From Silence to Spiral:

My Becoming

@lunagoddessrising on TikTok

The Inheritance of Silence

As a child, I was taught to be good. To obey. To accept what I was given and never question what it cost me.

But goodness, I would learn, was just another word for control. White supremacy culture doesn’t always show up in hoods and crosses. Sometimes, it wears the face of politeness. Sometimes, it sits at your kitchen table, in the rules about what girls should wear, how women should talk, how Black and brown bodies must make themselves palatable to be seen, let alone loved.

By the time I was a teenager, the lessons had already rooted. I learned to see myself through the gaze of empire. My value measured by thinness, by whiteness, by who approved of me. And love? Love became something to earn. Something to suffer for. Something I wasn’t quite sure I deserved.

Photo by Landiva Weber

How It Twisted Love

That conditioning followed me into adulthood like a ghost. Into relationships that mirrored domination. Into a marriage where trauma met trauma, and neither of us knew how to break the pattern.

We loved each other deeply — but we had been taught versions of love built on control, apology, and silence. We didn’t know how to trust softness, how to hold each other without disappearing.

I betrayed him. He punished me. We hurt. We stayed. We spiraled.

And then… David opened the door.

The Seed He Planted

It wasn’t a book or a podcast that started my decolonization journey — it was my husband.

David saw something in me I didn’t yet have words for. He spoke to me about white supremacy culture, about patriarchy, about the systems behind the silence. He planted a seed — not forcefully, but tenderly — and then he stepped back and let me choose.

And I did.

I chose to tend that seed. To water it with my tears, my rage, my curiosity. To let it grow roots inside me. To let it crack me open.

I wouldn’t be where I am today without him. And without the EAGER Community— who saw me, held me, and never once asked me to be smaller.

The Fire of Unlearning

I began to see how empire had written itself into my bones. It wasn’t just about racism out there — it

was about how I had internalized it, how I upheld it within myself and my relationships.

I saw how I’d inherited urgency, perfectionism, disembodiment, fear of failure, and fear of rest. I saw how I punished myself for not being enough — and how I demanded the same from others.

So I made a vow: I will not pass this down. Not to my daughter. Not to my husband. Not to myself.

The Spiral Path of Healing

My healing hasn’t been linear. It’s been a spiral — with grief at the center and grace in every return.

I’ve begun unlearning the lies. I’ve reclaimed my anger as sacred. I’ve cried with my husband as we name the systems that shaped us. I’ve built altars from the bones of the women who came before me.

I’ve found power in softness. In slowness. In telling the truth, even when my voice shakes.

Educators from Community— especially

Royal Star Allah

and

Desireé B Stephens

— helped me name what I was feeling. Their work continues to guide me, and I look forward to learning even more from them.

On TikTok, voices like White Woman Whisperer (TikTok) and 7th Fire Messenger (TikTok) stirred truths in me I didn’t know I needed. And The Empathy Gap by Tammy Triolo gave me words for wounds I’d carried in silence for years.

These weren’t just teachings. They were lifelines.

But the path itself? I had to walk that barefoot, bleeding, and blessed.

Current Events, Present Impact

Every new headline hits different now. Each time another Black life is taken, another law is passed to silence us, another woman is blamed for her own pain — I feel it not as news, but as nervous system.

It sits in my chest. It wakes me up at night. And yet, it also fuels my fire. Because healing isn’t just for me — it’s for the collective.

Before the Spiral

Before this journey, I was a girl who thought survival was strength.

Now, I am a woman who knows:

Rest is resistance. Softness is strength. Love — real love — is decolonized, consensual, co-created.

I am still becoming. Still remembering.

But I am no longer silent. I am spiral.