Be The Wolf

The worst inner demons don't start out looking like demons.

Lilia Bogoeva was 12 years old when she found her first sense of control. She called it a "project." The world would later call it anorexia. And for a little while,  it actually felt like freedom.

This is a conversation about how our survival strategies start out as gifts. How the restrict/explode cycle isn't a flaw in your character, it's a nervous system doing what it was taught to do. And how creative expression might be the most underrated path back to yourself.

Genea and Lilia trace the full arc: eating disorders, substance abuse, identity fragmentation, emotional restriction, and the breakthrough that happened when Lilia stopped trying to feel the "right" emotions and started letting them move through her.

Four moments from this episode that stay with you:

🔹 Growing up between two countries, two identities, and never quite fitting either, and how that fracture became the seed of everything

🔹 The restrict/binge/explode cycle hiding inside workaholism, people-pleasing, and fitness culture

🔹 The difference between shame and real emotion, and why shame is just a shortcut to avoid the hard feelings

🔹 Why creative flow is one of the few places where survival patterns can't follow you

This one asks you to look at your own patterns. Not with judgment. With honesty because that's where the freedom starts. Listen now.

About Lilia:

Lilia Bogoeva is the “Inner Demon Crusher,” a badass mental health advocate who uses comics and performing arts to turn your greatest fears into visible monsters and fight them! The purpose of her work is to motivate creative and free-spirited individuals to eliminate the mental blocks that hold them back from building the business and lifestyle they desire. Whether those mental obstacles are driven by unhealed trauma, social stigmas, or anything else, Lilia is here to motivate you. And she speaks as someone who’s made tons of mistakes and learned lessons the hard way, after battling eating disorders, addiction, depression, and the effects of lingering trauma to become the creative entrepreneur she is today.

Connect with Lilia:

Website: www.liliademoncrusher.com

Free Gift Link: https://mailchi.mp/a6066a8396a5/comic-demo-freebie

Another Link: https://substack.com/@innerdemoncrusher

Connect with Genea

Weekly Clarity Call - Wednesdays 7a PST/10a EST - Join the call here:  https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/Mr9xoteOSj-pYabKDTNBRA 

Inquire about Events, Firewalking, Coaching, being a guest on Be the Wolf LIVE or Be the Wolf Podcast https://bethewolfnow.com/connect/ 

Website: http://bethewolfnow.com/ 

Instagram:   / geneabarnes     

Facebook:   / bethewolfnow   

TikTok:   / geneabarnes   

She did ten years of therapy, ayahuasca ceremonies, shamanic healings, and coaching. The good feeling still kept fading.

In this episode, Genea Barnes shares the quest that built Be the Wolf. Not the polished version. The real one. Growing up inside neglect, abuse, and trauma, she spent decades touching joy and losing it again. She chased every tool, every modality, every framework that promised change. And she kept cycling back to the same muck, the same heavy feelings, the same quiet voice saying nothing is ever going to work for me.

What she eventually discovered wasn't on any healer's menu. It was a layer beneath the worthiness work, beneath the trauma processing, beneath everything the gurus teach. And everyone has their own unique version of it.

Here's a look at what lives inside this episode:

🔹 How she went from spending 98% of her time feeling bad to feeling good almost all of the time, and what finally made it stick 

🔹 The difference between a life that looks free on paper and one that actually feels free in your body 

🔹 The subconscious cage that lives beneath your stories, and why most healing never reaches it

If you've done the work and still feel like something's just off, this episode is the one you've been waiting for.

Connect with Genea

Weekly Be the Wolf Call (no cost) – Wednesdays, 7:00 AM PST / 10:00 AM EST

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About Genea

Genea Barnes is a mentor, coach, and speaker whose early life was rooted in deep trauma and neglect. To stay safe, she learned to make everyone else feel good and put their needs first.

It worked to survive, but it came with a cost. She lost her ability to discern what was truly right for her. And getting what she wanted came with the anxiety that it would be lost or taken away. 

She was great at making other people’s dreams come true, but when it came to what she truly wanted, she self-sabotaged and procrastinated … always putting something else first. 

