This is my response to Day 1 of the PrideOnThePage challenge Day 1: NAME
✨Begin with a word they once called you—and let it unravel into truth.✨ What names have shaped your identity—those you were given, those you chose, and those you’ve had to shed?
Names can feel like mirrors or fences. We inherit them, resist them, rewrite them. Some we carry like armor, others like wounds. And some become a doorway into self-definition. Today’s prompt invites you to reflect on the language you’ve been marked by—whether spoken in love or in dismissal—and to trace the truth inside it.
They gave me names. Many. Some arrived with cruelty. Others carried roles and expectations I never agreed to. One of them followed me straight out of a children’s story—Jolanta, a pig, recited with ridicule. It stuck to the walls of classrooms, to the underside of my skin.
The name I was given at birth was Judith. I accepted its formality early on. I refused the shortened version. Judy belonged to a chimpanzee on television, and I refused to be laughed at like that. I insisted on Judith. Fully spoken. Carefully carried. I tried to give it weight. It never offered rest.
Judith means “woman of Judea.” A figure from scripture. A liberator. She walked into enemy territory and returned with her head high, her blade sharp. I recognize her refusal, her clarity, her directness. Those traits live in me. The name still never fit.
German arrived with my earliest words. A language designed to structure behavior. Spoken in commands. Rooted in systems. Difference had a place there, and it was usually fenced in. I learned early on how to present myself in ways that made others comfortable. I was rarely welcomed without explanation. Even my name stood out—Judith, too Jewish-sounding for a Protestant postwar family.
In 2021, I realized I am nonbinary. The understanding arrived in a single millisecond—clear, whole, undeniable. At that exact moment, I became Jay. No process. No adjustment. No unfolding. Four weeks later, I changed my name and gender officially. My papers caught up with what my body already knew. Jay had always been there, waiting.
For most of my life, I lived inside a name that never belonged to me, spoken through a language that misnamed me, shaped by a gender that was never mine. I braced constantly. Against the calling of words. Against the eyes that insisted on seeing someone I never agreed to be. I don’t remember ever feeling completely safe. Not in my body. Not in my breath. Not even in my sleep.
That spring in 2021, something shifted. Over eight months, I lost thirty-five kilos—seventy pounds—without effort, strategy, diet or intention. Nothing changed in what I consumed. Everything changed in how I was held. For a short period of time in my life so far I had entered environments where I no longer had to defend my existence. In that reduced pandemic lockdown society people met me with coherence instead of correction. My fascia released. My posture changed. My breath moved through. The weight had always offered protection. Safety made it irrelevant.
This was safety—the condition, the feeling. And through that safety, for the first time, I experienced something like belonging. Not as an idea. It was a sensation. Belonging entered through the reduction of vigilance. Through the rhythm of breath uninterrupted. Through rooms that let me arrive without shrinking. My body understood before my mind did.
Jay holds all of that and names the shift from endurance to presence. From there, something quieter takes root in the canyon I am. That name marks the moment I became inhabitable to myself.
Jay arrived the moment I told the truth out loud. This name holds everything I could never carry inside Judith. This name never asked me to split myself. Jay is where my breath expands, where I belong.
Belonging
Belonging is the deep sense of being accepted, included, and valued by others or within a group. It is the feeling that we have a rightful place in a community, relationship, or environment, and that our presence matters. Belonging is fundamental to human well-being, as it nurtures connection, safety, and self-worth.
Buddhist interpretation: In Buddhist teachings, belonging is closely related to the concept of Sangha—the spiritual community. The Sangha is one of the Three Jewels (Buddha, Dharma, Sangha) in which practitioners take refuge. The Sangha provides support, encouragement, and a sense of shared purpose on the path to awakening. The Buddha emphasized the importance of spiritual friendship (kalyāṇa-mittatā) as essential for progress on the path, as found in the Upaddha Sutta (SN 45.2), where the Buddha declares, “Admirable friendship, admirable companionship, admirable camaraderie is actually the whole of the holy life.”
Self-reflection
Where in your life do you feel a true sense of belonging, and what helps create that feeling for you?
Affirmation: I Am the Safety I Seek
I am the safety I seek. With each breath, I remind myself that my feelings—whether they are fear, sadness, or uncertainty—are welcome here. I honor my emotions as natural parts of my human experience, knowing that I do not need to change or hide them to be safe. Instead of turning away from discomfort, I choose to stay present with myself, offering understanding and compassion to every part of me. I am learning that true safety is not found outside of me, but is something I create within, by accepting myself just as I am. I trust my ability to hold space for my own vulnerability, and in doing so, I become my own sanctuary. No matter what arises, I am here for myself—steady, gentle, and whole.
Conclusion
Some names were survival. Others, a kind of silence.
Jay belongs to me without effort.
It isn’t armor. It’s home. A name that no longer presses against my chest. It moves with me, steady and attuned. It doesn’t hold me in place, and I don’t hold it too tightly.
The echoes are still here. I brace more often than I’d like. And even so, this name meets me there—in the tension, in the practice, in the ongoing becoming. It asks nothing. It stays.I am still becoming. Still softening into what safety feels like, not just what it promises. Still discovering where belonging lives in my body, not only where it’s spoken of.
And here—today—I remain.
jay as canyon breathes
emerging from sediment layered by listening,
the name curves where stone leans toward sky
and shadow lingers in colors yet unnamed,
spoken in rhythm older than roots,
carried across mineral ribs
in tones only wind translates,
arriving through pulse rather than mouth,
drawn forward by the widening,
shaped through the gesture of becoming,
neither closed nor defined,
a name unfolding through resonance,
every echo deepens the valley of recognition,
every breath stretches the contour of self
further into space, further into sound,
a syllable flowing with horizon’s quiet confidence,
resting in spaciousness,
seeded in movement,
held in place by nothing except presence.Thank you for waking this path with me.
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If this reading resonates with you, great! And if not, no worries. Take whatever may be helpful and leave the rest.
Wild Lion*esses Pride is a space for honest reflections and conversations that matter. Reflections on trauma healing, authenticity, and personal growth—grounded in mindfulness and self-compassion. If you connect with biographical essays that explore the complexity of identity and the journey toward wholeness, this space is for you.
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