January 2025

Welcome to The WELLS Healing Center and our monthly newsletter, The Healing Current. This newsletter serves as a record of and resource for our collective movement towards wellness, equity, love, liberation and survival. Providing sustenance with knowledge, inspiration, and healing. We're so happy to have you.

From Della's Desk:

This note touches on themes of healing from trauma. Please take care of yourself as you read and feel free to step away if needed. Remember, you are always in control of how you engage with this space.

A single writing prompt in Dr. Zelda Lockhart’s memoir course would crack open decades of silence. But first, I had to build a container strong enough to hold what would emerge. I sought out her nine-month multigenerational Black women’s writing course at Her Garden Studios in Durham, intentionally choosing this Black feminist healing pathway. I trusted that writing my story in community with other Black femmes, guided by a Black healing arts practitioner, would create the sacred space my healing demanded.

In previous newsletters, I’ve shared about building foundations, about finding courage to face our fears. Today, I want to show you why healing sometimes requires the longer path - how intentionally creating space for deeper work through storytelling and witness allowed me to lovingly face what happened to a 12-year-old Black kid one early summer Saturday.

Let me take you there:

Sheekah and I became fast friends at Flinn Middle School. We were each other’s best friends and inseparable. She had brown skin, was so bubbly, and her hair was always on point. Current. Cute. She lived on the southside near my church, about three blocks away. We loved to stroll slowly down the streets. All around the neighborhood. I didn’t know why but making that decision at the end of each block on which way to turn was fun for me. I guess I felt free.

On this particular Saturday, Sheekah’s sister agreed to do my hair too. She gave me the cleanest part down the middle, and tightly gathered my hair, jam gelling it down into two slick ponytails. Two red ball hair ties were twisted together at the top on either side, but the bottom of the braided ponytail was closed off with a small black rubber band you couldn’t see unless up close. This childish style was made to look older on my 12-year-old, budding body because the braids hung long, framing my quickly-developing boobies and ending at my waist. I felt so cute by the time we made it to Misha’s house where she and her cousin Ranae were waiting for us.

That day started with such possibility. I felt beautiful, free, connected. My hair was done just right, hanging long past my shoulders, and I was surrounded by an undeniable energy of Black girl joy. I didn’t know then how quickly safety could dissolve, how one afternoon could reshape a lifetime.

Was I on the west side? Where was I, for real? Before I could find my bearings, place myself, I found myself separated from my friends. One minute I was sitting quietly, awkwardly on the beat-up white plastic chair in the driveway while my friends flirted and flitted around in the yard with the one other girl there and all the boys. They made it look easy. Ranae and her boo dipped off in the house and got teased by everyone. I was drinking what I thought was just Mountain Dew. And then, I didn’t know what happened to time, to me.

When I look back just before that moment now, I hear my young self’s wisdom - my gut was saying get out of here, get Sheekah and go home, this don’t feel good. But I told myself, I’m being a baby, I need to stop complaining, nothing is wrong with this, it is just different. You’re with three of your friends and are fine. I had already learned to silence that voice, to doubt my instincts, to prioritize not causing a fuss over staying safe.

What followed was more than just violence - it was the shattering of trust on multiple levels. Not only was my body violated, but in the aftermath, when I needed care most desperately, I encountered shame instead of protection:

Mom’s fearful, frantic face is now imprinted inside my eyelids, and I can never unsee her there like that. She was so damn scared. But it was evident in her fierceness. Her guard. I had never seen her like that before. And I don’t remember dad’s reaction when we reunited that morning after, but he was there. Why is it that I can’t remember my dad’s reaction that day?

The police had left but my parents kept asking what happened. I wish I had a better answer. I wish I had my memory. I wish I knew why I didn’t have my memory. They think I’m lying and don’t want to tell them. I don’t know what happened.

