Being the Good Girl : shadow work, inner authenticity revelation

Doing the Shadow work around: Being the Good Girl. The archetype that we embody without even realizing. Why this happens, how we can notice it and move forward with self empowerment vs performance mindset. 

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Transcript

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The good girl shadow is done. The good girl age is over. The fake girl era is no longer. Hi friends. Welcome and welcome back. Today we are going to talk about. Being the good girl and what that means and how that's an aspect of your shadow self. And once you see that, you are able to not let it control you anymore. You're able to operate from your own authentic self, your own authentic needs, and not be operating from your unconscious good girl mentality. Okay, so what is shadow work? What is being the good girl? So shadow work, plain and simple is bringing awareness around your unconscious self. So we all have this shadow aspect of ourself, which is the unconscious mind, and that's usually. What we're operating from. That's usually where we're reacting from. That's usually where we're making most of our decisions from, and that's usually where we're living our life from. And that can be self-sabotaging because we aren't seeing it, right? It's completely controlling us because we're unaware that it is there and we hide this. We call it shadow self because it's all these. Darker aspect of ourselves that we don't want to admit that we're told to suppress, that we're, we try to stuff down because we don't want to feel those feelings. We don't wanna see that side. We don't want to admit that that's part of us, when in reality, that's all part of us. We have the light side, we have the dark side, and in order to be whole, in order to be operating as our best selves, we need to be able to see both, right? Of course, we're able to see our light side. Sometimes yes, and sometimes no. Sometimes it's hard to give ourselves those compliments and feel, see ourselves in that positive light. Yes. But it's easier to do that than it is to see our shadow self. We don't like to integrate that and admit that side of ourselves, because like I said, it is the darker stuff. But in doing so in, in being able to see that side of ourself, being able to integrate all that, even just bringing the awareness to that, it no longer has control over us. It no longer controls our mind and controls our thinking. We're no longer doing that self-sabotaging, operating from that place of control. We're operating from that place of. Uh, fullness full, leasing our full selves and operating from our full authenticity and our real self as opposed to the shadow portion and the unconscious portion. Okay? So in doing that, one of these things that have come up and, and this is something that is very typical for a lot of women, and that is being the good girl, right? So it's. That. Societal pressure of being good and looking good. And when I say looking good, I don't mean your looks and how you, your physical appearance. I mean, trying to look good in front of other people and holding with, with holding up this high standard of image, self-image and what you want other people to think of you as what you wanna think of yourself as. So that's what that means by looking good. It's not like. What you actually see as your physical appearance and trying to like, you know, put makeup on or whatever, or dress nice. It's, that can be a tiny piece of it, but it's mostly how you want to be perceived by other people. It's how you want to be perceived and how you are trying to be perceived by other people. This good girl image, right? So this stems way back to childhood. Of course, when we are told be a good girl, right? A lot of this has to do with, um, parents and not blaming parents, but everyone who has a parent is told, you know, be good, behave, be a good girl. School, school is a huge part of this. Raise your hand. Don't speak up. Don't talk. When other people are talking, um, you're not allowed to ask questions. You are not allowed to say your opinion. Wait in line. Follow the leader, right? All, all of these things that we're taught in school to be good, to be the good girl. So some of these things that come up when we are, when we're doing this work is anger, right? We're not allowed to show anger, selfishness, misbehaving, disobedience. Mischievousness, um, any type of fear of conflict, any type of avoiding conflict, right? If you're someone who avoids any of this stuff, you don't like to show that you're angry. You stuff your angry feelings down inside because you hide them. You don't want to misbehave. You wanna follow the rules. You lack boundaries, right? You don't like conflict, like you avoid conflict to the point of. Quietly allowing people to walk all over you so that you can keep up with this good girl image, right? You deny your own needs, your own self care, your own boundaries, because it's so important to you to hold and withhold. This good girl image. Okay. Okay. So a lot of these things we talked about, right, the, the emotions that come up, the feelings that come up, um, where this comes from. School is a huge piece of this. 'cause I even think of, um, grades, perfectionism, fear of disappointing others, fear of getting in trouble. Fear of looking bad in front of others and not doing the right thing. Right. School just like pops so much into my head with a lot of this stuff. Grades, I mean, that's a huge thing, like you're a bad girl if you get F's, right? Yeah. You are not a good girl if you, you know, misbehave, you get in trouble. You're not following the rules, right. It's just, it's such this. Ingrained in us because of schools, just the school piece of it ingrained in us. And that is a huge societal then thing too, and not just our own personal experience, but our, as a societal whole experience of like, yeah, that's just what you're supposed to do. Yeah. That's what you should be doing. Yes. That's what girl girls do. Yes. If you wanna be a good person, if you wanna be a good girl, that's just what you do. That's what you're supposed to do. Right. So with that, there's a lot of resentment then, because a lot of this we're holding back, right? Letting people walk all over us. You're resenting the other person because they're walking all over you when you are actually the one