Wild Lion*esses Pride by Jay

Jay Siegmann
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Welcome to *Wild Lionesses' Pride*, a podcast for those seeking healing, personal growth, and authentic connection. Join Jay on an introspective journey through stories, reflections, and insights on trauma recovery, self-compassion, and embracing your true self. Each episode explores themes like overcoming self-doubt, navigating the complexities of identity, and cultivating resilience amidst life’s challenges. Grounded in the unique **Canyon Model** of healing, Jay shares the wisdom and practical tools needed to help you discover new perspectives and create space for wholeness and self-acceptance. Whether you’re just beginning your journey or looking to deepen your understanding, *Wild Lionesses' Pride* offers a compassionate space to reconnect, reclaim your power, and illuminate the path forward. Tune in for honest conversations, rich storytelling, and a supportive community committed to transformative growth. wildlionessespride.substack.com

  1. Jul 31

    When Healing Means Loosing Everything and What Waits Beyond.

    I’d like to thank everyone who stuck with me during a time when I haven’t shared or written much. This is the sequel to the first two parts of “When Healing Means Losing Everything,” about my journey towards healing. Today is my fifty-ninth birthday. It’s July 31st, 2026, and I thought this would be a wonderful occasion to give you an update. It has been an intense and financially strenuous seven months since I recorded my last update at the beginning of January. Meanwhile 2026 continued exactly the way 2025 had. Leaving my home country behind had moved even further out of reach, and the unraveling of every thread in the wild, tangled jumble of my life just progressed. Together with the events of early January in the US, in Venezuela, and in Greenland too, this pushed me into a six-week stretch full of pain and complete exhaustion. There were days I basically just lay on the sofa. I could no longer manage grocery shopping, could barely manage my dishes or feed myself. I had hardly any appetite anyway. I had headaches and body aches. My skin was sensitive. I had to pee constantly. My temperature ran above what feels comfortable and normal to me. My pulse stayed far too high for my own sense of normal. I could barely sleep anymore. This lasted almost six weeks in total. My attempts to get support from the German healthcare system went nowhere. When I had the capacity, I researched what it might be apart from what I already knew and recorded everything I realized. At the same time, the German Pension Insurance ordered me to attend an appointment for a psychological and physical assessment. Neither of the evaluators got in touch with me, so I followed up. Eventually, I got an evaluation appointment set for March. My psychiatrist had told me that when he evaluates people for official assessments, it takes him about 60 to 90 minutes of contact. This roughly matched what I had experienced with the three psychologists, two psychiatrists, and two pain specialists I had consulted independently over the past two years. Each first session had lasted at least 60 minutes, and in one case over 90 minutes. In the rehab program I attended last year, the physical examination itself took about a quarter of an hour. That’s reasonable too, within range. It’s a standard exam, after all. So I was quite baffled when I found myself back out on the street after a total of barely 20 minutes with two different people — and that 20 minutes covered the so called psychological interview and the physical exam all at once. During the examination, I had to correct the medical doctor each time she addressed me as “Frau” (”Mrs.”) Siegmann. Every time, I told her, “Jay Siegmann, please — I am non-binary.” By the third time, I found myself having to explain what non-binary actually means. I found this absurd: here I was, sitting across from a psychologist in Germany in the year 2026, someone officially appointed to produce a formal assessment. I had assumed that anyone in such a role, a doctor of psychology no less, would already be informed about this. At the same time, her treatment of me was condescending, degrading, curt, authoritarian, and simply bad. What I regret now, maybe, is not filing a complaint right away, immediately, with the Hesse Medical Association and the Chamber of Psychotherapists against these two people. I remember standing outside, fuming. I was so worked up and so angry about the way I had been treated. Today I know that it retraumatized me — across all my traumas, right down to the core trauma. I didn’t know that at the time, though. I only tracked down the last two traumas in the past six weeks. At the end of March, my brother and I had a notary appointment set up for the selling of my part of the real estate to him. A week before, he told me he couldn’t make it, because the appraisal wouldn’t be ready yet. We had wrangled back and forth for two months just to land this appointment at all. At one point in between, he told me he hadn’t realized it was so urgent. His conduct, at the very least, weighed on me heavily too. Then came the answer from the Pension Insurance: I should start a rehab program. But just last year I had broken off a rehab stay after one week, because my health condition deteriorated massively during it. Staying in rehab any longer would have posed a health risk. This despite my psychiatrist having already assessed, back in February, that I’m neither fit for rehab nor fit for work. He had asked the German Pension Insurance to proceed with the pension application. I then approached my psychologist. I asked her to issue a corresponding letter. In an email that once again sent me completely up the wall, she answered: * She couldn’t do that. * She saw no chance of continuing our work together, since she couldn’t identify sufficient motivation for change in me. In her entire assessment, she left my body out completely — entirely. As if she had cut me off at the neck and evaluated only how I talk. She even said she thought it would be good for me to take on a new professional challenge. As if I had spent two years talking to her into thin air. The assessment she reflected back to me lay miles apart from what I knew about myself and from what every other therapist had reflected back to me. It felt like two different continents. Just as with my brother, though, I managed, through clarity about what my actual needs were and where exactly I felt hurt in that moment, to push back and lay out my position clearly and directly. In that, I found an incredible sense of freedom. For the first time, I managed not only to defend myself appropriately in a situation but to name the other person’s failing clearly, on a factual basis. That was a real success. Suddenly, a key to at least inner freedom lay right there. I realized: I can generate my own agency with sufficient clarity about my own position. I can decide over my own life myself. I can and may say when something doesn’t sit right with me — and I have the ability to say it in a way that actually lands with the other person. She then apologized and sent me a letter worded accordingly, one that ultimately confirmed my inability to attend rehab as well. At the end of May, though, I got a letter about the rehab from the German Pension Insurance. The rehab measures could only be withdrawn by the employment office, because they had ordered them. A pension application wasn’t indicated. I went into a tailspin again, right there. Then I thought: okay. Maybe someone else can help. In Germany there’s a patient advocacy association that supposedly offers support for cases like mine. My psychiatrist had explicitly recommended it to me. That turned out completely fruitless, though — counterproductive, really. Telling me there’s nothing I can do isn’t something I count as support. So I fulfilled my civic duty and informed the employment office. A week later I got a letter back: the employment office invalidated my chronic diagnoses — my chronic mental-health diagnoses as well as the fibromyalgia — as grounds for inability to work, for all time. Not just for this case, but for every future case too. Once again I was up the wall. Going forward, I’m currently not allowed to report sick to the employment office citing these diagnoses. And, in fact, I’m not allowed to report sick at all anymore, because the evaluation and a so-called differential assessment by the employment office had now determined I’m 100 percent fit to work. I found that very strange. First, I contacted the patient advocacy association again, and once again I got the message that I had to accept it, that there was nothing I could do, and that they couldn’t help me. So I canceled my membership right there. I still have to pay for a full year, though. Second, I arranged an emergency appointment with my psychiatrist. His jaw hit the table, literally. He said flat out he was so shocked he didn’t even know what to say about it. Yet he couldn’t think of any solutio… This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wildlionessespride.substack.com/subscribe

