“Beyond right & wrong there is a field, I’ll meet you there.” - Rumi
This is my experience and account after five months of listening and reflecting; getting support from wise elders and people of color, re-studying critical race theory, going deeper into therapy, and spending a lot of time asking myself, "Can I trust myself enough to keep discovering the truth without needing to prove that I am good?" Thank you for reading.
The intention here is to account for what I am responsible for and account for what I am not responsible for. There is no intention to have further conversations on this topic with anyone outside of The Mystery School (LMS).
I (Briana, formerly @rblwacause) take responsibility for:
I posted two PDFs in The Mystery School as resources for students. I did not advertise them nor make them part of the curriculum. They were hosted online for less than a year and downloaded by six people. In the repair process confirmed all six students paid $69 per PDF. The author at the time of the accusation was charging $69 for both on her website.
At the time when I downloaded them and received them, she was charging $49 for one PDF and gifted the other for free.
When I shared the PDFs, I included links to the alleged author’s name, home website, and three different payment links and encouraged anyone who downloaded them to pay the amount I remembered paying. This was my mistake - posting the PDFs with links to pay rather than posting the paywall website to pay and download directly. I did not double check the pricing that the alleged author was charging nor track the change in pricing that had occurred over the year.
When the alleged author emailed me, I responded immediately letting them know I was willing to have a conversation and do whatever it would take to resolve this mistake. I sent them screen shots and any information they asked for.
I have always been open to a direct repair process with the alleged author.
I have always been open to seeing if/how race identity played a factor into my behavior.
At this point the alleged author’s demands were a $5,000 “licensing fee,” a public apology on Instagram, a public apology in The Mystery School, and a public apology to my email list. They refused to get on a phone call to discuss, and gave me 24 hours to respond, during which time they began to make racialized online content about me.
I chose to take what I believed to be the high road and not respond online. The racialized narrative continued, and the alleged author encouraged their followers to send me messages and ‘take me down’ - a smear campaign.
That same week, under the threat that my business was being destroyed, I decide to take out a credit card and pay the alleged extortion amount of $5,000 as well as issue the three apologies that were demanded.
Despite the demands being met, the flood of online criticism, feedback, and attacks continued and increased. I received thousands of written, video, and voice messages from over seven platforms, including doxing of personal information, death threats, and threats to my body.
As a practicing ally, I chose to investigate and listen to see if there was something inherently racial about my mistake. I started a raw, honest, weekly accountability process inside LMS for myself and for everyone.
I kept asking myself for the truth and sought help from emotional and mental health professionals, especially people of color. Those who stayed for the entire review of the past five months of listening and repair have concluded: you made a mistake, and the alleged author used you and their racialized narrative for their profit and brand-building.
Because of the non-stop attacks, threats and overwhelm of messages based on incorrect assumptions, racial prejudice, and outright hate, I was afraid of being seen so much so that I did not share my side nor state basic facts. This is my first time doing so in this way.
This has been my journey:
During this time (April to July 2026), my body entered a reactive state. My body felt frozen and was constantly shaking for months during this process. I felt frozen and shook every time I opened my phone, my email, or any of the various sites where random internet people were literally calling for my destruction, demise, and torture. Yea, it got ugly.
I did my best to listen, but I first listened to people who went on the attack. They were the loudest. They did not have all the facts. They did not ask any questions about the experience. They decided they could treat me inhumanely with name calling, gossip, untruths, telling me what my experience was, demanding I admit things I did not do, and threatening my home, my work, and my family. They did this because I was identified in the narrative as a perpetrator.
I watched as this alleged author led followers on social media, former friends, colleagues, and even people I once considered mentors to believe and with the momentum of a said narrative, continue to make up untrue stories about my actions, my intentions, my cultural heritage, my racial background, my finances, and who I am as a person. And I took it. I just took it. I did not respond. I froze.
I wanted to see if any of these accusations about my being or behavior were true. So I listened. I slowed down. I gave hundreds of hours to 1×1 and small and large group calls. I spent thousands of dollars (that I did not have) hoping to repair something that the other parties did not intend to repair. I spent thousands of dollars on practitioners to find any part of me that I could not see.
I took the time over these past five months to truly inspect what I might be missing.
Through multiple sessions with my current therapist, sessions with Decolonizing The Psyche Practitioner, Dr. Amber McZeal, listening in council, listening to students, friends, colleagues, especially black women and people of color, and by reviewing the simple and clear facts of what happened, I came to see how my frozen and fawning reactions had me looking at things through eyes that were not my own, with a narrative that did not reflect the simple truth.
I went through the demands from the other party, and it just made my situation, worse. Over 40 pieces of online content were made about me from the alleged author and other cohorts in less than three days after I agreed in writing to their terms for reconciliation. This week of an intentional smear campaign sent thousands of people online after me as their scapegoat.
Around this time, an attorney connected with me letting me know there could be both a criminal and civil case here. Criminal allegations include alleged extortion (demanding money to prevent their actions) and alleged hate crimes (using race as the justification for extortion). The civil allegations would depend on a guilty finding for the above, and a legal team could sue for up to 1 million dollars per piece of published content during this time. The lawyer was convinced that with a legal team, we could presumably win on both the criminal and civil allegations.
I chose that this action was not in alignment, nor worth it. For the state I was in, this action would bring me fully into perpetrator. If there comes a time I am called to pursue legal action, may it be from a responsive state. I was not there at that time.
After being humiliated and threatened for weeks without ceasing, another smear camping began. A former student/volunteer (who worked with us for less than a year), organized a group of former contacts to continue the racialized narrative and false accusations against my character on social media and beyond. I saw multiple group texts, recordings of several zoom calls, and hours of online content focused on feeding this smear campaign against me. This group of former contacts and/or the former volunteer are allegedly responsible for releasing my personal phone number and home address to the public without my consent (doxed). Horrified, confused, and deeply dishearten by humanity, I left social media and wasn’t sure what else to leave.
I’ve thought about shutting down my work, my life, moving, ending relationships. I’ve resisted self-harm many times, though not always. Until now, I’ve stepped back from almost all online contact.
Now & Moving Forward:
Again and again I return; the above actions of others, do not define me. I reject the curses, stories, racial prejudice, hate, lies, and gossip others have placed on me. I reject the war culture that says victims are justified in becoming perpetrators to reclaim their power.
What I can control is internal.
Not other’s opinions, not my reputation. Not even the desire to “clear my name” or “speak the truth.” I’m learning, surrendering, listening, and breathing. That’s where my power lies; within, in my own liberation. This is the definition of true liberation; we must we willing to create within what we want to create with all.
Taking this account of what I am responsible for, and what I am not responsible for in this situation has taken time. I’m not done. I’ll keep teaching and sharing, but very differently now. There’s no going back; only deeper, more nuanced, and freer. There is nothing to argue here. This is the account I stand in.
Thank you to my partner, friends, clients, Liberation Mystery School students, and those who have stayed for the completion of this process. May we continue to learn how to treat each other better, and move into loving response, especially in times of misunderstanding, conflict, and potential growth for all.
With love & liberation,
bri
formerly @rblwacause, now @briofthetrees