Jacqueline, founder of With Jacqueline M, is known for her raw authenticity, magnetic presence, and unwavering honesty in the way she speaks about women, the body, and the truth we often learn to silence. Her work exists at the intersection of tantra, embodiment, emotional healing, and nervous system safety, offering women a space to gently unravel the identities they were taught to wear in order to be accepted, loved, or chosen.

She reflects on what it means to move beyond the “good girl” conditioning, where goodness becomes performance and love becomes self-abandonment. Her perspective is shaped not by theory alone, but by lived experience, the moment numbness replaces feeling, the realisation that saying yes too often can slowly dissolve self-trust, and the quiet awakening that follows when a woman begins to hear her own truth again.

There is a steady honesty in the way she speaks about the body, not as something to control or perfect, but as something that remembers everything we override. For Jacqueline, intimacy and pleasure are not separate from healing; they are part of it. A return to sensation, to safety, and to the ability to stay present with oneself without performance or apology.

In this conversation with Jacqueline, intimacy is redefined as something deeply embodied and deeply truthful. A space where safety precedes desire, where “no” is a form of intelligence, and where coming home to oneself becomes the most radical form of connection.

The Mask of “Goodness

You often speak about women “performing for love.” What was the specific moment in your own life when the mask of the “good girl” finally shattered, and what did the face underneath look like?

Jacqueline: The mask of the good girl shattered the moment I realised I was being loved for who I was pretending to be.

For years, I had mastered being the easy one.
The understanding one.
The forgiving one.
The one who could hold pain quietly and still smile beautifully.

I knew how to be chosen.
I knew how to be liked.
I knew how to make other people comfortable.

What I didn’t know was how to be fully myself.

The breaking point came when I understood that I had become deeply apathetic and deeply disconnected.

I was saying yes while resentment grew deep roots.
Calling it love while abandoning myself.
Calling it loyalty while betraying my own truth.

And one day, I saw it clearly. I was “performing” goodness, not living honestly.

That kind of truth cuts you so deep to the core. Because once you see it, you cannot unsee it.

The face underneath the mask was not neat or polished.

She was fierce.
Tender.
Angry as hell about what she had tolerated.
Grieving the years she made herself smaller.
Hungry for more.
Sensual and creative.
Honest.
Wild enough to disappoint people.
Soft enough to love deeply.
Strong enough to choose herself.

She was less convenient than the good girl ever was.

But she was real and was authentic.

And remembering her changed everything. Because she no longer hides away but embraces every part of herself and isn’t afraid to be seen and felt in her fullness and vulnerability.

Why Pleasure Deserves a Seat in Healing

So much of modern wellness talks about healing the body, but far fewer people talk about pleasure as part of that healing. In your view, what does it mean for pleasure to be therapeutic, not just indulgent?

Jacqueline: For a lot of women, pleasure was the first thing exiled.

We were taught to be useful before joyful.
Productive before present.
Desirable before deeply feeling.
To give more than receive.
To earn rest.
To mistrust desire.

So many women know how to perform wellness, but not how to experience aliveness.

They can regulate everyone else.
Hold everything together.
Tick every healing box.

And yet they still feel numb.

That is why pleasure deserves a seat in healing.

Because pleasure is not frivolous. It is feedback.

It tells you where life is flowing.
Where the body is softening.
Where safety is returning.
Where sensation can be felt again.
Where joy has room to breathe.

When a woman has lived in survival mode, the body becomes efficient at tension and disconnection. Pleasure can feel foreign, even unsafe.

So healing is not only about processing pain. It is about expanding capacity for goodness, joy, play, softness, ease, and beauty.

The pleasure of a full breath.
The pleasure of saying no without guilt.
The pleasure of being touched with reverence.
The pleasure of laughter that comes from the belly.
The pleasure of resting without needing to justify it.
The pleasure of feeling turned on by your own life again.

That is therapeutic.

Because trauma narrows life.
Pleasure widens it.

Pleasure reminds a woman that she is more than what happened to her.
More than what she carries.
More than what she produces.

It brings her back into a relationship with the body, not as a battleground but as a place she is allowed to enjoy living in.

Price Women Pay for Ignoring Their Own No

What does it really cost a woman to keep saying yes when her body is clearly saying no?

