Well, the website is finally live! My online presence has gone through many iterations over the years, just as my life has followed many different story lines. What I have learned is that everything is connected. Perhaps it hasn’t been a learning as such, but rather an uncovering, as so much of life’s learnings really are; a pealing back of the layers.
I will share a lot of my journey hear on these pages. As always, the written word is what I return to time and time again.
I first began sharing in the online space in the nineties when I threw myself into online forums. This was in the very early days of the (public) internet and way before blogging. I went on to learn coding and built my first website, One Small Voice, to provide support and information on childhood sexual abuse. Through this site I raised funds for various organisations involved in assisting victims of abuse and began receiving emails from women who wanted to tell their stories. Although blogging was not yet a thing, I used the site as a place to share these stories and my my own experiences, carefully coding each page without the convenience of word processing formatting options.
When blogging became the trend, and with the development of WordPress, I started a new site called Tactile Soul. This took over where One Small Voice had left off, and it was a much more personal space, without the need for careful coding every time I wanted to publish anything new. With this new site it was much easier to connect with women and I began running voluntary writing circles. Some of these circles were attended by my students, I was lecturing on Web Design at the time. The balance were women who I had met through various non-profit organisations I offered voluntary support to, and later, women I met through my learning and development company, Virago Consulting.
Most of you now know me through I Love Edenvale and the digital media services I offered over last several years before I moved to Ireland in May 2017.
The seeds for this business were planted in 2016, when I was planning the move. I knew loosely what I wanted to do – continue my work with women who had experienced trauma, incorporating writing and storytelling. I set up a Facebook Page called Over the Cusp (because I was on the cusp of something new and the women I wanted to work with were moving over the cusp into a space of healing). Now that I am expanding into this space, things are so much clearer, and the essence of what I am doing, what these women are doing, is shifting and settling.
We are healing, she and I, as we tell the stories of our experiences and re-frame the stories we have told ourselves about our experiences. We are healing as we find, and use, our voices. We are examining the past and learning from it. In essence we are looking at our history and healing through the telling of it. Healing HERstory.
And so here we are, at a new beginning, which is not really a beginning, but a continuation of the work that I most love; following the thread that has been woven into my life across all these decades. I would love you to accompany me on this journey, we have so much to learn from one another.
I am in the process of changing the Facebook Page from Over the Cusp to Healing HERstory – it’s quite a process and it looks as though I have to do it one word at a time, so please bear with the arbitrary name change notifications. The URL is correct, so you should be able to find it.
If you’d like to join my private Facebook group, you can do so here: Holding Space – Soul Community for Women Who Dare to Heal
With much healing love,
Michelle