welcome to the whole wayves healing den. i’m della. i’m a healing healer who heals, meaning i stay in the practice of listening to myself, my lineage, my body, and these times. today’s video reflection begins in that ache lucille clifton named - the ache of becoming - and invites you to pause, breathe, and ask: how am i holding space for the healer i am and the healer i am becoming?
settle in. get cozy. let this be a threshold moment.
i can’t imagine if i, ooh, if i didn’t get to become this version of me. oh my god. oh my god.
hey, good people. i’m della and i’m a healing healer who heals. why do i say that? you probably heard me say it before here i’m a healing healer who heals because i’m healing.
what i’m healing from? surviving 2025. i’m healing from traumas. violence. harms done to my body, to my communities. i’m healing from heartbreaks. i’m healing from generational traumas. i’m healing from my bullshit. i’m healing from messages that i’ve internalized over the years. i’m healing. i’m healing from self-absorption and codependence and people pleasing.
i’m healing from scarcity. i’m healing from white supremacy. hmm. i’m healing. i’m healing. i’m gonna be healing. i’m gonna be paying attention to what’s going on in my body and my spirit, and my senses, i’m healing. in order to heal, i gotta pay attention. i gotta know, i gotta learn, i gotta grow. i gotta learn the impact of all of these things on me, assess the way that i behave as a result of them. the types of supports that are useful. and in what ways and in what conditions. i’m healing.
i’m a healer because i’m committed to that practice. i’m committed to that practice. i’m committed to that practice. i don’t get it right all the time. there’s a lot to learn on the journey, but i’mma practice.
i’mma hold space for the practice. you gotta hold space for your healing practice, for your growth, for your becoming. you gotta hold space for it.
we buy into these systems that condition us to go through certain tracks, certain narrow paths in order to receive markers of worthiness. entry into certain spaces. we go through schooling to be able to survive financially, and that doesn’t necessarily work anymore. and it never really worked for a lot of folks. but that, that was the messaging right? we bought into that system that said you need to learn certain foundational things in order to just survive the world.
and then you keep going so you can have more financial wellness. right?
but it always baffles me, pisses me off, breaks my heart that there is no [similarly championed] pathway for your ongoing becoming as a healer. and we are all healers.
you are responsible for healing yourself.
you are responsible for healing yourself.
you are responsible for your own wellness,
your own becoming,
your own impact,
your relationship with the people you’ve decided to be in relationship with.
you’re responsible. so when was the last time that you stopped to check the path that you’re on to grow on your wellness journey? on your healing journey? when?
could you pause here and check in on that now…
ask yourself how you been healing, where you at on the journey, who you with, where are you going, how is it going, and then just listen. be. continue living, listening and working toward your wholeness.
i can’t imagine if i, ooh, if i didn’t get to become this version of me. oh my god. oh my god.
and i’m not even there yet. i’m still becoming lucille clifton said, “what you’ll become waits inside you like an ache.” i still ache. i’m still becoming, but the becoming is beautiful. the becoming is aligned.
i trust the becoming.
this work, this healing work is about deepening your intimacy with yourself. are you ready to know yourself? it’s about deepening your intimacy and then committing to growing, stretching, making, the next move in order to be the person that that interior work has told you you are meant to be.
for a long time, i struggled to listen. i struggled to listen to myself. i struggled to listen to my ancestors. i struggled to listen to my god. i struggled to slow down enough to listen.
i was going down paths that kept me preoccupied with what “they” wanted me to be preoccupied with. what can you trust as you’re becoming?
what do you know right now you can trust as it relates to your becoming and being on the journey of your becoming?
what do you know right now? not what you knew back then. not even what you knew yesterday.
what do you know right now, today, as you feel into your body? as you maybe pause here
… and listen … and pray … and take note … and breathe?
what do you then, at the end of that, know about your becoming?
