Your Inner Good Girl needs to GO
This post is for the good girl that lives inside you, the one who lives within us all.
The good girl learns at young age how to please those around her. Spoken and unspoken rules tell her who she needs to be and how she needs to behave.
With a lived experience of being shamed and shut down if she acted contrary to what was desired of her she learns to hide any parts of her that risks rejection.
The voice of never-good-enough is loud in her head.
The good girl syndrome is the product of the patriarchy and represented in the 3 P’s: perfectionism, procrastination and pretending.
The Good Girl is EVERYWHERE. She lives in all of us.
She is the part of you that has learnt not to speak up. She is the part of you that struggles to say no. The one who pretends she’s got it all together. She is the one who abandoned herself, her desires, and her happiness in order to be accepted. She is the one who is in servitude to others before herself.
She is what others want her to be. So she perfects the facade and effectively sets up a protective wall that conceals her emotions.
End result? Diluted, numb, inauthentic versions of ourselves.
We are but the fabrication for what we were liked, loved, and approved of.
What does this look like in real life?
Entering relationships, or sticking with a particular dynamic, because you didn’t want to reject someone
Not advocating for yourself and your value
Avoiding conflict
Being polite and nice, rather than honest
Trying harder, doing more, being better to prove yourself
Not having a strong sense who you are
Letting other people make the big decisions in your life
Struggling to hold boundaries
Needing to look put together
Focused on her body and her looks without really being in her body
Hiding emotions
Needing to be liked
We keep doing what we ‘should’ do, and who we ‘should’ be to acceptable to others. This way of relating means we can easily be taken advantage of. The dis-empowered will always be overpowered.
The internalised patriarchy is the Good Girl manifest.
Is there a part of you that really aches to be seen?
Yet you show no one because you fear that there is a part of you that won’t survive if they see your truth?
This was me.
I was meek, mild, and pleasant. All angel wings and halo. I went with the crowd and people-pleased to the cows came home. I was so disconnected from who I was at heart that I didn’t even realise I wasn’t being authentic.
I avoiding anything I knew I wouldn’t excel at. I was stressed out, constantly stuck in my head, critiquing myself from every angle. Avoiding starting things for fear of failure. Perfecting things for fear of ridicule. Pretending I agreed for fear of rejection.
I pushed all my feelings and desires down. I numbed out, and life stopped exciting me.
I know I’m not alone. There are countless women who have been sold the myth of the good girl, who have been conditioned to strive relentlessly to conform to society’s ideals for what success and happiness looks like. Losing herself in the process.
Exhausted by carrying the facade, the shame, the not-good-enough-ness. These are the very things that eat away at our power.
A woman contained offers nothing to the world.
The good girl needs to be laid to rest.
The world needs you, in your power. Stand in service to yourself so you can serve the world. For every woman who answers the call you inspire another to join her.
It is time that you remembered who you were before they told you to be good.
But How?
Slowly and compassionately for sure. I don’t believe any work related to rebuilding our self-worth has a quick-fix.
It takes unpacking subconscious beliefs and attachment styles.
It requires releasing and integrating all the shame, guilt, expectations and judgement you hold in your mind AND in your body.
And it asks you to take on a new truth rooted in a deep sense of self.
What this looks like specifically for me is really feeling into everything including all the numbness and avoidance as a journey to owning my worth. It means looking hard at what I am desiring in an interaction and reparenting myself. It is embodied boundaries. It is small daily practices to slowly reconfigure my nervous system to know what is and is not safe.
It is part neuroscience, part psychology and a whole heap of feminine embodiment principles which provide the means to explore the exquisite world of sensations that live within my body, honouring their feeling and allowing their release.
As I feel into my aliveness, I claim my body, my voice, I take up space, and I live my truth.
Today I have strong self-worth. I know who I am and I speak up and act in integrity. It can still feel uncomfortable at times, and sometimes I still want to hide or reach for the validation and approval… but now I can see the good girl for what she is and meet her effectively and compassionately. I say no to her, and yes to me.
From one recovering good girl to another, I see you.
I am curious to know: How does the good girl play out in your life?
Drop me a comment below or an email, I would absolutely love to hear from you! I promise I read and respond to everything.
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xx
Jess