  2. Jan 3

    When Healing Means Losing Everything—and Finally Enables Freedom

    When Healing Means Losing Everything—and Finally Enables Freedom A year inside a biological marathon where retraumatization moved in, and this community became my anchor. Episode Description A year ago, I sat in the same grey, snowy town of Einbeck, Germany, carrying an ache in my chest and a debt that was never mine. Today, I am 58. And the reckoning has arrived. This episode is a first-person account of 2025—a year where retraumatization did not pass through, but moved in and unpacked its bags. It traces assaults of blame, family betrayal, institutional stripping, medical collapse, bureaucratic exposure, and the slow return of sensation after decades of dissociation. It is also a testimony to collective witnessing—how being seen at the right moment prevented another trauma from taking root. I speak about language as a trigger, the body’s refusal to comply, the cost of obedience carried across generations, and what it means to stand inside uncertainty while two life-altering decisions remain unresolved: the sale of my home and the verdict of a disability pension. This is a record from the threshold—between countries, between identities, between survival and whatever comes next. In This Episode - The physical reality of blame and betrayal - Insolvency, debt, and the collapse of professional identity - Language as a traumatic imprint- Leaving a medical rehab to protect one’s life - Social Welfare and the experience of bureaucratic exposure - Losing health insurance, banking access, and financial ground - A medical assessment that confirms what the body already knows - Severe retraumatization and prolonged dissociation - A final Christmas in a house that remembers too much - Collective witnessing as trauma prevention- Intergenerational obedience and the moment it ends Read it here - Living inside uncertainty while waiting for institutional decisions - Imagining a modest future shaped by food, creativity, and connection Content Note This episode contains discussions of trauma, retraumatization, institutional harm, medical and bureaucratic stress, family estrangement, and financial precarity. Please listen with care. Where I Am Now - Finalizing the sale of my home and real estate shares - Paying off approximately €90,000 in debt - Awaiting a disability pension decision with no guaranteed outcome - Preparing to leave both the house and Germany - Living inside a pause, listening to a body relearning presence Closing Reflection There is no map yet. Only attention. Only movement. Only a body learning to stay. Support My Work: Subscribe and Contribute If this reading resonates with you, great! And if not, no worries. Take whatever may be helpful and leave the rest. If my writing, art, and recipes resonate with you, I would be incredibly grateful if you would consider supporting my work with a paid subscription to Wild Lion*esses Pride. Subscribe now If a monthly or annual subscription isn’t feasible for you right now, you can also show your support with a one-time tip via my Tip Jar here. Thank you for your kindness and generosity—it truly makes a difference. Together, we’re creating a space of reflection, creativity, and connection, and I’m so grateful you’re part of this journey This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wildlionessespride.substack.com/subscribe

