One of the most common pitfalls on the journey of shedding our Good Girl patterns of pleasing and performance is to start hating on our Good Girl. 

 

In my experience, I never set out to be the Good Girl. In fact, that archetype did not resonate with me at all. I have found the same thing to be true for the majority of women that I work with. 

 

I was an artist. A feminist. A non-conformist. 

 

Good Girls are cookie cutter women who obey all the rules. 

 

They are banal. 

 

Downright boring.

Truly, a Good Girl was probably one of the last things on earth that I wanted to be or associated myself with.  

 

This is the irony, friends. 

 

Because I held so much judgement against this energy, I was completely blind to it in myself. 

 

I saw myself as the Rebel. And of course, in many ways, I was also that non-conforming artist who wanted to slay the patriarchy. Those are deeply held beliefs of mine that helped to shape my sense of my own identity. They were, and are, true facets of who I am as a human being.

 

But when it came to my embodied, lived experience, it was more common for me to show up in my Good Girl energy than in my Rebel energy.

 

I had a hard time saying no. 

 

I wanted people to like me. 

 

I found it difficult to speak my truth when I knew it would be uncomfortable. 

 

I was very concerned about how others saw me, and would change my behavior accordingly, like a chameleon that adjusts to its environment.

 

Only after a conversation was over, when I was safely at home, would I run through it again in my head and say all the things I wished that I had said (I made a video about this exact phenomenon that you can check out here). 

 

Seeing my Good Girl patterns for the first time was a bit bumpy, to say the least. For many of us, it can feel like a slap in the face to see how we have been unconsciously embodying this energy in our own lives while judging it harshly in other people. It flips our whole view of ourselves on its head. 

 

It can feel a little destabilizing and we want it to end as quickly as possible. 

 

We see it all laid out bare. How we’ve been overly responsible and controlling. How we were always over-achievers. How we run ourselves ragged constantly striving to do better, to be better, to do the right thing. How we have buried our own needs, desires, and authentic voice in order to be accepted. The Good Girl was under our noses all along and we had no idea!

 

And when we meet her face-to-face for the first time, it is easy to feel nothing but disgust.

 

We want to vote her off the island. Never see or hear from her again. Get rid of her and pretend this whole thing never happened. 

 

But if we continue to replicate this same cycle of harsh judgment, this desire for some unattainable ideal of perfection (whether that is being the perfect patriarchal good girl or the perfect take-no-shit badass), we will continue to be divided from ourselves. Our feminine energy will remain trapped in this untenable either/or dichotomy, unable to move towards wholeness. 

 

Instead, what if we could see and hold our inner Good Girl in the eyes of love, thanking her for keeping us safe in the best way she knew how? Can we integrate her and maintain her big ol’ caring heart and empathy while we also remember and learn how to set boundaries, speak up for our needs, and reclaim our power? Can we allow it to move from an either/or to a both/and?

 

This is impossible if we allow our inner Tyrant King’s reign to continue unchallenged, because it is his dysfunctionally masculine consciousness that divides life into these stark black or white realities. As long as we remain trapped in his worldview, we will continue to swing back and forth between the Good Girl and the Rebel without ever finding our own center. 

 

And the center is where we are! 

 

The Wise and Wild Woman within that has access to all of the options. 

 

It is the place where we finally get to come home to ourselves fully, in all of our gloriously messy human contradictions.