The aftermath taught me lessons that would take decades to unlearn:

I was devastated, small, isolated, scared, silenced. And while I couldn’t process the drugs I had been given or sexual trauma – my young body, mind, and spirit just couldn’t – I could process that reaction. I wore that shame. I felt disposed of. I felt stuck in my ability to speak to my experiences, to name them, to identify them, to identify how I felt about them. There was no space anywhere that I felt safe to dare try to remember or feel or share about my hurt or to heal my broken heart and body.

What emerged from that trauma was a pattern of protection through performance:

What happened in those years after being drugged and sexually assaulted was a hardening. It was the beginnings of "GoGoGadget Della" as cousin Shirl called me, a robot who can perform and has limited access to their own feelings.

These patterns - of silencing my instincts, of performing perfection, of not expecting support when in pain - shaped decades of my life. They influenced my relationships, my career choices, my approach to healing itself. But pain, when finally spoken, can create unexpected openings for grace.

Last February, my parents visited me in Durham. Over dinner at my favorite local restaurant, stars beaming through the windows, I brought up that night from long ago. When I asked if they remembered, Mom did immediately. Dad’s memory was vaguer. As I shared the story I was writing in Dr. Lockhart’s course - the same story I just shared small pieces of with you - something beautiful happened. Instead of shame or dismissal, they met me with open hearts. My mother, who once couldn’t hold my pain, now held me. My father, whose reaction I couldn’t remember from that day, was fully present now. They apologized. They listened. They even offered financial support so I could receive in-person care with my coach in Merida, Mexico related to that first and the many subsequent violations my body has endured.

Over the following months, something shifted within our family dynamic. My parents began to recognize how our patterns had reinforced my role as “the responsible one who always had everything under control.” Together, we began dismantling that facade, uncovering the human beneath the robotic performance. They took intentional steps to balance the field of care and support among siblings, creating space for me to be imperfect—to be late to my healing from sexual trauma, yet still very much in it—and to simply exist as their hurting daughter who needed them. Their growth and willingness to show up differently sent ripples of change through our entire family.

In Dr. Lockhart’s course, surrounded by Black femmes across generations, a prompt about autonomy and safety with a younger family member became my gateway to understanding these patterns. In that sacred space, I could finally name what happened to that 12-year-old girl. More importantly, I could name what she needed then and what I need now.

This past year has been about choosing a different path. About creating space to feel everything - the rage, the grief, the terror that my young self couldn’t process. About telling the truth to those who were there then and expressing what I needed both in the past and present. About learning that I deserve care and protection, even when I’m not perfect, even when I’m breaking down, even when I’m telling hard truths.

Early in the course, I made a conscious choice to focus my memoir on sexual trauma and survival. It was terrifying - I knew that opening these doors would change everything. And it did. As I shared in our last newsletter, insomnia came. Body memories surfaced. PTSD symptoms collided with daily expectations. But this time, I had intentionally built the container I needed. I had chosen guides who could hold both my tenderness and my rage. I had created space to fall apart and come back together.

I’m still in this healing journey. I still need time. Some days the PTSD symptoms feel overwhelming, the perfectionism creeps back in, the people-pleasing/pain-silencing whispers its familiar songs. But I’m choosing to share these stories as I go, processing with just enough delay to hold both my privacy and my truth. I share in hopes that it might support others walking similar paths - my fellow survivors, grown Black gworls, queer and poly folk, those battling PTSD symptoms, recovering perfectionist people pleasers. We deserve to take the time we need.

What I’m learning - still learning, every day - is that true healing can’t be rushed or bypassed. Each realization, each layer of understanding, each moment of courage to speak truth needs its own time to unfold. The gift of taking the longer path is that it allows us to heal not just the initial wound, but all the adaptive patterns that grew from it.

This will be my final Seeding Softness piece for WELLS’ The Healing Current. Like healing itself, this series needs a different container to grow into its next phase. For those who want to continue this journey with me, I’m moving to Substack. There, we’ll create a multimedia healing experience - sharing images and videos that capture moments of transformation, offering concrete resources for your own healing journey, telling more of my memoir-style story in full, and providing journal prompts and interventions designed for both those doing their own healing work and those holding space for others. Together, we’ll explore how these early patterns shaped later relationships and professional choices, and how we can create new patterns of trust and authenticity.