She spent decades exploring and studying every modality under the sun to break free from those patterns and create a life that felt like joy, ease, and freedom. 

Today, she empowers people to move away from and resolve conflict rooted in trauma, generational trauma, and sacrifice of self … so they can create the life they crave and access greater peace and freedom in all areas of their life. 

This gives them access to loving, authentic relationships, consistent healthy habits, and success in business, finance, and career that feels like fulfilment and freedom. 

She didn't stay because she was weak. She stayed because leaving felt like throwing away everything her family sacrificed to give her.

Alenka Kyslik is the daughter of Soviet immigrants who fled in the middle of the night for a better life. That story became her nervous system's operating code. Opportunity meant safety. Achievement meant survival. And saying no to either felt like a betrayal of everything they crossed an ocean to build.

So she stayed. Through the body disconnection. Through the out-of-body driving moments. Through the week she couldn't get off the floor. Through the boss who told her, "I could give you a green card, but I know you'll leave." She stayed, because her nervous system didn't know there was another option.

This isn't a burnout story. It's a story about the belief underneath the burnout. And what becomes possible when you finally see it for what it is.

Here's what Lenka's story quietly teaches you about your own:

🔹 The moment her body stopped working before her mind caught up with why

🔹 How a green card became a carrot, and seven years became a cage

🔹 What building a business on her own terms actually feels like when the pattern starts to shift

🔹 Why building her new company slower and more intentionally isn't taking longer. It's collapsing time.

If you've ever stayed somewhere longer than you should have, and told yourself it was loyalty, this one is for you. Listen now.

About Alenka:

Eldest daughter, overachiever and recovering people pleaser Alenka has gone through a series of health issues. After years of searching for answers, she found a new version of herself. She saw how challenging it is for so many to find answers for their health and decided to do something about it. With over a decade of experience building software Alenka decided to build an online platform that uses custom matchmaking to connect people with holistic experts based on shared values and current needs. The mission is to give people back control of their health initially focusing on burnout of all kinds.

Connect with Alenka:

Website: https://sahacollective.com/ 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/saha.collective/?hl=en

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/sahadotcollective 

Connect with Genea

Weekly Be the Wolf Call (no cost) – Wednesdays, 7:00 AM PST / 10:00 AM EST

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If you want a life massively different than the one you grew up in, you're kind of f^cked. Unless you know how to dismantle the cage.

Genea doesn't hold back in this one. She walks through the brutal truth most people don't want to hear: the dynamics you learned in childhood … how you got safety, love, attention, needs met … are the exact dynamics you're replicating in your business, relationships, and health. 

If you grew up scrambling for needs that were always slipping away, you're still scrambling. 

If you grew up keeping things casual and safe because commitment felt dangerous, you're still doing that too. 

The way you dealt with the world as a kid is how you’re still dealing with the world.

And it's why your business feels stuck, your relationships feel hollow, or your success never feels like enough.

Genea shares her own story … growing up with an unpredictable mother who told her hunger was "a figment of your imagination," and a stepdad who brought stability but stayed casual, never fully showing up. 

That became her model: casual equals safe but incomplete, committed equals anxious and never enough. 

And she repeated it everywhere … in romantic relationships, in jobs, and most devastatingly, in her business.

In this episode, Genea reveals:

🔹 Why she kept five part-time jobs instead of one full-time commitment … and how that pattern was protecting her from the anxiety of "the one"

🔹 The moment she realized her business was playing the role of her stepdad … casual, safe, but never enough to meet her needs

🔹 How anxious energy chokes the growth of everything you're trying to build, and why you can't grow a business while chasing it to save you

🔹 The flea-jar metaphor that explains why your programming might not even be yours … it could be from three generations back

This isn't about mindset. It's about dismantling subconscious and generational patterns at a level so deep most people never touch.

Connect with Genea

Weekly Be the Wolf Call (no cost) – Wednesdays, 7:00 AM PST / 10:00 AM EST

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About Genea

Genea Barnes is a mentor, coach, and speaker whose early life was rooted in deep trauma and neglect. To stay safe, she learned to make everyone else feel good and put their needs first.

