Founder of 'Be The Wolf Now' debunks a juicy rumor others believed to be true...
Genea Barnes: From holding the hand of a dying junkie at the age of four years old, to now a successful trauma coach sharing her weirdest childhood nickname, biggest regrets, and more.
A Little About The Guest.
Genea Barnes is a speaker, mentor, and coach who empowers people to move away from and resolve conflict … that has been created from trauma, generational trauma, or inconsistent, unpredictable, neglectful, or disconnected parenting … so they can access greater peace and freedom in all areas of their life.
This allows them to access and grow their divine gifts, opens the door to business flow and financial abundance, and creates open, present, and connected relationships. Granting them the opportunity to operate from freedom, ease, and the TRUTH of who they are.
She believes that when you operate from the TRUTH of who you are, humanity evolves.
You can connect with her here:
WEBSITE | INSTAGRAM | FACEBOOK | LINKEDIN
The Guest Deep-Dive.
1. What is a rumor you’ve heard about yourself that you wish was true (or that you want to debunk)?
In my 30’s there were a lot of people who watched me from afar and thought I was “cool.” Much “cooler” than them. What they perceived was a bad-ass, tough bartender with an edgy style who took no shit. They saw someone who had eclectic taste in music and art. They saw someone who appeared to walk their own path and who wasn’t afraid to be who they are.
But during this time in my life, I was terrified of being my true self. I worked behind a bar in rock’n’roll bars. It was a very similar environment to that in which I grew up. A lot of alcohol, drugs, toxic coping mechanisms, boundary crossing, and people operating from a very unconscious and dissociated place.
I KNEW how to navigate this world and was very good at it. I could predict the chaos before it happened and counteract it. I knew how to communicate with people in blind rage, complete dissociation, and everything in between. It was an environment that, for me, was easy- familiar. I seemed edgy, cool, and like I had it all together.
But the truth was, it was all a mask. It was who I had learned to be, in an environment I learned to navigate well. There was nothing “cool” about it. When it came to what my soul… I wanted a completely different life. I wanted to be aware on conscious. I wanted to lean into the spiritual beliefs and KNOWINGS that my heart and soul carried. But I was only able to do that in little bite size pieces.
I’d test the waters with little things. Like I started doing yoga. And most people didn’t shame me or get weird about it. (Though a few did… saying punk rockers don’t do yoga). I did cleanses and fasts. People thought I was weird, but they accepted it. Little by little, I started leaning into who I truly was. But a few years later, I dated someone who was anti-spirituality and I shoved it back under the rug.
People used to think I was so bold and didn’t care what people thought, but EVERYTHING I did was about making the people in my environment like me. And I stuck to environments that were similar to what I grew up in because those were the situations I knew best how to navigate.
Every time I tried to go into new environments that were more conducive to what I really wanted in my life, my nervous system would freak out, or I’d self-sabotage.
I think it’s funny that people used to perceive me as being “cool” and like I wasn’t afraid to walk my own path and be the TRUTH of who I was... but the TRUTH was the complete opposite.
These days, I navigate most environments as easily as I navigated that old world. The big difference is that I am actually walking my own path (not the one that is a mirror of what I grew up in), and I’m not afraid to be who I am.
2. What is the biggest risk you’ve ever taken that didn’t pay off?
People have said I’ve done a lot of “brave” things that people would describe as risk. But most of those brave things were just things I really wanted to do. And once I truly decided to do them, I just made them happen. They didn’t feel like a risk.
But there was one thing I was terrified to do. And this felt like a big risk. I am not sure what I thought I might lose, but my nervous system was in complete panic the whole time trying to “navigate” making this thing happen.
When I was small, I asked my mom about my dad. (He took off when I was a couple of months old). She never spoke badly of him, but she NEVER told me anything about their relationship. And if I got too curious, she’d shut me down completely. In fact, asking questions, speaking up for myself, or asking for what I needed or wanted felt very dangerous as a kid.
I met my dad when I was 28 years old, and when I was 35, he told me the story of what happened between him and my mom. I decided I wanted to hear her side of the story. Because I know that everyone has their own perception. I figured the TRUTH would lie somewhere in between.
I went to everyone I knew who knew my mom during that time. I collected all the information I could so that I could counteract her arguments of why she should NOT tell me this story.
I was nervous, scared, and afraid of what would happen when I asked her. But I really wanted to know.
Emotionally, this felt like the most risky thing I’d ever done in my life.
When I had fully prepared and got all my rebuttals ready, I asked.
She said, “What did he say?”
I told her I wanted to hear her side of the story.
She said, “What he told you is probably the truth.”
And then I heard ... “IT’S NONE OF YOUR FUCKING BUSINESS!”
I shut down and didn’t push for the story. I was hurt, mad, and disappointed.
But here’s the thing, she did NOT say “It’s none of your fucking business.” At least not that time.
That’s what I heard her say in that moment, but it wasn’t what she said. But it was what she had said to me many times before. I had done all that prep to hopefully “avoid” hearing the thing that I’d heard so many times when I asked her questions. The thing that had left me feeling hurt, mad, and disappointed.
But the TRUTH was that in that moment, she didn’t say it at all. And I only know this because when I remember the incident, she’s not saying that. I remember that for years, I THOUGHT she said it. I even remember the tone she said it in. But her saying that is not located in that memory; it is, however, in previous childhood memories.
So the biggest risk I took that didn’t pay off was trying to get my mom to answer my question. And the reason the risk didn’t pay off is because I operated as if it wasn’t going to pay off, based on experiences from the past. And as a result, I recreated my experiences from the past. So much so that I “heard” something my mom said in the past, but not in that present moment.