A Moment of Softness: Take a breath here. Notice what has stirred in your own body as you’ve read this story. Perhaps you’re carrying similar wounds, similar adaptive patterns. Perhaps you’re also in the middle of your own healing journey. Whisper to yourself: "I deserve to take the time I need. My healing doesn’t need to look perfect or follow anyone else’s timeline."

If the longer path of healing feels impossible right now, that’s okay. Let’s start where you are:

Today: Take three intentional breaths while waiting for your coffee or tea to brew, or maybe while you’re waiting at a red light. 

This week: Choose one daily task - brushing teeth, washing dishes, sipping water - and pair it with a gentle reminder: "I am worthy of care."

This month: Block out five minutes before bed for quiet reflection, even if you just sit and breathe.

Remember, we build our capacity for deeper healing one small moment at a time. Each intentional breath, each kind word to yourself, each minute of quiet creates foundation for what’s to come.

Until we meet again, whether here or in our new space, may you honor your own pace and process. May you trust that it’s never too late to face old wounds, to ask for what you needed then and need now. May you know that taking the longer path - the one that honors every layer of your story - is an act of profound self-love. And may you find the containers and communities that can hold you as you heal.

P.S. - You might notice I haven't addressed the ongoing waves of anti-trans, xenophobic, anti-Black and other nonstop violence that have devastated our communities these past two weeks. I'm sitting with this grief right now, processing in community, and don't have adequate words yet. We'll explore these wounds and how we can heal as a collective soon. In the meantime, please take extra gentle care of yourselves and each other.

With deep gratitude for your witness, Della

GET CONNECTED WITH WELLS + FRIENDS:

• Dr. Pearis Jean and Dr. Shanye Phillips, assistant professors and researchers at Towson University, are recruiting participants for a study on the long-term wellness and support needs of Black survivors on interpersonal violence. The study has been approved by the Towson University Institutional Review Board (IRB Protocol # 2623). To participate in the study, you must be at least 18 years old, identify as Black, and have experienced at least one incident of interpersonal violence (e.g., intimate partner violence, childhood sexual abuse, and/or sexual assault) in your lifetime with the most recent/last experience having been at least three years ago. Participants will complete a survey that includes multiple choice and free response questions - it should take about 30 minutes to complete. Please note that given the anonymous nature of the study, consent cannot be withdrawn, and all data (including partially completed surveys) provided will be used. Participants can still choose to not respond to certain questions or discontinue participation in the study. Participants will be compensated with a $20 electronic gift-card for their time. Here is the link to the survey if you'd like to participate! (If you have any questions about the study, please reply to this email and we'll connect you with the researchers.)

• As we move through this new year, community care and support feels more urgent than ever. That’s why the Center for RARE JUSTICE is excited to help secure the 2025 Black Engineering Graduate Student Empowerment Retreat, themed BE EVEN GREATER. This retreat, taking place March 1–5, 2025 in Chicago, Illinois, is designed for current engineering PhD students and recent PhD graduates. As a participant, your accommodations - including travel, lodging, NSBE registration, and meals - will be fully covered. We encourage you to share this opportunity with your networks and anyone who might benefit. Hotel logistics are being finalized now! If you’d like to learn more, please reply to this email - we’ll connect you with Dr. Brooke Coley, the organizer and a collaborator with WELLS.

• An invitation for all the grown Black gworls who are so worthy of (community) care, softness, sweetness. For all the grown Black gworls living in violated bodies that are craving freedom. Join Della Mosley & shena young – sister-friends, artists, survivors, & therapists – for a monthly healing & holding space for the grown Black gworls surviving the downfall of Diddy, Drake, and nem. The first gathering will take place on February 22nd at 1 PM EST. In preparation for the upcoming twists and turns, the trials, and the healing journey now & beyond we are stocking up on tools/resources, practicing taking up more space in our bodies, loving on each other, and steeping in hope. Join them here!