It worked to survive, but it came with a cost. She lost her ability to discern what was truly right for her. And getting what she wanted came with the anxiety that it would be lost or taken away. 

She was great at making other people’s dreams come true, but when it came to what she truly wanted, she self-sabotaged and procrastinated … always putting something else first. 

She spent decades exploring and studying every modality under the sun to break free from those patterns and create a life that felt like joy, ease, and freedom. 

Today, she empowers people to move away from and resolve conflict rooted in trauma, generational trauma, and sacrifice of self … so they can create the life they crave and access greater peace and freedom in all areas of their life. 

This gives them access to loving, authentic relationships, consistent healthy habits, and success in business, finance, and career that feels like fulfilment and freedom. 

Peace and harmony looked like an empty apartment and a recliner. That's when he knew something was wrong.

Dave Shotgun Shell spent decades chasing adrenaline … football, MMA fighting, even karaoke when his body couldn't take the hits anymore. 

After multiple concussions and near-death experiences starting at age two, he subconsciously became addicted to intensity. 

But when the crashes started outweighing the highs, he swung hard in the opposite direction: two hours of meditation daily, seeking peace and harmony. 

What he got instead was an empty apartment, a divorce, kids who lived elsewhere, and an isolated existence with nothing but four white walls and a recliner. 

He had achieved perfect peace. And zero impact on the world.

This conversation with Genea digs into the cost of extremes, and what happens when you finally stop escaping into either adrenaline or spirituality, and start living from the middle.

Dave and Genea explore:

🔹 The childhood trauma of a cinder block dropped on his head at age two, and how it set the trajectory for a lifetime of seeking near-death experiences

🔹 Why meditating two hours a day gave him exactly what he focused on … nothing … no wife, no connection, no impact

🔹 His friend who told him to join a monastery … the moment he realized he'd escaped too far

🔹 The mantra that changed everything: "I do. Either things will or they won't. But that doesn't change who I am."

If you've been swinging between grit and escape, intensity and isolation, or giving until you're empty … this episode will show you there's another way.

About Dave:

As the founder of BlueVantage—a company forged in the ashes of 9/11, now thriving under his daughter Adrienne's leadership—and DCPacket, revolutionizing power distribution through Digital Electricity, Dave has built a legacy of value creation. His ventures also include partnerships like R.B. Akins, enabling mission-critical infrastructure. Yet, beyond business success, Dave's story is one of personal renewal,anchored by his wife Gretchen's discovery of neurofeedback therapy, which silenced the ghosts of his past Traumas.

Connect with Dave:

Website:  https://shotgunschell.com/

Free Gift Link: https://shotgunschell.com/about

Connect with Genea

Weekly Be the Wolf Call (no cost) – Wednesdays, 7:00 AM PST / 10:00 AM EST

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“I really want to… but I can’t.”

That sentence sounds harmless. But it’s quietly shaping your entire life.

In this episode, Genea Barnes tells the truth about why so many high-functioning people struggle to say what they actually want … and how fear, childhood conditioning, and survival patterns turn honesty into excuses. 

This isn’t about time management or boundaries. It’s about authenticity… and the cost of losing it.

This episode moves through moments you’ll recognize in your body:

🔹 The fear that hits when you imagine saying no without an explanation

If you’re tired of feeling trapped by obligations, guilt, or other people’s expectations, this conversation opens a different way. 

Listen when you’re ready to come back to yourself.

Connect with Genea

Weekly Be the Wolf Call (no cost) – Wednesdays, 7:00 AM PST / 10:00 AM EST

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About Genea

Genea Barnes is a mentor, coach, and speaker whose early life was rooted in deep trauma and neglect. To stay safe, she learned to make everyone else feel good and put their needs first.

It worked to survive, but it came with a cost. She lost her ability to discern what was truly right for her. And getting what she wanted came with the anxiety that it would be lost or taken away. 

She was great at making other people’s dreams come true, but when it came to what she truly wanted, she self-sabotaged and procrastinated … always putting something else first. 

She spent decades exploring and studying every modality under the sun to break free from those patterns and create a life that felt like joy, ease, and freedom. 

