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”
Pink Pitchforks (Part 1): How the feminine fights dirty
Last year I made a controversial social media post, which turned into an energy tsunami that lasted for weeks. This was one of the most intense events of my 2022. It’s the reason why I created this Substack channel as a sacred space for my writing. It’s also what moved me to publish the details of my own sexual trauma journey after nearly two decades in…
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
Pink Pitchforks (Part 2): Healing the witch wound
This essay is a continuation from Pink Pitchforks (Part 1): How the feminine fights dirty. The sound of silencing When my original post was deleted, I appealed to the group admin with ultimate decision-making authority, saying it was unfair censorship. He admitted that he was uncomfortable with weighing in on the deletion of my post, as it would look bad …
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
Pink Pitchforks (Part 3): Safe spaces in community
This essay is a continuation from Pink Pitchforks (Part 2): Healing the witch wound. The drug of false belonging It is human nature to desire and seek belonging. It goes beyond identifying with tribe or feeling part of community. On a primal level, safety in numbers is a survival instinct. But what happens when the group is held together by invisible cont…
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
Pink Pitchforks (Part 4): Power and response-ability
This essay is a continuation from Pink Pitchforks (Part 3): Safe spaces in community. Reframe on accountability What does it mean to be accountable? The word itself points to an expectation that one must render an account or tell a story. An accountable person is duty-bound to share their version of events. This act of “accounting” is the critical communi…
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