before i got here on the journey, i knew there was moments when i was like, “oh, i know i need to get there” [to the long deep healing work], and “i know i need to get some shit out in, in this other way real quick”. i know there’s something that has to move first. i know i gotta get myself physically off this land that i’m on. out this space that i’m in. there’s something that don’t feel right here. i gotta get off this in order for me to do my work. my listening told me that. it’s a part of the healing work. but it wasn’t the most active thing, like in the way that i journal every day. in the way that i do altar work. in the way that i have sessions with my coaches. it was like, “oh, i gotta move.” i gotta move my body out of this institutional space. i gotta move my body out this geographic space in order to slow my system down enough to hear at a deeper level what i need to hear. and i just knew that. listening told me that, and then i did that. i got myself on that journey.
so sometimes it’s not like, ‘what’s everything?’ and mapping out the whole long healing plan. nah. just, can you get intimate with yourself long enough to listen for what’s next in your journey to wholeness and becoming? just what’s next?
what’s now?
“how can i fit everything that i am now in this world?”
“how can i fit everything that i am now in this world?”
that was a question that the character hippolyta asked on the show lovecraft country, that i love so much.
i watched that episode so many times where she was a warrior, a dancer, and, in community with josephine baker, and an astronaut, and someone who was able to go speak truth to her love and ask questions that needed to be asked. she was brave, smart, free, all at once.
and as she gathered the pieces of herself from these different places, from journeying and collecting and gathering herself, re-membering herself, naming herself, she came back and she asked, “how can i fit everything that i am now in this world?”
and i think that’s the work, that i wanna practice and explore. like, who are you now? what is everything i am now? that’s the work that i’m always trying to explore and practice and play with. who am i now?
my name that i’ve been playing with as i’m getting freer and freer and trying to fit all that i am in this world is,
i am the fairywatergoddesslovelydoctorteeteedella (first of many names)
and this is not really about me telling you what those pieces mean for me and how they help me to fit more of my whole self in this world now. but i wanna create space for you to understand who you are now, everything that you are now. to gather the pieces that are meant to be gathered. to put them together as beautifully and joyfully and tenderly and with the weight, with the reverence, with the regard that they deserve.
to allow them to be witnessed. so that witnessing allows ‘em to kind of come together inside you stronger, sturdier, ‘cause you’ve practiced and refined that thing. you’ve asked yourself -
do i like this reflection i am seeing?
what does this mean when i enact this pattern in this way?
what does it mean how i show up in this space?
what does it mean? what does it mean?
what’s the impact of everything you “are now” on the work that you’re doing in the world?
“how can i fit everything that i am now…?”
hmm. now. how do i cultivate practices to check in? ‘cause it’s always now. it’s always now. and now is always different than then. “how can i fit everything i am now?” well, yeah, you need space to be in the now. to track and mark the now and see what’s there.
in that episode, she chose to have her husband continue to be with her as she navigated this world and many worlds.
who are you journeying with that allows [encourages/celebrates] you to be everything you are?
how can you create more spaces where more of you can be? where discussions can even be about who you are becoming?
“i’m becoming someone who...”
“i’m remembering that i am...”
“i’m coming home to...”
“i’m reaching toward...”
it might be a sunday check-in with your bestie or your parent, your person. it might be work you do in a facilitated community with somebody like me. it might be work you do in a group healing space or with your counselor.
but it’s work and you should hold space for it.
audre lorde famously wrote, “if i did not define myself for myself, i would be crunched into other people’s fantasies of me and eaten alive.”
i’m nobody’s…well, i’m somebody’s dinner sometimes, but nah, i’m not being eaten alive like that…mm-mm. mm-mm. no, no, no, no, no.
i’m going to gather all the parts of me, all the parts of me, and fit “everything i am now” into this world, best i can.
despite.
despite the fantasies, despite however long it took me to get here, how long it’ll take me to get there. despite.
because i’d literally be spiting myself to not become.