  3. 12/30/2025

    Excavating the Manual I Never Knew I Was Following

    1 PM or Decoding a 120-Year Extraction Einbeck, December 2025. I’ve been sitting with it all day. Or rather, it has been sitting on me. It started with a modern spark—a request for a resume to work as a cook. It seemed like a “nothing” task, but as I began to trace my path to the kitchen, I realized I wasn’t just writing a resume. I was performing an excavation. I was digging through layers of “proper” laundry and “yummy” dinners to find the 120-year-old transmission system that nearly erased me. When I look at my journal, the words jump out like ghosts: Mangeln. Zockeln. The rhythmic, mechanical labor of the sewing machine. The budgeting. The “Hard Skills” of a household. And then it clicked: the housekeeping school. She had always praised it for her cookery skills. Again, I started digging into my mother’s past. I did the math. My mother, born in 1944. She was fourteen in ’58. Right at the dawn of the German “Economic Miracle.” I looked up the curriculum of the Hauswirtschaftsschule (Housekeeping School) from those years. They were called Bräuteschulen—Bride Schools. It wasn’t just about frosting cupcakes. I thought them to be more or less only about everything to do with the household. What I did not realize until yesterday — It was state-subsidized indoctrination. The syllabus was a blueprint for the erasure of female agency. It was broken down into "Social Behavior and Etiquette," focusing on manners, proper conduct, and the art of hosting guests. It dictated table etiquette and, tellingly, "Communication within marriage and family." These lessons weren't just tips; they reflected the rigid expectations of women as social representatives of the family. Then there was the "Civics, Morals, and Life Guidance" section, which hammered home family roles and marital duties. It was a moral education shaped by Christian and conservative values, with only the occasional nod to basic civic education. The underlying message was a locked door: it reinforced traditional gender roles and social stability at any cost. In North America, you talk about the “Stepford Wives,” in Germany, it was codified in the law. Until 1977, a husband could legally quit his wife’s job for her, without her consent, if he felt her “domestic duties” were suffering. Let that sink in. That was the law while I was playing in the dirt. The Root — Wilhelminian Black Pedagogy The term Black Pedagogy may sound like some obscure academic theory—but for me, it was the air I breathed. I wrote about that air in this It originated in the Wilhelminian era of the late 19th century—Germany’s equivalent to the Victorian age. Long before the World Wars, Kaiser Wilhelm II ruled an empire built on militarism, hierarchy, and discipline. He was, notably, a grandchild of Queen Victoria. And this lineage of iron passed not just through bloodlines, yet through schools, families, and the bodies of children. It was a philosophy of child-rearing designed to produce the “hardened” German subject. Its core tenet? The child’s will is a weed to be pulled out by the root. The “dragons” who taught my mother were the keepers of this 19th-century iron. At school, the teachers demanded order and total obedience. At home, it was her grandmother who took over the “formation” of the young ladies—because her own mother, a war widow, worked all day. This generation was born between 1890 and 1925. Girls under the Kaiser, adolescents during Weimar’s instability, young adults under Nazi educational doctrine. They were not neutral teachers. They were survivors of an imperial and authoritarian system. Even after the Nazi slogans vanished, their bodies remembered the posture of authority. This is the fault line: the curriculum changed, but the people didn’t. Discipline was transmitted as nervous reflex. Authority was embodied—absolute and morally justified. Discipline wore the mask of care. Hardness was seen as love. Emotional restraint was praised as strength. Shaming and moral humiliation weren’t experienced as violence—they were believed to be necessary formation. I wrote about shame last year The Drama of the Failing Student This is the part that is a bit hard to convey. My mother wasn’t just a mom; she was my teacher and I didn’t know it at that time. For her I was a “renitent” student—defiant, stubborn. I was her living nightmare. I was a non-binary tomboy before we had the words. I refused the dresses at age three. I wanted the pirate ships, the cowboys, and the creative chaos. Because she couldn’t “order” me, she felt she was failing the state, the church, and her own “Dragon” teachers. So she escalated. She turned into a “House Dragon” herself. She would take a blanket, bundle every single thing that was not stored away properly and in order —my toys, my books, my clothes, my soul—and throw the whole bundle out the second-story window onto the front lawn and sidewalk. All the while screaming “I will teach you order!” It was her “pedagogical duty” to break me. She saw herself as a total failure because I didn’t “Spur” (function). She lived in a permanent state of shame, and she projected that shame onto me until I believed I was the problem. The Collision of the Estates And my mother was only one half of the collapse. Then there was my partner, Connie. Her mother was the daughter of a Gutsverwalter (Estate Administrator) in Vorpommern. She lost everything fleeing the Russians. She lost her status but kept the DNA of Entitlement. She was a “Gutsherrin” (Lady of the Manor) who couldn’t even cook. She was thrown into the post-war world and told to swim. My partner grew up in that shadow. She became the “Oberärztin” (Lead Doctor) in Tanzania, managing 15,000 births a year in a post-colonial expat bubble where “White” people were served by an invisible staff. When we met, the two lineages collapsed into me. My mother’s “White Slave” training met my partner’s “Colonial Entitlement.” I became the “CEO-Foreman.” I worked 15-18 hours a day. I fixed the “messed-up” finances of “Doctors” who lived like royalty while I am now drowning in their debt. I was the “Scapegoat Hero”—the one who kept the “Gentry” afloat while being blamed for the very leaks I was plugging. Like I had learned during my formative years with my mother. I logged 220,000 hours in 35 years. That is four lifetimes of extraction. My hourly rate? €5.05 net. I see now that for 35 years, I was in a “School of inherited atonement”—a permanent loop of trying to “make up” for being a failure. I was the lightning rod. I was the scapegoat. If the family crashed, it was my fault. And because it was my fault, I had to be the one to fix it. I was trapped in a “reparation loop” that never ended. I also was the hero trying to keep every single system member in balance. Carrying everything they wouldn’t or couldn’t. The tragedy? My mother never apologized. She couldn’t. She lacked the sense of injustice (Unrechtsbewusstsein), because for her, all of it lived under the label “normal.” She died never forgiving me for being lesbian, for being non-binary, for “damaging the family reputation.” In her eyes, I was a defective product she couldn’t return to the factory. And yes—she carried her own trauma. She was taught a curriculum no one could fulfil. She saw herself as a failure from the start. I think many of us grew up inside some version of this impossible social curriculum, written by men who only understand top-down hierarchy. It’s sold as “character education,” though at its core, it’s conditioned survival logic. My grandmother? She was different. Maybe war carved that difference into her. She had l… This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wildlionessespride.substack.com/subscribe

