Welcome to The WELLS Healing Center and our monthly newsletter. We're so happy to have you.
This newsletter 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.
From Della's Desk:
This past year, I embarked on a deeply intentional healing journey. Think of Shonda Rhimes’ Year of Yes or Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat Pray Love—but with a Black feminist healing finesse. Instead of casually saying yes or wandering the globe, I said yes to experiences and spaces that I knew were key to my healing. These were spaces rooted in Black feminism, curated by and for Black femmes like me, where I could reinhabit my body, reconnect with my pleasure, and learn how to navigate life as a survivor of multiple sexual traumas. These experiences, these yeses, weren’t random; they were exactly what I needed to seed softness in myself and around me.
Over the next few months, I want to share some of these stories with you in a new series called Seeding Softness. I’ll let you in on my process of facing pain, building a care team, navigating relationships as I healed, and working through my fears. You’ll read about the messy parts of trying (and sometimes failing) to apply new knowledge—and the moments when I struggled less, allowing myself to be more embodied.
This series will run through the end of the year, and if there’s enough interest, I may build it out on Substack or a similar platform. I’d like to preserve this space for my more timely musings and the community notes you’ve all been enjoying. But if Seeding Softness resonates with you, reply to this email with “I’m reading and willing to go deeper,” and share any reactions you have so I’ll know you want to continue this journey together.
Art as Healing: A Soft Installation
Last Saturday, I had the chance to witness the manifestation of my healing goals in the most tender way. I participated in an art show curated by Lee Edwards alongside other beautiful Black queer and trans artists. I shared a zine I created, filled with digital collage art, and offered some theatric storytelling. The soft installation I built to hold it all was both a stage and a space for my own rest—and for the wisdom and pain I’ve carried to be witnessed.
On the day of the show, I wasn’t fretting or chasing perfection. Instead, I was resting, taking naps in the softness I had created with the other Black queer and gender-expansive survivors who were part of the art show. We were resting together, in community. In that moment, I realized this was the culmination of my healing: to create a space not only for my own rest but for collective healing—a space where my journey could be seen and held tenderly by others.
Laying out the zines on the table, I felt peace. The work was already done, printed and ready to share. No last-minute changes, no panic—just presence. In that stillness, I saw my growth, the embodiment of everything I’d been working toward. Healing isn’t just about the hard work; it’s about creating spaces for rest and being seen as whole, alongside others who are doing the same.
Preparing for Healing: Laying the Foundation
Before I could dive into the hardest healing work, I had to make space for it in my life. This meant building stronger boundaries so that healing wasn’t squeezed between work and obligations. It also meant building bravery—doing small things that scared me and celebrating every step.
I needed to prove to myself that I could do hard things, not just for others but for me. I had to believe I was worth the effort. Part of that effort included assembling a care team—a team I could trust with the heaviest parts of my soul. That took years, and I didn’t rush the process. But once the foundation was set, the time for my healing revealed itself, and I was finally able to say yes.
Healing Journeys Ahead: Seeding Softness
In the coming months, I’ll be sharing stories of my healing travels—from Mexico to Jamaica to Ireland. You’ll hear how plant medicine, coaching, group work, art-making, and community quite literally saved my life. And if you knew me as Dr. Della back in the day, there’s more to me now. I’m also Survivor Della—these two parts of me are in conversation, and I want to invite you into that sweet dialogue.
Seeding Softness will be about the skills I developed to reinhabit my body, reconnect with my pleasure, and learn how to protect my softness, even in a world that constantly asks me to harden. It’s about showcasing the Black feminist healing ways that are sustaining me. My goal in sharing these stories is to inspire you to find your own soft spaces and pathways to healing.
Together, we’ll explore what it means to heal—to move from surviving to thriving, over and over again, in different ways—and to do it all with softness and intention.
A Moment of Softness: A Practice for You
I want to leave you with a short practice. Take a moment to breathe in and out gently, setting an intention to bring softness to a part of you that has experienced hurt and needs tenderness. As you inhale, you might repeat: I am worthy of care. And as you exhale: I care for myself now.
Thank you for being here with me. I look forward to journeying together.
With love and softness, Della
GET CONNECTED WITH WELLS + FRIENDS:
Join Della, Gabe, and Patricia in A Cozy Dismantling: Support Group for Disrupting White Supremacy within Evaluative Career Transitions, intended for BIPOC individuals applying for internship and/or who are on the job market. We see y’all applying, writing yourself out, going through the debate of being your most authentic self, to what extent do you hide and cope… We know the process is a lot - and we’re here to provide you a safe space to help make it easier and guide you on this journey. We can do hard things and we can do them in soft, loving spaces. This group will start the first week of October and run through application and interview season (to be determined once we fill the group). Apply here!