Jacqueline: It costs her far more than the moment she is trying to avoid.

Many women say yes to keep the peace, avoid disappointing others, stay liked, or because they were taught their discomfort matters less than everyone else’s convenience.

But every time a woman overrides a clear no, she pays.

She pays in energy.
She pays in resentment.
She pays in anxiety.
She pays in exhaustion.
She pays for the slow erosion of self-trust, self-worth, and her power.

Because the body notices every betrayal, even the quiet ones.

Every forced “yes” teaches the nervous system:

My truth is not important.
My limits are negotiable.
Other people matter more than I do.

Over time, this can look like burnout, numbness, irritability, low desire, and feeling disconnected from yourself.

Many women think they need more confidence, when often what they need is to honor the no they already feel.

No, it is not harsh.
No, it is intelligence.
No, it is protective.

No is a complete sentence.

The cost of ignoring your “no” is losing yourself.

The reward of honoring it is getting your life force back.

Your body knows before you do.

Nervous system safety is a powerful part of your work. How does feeling safe in the body transform intimacy, both with oneself and with a partner?

Jacqueline: The body always knows first.

It knows what feels off before the mind can explain it.
It knows when something is unsafe before words arrive.
It knows when you are saying yes while something inside you is saying no.

When the nervous system does not feel safe, intimacy often becomes performance.

You can be touched but not truly present.
Loved but unable to receive it.
Craving closeness while pushing it away.
Saying the right things while your body is braced.

Safety changes everything.

When a woman feels safe in her body, she can soften instead of guard.
She can feel instead of being numb.
She can speak honestly instead of pleasing.
She can receive love without suspicion.
She can experience desire without shame.

For herself, safety means no longer abandoning her own feelings. It means being able to sit with what is true without needing to escape it.

With a partner, safety creates the conditions for real intimacy. Not performance. Not anxiety. Not walking on eggshells.

Presence.
Trust.
Truth.
Connection.

The Sin of Silence

What is the most “sinful” truth you’ve ever told one that felt transgressive to say out loud but ultimately set you free?

Jacqueline: The most sinful truth I ever told was…

I will no longer abandon myself for anything or anyone.

Not for love.
Not for family.
Not for friendship.
Not for work.
Not for being liked.
Not for belonging.

For a long time, I believed being a good woman meant self-sacrifice. It meant accommodating, understanding, enduring, overgiving, and staying agreeable even when something inside me was hurting. I was the queen of pleasing people.

And I learned that “Truth” feels sinful when you were trained to be agreeable.

So choosing myself felt rebellious at first. It felt really uncomfortable, selfish, and scary.

But over time, it became the doorway to my freedom.

That truth changed every relationship in my life, especially the one with myself.

And that truth did not ruin my life; it set me free, and it rebirthed me.

The Way Back to You

If a woman reading this feels disconnected from her body, her desire, or her voice, what is the first honest step she can take to begin coming back to herself?

Jacqueline: Stop asking, “What should I do?”
And start asking, “What is true right now?”

That question can bring a woman back to herself faster than almost anything else.

What is true in my body?
What feels heavy?
What feels alive?
What am I pretending not to know?
Where have I gone quiet?
What do I need that I keep dismissing?

Many women become disconnected because they have spent years prioritising expectations over truth. Performing over feelings. Being who they needed to be instead of who they are.

The way back is rarely dramatic. It begins with honesty.

Then one small act of self-respect.

Rest if you are exhausted.
Speak if you have been silent.
Say no where you have been abandoning yourself.
Move your body if you feel frozen.
Create space where life feels overcrowded.

You do not need to reinvent yourself overnight.

You need to start listening again.

Coming back to yourself is less about becoming someone new and more about remembering who you were before you learned to leave yourself behind.

Editor Note

What stays with me most is not a single idea, but a steady return to truth as something lived in the body, not just understood by the mind. Across her insights on pleasure, safety, and the quiet cost of saying yes when the body says no, a clear perspective emerges: healing is not about becoming more acceptable but about becoming more honest with oneself.

What she names so simply, yet so powerfully, is that self-abandonment rarely happens in one dramatic moment. It happens in repetition, in silence, in the small dismissals of inner knowing. And equally, return does not require a grand transformation. It begins with micro choices that rebuild trust with the self.

Your body is not behind your healing; it is leading it.