  4. 10/12/2025

    A River is Not a Resource, and Neither Are You

    🎙️ A Stream of Consciousness on Nature, Power, and Belonging” 💭 In this meditative, free-flowing reflection, Jay follows an intuitive pull toward Central and South America — a region where rivers are granted rights and nature itself is written into the constitution. From the philosophies of Theravāda Buddhism to the Indigenous wisdoms of the Andes, Jay explores what it means to live with the living world rather than over it. As the stream deepens, the essay turns toward a haunting recognition: the modern obsession with control — “subdue the earth” — is not just biblical inheritance but the backbone of Western and especially German authoritarian thought. Through the lens of The Limits to Growth, Jay traces how this command evolved into the neocapitalist logic that turns people, land, and even intelligence into resources. This episode moves between the personal and planetary, between the ache of being used and the moment of awakening — the realization that to reclaim sovereignty means to stop being the host, to remove the parasites, and to stand again in one’s own ground. 🌎 Themes Nature as a living being The constitutional protection of ecosystems in Latin America The Limits to Growth and the birth of neocapitalism The transformation of people into “resources” German authoritarian inheritance of “subdue the earth” Spiritual sovereignty and re-belonging Finding community in harmony rather than domination 💬 Host’s Note “This is a stream of consciousness from my mind.A tracing of where the thought carries me — through rivers, roots, limits, and longings — toward a form of life that remembers its own aliveness.” 📣 Call to Listeners Where does this reflection meet you?What thoughts surfaced while listening?Share your reflections or stories — Jay would love to hear your point of view. Would you be willing to support my work by subscribing or contributing? It would mean so much to me. Your presence here means the world. Creating art, testing recipes, and sharing these reflections is a labor of love, a way to connect, a lifeline. But, as you know, love doesn’t pay the rent, or replace a car. Since January 2024, my mental health has forced me onto sick leave, leaving Monty and me with a mere €300 a month. And, as I shared in ‘When Healing Means Losing Everything,’ the reality is, this isn’t sustainable. When Healing Means Losing Everything By the end of 2025, I am losing my home, an need to leave a country that no longer feels like home. I’m will and need to be building a new life, a new beginning, and your support could be the bridge. Tip Jar https://buymeacoffee.com/jaysiegmann Subscribe: https://wildlionessespride.substack.com/subscribe If my words have touched you, if you believe in creating spaces of honest reflection, consider becoming a paid subscriber. Your contribution directly fuels this work, allows me to keep sharing, and helps me build a future. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wildlionessespride.substack.com/subscribe

  5. 09/07/2025

    Liz and Glennon rise in the fullness of their stories

    Liz Gilbert walks all the way to the river with her story whole When what was called too much becomes the victory of wholeness What culture once called “too much” is becoming the measure of victory. In this episode, Jay traces how Liz Gilbert carries her story whole, how rawness itself expands into triumph, and why living untrimmed is the real success we can all claim. Episode Summary What does it mean to succeed on your own terms? In this episode, Jay shares how a conversation with Gloria cracked open a deeper truth: the victory of authenticity. Not bestseller lists, not applause, not polish — but the raw story carried whole. Through Liz Gilbert’s leap and Glennon Doyle’s ground-holding, through survivors who write their own ledger against silence, we find a new measure of triumph. This is not success in spite of imperfection — it is success through imperfection. Jay takes us inside the stone carried in a pocket, the cloak molded to a body, and the moment of standing at the edge ready to jump. From there, the story widens: what culture once called “too much” is revealed as the exact ground of victory. Key Themes Redefining success beyond charts and trophies The courage of Liz Gilbert, Glennon Doyle, and others who keep their stories whole How “too much” becomes triumph when lived unapologetically The leap into authenticity as a form of coming out, again and again An invitation to listeners: What rules are you still playing by? What is the “this stays” in your own life? Closing Note Wholeness is not earned. It already lives in us. When we live it without apology, even in grief and chaos, the victory is undeniable. Would you be willing to support my work by subscribing or contributing? It would mean so much to me. Your presence here means the world. Creating art, testing recipes, and sharing these reflections is a labor of love, a way to connect, a lifeline. But, as you know, love doesn't pay the rent, or replace a car. Since January 2024, my mental health has forced me onto sick leave, leaving Monty and me with a mere €300 a month. And, as I shared in 'When Healing Means Losing Everything,' the reality is, this isn't sustainable. When Healing Means Losing Everything By the end of 2025, I am losing my home, an need to leave a country that no longer feels like home. I'm will and need to be building a new life, a new beginning, and your support could be the bridge. If my words have touched you, if you believe in creating spaces of honest reflection, consider becoming a paid subscriber. Your contribution directly fuels this work, allows me to keep sharing, and helps me build a future. Consider subcribing: https://wildlionessespride.substack.com/subscribe I know times are tight. If a monthly subscription isn't feasible, a one-time tip, even the price of a coffee or a bag of cat food for Monty, makes a difference. You can contribute here. And a big Thank You to every single one of you having contributed to this short boust of impermanent fame…. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wildlionessespride.substack.com/subscribe