‘cause i’ve listened … and i know.
alignment. it just is. alignment just is, right? so we’re listening. and then, when we know, we just gotta kind of move, make our way towards our becoming. yeah, we get to. you get to.
you get to make your way towards your becoming.
you get to make your way towards your becoming.
you get to.
you get to make your way towards your becoming,
towards your wholeness.
towards your most gathered self.
and it doesn’t happen in isolation because some people be going down some paths towards wholeness, maybe without some support, and it might actually be destructive in some ways. it might actually be harmful to you. it might be harmful to others. there’s tools, strategies, resources, checks that community can offer you on the journey towards becoming. mm-hmm. places to practice how you’re becoming. so you can do so in right relationship. we need that. okay? okay.
but when you have that, when you have that support, when you have that community, there’s so much possibility. there’s so much room for play. there’s so much room for finding purpose. there’s so much room for collaboration and remixing and beauty making through the process.
so. i think that is how we fit everything we are now into this world.
we hold the space; we return to it over and over again. in the now. we fill that space with the trusted others to hold us and to reflect us and to keep us in right relationship. honest and all of that. ‘cause we’re human.
the journey’s about learning the ways you human.
sometimes - just like a lot of us black feminists - we use our poetry books as divining texts, and i was with nikki [giovanni] and “the wonder woman” was the page that i pulled. “the wonder woman, a new dream for stevie wonder” reads
dreams have a way of tossing and turning themselves around,
and the times make requirements that we dream real dreams.
for example, i want it to be a sweet inspiration in my dreams of my people,
but the times require that i give myself willingly and become a wonder woman.
it is interesting ‘cause i feel like these two pieces, lovecraft country/ hippolyta/that quote and this much older poem by nikki giovanni.
“the times require” right? to know what the times require you have to pay attention to the now.
dreams that have been tossed and turned that are still inside. it’s like, i wanna be an inspiration in a or b particular way, right? in the show, hippolyta had this genius that was needed to help worlds and crack codes. that’s an inspiration. but also i’m part of a whole bigger thing. i get to be a part of a whole bigger thing that i’ve defined.
i think that’s the “wonder woman.” but there might be tones in ways that the writing back then of like the superwoman doing it all. and i think we’ve gotten to evolve from the superwoman who does it all to one who can access their all. the all that is a part of their system, their lineage, their knowing, their power, their assignment, their desire, their heart, their community, and fit that and become.
“the times require that i give myself willingly and become.”
will you give yourself willingly and become?
become, become, become, become.
willingly.
what will you become willingly?
what will you become willingly?
what will you become willingly,
delightfully,
deliberately,
lovingly
in community?
“my dreams of my people.” hippolyta held it down for her people. but she willingly became herself. wonder woman.
it’s a wonder. it’s a wonder. may you wander into your becoming. may you deliberately, lovingly, and with beautiful community, wander into your becoming. okay? okay.
i’m della. i steward this sweet space whole wayves where i bring healing gems that i’ve picked up over the years as a someone who studies black feminist healing ways, who has a phd in counseling psychology, as someone who’s been doing intimate, creative, beautiful, challenging, healing work with black folks, queer and trans folks for almost two decades now.
and so yeah, i hope that you’ll sit with some of what came up today. that you’ll reflect. that you’ll use these affirmations that i’ve offered. i hope that you will consider who your community is. commit to checking in with them as you witness each other’s becoming.
do they know you’re a healer? do they know you’re healing yourself? do they know the way that you are working to not get in the way of their healing? healing? do they know that’s a conversation they can have with you?
i invite you to consider if you wanna make space for that, to consider what that might feel like or be like to have those conversations. to hold space for and to practice healing, to give it the time. to give yourself the intimacy.
honor wholeness. hold onto that word as a north star or as a compass. hold onto that word, “wholeness” and also “alignment.”
just hold it. just hold it and listen. see what it has for you now in the now. okay. thanks for being with me today. see you next time.
and if you’re longing for deeper support, there are many ways to journey with me. whole wayves offers group healing spaces, facilitator training, and the kind of intimate, creative work that helps you grow your capacity to tend your life, your people, and your purpose with integrity.
you don’t have to rush into anything. just stay connected. subscribe if you want more reflections like this in your inbox. come practice becoming with me. there is room for everything you are now, and everything you’re growing toward.
see you soon, good people.
