The Death of The Good Girl: Birthing Your Inner Goddess

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Standing in your power

This article is a guide for those who find themselves trapped in behaviors that no longer align with their true selves.

Whether male or female, the influence of cultural conditioning has distorted your identity. It's time to reclaim your true self and walk the path you were destined for.

These insights can be incorporated regardless of gender; if the tool works for the job, why not use it? Please note that, as a woman, I am writing from this perspective and using female pronouns. Just as we have adopted male pronouns across genders, e.g., guys, dude, bro, etc., this is an invitation to adapt language in the opposite direction.

When you find yourself at a crossroads, this is the time for transformation over retreat. Transformation always asks that you meet yourself truly and fully, warts and all, and lay it all on your own metaphorical buffet board to know where to begin.

Learn to Hear and to Say No.

For many women, no is not an opening for more profound understanding; instead, it is a sign of our unworthiness. This is an old trope we can leave behind, along with all the maladaptive behavior that restricts us instead of serving us.

Women have been conditioned towards being polite helpers since our girlhood, and for a time, our training to this end allowed us to claw some rewards for our behavior.

These so-called rewards are fleeting and shallow.

Being the teacher's pet and the boss's favorite often creates social isolation from our less favored (and more free) peers.

Serving in the position of favorite, we are noticed by the teacher/boss, and we may earn praise, but certainly, the weak, appeasing behavior of the good girl will not earn her real currency— in the form of a pay raise, for example.

When we are done trading niceties for praise and what we really want is a fat (and overdue) pay raise, we find ourselves speechless.

What does a woman say to ask for actual returns when she has been taught to serve as an attractive comfort and peacemaker, her free labor unnoticed for years?

As the fabulous Kasia Urbaniak writes in Unbound, we clutch, we lose all ability to think and talk, and we fall silent.

The critical moment when you want to tell the boss he or she had it wrong and share your idea, the one you have been researching silently for months, becomes one you chalk up to being nervous, bad at speaking, or unclear.

If you follow this with a nice round of shame-fueled negative self-talk, you are sure to be back at it, trying for good girl graces when you really want change.

How to change? Practice a little exercise I call pregaming.

Pregaming is how you work the fear out of your body so that in the moment, you are ready to engage, not retreat, no matter what answer you receive.

Behind "no" is fertile ground for understanding. Pregaming helps you remember the next move and feel unrestricted in the moment—no more withering, no more clutching, no more good girl retreating.

Pregame your next big ask by writing down every possible rejection you could receive for this ask, no matter how ridiculous.

Imagine your calm and non-screamer-type boss getting irate; imagine them laughing hysterically before saying no; imagine them doing a handstand, a cartwheel, and then handing you a post-it note with the word "no" written in green crayon.

Once you have exercised yourself of every form of rejection for your important ask, look over the list and write how you feel in your body about each of the imagined rejections.

Doing this exercise is an inoculation against the real possibility of rejection that you must allow for in any genuine ask.

The next part of your pregaming is when you get to imagine forks. Forks are branches in the interaction beyond the possibility of no. A fork in our example could look like your boss listening to your ask, saying no, and you responding with an invitation for understanding. Write down every permutation imaginable of ways you can respond to no with a genuine request for more knowledge, alternate possibilities, and deepened awareness and connection.

You can do the same exercise for positive answers, too, and you should not assume I am recommending a negative outlook. I suggest you get used to "no" being a comma, not a period. I ask you to imagine what is on the other side of that little word. I ask you to be brave and own your question and the answer and to see these interactions as a game, not a battle.

Build Your Support System Proactively

Changing behavior changes relationships, often improving them. It sometimes reveals the lack of depth and misalignment you have been compensating for for years, with your good-girl behavior acting as your crazy glue.

You will see through the facade of impersonations of depth of character. You will see through your own facade of pretending you don't need anything from anyone and everything is always "fine" or even "great."

As you become in tune with the wild and intense flames within, your body will not let you betray yourself anymore. The days of good girl conditioning are replaced with self-awareness and attunement, and WAY higher chances of you actually getting what your soul desires in your one beautiful life.

Know that when the ground beneath your feet becomes shaky, you will need a friend or two who have been there or are also undergoing transformative growth.

Likely, your friends and family will not understand as the conditioned you is who they became friends with, raised to be this way, and maybe even prefer. Preference of others is just that, other people's preferences, and has as much to do with who you are and how you show up as the value of gold compared to a speculative day trader who deals in penny stocks. Let that shit go and find your people. YOU ARE GOLD.

Convert Others to Your Cause

You will become quite inspiring with a little practice, and others will wish to join you on your quest. By the way, these can be your people if you want them to be.

Nothing is more captivating to humans than another human living their fullest life; mutually assured inspiration.

When we step off the conditioned path laid centuries ago and onto the path we create through living authentically, a new person is born into the world, and the old identity that was never alive dies.

The cycle of transformation always includes destruction; this is the smelting phase, which prepares the raw materials for transformation, the alchemy of the soul.

Returning to your nature happens throughout the transformation, allowing your light to radiate in all directions as you walk your path. Once you begin, you are already changing.

The energy required to play life small and safe literally sucks the life out of you. What puts the life back in you and reminds others to do the same is transformation.

People who want to emerge beyond the confines of a prescribed life will be drawn to your energy like moths to flame.

Collaboration will no longer require energy but generate abundant energy. When you collaborate from a centered place of truth, those who can meet your creativity will be your partners; no one will be defensive about their work because mutual confidence and respect orientate toward the possible and demand a higher level of consciousness.

Our world is desperate for cross-discipline collaboration, and you can be a leader in your domain.

Your people don't need to have the same interests, jobs, generations, gender, race, or creed as you do; your people are those who truly see you and who show up ready to share their whole selves right back.

Remain open to what will unfold and orient your thinking toward growth, possibility, and creation. Your curious and ever-evolving mind will support you even during the dark days of your journey.

If you ever fear losing someone more than you believe in your ability to live beyond your confines, remember that you will never know what is possible if you choose to remain in your box.

The relationships you strive to keep in this way will outlive their expiration and become stagnant.

Where there is no growth, there is no transformation, and there is no possibility of moving forward. Fixity is death. In Eastern medicine, this truth is understood and ancient.

Conclusion

The journey of being alive is marked with decision points and milestones. Reflecting on our life is only possible in any meaningful way once we have been alive long enough to see our behavior patterns and how these patterns evolve into predictable outcomes.

Our world has muted our voices and diminished our hearing, but only because we have been passive and unaware of our potential.

You are starting at exactly the right place and time, and we need you to overcome your limitations.

Grow for yourself because your life is your own, and you now realize it.

Grow for your sons and daughters because their future will be better off having you as an ancestor if you are whole and radiant, not repressed and dulled by conditioned expectations.

Grow for your foremothers and forefathers because they did not have this choice.

And as the sage poet Mary Oliver writes—

Thank you for reading, — Sonia, a.k.a SuperSonic 

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Our pod is called Role Models because in finding a lack of role models and after finding each other in a writing program, we decided to step into the role of role model for ourselves and share our journey so that it may help you on yours.

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Thank you for reading, — Sonia, a.k.a SuperSonic 

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