  6. 08/24/2025

    How to Stop Fighting and Start Understanding

    How to Stop Fighting and Start Understanding My Personal Guide to Using Needs to Build Bridges Instead of Walls. Today I am experimenting. This iisn’t some neat essay. Think of it as me talking from the middle of a rut. And here’s the thing about ruts: they don’t have clean edges. They’re muddy, uneven, and you can’t always tell if you’re climbing out or sinking deeper. I'm in the middle of losing my old life. My brother will probably buy the house we both own. That’ll give me just enough to pay off my debts. And what’s left—maybe twenty, twenty-five thousand euros. I don’t know if I'll ever be able to work again, and the country I live in makes me feel sick and isolated. I'm not sure if any other money will be forthcoming. That this creates feelings and tensions within me is an understatement. And still that’s my starting point. In the meantime, I’m living on unemployment money from the German state. I’m on medical leave. Trauma, exhaustion, depression, anxiety, and body pain are what I carry. The medical service is still deciding if I can work again or not. If they decide I can’t, I can apply for a disability pension. And here’s the important part: unemployment money ties me to Germany, but a disability pension I can take with me. That makes all the difference when I think about my future. So here I am—debts, evaluations, not a lot of money, no clear plan. The ground keeps shifting. Maybe you’ve had this, too: waking up and realizing the future is just a fog bank, and you can’t see what’s in it. I found out I can live with that fog. I don’t have another choice. Impermanence is always true, only now it shows itself clearly. So I try to stay with the moment and ask: what do I need right now? Some days it’s clarity. Some days it’s comfort. Sometimes just rest, without the guilt. Sometimes a voice, someone on the other end of the line. And sometimes—what I miss most—hugs. Shared dinners. Laughing together. A hand on my arm. Simple body contact. When I started my healing process, I was completely checked out from myself. I couldn’t remember anything except what was written in certificates or shown in photographs. People would tell me, "You must remember, we were there together," and I'd just nod, pretend, and play along. But I didn’t remember. I just didn't know. I lived like that for decades—a kind of ghost of myself, just walking through the world. I was flesh and bone, yeah, but hollow. I played myself, acted my way through situations. I was there in body but not in being. No needs. No feelings. No memories, or only the most recent ones. My body needed to forget. Forgetting was survival. Forgetting was a need. Dissociation was a need. That was how I shielded myself. And still—I refuse to give up. I refuse to let my life be defined by a state office, by a pension decision that may or may not come. My needs matter more to me than the safety they promise. I may not be sure yet where I will go or how I will do it, but I will try to make my life based on what I need for myself. That is the only ground I can stand on now. But it wasn’t always this way, of course. So how did I get here? How did I move from clinging to safety at any cost—the safety my little child-self built her whole life around—to saying out loud: my needs matter more than the safety anyone else might offer me? It started in November 2020, when I began coaching. Right away it was about both: feelings and needs. My coach kept asking: "What do you feel, what do you need?" And I realized I didn’t know. I had lived so long without either. Safety had been everything. Survival had been everything. And naming? Naming was new. Naming was terrifying. And yet—that’s what began to change me. Right from the first session she asked me, "So what are you feeling right now?" And I just froze. Total blank. Nothing came. Then she asked, "And what’s the need beneath that?" Again—nothing. Blank. She stayed with me. Patient. Gentle. Compassionate in a way I hadn’t known before. Every week the same two questions: what are you feeling, what do you need? And every week I stumbled. I thought, "I’ll never get it right. I’ll never get anywhere." Those first two months felt endless. Just me, sitting there, with or without words. Sometimes I had them, sometimes I didn’t. And when I didn’t, it felt like standing in front of a wall. She gave me lists. Lists of feelings. Lists of needs. Lists of what she called “fake feelings.” Even lists of violent words. Always lists. Because I didn’t have language for any of it. Turns out my school taught me algebra, but skipped the whole ‘here’s how to name your feelings and needs’ part. And In my world it was never about me, anyway. Wants? Needs? Those were off-limits. Any hint of ‘I want this’ or ‘I can’t do that’ got swatted down with, ‘Don’t make it about you.’ So the words went quiet. Mouth shut, radar off, vocabulary for feelings: deleted. The lists opened up a possibility. They gave me a glimpse of how rich language could be. Not just six or eight words for feelings. So many. Layers, shades, subtleties. It was amazing. Totally amazing. To see that feelings could be described in dozens of ways, each carrying its own weight, its own color. That was the beginning of me finding nuanced language again. And then in January 2021—it happened. A quantum transformation. That’s the only way I can say it. I became Jay. It was direct. It came through naming. Naming feelings. Naming needs. Seeing how much of me was still tangled up in my mother’s script: obedience, compliance, silence. And when I finally said what I want, what I need, when I actually claimed it, Judith ended. Jay began. So what happens after a moment like that? Oh don’t misunderstand me, I was changed. I suddenly found something in me that was totally new to me. Confidence. Trust. And still, not everything changed in that second. Still, you don't just float away in transformation. You sit down with yourself, and it’s practice, practice, practice. Over and over, like a drum you can’t turn off: what am I feeling, what’s the need underneath? And needs? Oh, nobody told me this—they don’t just disappear. They don’t wander off when you ignore them. They pile up. Like bills you never opened, letters leaning in a messy stack until the whole table sags under the weight. And sooner or later, whether you read them or not, they shape every move you make. That’s when the Navigators came along for the ride. Just two pages—feelings on one, needs on the other. Snapped photos, tucked them in my phone. Way easier than lugging around the eight-page starter pack. Whenever the fog closed in, out came the lists. Support? Care? Encouragement? Help? Each one had its own flavor, rolled differently in my mouth, felt different in my body. Still, half the time I was staring at the words like a tourist with a map upside down—clueless, clumsy, trying to figure out what the heck I was actually feeling. And ease—that word kept tricking me. I’d circle it again and again, and almost every time what I actually meant was comfort. My life had been heavy, serious, too serious. Humor was never safety. Humor was pointed at me: queer jokes, fat jokes, smart-people jokes. Always the punchline, never the laugh. People said "harmless." It wasn’t. So ease, for me, meant comfort. A corner without ridicule. A seat where nobody sharpened their teeth on me. And creativity? That one’s a whole meadow of its own. Do I mean adventure, a little kick, something to wake me up? Do I mean variety, just a change so the day doesn’t grind me flat? Do I mean making something, shaping it with my hands until it exists? Or maybe I mean just being entertained, setting the burden down for an hour. All of that fits under creativity. All of that is need That’s why I took the Navigator into English. I hadn’t seen anything like it. I wanted others to have words too—to point at what’s missing, so it doesn’t just stay shapeless inside. Hello my dear paid subscribers: you can grab my two Navigators—feelings + needs as PDF file—in English straight from the Download page. Everyone else can pick them up for about the price of a coffee. Links waiting for you at the end. And then there were the "false feelings," as the lists called them. I knew them all too well. I feel disrespected. I feel not taken seriously. I feel ignored. I feel unseen. Those were the phrases that tripped me. "Not taken seriously"—that one is carved into me like a groove. Every time it happened, I blew up. In Germany there was this old cigarette commercial. The HB Männchen — a little cartoon man who would suddenly explode in frustration, puff up, shoot to the ceiling. People used to say, “you’re like that HB person again.” That was me. Zero to blast-off in a second. And the worst part? I didn’t even know why. I just knew I was gone, up at the ceiling, out of reach. And that saying, it got me fuming all over again as I was now feeling ridiculed on top of it. Coaching didn’t smooth me out. It pressed pause. Stop, look, listen. Why am I back at the ceiling again? What’s boiling underneath? Which need is throwing sparks, begging for air? The Navigator wasn’t what got me there—it only lent me words once I had a glimpse. What got me there was digging, descending, what I came to call subscendence: tracking the eruption back down inside, crawling along the fault lines, following each split until I reached the initial experience. I walked memory corridors, leafed through so cio lo gy, history, anything to make sense of why I blew like a volcano—lava spilling out of me, scorching conversations, burning trust, searing ground so badly I lost one employee, nearly two. My words smoked through the air, left a trail behind me. That was my fire. That was my fuming. And what I found was that those so-called “false feeling

