The girl in the armor never believed any of this was possible.
I spent twenty years as a military intelligence analyst — briefing fighter pilots, reading threat systems, sitting in rooms a girl from small-town Orange, Texas was never supposed to end up in. I've stood at the front of the room teaching things I once could barely read off a slide without my voice shaking. And still, for most of my life, I quietly doubted myself.
So I built armor — big, shiny, heavy armor — because somewhere along the way I believed the lie that being perfect was the price of being loved. From the outside it looked like I had it all together. From the inside, I had no idea who I was. Setting that armor down has been the most freeing thing I've ever done.
Lioness Arising is what I'm building next: a podcast and community where women share what we were never taught — money, work, boundaries, identity, motherhood, starting over — so the next woman doesn't have to learn it all the hard way, alone.
— Amanda Pamfilis