Today, she empowers people to move away from and resolve conflict rooted in trauma, generational trauma, and sacrifice of self … so they can create the life they crave and access greater peace and freedom in all areas of their life. 

This gives them access to loving, authentic relationships, consistent healthy habits, and success in business, finance, and career that feels like fulfilment and freedom.

You can't ride the middle between joy and bitterness.

Rachel Martin thought she could. She thought if she just held it together, stayed grateful, did everything right, the chaos would fix itself.

But the truck got repossessed. The finances were abysmal. And she kept saying "it is what it is" like it was protection, when really, it was surrender.

The wake-up call came on a winter road in Minnesota when she heard: You have to choose. Not someday. Not when things get better. Now.

This conversation is about the moment you stop tolerating and start owning your life. Rachel opens up about the messy middle, the emotional stages of taking responsibility, and what it really means to choose truth over comfort.

Here's what unfolds in this episode:

🔹 The phrase that signals you're choosing bitterness without realizing it

If you've been waiting for life to fix itself before you step into who you really are, this episode will shake something loose.

Listen now and stop riding the middle.

Connect with Genea

Weekly Be the Wolf Call (no cost) – Wednesdays, 7:00 AM PST / 10:00 AM EST

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Connect with Rachel

Website: https://findingjoy.net

Facebook link: https://facebook.com/findingjoyblog 

Email: [email protected] 

About Rachel

Rachel Marie Martin believes in the quiet, unshakable strength of the human spirit and its ability to rise again, to rebuild, and to rediscover joy.

She is the author of Get Your Spark Back, Mom Enough, and The Brave Art of Motherhood, and the voice behind FindingJoy.net, an online community reaching millions of readers each month.

Her words have been translated into more than 25 languages and featured on The Today Show, Good Morning America, NPR, The Huffington Post, Tiny Buddha, Parents, PopSugar, and more. A founding partner of Audience Industries, Rachel also equips entrepreneurs around the world to build message-driven, sustainable businesses that make a difference.

with over 50 million pageviews, 1.1 million+ Facebook followers, and a deeply engaged community across social media, Rachel’s work reminds people that their stories matter, they can create an impact,  and that joy can be found. 

She held his hand while he died.

Genea was four years old. He was a Vietnam vet. A junkie. And the only person around who made her feel loved.

Her mom was emotionally unavailable, physically abusive, and gaslighting her constantly. So this man up the street became her best friend. He gave her what her mom couldn't. Belonging. Encouragement. Safety.

And then he overdosed. And she watched him die.

That was just the beginning. Trauma stacked on trauma until Genea's entire nervous system was wired for one thing: survival.

She never wanted her trauma to define her. But it did. It defined every job she took. Every relationship she stayed in. Every dollar she made. She couldn't make more money than her mom. She couldn't step into what she wanted. She couldn't hold joy when she found it.

In this raw solo episode, Genea opens up about:

🔹 Why she used her trauma story to push people away (and how that kept her trapped in freeze)

If you've been running from your past while it quietly runs your life, this episode will meet you there.

Listen now and stop letting survival mode make your decisions.

Connect with Genea

Weekly Be the Wolf Call (no cost) – Wednesdays, 7:00 AM PST / 10:00 AM EST

Register & learn more about Be the Wolf In-Person Events

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About Genea

Genea Barnes is a mentor, coach, and speaker whose early life was rooted in deep trauma and neglect. To stay safe, she learned to make everyone else feel good and put their needs first.

It worked to survive, but it came with a cost. She lost her ability to discern what was truly right for her. And getting what she wanted came with the anxiety that it would be lost or taken away. 

She was great at making other people’s dreams come true, but when it came to what she truly wanted, she self-sabotaged and procrastinated … always putting something else first. 

She spent decades exploring and studying every modality under the sun to break free from those patterns and create a life that felt like joy, ease, and freedom. 

Today, she empowers people to move away from and resolve conflict rooted in trauma, generational trauma, and sacrifice of self … so they can create the life they crave and access greater peace and freedom in all areas of their life. 

This gives them access to loving, authentic relationships, consistent healthy habits, and success in business, finance, and career that feels like fulfilment and freedom. 