  7. 08/17/2025

    Your Feelings Are Not the Enemy

    Your Feelings Are Not the Enemy They might feel all over the place, yet they are not your enemy. Feelings are information. In this episode, Jay explores the first step toward building an unshakable foundation: practicing emotional self-awareness. Drawing from personal experience and influences such as Nonviolent Communication, Buddhist psychology, Ubuntu philosophy, and the psychological clarity of Alfred Adler and Friedemann Schulz von Thun, Jay invites listeners to rethink their relationship with feelings. Feelings are not enemies to conquer. They are signals—rooted in thoughts, needs, and embodied experience. When named with honesty, they become guides toward dignity, connection, and vision. This essay-episode unfolds as: Why feelings matter for dignity, hope, and vision Authentic vs. inauthentic feelings (with a reference chart to explore in the companion essay) How naming strengthens boundaries and creates a bridge to deeper connection The first step toward change—naming as a radical act of dignity and hope Jay also shares a visual reference chart and a list of common inauthentic feelings in the corresponding essay on Substack, along with access to the NVC Navigator and the Feelings & Needs Database for paid subscribers. Key Quote “Feelings are never the enemy. They are the ground of our becoming, the first breath of hope.” Call to Action 💬 Join the conversation: add your hopes and visions in the anonymous form Shared Visions, Hopes & Dreams (link in the show notes).I invite you to add your own hopes, dreams, and ideas to the open, anonymous Google Form “Shared Visions, Hopes & Dreams”. And if I may ask to please share this link: https://forms.gle/38GbirQKabv4CmCr8 If you ask five people directly (by email, in a DM, in a comment) to contribute and share it again with five people, you are going to build your vision together. The form is only the vehicle. All answers are openly visible. If you consider promoting it in essays, articles or notes I’d be thrilled.🌀 Paid subscribers: download the NVC Navigator – Feelings Cheatsheet and explore the full Feelings & Needs Database.Paid subscribers can download the NVC Navigator – Feelings Cheatsheet and access my personal Feelings & Needs Database—with over 400 feelings (each with a short description), 240+ needs, subcategories, categories, circle connections and matching needs. Available in English and Deutsch. Everything in one place, at your fingertips. As paid subscriber please proceed to my Download Page. Thank you for reading and walking this path with me. 🐾 Support the writing (and Monty the cat): become a paid subscriber, donate, or simply share this episode. If you find my essays & poems valuable and want to support me in living, here are a some suggestions: * Become a paid subscriberor give a one-time donationor Buy Monty (my gorgeous cat) cat food * All the writing on Wild Lion*esses Pride is freely offered, there are no paywalls here. Paid subscriptions and donations are a truly meaningful way to support my livelihood as a writer, and go a long way in sustaining my living after having lost almost everything. * Read more here if you like: When Healing Means Losing Everything * “Like” this post by tapping the heart icon, share it on Substack Notes or other social media, and/or send to a friend. Thank you — Monty and I truly appreciate your support. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wildlionessespride.substack.com/subscribe