For non-BIPOC folx and those of y'all not applying for internship/jobs at this time, we hope you’ll consider supporting this new group with your donations. Your support helps keep these groups going semester after semester, so thank you in advance.
Ciara Monroe, Mental Health Therapist (RMHCI, M.Ed./Ed.S.) is currently taking new clients (ages 18+) based in Florida! As y'all know, we don't normally recommend therapists, but Ciara is doing such great work that we had to share - check out her flyer attached at the bottom of this email. Here is her bio: I am neurodivergent, a witch, kink positive, I cuss a lot, I am unapologetically Black, and I absolutely center my life and survival around pleasure. By embodying an existential, person-centered, and social justice approach, I strive to support my community in exploring and embracing the parts of ourselves that shame, guilt, and oppression have tried to bury. We cannot reclaim the fruits and flowers of our light, without also honoring the guttural and soil-like darkness that lies within us! Together, let us reclaim, rebirth, and rebel! If you're interested, you can email Ciara and check out her Instagram here.
Check out this virtual poster presentation on Anti-Blackness and Carceral Violence by WELLS Collective members Ollie Trac and Lovely Aristilde! Their presentation uncovers the ways in which the involuntary psychiatric hospitalization process criminalizes Black psychiatric survivors through carceral strategies. Additionally, it sheds light on the survival strategies utilized by Black psychiatric survivors to navigate the MHIC (Mental Health Industrial Complex). As a reminder of the ongoing work to address the anti-Blackness within APA and the MHIC broadly, this investigation follows the continued demands for accountability and justice for Black communities. Disclaimer: this recording is more research-centered as it was created for APA purposes - stay tuned for a more community-centered workshop coming soon!
If you're in the Durham area, catch Della tabling at Blacktoberfest at Proximity Brewing Company on October 12! We'll have some Blafemme offerings for sale as well as some new artistry from Dr. Della. You can learn more about the event here.
WELLNESS TIP - election stress.
A lot of advice around mental health is focused on the individual — often shifting the responsibility of care onto a single person, rather than a shared commitment between community members or a society. Here are some alternate approaches (somatic, holistic, justice-oriented, and/or communal) to wellbeing and mental health.
It is crucial for each of us to take ownership of our role in our individual journeys towards healing and wellness. However, this necessitates an understanding of how our relationships, communities, and political context influence our wellness. By making these connections, we acknowledge the importance of caring for ourselves and each other to truly achieve wellness. It also requires us to face how systems - like the legal, healthcare, school, and other systems - create barriers or pathways to wellness. This awareness motivates us to care for self and others while demanding that the institutions our tax dollars uphold also do right by us.
Furthermore, this critical consciousness helps us recognize that many of the symptoms we experience are not just individual struggles but outcomes of systemic harm. Yet, too often, we're left to manage these symptoms at a personal level, leading to feelings of inadequacy or self-blame. We have to challenge those notions and understand that we are often not the root cause of our struggles. By identifying and externalizing the sources of harm, we empower ourselves to engage in more effective self-care and resistance. When we pinpoint the origins of our challenges, we gain clarity on where to direct our efforts and what systems to resist or reform. This shift in perspective enables us to better navigate our wellness journeys and advocate for change on both personal and systemic levels. In the process, it points us to the communities we may benefit from being in closer relationship and organizing for change with.
Isaac Prilleltensky would describe this as psychopolitical wellness or the OG feminists would say "the personal is political." It’s an approach that connects the personal, interpersonal and collective and is important to really understand. For instance, if I feel well and my needs are met at a personal level, but my neighbors, coworkers, and family members are not well, then my own wellness is inevitably affected due to our interconnectedness. Or let’s say that somehow everyone in my immediate community is well. However, if I still face health disparities when accessing healthcare or still exist under legislation that doesn't protect my body (like people can conceal and carry without a permit or deny healthcare or adoption due to my gender). In that case, I am not actually well. And these collective level disparities harm even the straight white arms bearer, though they have a more direct and dire impact on those of us with marginalized identities. This understanding of the psychopolitical is critical as it underscores the inseparability of personal psychological wellness and collective political wellness.
We try to engage in both self and collective care together. Our sister brand, Blafemme Healing, is a healing framework rooted in Black feminist theory that guides individuals to explore various chambers of their wellness, such as emotional, physical, and financial wellness. Importantly, it prompts us to identify gaps in our individual wellness and explores how to address them, while also recognizing areas of abundance where we can then pour into others and support the collective from our overflow. Check out Blafemme's website to learn more about the Blafemme Healing Model.
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Thank you for being a part of our community, The WELLS Healing Center Team
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