She believes that when you operate from the TRUTH of who you are, humanity evolves. 

The system was designed to create destruction, and she was part of it.

For nine years, Jen Mitchell Love worked as a litigation attorney. She watched families get torn apart in courtrooms. She saw kids become collateral damage. She felt the heaviness of a broken system that treated people's real lives like billable hours. And she knew something had to change.

This conversation captures Jen in the middle of her most honest evolution yet. She's merging the spiritual practice she kept private for years with her legal work. She's speaking the truth about what divorce actually is: a sacred transition that can heal generational patterns instead of destroying families.

Jen gets raw about:

🔹 Why she became a lawyer to get around the rules (and ended up trapped by them)

This is for anyone who's built something impressive but hollow and stressful. Anyone who knows they're meant for something different but hasn't fully claimed it yet.

Watch to see what real evolution looks like when you're still in it.

Connect with Genea: 

Weekly Be the Wolf Call (no cost) – Wednesdays, 7:00 AM PST / 10:00 AM EST

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Connect with Jen:

Website https://solacedivorce.com 

Appointment Link: https://app.acuityscheduling.com/schedule.php?owner=20935226 

Instagram handle: https://www.instagram.com/solacejenmitchell/ 

Jen’s Bio:

Jen Mitchell Love is a family law attorney, mediator, and holistic coach who founded Solace Divorce Mediation to change the way people experience divorce. After years in the courtroom, she created a heart-centered, spiritually grounded approach that honors the soul contract of marriage while guiding couples through the legal process with mindfulness, intention, and love. 

Through Solace, her “Divorce with Love” Master Class, Solace University, and her book “Shine, Soul, SHINE!” Jen helps people release what no longer serves them, protect their children, and step into a new chapter as empowered co-creators of their Dream Life.

Your no doesn't land because there’s something deeper at play.

Genea spent years behind a bar, unable to say no to doing shots with customers. Come on, just one drink. Just one more. She'd start every shift saying she wasn't drinking, and end it five shots deep. Not because she wanted to drink. Because her no was laced with guilt, fear, uncertainty.

Fear that they'd be upset. Guilt that their experience wouldn't be good. All stemming from being a child who made her mom's (and everyone else’s) feelings her responsibility.

This episode breaks down why saying no feels impossible and what's actually happening underneath. Genea shares stories that cracked the pattern open. The structures she built just to protect herself from having to choose. The anxiety that came up when she finally started putting her experience first.

She reveals:

🔹 Why taking a month off drinking was the only time people respected her no (and what that taught her about clean boundaries)

🔹 The workaholic structure that let her say no, but also kept her from saying yes to things she actually wanted

🔹 How putting other people's experience first since age two created nos that never stuck

🔹 The joy practice that trains you to choose yourself even when you're running late If you struggle to say no without an excuse, this episode will show you what's actually in the way. Listen to learn how to say no cleanly, without fear, and have it actually stick.

Connect with Genea:

Weekly Be the Wolf Call (no cost) – Wednesdays, 7:00 AM PST / 10:00 AM EST

Register & learn more about Be the Wolf In-Person Events

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About Genea Genea Barnes is a mentor, coach, and speaker whose early life was rooted in deep trauma, abuse, and neglect. To stay safe, she learned to ‘prove’ her worth and take responsibility for others’ needs and feelings.

It worked to survive, but it came with a cost. She lost her ability to discern what was truly right for her. And getting what she wanted came with anxiety that punishment would follow, or be taken away. This led to self-sabotage and limits on how much peace, love, joy, and freedom she was able to feel and maintain in her life.

She spent decades exploring every modality under the sun to create a life that felt like ease and freedom, and finally achieved it.

Today, she empowers people to move away from and resolve conflict rooted in trauma, generational trauma, and loss of self … so they can access greater peace and freedom in all areas of their life (in way less time than it took her).

This gives them access to success that feels like fulfillment and freedom in business, finance, and career, loving, authentic relationships, and healthy habits that feel like a ‘want to’.

She believes that when you operate from the TRUTH of who you are, humanity evolves.