  8. 08/14/2025

    Find Your Unshakable Foundation

    Find Your Unshakable Foundation This episode begins with your personal journey from a life of "survival autopilot" to the discovery of self-loyalty. It details how this internal shift connected you to a sense of dignity that became a new, unshakeable foundation for your life. The episode then expands on this personal experience by introducing the core metaphors of the wildfire, the trench, and the foam carpet. It explains how dignity acts as a defensive trench against the "wildfire" of societal and political pressures, while hope and vision form the "foam carpet" that creates space for new, healthy growth behind the line. The narrative concludes by highlighting the crucial role of conscious communication. You explain that choosing to see others as human subjects, not objects, is a vital act of resistance and the foundation for building a new, dignifying culture. The episode ends with a clear call to action for the listener to apply these concepts in their own life to stand firm and build a better future. How You Can Use Dignity to Stand Firm and Build a Better Future I lived inside an authoritarian system long before I named it. It arose not from a government, yet from my mother’s house, with her rules, her tone, and her absolute control over the air I breathed. That system moved inside me when I left home. For decades, I kept living as if she was still in the next room, measuring every decision against what would bring peace. I trained myself to anticipate other people’s needs before they spoke. I learned to read the smallest shift in a voice or expression. This felt like safety, or what I thought was safety. The cost? My connection with myself was absent. I had no awareness of my wants. My understanding of how to care for my body was dim. My finances, mental health, friendships, and spiritual life—all of it ran on a survival autopilot. I told myself I was fine. Then a question arrived, a key that unlocked everything: What is loyalty for you? I asked it in passing, thinking about someone else’s choices. Her answer landed like a stone in deep water: "First of all, I am loyal to myself." I had never heard anyone express it in that way. The idea exposed a vast space between how I lived and what I sensed was possible. That was the moment dignity transitioned from a word in the German constitution to a feeling I could sense in my own bones. This was a profound, quiet, yet powerful internal revolution. It was the feeling of a new foundation appearing where I had only known a void. Dignity was no longer an abstract concept or a political ideal; it became a tangible, personal reality. It was a warmth, a solid ground I could feel as deeply my own. Seventeen days after that conversation, I stepped away from the 150-hour weeks that had shaped my life for years. I entered medical leave with a body that felt it had carried centuries and a mind still wired for constant motion. My days had been a rush of decisions, deadlines, and demands. I lived in a state of high functioning that looked strong from the outside yet felt like a slow internal erosion. My strength was the kind that came from constant effort, a tension I had held for so long I recognized it as my natural state. I had been operating at a pace I could not sustain, a rhythm of perpetual giving with minimal receiving. My energy went into a system that offered no true replenishment in return. As the noise subsided, a new voice began to emerge—my own. Faint at first, then steadier. I noticed how I felt upon waking, what my body asked for, and which thoughts rose when I gave them space. It felt both unfamiliar and intimate, like meeting a long-lost friend whose face I remembered but whose voice I had forgotten. This process became a daily practice of listening. I listened to the quiet ache in my shoulders, a plea for rest. I gave attention to the subtle hunger of my body, a request for nourishment. I honored the thoughts that appeared when I slowed my pace, thoughts that were always present yet drowned out by the constant rush. I learned to say yes to rest, yes to nourishment, and yes to moments that held a purpose beyond giving me breath. This felt radical and necessary. I was giving myself permission to just be. This was a discovery of a deeper responsibility: the responsibility to live in a way that honors my own dignity. My inner state and my capacity to meet the world evolved. My choices aligned with what I truly valued, and that alignment brought a quiet strength I had always sought. This new strength felt different; it was an energy that arose from an internal wellspring, a powerful departure from the constant feeling of depletion I had lived with for so long. I no longer moved through my days in a reactive state. Instead, my movements became intentional, my actions a reflection of my deepest values. As I settled into this new way of living, I saw my own patterns reflected in a larger reality. The same forces that had shaped me—expectations handed down, loyalty directed outward, and worth measured through service—live in entire societies. They encourage people to stay busy, obedient, and distanced from their own agency. I began to see these threads everywhere: in the workplace, where productivity takes precedence over well-being; in social circles, where people prioritize external validation; in politics, where conformity is rewarded over genuine self-expression. I watched a culture that runs on a collective survival autopilot, a shared