3. What was your weirdest childhood nickname, and the story behind it?
My weirdest childhood nickname was probably “Jason.” I gave myself that nickname at age 7.
It was shortly after I had been sexually assaulted for the second time. This happened after I yelled at my mom’s boyfriend for getting too drunk to watch a kid. And I believed that if I had not gotten angry at him, the event never would have happened.
I told my mom this time. And she implied that it was all my fault. That I had done something wrong.
It was then that I decided I didn’t want to be me anymore. And the most NOT ME thing I could do was to be like my childhood friend Jason. He was always acting out and getting in trouble, whereas I always tried to follow the rules. Jason was also a boy. So I decided I would be a boy and I would call myself Jason.
This was the ultimate rebellion against being who I truly was.
4. What is a decision you made that you genuinely regret?
There is a pattern that I can think of that I did at least 5 times, where I used to manipulate men I used to date into falling for me again or having sex with me again. I didn’t realize it at the time, but it was a way for me to “get back” at them for hurting me. It was a way that I attempted to “reclaim” the power I perceived that they took from me; a way to reclaim the aspect of me that I perceived they took from me.
It didn’t work. At the time, I felt a bit more powerful and in control. But it was only like a dopamine hit. Short-lived and ultimately pointless.
The more I healed, the more I could see that these “revenge” tactics did nothing but make me hurt other people. It was me living in a world where someone one and someone lost. I couldn’t see the path of how to let go without feeling like someone had “taken” from me.
What I grew to understand over time is that through those behaviors, I was the one who was “taking” from me. I was the one who was operating as a less-than version of who I truly was. Yes, I hurt them, but the real damage is the damage I did to myself. I damaged my integrity, my character, my sense of self. I betrayed who I truly am for a cheap thrill in “taking” from another they way I thought they had taken from me.
5. If we were to take your phone and open it up right now, what would we find (the good, the funny, the bad, etc.)?
I think my phone is pretty boring.
You’d open it and find a pic of me at about 1 or 2 years old. It’s a picture of me “before the light went out.” I am bright, vibrant, and full of ME. I use it to remind myself of who I truly am. I use it to connect and find love for who I truly am.
Beyond that, you’d find…
A bunch of unanswered texts and messages (something that never would have happened in the past because an unanswered text, phone call, or email would have left an open loop of panic in my nervous system)
A ton of apps I never use
Not very many photos, because I forget to take photos and live a lot in the moment.
You’d also find my astrology transit app that I look at occasionally… but mostly when I feel a bit “unregulated.” A pattern of mine is to look for something outside of me to tell me the answers when I feel stressed, unresourceful, or unregulated. So I know if I’m looking at my astrology app, it’s a sign I need to do something to get myself back into ME. Whether that’s jumping on the trampoline, going for a long walk, dancing, or singing.
5. Have you ever been arrested or come close?
I have definitely done plenty of things I could have been arrested for… but I’ve never been arrested. The closest I’ve come is when I was 17, me and my friends got caught drinking in the park. I was worried my scholarship and college entrance would be taken away.
But they let us go.
An Exclusive Offer.
Genea would love to invite you into her network with this incredible, member-only gift! Join her weekly clarity calls for free here:
Bring to light the invisible forces that create the conflict between what you want and what you have in your life, business/career, and relationships. So that you can resolve it and have more peace, ease, and freedom in all areas of your life. Wednesdays 7am PST/10am EST - JOIN HERE.
Plus… here are her upcoming IN-PERSON LIVE Events:
March 1st: 1 day Be the Wolf Event in Los Angeles, CA
March 28, 29: Two-day Firewalking event in Nashville, TN (I am co-facilitating this with Bucky O’Neil)
April 26th: 1 day Be the Wolf Event in Los Angeles, CA
May 30th, 31st: Two-Day Be the Wolf Firewalking Event in Nashville, TN
June 13th: 1 day Be the Wolf Event in Los Angeles, CA
The Podcast Deets.
Anyone who has experienced trauma in their life will tell you that it’s not necessarily the trauma itself that’s the hardest to overcome- but what comes next. Suddenly you’re not just trying to heal something that’s happened but learning how to live despite it.
Because what happens when you have a nervous system that’s programmed for danger even when the ‘problem’ is gone? What happens when you have a body that now has a default setting of pain, fear and angst? How do you move forward when you’re constantly waiting for something to go wrong?
In today’s Fridays with Friends feature, Genea Barnes helps us to answer these exact questions and more. She takes us back to the beginning of her journey (before she became a sought-after trauma coach), when she held the hand of a dying junkie at the age of four.
This moment, like so many in her childhood, deeply wired her body to expect pain and hardship- and she shares with us how she spent years of her life chasing fleeting feelings of peace, love and freedom; something she could taste but never quite hold.
It wasn’t until she realized that she had to take radical responsibility for her life and her trauma that everything changed. She describes how she had to acknowledge parts of herself she didn’t want to see in order to truly heal- like her tendencies to manipulate, mirror harm and take from people.
This ‘shame’ (deeply woven into the shadow parts of her being), was keeping her stuck in a cycle of self-victimization- and once she finally accepted it, only then was she able to create the life that she had been dreaming about for years.
If you’re ready to stop using your trauma as an excuse for the behaviours or patterns in your life and instead take radical responsibility for the direction your life is headed… then this is an episode you don’t want to miss.
Let’s dive in, shall we?