that's allowing that to happen, right? There can also be resentment for other people if you see someone else who's living their life fully, right? If, if you see another. Female who's living her life fully. She's, she has boundaries. She speaks up for what she wants. She, um, you know, is in her like feminine vibe. She doesn't care about what other people think. She doesn't worry about like being obedient or being good or whatever the case is, right? You see someone living like that, someone living their life like that, and there's resentment there. Because for you, because for yourself, you're holding back, you're letting people walk all over you. You're putting on this performance of good girlness. You're, you're in this good girl archetype. That is, that is fake. That is pretend. That's a show. It's a show. Right. And there's a lot of anxiety that can come from this because it is a performance. Think of it like that, right? This, this good girl is an, is an archetype, right? That we try to fit into that. We try to put ourselves into that. We try to be like. Because of, because of it being such a societal thing. Because like I was just saying, that's what you're supposed to do, right? That's just what we think we're supposed to do. We think that's what we're supposed to do. To be a good person, to be a good human, to be a good girl. That's what we're supposed to do. It's what we're told. It's what we're told in school. It's what we're told by our parents. It's what we're told by society. It's what we see everyone else doing. It's what we see everyone else doing. This is the norm. Being authentic is not the norm. Having boundaries standing up for yourself, like living your authentic life, doing what you want, not caring what other people think, that is not the norm. So that plays into it even more because we look around us and we see most of the people. Doing this same thing, right? Fitting into this good girl archetype. And that's why there can be a lot of triggers when we see someone who is living their life the way we want to be. Free flowing, doing what they want, like not caring, right? So there's a lot of resentment that can come up there as well. So all these things come into this, right? All those feelings that we talked about, the resentment, if we're noticing that. Uh, the anger, misbehaving, disobedience, caring, what other people think, you know, the grades, the perfectionism. Perfectionism comes into this a lot because we're trying to be perfect. We're trying to be a certain way. And again, coming back to the. Performative aspects of this because with it being such a general and a common and a normal archetype as far as like what we're just supposed to do and what we're supposed to fit into, it does become. A performance because we're trying, right? We're trying to be a certain way. And when that comes off as a, a performance, think about it. How would you feel performing in front of other people's? Another, other people. You would be nervous. You would be anxious if you're about to walk on a stage and pretend to be something that you're not like. There would be anxiety there. There would be. Worry there would be that anxiousness. Right? Because what if you don't do it? Right? Right. It's that performative mentality. So there can be a lot of anxiousness that comes from this. Just like with the perfection mentality, with the, the testing and the grades and like, think about that and how much anxiety comes from that. Performing a certain way, having to be a certain way, having to be perfect, having to strive to be the best, having to strive to have everybody like you, right? This is, this is a huge anxiety inducing. Sh piece of shadow. I was gonna say a piece of shit, which it is also, but Okay. So it's, it's a huge anxiety. In our life and we don't even realize where it's coming from because it is coming from that performative piece, that perfectionist piece, that having to be a certain way piece. Think about how freeing it is to be yourself, how freeing it is. Think about a situation. Where you are around certain people that you have, you feel like you have to perform for, whether it's like work people or family or whoever it is, right? There's that anxiousness, there's that nervousness. And then think about who you can actually be real in front of who you can actually be yourself in front of. And I hope that that's the majority of the people in your life, but for a lot of people it's not for a lot of people. Some people even perform in front of their own spouses in front of their own. Like immediate family can't even be themselves because they're stuck in this good girl mentality or because they were manipulating and manipulated in their relationship because they have to be fake to be to be loved. And that's a whole nother. Episode on itself. We could go way down a dive with that one, and though think about the difference between that, right? The difference between even when you're being, being yourself and you're completely by yourself and how freeing that is, you can just be yourself. Or like when, when you're hopefully in front of your immediate family, that you can be yourself or the the people that are, that really get you and that really know you and that you really love. You can be yourself, and how freeing that is. And then think of that versus how it is in front of people that you need to perform in front of. Think about again, getting on that stage and having a performance in front of people that you have to pretend to be something you're not, or you have to get it right. Right. You almost like having to memorize a script. You have to be a certain way. So think about the difference between. Both of those feelings and how that is, and that it is possible to live in the way of being yourself all the time. Getting out of this good girl performance, getting G out of this good girl archetype and mentality. Okay. So how do we not get out of this, right? Because this is the best part of shadow work. It's not that we have to change or fix anything or get out of anything or stop doing anything, you know, it's just a matter of integrating, integrating our shadow, bringing awareness around this, and then it naturally starts to fall away, right? So the first. Step always in any of this work. Write is the awareness. Just listening to this is the awareness. Just reading the journal prompts or the questions. Just reading, reading