tension that mirrors the one I had carried for decades. Like waves crashing against a rock, systems of control rely on persistence, on repetition, on conditioning. They constantly apply pressure, seeking to erode our sense of self. When silence is replaced with clarity, when you refuse to be eroded, something shifts. The water keeps coming, and the rock remains. Around me, the social landscape shifted. Rights, laws, and personal freedoms lost their substance like dry grass in high heat. A spark, then another, until the air felt thick with smoke. The pace of it stunned me—how quickly these forces reached across borders, through courts, into schools, and into the most intimate spaces of people’s lives. It was as if the collective tension I had always felt was now manifesting on a larger scale, creating an environment where a small spark could ignite a wildfire. This was a rapid, consuming force that left me with a familiar feeling of disorientation. In Germany, dignity stands in the first sentence of the Basic Law. It sounds unshakable. I, however, had lived decades before I understood how it feels in practice. When dignity is enshrined in a country’s foundation, I can still sense its vulnerability where it is not named. I saw this in how people navigated their daily lives, in the small concessions they made, and in the ways they gave their power to systems that sought to control them. A word on a page holds immense power, and yet it is the lived experience of that word that gives it true meaning. Personal dignity changes more than how a person feels about themselves. It changes how they move through systems. It strengthens their capacity to question, to choose, and to stand firm in their own value. Dignity serves as a compass, guiding my way. It is a tool for self-governance, a constant reminder of my own worth and the worth of others. With dignity as my guide, I can navigate the complexities of systems with a clear sense of my own boundaries and my own truth. My actions are no longer a plea for acceptance or a reaction to a threat. They become a firm expression of my inherent value. I see a similar urgency in the current political moment—in the United States, in Europe, and in so many places where fear is used as currency. A whole society can run at a high pace, delivering for structures that take and take, and still believe an alternative is out of reach. The constant stream of news, the political messaging, and the social pressure—it all encourages a state of perpetual activation and anxiety, a feeling of being busy yet always in a state of loss. This is the collective survival autopilot, the exact condition I experienced in my own life. Hope begins where dignity takes root. It grows in the quiet recognition of worth, and from there it expands into action. A community grounded in dignity operates from care. It protects what matters because it recognizes its own value. Dignity is not a passive state. It is an active choice, a foundation from which we can build a better future. When a community embraces dignity, it moves with intentionality and compassion. It understands that the well-being of each member is a reflection of the whole. When I picture the wildfire of rights and freedoms burning through entire societies, I know the trench must be deep, and the foam carpet must be wide. Dignity is the trench. Hope and vision are the foam carpet spread behind it. The trench holds the line — firm, visible, and alive with the choice to stand here. The foam seeps into every gap behind that line, coating the ground so the fire has no place to catch. This is how firefighters work when the flames run too close — first, stop the advance, then make the land safe to inhabit again. Every voice that speaks of a future worth building adds another layer to that carpet. Every shared vision makes the ground less willing to burn. This is how we protect our communities from the political and social wildfires of our time. This protection is not just about physical safety, but about the conversations that happen within them. I’ve learned something over years of watching how people speak to one another and to themselves: dignity and objectification exist on separate ground. They bring different outcomes. We diminish dignity in an exchange when we point fingers, reduce someone to a label, or speak in ways that close a door. This is why many campaigns that resist the fire end up feeding it. They work inside the very patt

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About

Welcome to *Wild Lionesses' Pride*, a podcast for those seeking healing, personal growth, and authentic connection. Join Jay on an introspective journey through stories, reflections, and insights on trauma recovery, self-compassion, and embracing your true self. Each episode explores themes like overcoming self-doubt, navigating the complexities of identity, and cultivating resilience amidst life’s challenges. Grounded in the unique **Canyon Model** of healing, Jay shares the wisdom and practical tools needed to help you discover new perspectives and create space for wholeness and self-acceptance. Whether you’re just beginning your journey or looking to deepen your understanding, *Wild Lionesses' Pride* offers a compassionate space to reconnect, reclaim your power, and illuminate the path forward. Tune in for honest conversations, rich storytelling, and a supportive community committed to transformative growth. wildlionessespride.substack.com

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