• This week, we started a new iteration of our Black Graduate Student Group! WELLS is growing - and with that, we've created new groups to hold space for folks that need this healing work. Our newest Black Grad Group is led by two amazing facilitators, Bri Ladd and Mahogany Monette. (If you're able, support these facilitators and the students in group with a donation.)

• Speaking of growing... we recapped the past year together over on our Instagram - check out our WELLS Wrapped 2024 here. Last year, we lovingly created lasting communities with continued access to support/mentoring and engaged folks outside of our networks like never before. Moving forward into 2025, we will complete our organizational restructuring to become more decentralized and collective-led, as well as host even more groups, workshops, and create new offerings for our community.

• Thank you for all your help in getting all the undergrads in the Yellow Island Program to the SICB conference in Atlanta! This was a huge opportunity for these students to give their first conference presentations and we were able to help make that happen thanks to y'all's support. Check out this sweet photo from the conference:

• NEW GROUP ALERT! Are you looking for a space to engage in cowork time with others, get feedback on a cover letter or program you're working on, and in general, level up your community and professional life? Apply to join A Cozy Dismantling II and come get what you need!

• As mentioned in "From Della's Desk," this is Della's final Seeding Softness entry for our newsletter. If you enjoyed these pieces of their healing journey here, you can continue this journey over on their Substack. You'll discover images and videos that capture moments of transformation, concrete resources and journal prompts for your own healing journey, more storytelling, and much more.

  
  
  
  
  
  

WELLNESS TIP - seek, join, and contribute to political communities that hold your values.

What do you see in your most expansive dreams of liberation? Have these dreams moved you to action? Have you found your calling in working towards liberation, and have you been acting diligently to answer this calling?

Everyone’s calling to this work has to start somewhere. The following tip is guided by the words of June Jordan (she/her), a brilliant Black feminist poet and essayist, dreamer, and believer of liberation for all peoples. We hope her words may ground you and move you, as they do us. Let’s talk about how we can seek, join, and contribute to political communities that share our values:

• “Our collective liberation is intertwined, we cannot be free until all are free.” - June Jordan

• Blafemme Healing is a wellness framework that centers Black femmes because liberating Black femmes necessitates liberation for all of us. And what is wellness without liberation? There are so many things that keep us from our wellness, especially in our anti-Black, postcolonial, late capitalist society, where our wellness is contingent on the whims of the powerful few. 

• But there’s more of us than there are of them, and with liberation deep healing can happen. 

Step 1: Looking at the Root of Our Stories

• “Our stories have the power to transform, to heal, and to inspire.” - June Jordan

• What stories have you been witness to that keep your chest heavy? In these stories, who needs uplifting, protecting, liberating? Who needs to be held accountable? Let these stories offer focus and clarity, a vision of a liberated future. Once you have that grounding, commit to a lane towards liberation.

• Lanes toward liberation can include: Land back. Abolition of ICE and prison systems. Decolonization. Climate justice. Free education. Free healthcare. Redistribution of resources. Ethical labor. Fair wages. Decolonial and anti-carceral healing. Disability justice. Global solidarity with all marginalized peoples. Consider a lane to liberation that is tied to the local issues of your community.

Step 2: Notice and Absorb in Your Lane(s) of Liberation

• Follow leaders of your lane(s) through social media, email newsletters, podcasts, and more. Follow researchers and scholars, artists, politicians and advocates, people with lived experiences, and most especially organizers on the ground, in the frontlines of the work.

• Take note of how they do the work. What values do they align themselves with? Who inspires them? In what ways have they disrupted systems? How do they respond to being held accountable? Do they speak or remain silent in times of injustice? What commitments have they made, and do they hold up to these commitments? How are they modeling care – for themselves and for their communities?

• Be mindful of performativity – performativity looks like monetizing the struggles of marginalized folx while upholding the status quo.