a question out loud gets your unconscious mind thinking about it. So then you actually start to think about this and do this stuff unconsciously. So it's, it's working itself out. It's working itself in. Unconsciously. And then the conscious part of it that you are doing is starting to be aware of your behaviors, knowing that they come from this, right? So not blaming yourself, not trying to change, not, um, you know, being hard on yourself, not, um, you know, all of those things that you would normally be doing. But you're just noticing how you're showing up and realizing this is why, right? So you're putting a why behind it. You're realizing this is why you're not blaming yourself, not being hard on yourself, not judging yourself, just knowing this is why, because this is normal. This is such a normal thing. That a lot of people do, and you are already ahead of the game because you know this, you have the awareness, you're, you listen to this, right? You're interested in this work. You have that right there already is a step ahead of the game from where you were, you know, 15 minutes ago, honestly. So first step we know is awareness. Second step would be not judging yourself. So having awareness around this and what's going on, how it works, the awareness, and then not judging. Not judging yourself for doing this or trying to make it wrong in any way, right? You're just trying to integrate your whole self here from a conscious. Place knowing what's going on. So then from there you can try and start to show up in different ways, right? Noticing when you are triggered or noticing when this good girl mentality or performance comes about. Starting to notice certain things in your life that you're doing because of this, and you know that this is the why. You know? That's why. Just notice what you are doing because of this. So bringing that awareness around everything and noticing where you start to show up because of this, noticing where your triggers are because of this noticing, the resentment, the anger, the um, the inability to show all those things that we listed before. Your inability to say no, your feelings of resentment for other people who are showing up like this in their life. Noticing all those things. Noticing it. Noticing it without judgment, and then going about reacting to it in a different way. Going about setting your standards from a different way. So if you're used to being that yes girl who says yes to everything, just because you want to be liked, start to say no and you know when you wanna say no and when you wanna say. Actually want to say yes, right? You know that deep down it's just a matter of practicing it. Practicing saying no without explaining yourself. Just say no or no thank you. There's no reason to explain yourself or make excuses as to why you're not doing something, as to why you're not coming to something. Right. So that right there is a simple practice. You can practice it in little areas of your life. You can practice it in bigger areas of your life. Same thing with like asking for what you want. Start asking for what you want, right? Are you the girl at the restaurant that. You get something wrong on the menu and you're like, or someone brings you, you know, you order something and they bring the wrong thing or something's off and you feel bad about asking for what you actually want. Right? Practice those things. Practice asking for what you want. It can be in little things like restaurant orders. It can be in bigger things like at work or in your relationships, right? So start. Practicing those things, start setting the boundaries. Start saying no. Start asking for what you want. Start noticing when this good girl archetype, this good girl, be performance is showing up. Notice when it's showing up. Stop having judgment around it. Stop having judgment around yourself and then start practicing. The little things start practicing the little ways that you can show up for yourself and empower yourself in this sit situation, and it's going to feel uncomfortable at first, right? Especially if you're not used to saying no, especially if you're not used to sticking up for yourself or asking for what you want, you know, or saying what you need. It's going to feel uncomfortable at first, and that's the practice of it, right? It gets to be a practice instead of a performance. So instead of performing this image, this good girl image, you're starting to practice now how you want to be showing up, right? Knowing. That the good girl image, the good girl behavior is still there and. You are now coming from a place of your full consciousness because you know that it's there. You're not having judgment around it, and you're practicing showing up the way that you want to, right? That is empowering because that's your full whole self. You have your shadow integrated with your full self, right? You know that it's there. You're not judging it, and you're then operating from a place of. Awareness and knowing and whole self operating from your conscious mind. Okay, so I think we went through pretty much of a short version of all of that, right? That goes a lot deeper. There's a lot of other techniques, there's a lot of other things, um, that you can use to work through that. There's a lot of other explanations and examples and. Um, things like that that we could talk about this, but I like to try to keep these 20, 15 ish, 20 minutes, so I think this is the 20 minuter. Um, so anyway, hopefully this all landed. Hopefully you got something out of it. And again, like this work is supposed to be fun and. Easy, right? It's not supposed to be stressful and make things worse. So even just listening to these and reading about this work and having, having it out there, like knowing it's there, knowing about it, like that is simply just the first step. Because like I said, your, your mind will then kind of work through things on its own, or there'll be a little piece of something that you'll remember or that'll the next time you have like, have a trigger about something or something will remind you. Of some of this and then you know that that piece will kind of like fit itself together and things will just start happening on their own too. So it's meant to be easy, it's meant to be fun, it's meant to just happen. So, alright friends, so let me know what you got out of this. I'd love to hear from you and um, we'll chat soon. Bye.