailing my experience and my inquiry into the complex dynamics at play. While parts were previously paywalled, the entire four-part essay series is now completely free to read.
Part 1 - How the feminine fights dirty. My true story about cancel culture in conscious community, the controversial post that led to my excommunication from an online sisterhood, indirect attacks using a wide variety of strategies
My true story of cancel culture in a “conscious community”
Part 2 - Healing the witch wound. The gender politics of silencing, witch wound dynamics of difference and exclusion, what keeps the drama triangle turning, and how to exit the unconscious harm train
The sound of silencing
What’s a witch wound?
Getting off the harm train
Part 3 - Safe spaces in community. The drug of false belonging, what it takes to create true community, how and when victimhood is helpful, and the place to find safe spaces for healing when we’re hurting
The drug of false belonging
Victim: a state of emergency
The place for safe spaces
Part 4 - Power and response-ability. A new look at accountability, unintended effects of perp naming, the process of transmuting pain into power, ideas for ways to create more safety, the specific adjustments that I have made, and the life lessons gained, closing thoughts on this chapter and my invitation to humanity
Reframe on accountability
Transmuting pain into power
How I am creating more safety
My life lessons earned
Like what you read? Please tell your friends about my Substack channel and/or become a paid subscriber. Your energetic and financial support for my offering is the fuel that enables me to keep writing. With love and gratitude, W.