Step 3: Finding Your Political Community

• There are many political communities to tap into. Here are some aspects to consider as you find a political community:

  • Capacity – How much energy can you sustainably commit?

  • Structure – What is your ideal structure? Is it a national organization with local branches? Is it a smaller, local grassroots organization?

  • Growth – Is there room to grow and learn in this space? Will you be held accountable (and with care)? Are leaders held accountable?

  • Community – Is this a group that builds community? Is there love and care in the work? Folx that will hold you and each other?

• “We are the ones we have been waiting for.” - June Jordan

Step 4: Joining A Political Community

• Joining can look like DMing an organizer (with express consent), filling out a google form, making a point of connection through email and shared acquaintances, putting out a call in your networks, attending a meeting or protest, asking folx to direct you to the right contacts.

• Maybe the community you’re looking for doesn’t exist. Don’t wait for an invitation. This is a sign to work with other folx in your community to co-create the political vision you dream of.

• When joining or starting, bring good people with you. You can’t do the work alone.

• “When I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.” - June Jordan

Step 5: Contributing to Political Communities

• All contributions are essential within political communities. The revolution needs educators, healers, disruptors, poets, donors, leaders, preachers, recruiters. The revolution needs coders, textile makers, engineers, callers and texters. 

• The revolution needs all of us. What are you capable of? What skills do you bring? The answers to these questions can shape your contributions to your communities.

• “We must constantly remind ourselves that we have a voice, that we matter, and that we can make a difference.” - June Jordan

• The revolution needs to eat, to sleep, to rest, to love, to play, and to feel joy. 

• There are things that get us moving, and things that keep us moving towards liberation. In what ways can you ensure that the work you’re committing to is sustainable, for yourself and for others? How will you care for your community? 

• When is it time to rest, recover, and replenish before moving forward? Might there be opportunities for this to be modeled, by you and others? 

  
  

• Refining Our Politics – As you do the work, consider daily journaling using this questionnaire to keep focus on your politics and document your journey.

• The Audre Lorde Questionnaire to Oneself (created by Divya Victor)

  1. What are the words you do not have yet? [Or, “for what do you not have words, yet?”]

  2. What do you need to say? [List as many things as necessary.]

  3. “What are the tyrannies you swallow day by day and attempt to make your own, until you will sicken and die of them, still in silence?” [List as many as necessary today. Then write a new list tomorrow. And the day after.]

  4. If we have been “socialized to respect fear more than our own needs for language and definition”, ask yourself: “What’s the worst that could happen to me if I tell this truth?”* [So, answer this today. And every day.]

  See: The Audre Lorde Questionnaire to Oneself as curated and created by The Black Syllabus for additional guiding prompts inspired by other Black Feminist thought leaders.

  
  

• Recommended Black Feminist Readings for the Revolution

  • Some of Us Did Not Die, essays by June Jordan

  • Spill: Scenes of Black Feminist Fugitivity by Dr. Alexis Pauline Gumbs

  • How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective, edited by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor

  • Sister Outsider, essays and speeches by Audre Lorde

  • Eloquent Rage by Dr. Brittney Cooper

  • Teaching Community: A Pedagogy of Hope by bell hooks

  • We Will Not Cancel Us: And Other Dreams of Transformative Justice by adrienne maree brown.

• Let these literary works be a starting point to deepening your relationship to identity, politic, and action. For more readings, The Free Black Women’s Library catalogs literature by Black women and nonbinary writers. 

• “Education is the key to liberation.” - June Jordan

  
  

  “I will not be silent, 

  I will not be complicit, 

  I will speak out against injustice.” 

  - June Jordan

  
  

STAY CONNECTED - SOCIALS:

Follow us on Instagram and like our Facebook page to stay up-to-date on all our events and opportunities!

Enjoy our monthly email newsletters? Forward this newsletter to a friend and/or encourage them to join our email list here.

Thank you for being a part of our community, The WELLS Healing Center Team