Episode 87: The Good Girl — an Archetype, a Nervous System State, & How to Break Free (solo episode)

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download

In this episode, I…

• share ways to know if you’re operating under “Good Girl Programming”
• discuss the perfectionsim, shame, inner criticism, and judgment that’s underneath Good Girl Programming
• talk about recognizing the voice in our heads — the voice of our Inner Judge or Inner Critic
• share a real-life example of Good Girl Programming on social media
• discuss Good Girl Programming as the root of the Sisterhood Wound
• discuss the influences of religion, patriarchy, advertising, media, and culture in indoctrinating little girls to be sweet, complacent, and obedient
• talk about the nervous system state of the Good Girl and why unlearning this programming isn’t a mindset issue

Announcing…

UNLEARNING THE GOOD GIRL ROLE: a rock-your-world workshop empowering you to stop being the people-pleasing “good girl”, embrace your fierceness, and break free from shame to embody your authentic self

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

In this 3-hour live workshop, we will be covering…

1. What the Good Girl Role looks like in relationship with Self and others, at work or in your business, and how you show up online
2. What the Good Girl Role feels like in your body and what’s going on in your nervous system
3. Why and how the Good Girl Role develops
4. What is needed to unlearn this role and set yourself free

WHEN: Wednesday, September 21, 2022 at 1pm CDT/11am PDT

COST: $99 — replay included

Save your spot by September 19!

Transcript

Hello, everyone. Welcome back to the show. Thank you so much for being here. I have some exciting stuff to share with you at the end of this episode, but what I have to share is related to the topic of today’s episode. And so I’m going to. Share with you this episode first, and then I will share with you my important announcement that is relevant to the episode.

So let’s dive in today. We’re gonna talk about good girl programming. um, what is good girl programming? How do you know if you are a good girl? how does it show up? What does it look like? What does it feel like? I’m gonna be talking about all of that today in this episode. So let’s talk about how to know if you’re operating under good girl programming.

There’s some pretty consistent characteristics. So one of the ways that you might be under good girl programming is if you believe that you’re a burden for setting boundaries or for asking for your needs or your desires, good girls are terrified of saying. Good girls are terrified of asking for what they want, because there is a belief that they don’t deserve what they want, that they’re not worthy and good enough to receive what they want.

That it’s selfish to ask for what they want, that it’s frivolous to ask for what they want. And they’re terrified of saying no and setting boundaries with people. They’re terrified of disappointing people with their. Of inconveniencing people with their boundaries of honoring their own time and their own space and setting boundaries to honor that time and space, they, they just don’t believe that they are worthy to have that.

And if they do have that, that makes them wrong and it makes them bad because then they are selfish. Um, and this is all SUBC. Programming, but if you can recognize some of what I’m saying to be kind of maybe what the voice in your head is saying, that’s a really good indicator. So if you’re afraid of setting boundaries, terrified of disappointing people and feel like you’re a burden for asking for what you need and want, you might be a good girl.

You also might be a good girl. If you’re driven by perfection. And if you feel shame when you aren’t perfect or when you aren’t perceived as perfect. So perfectionism is a huge part of good girl programming. Um, especially in Western cultures, Western societies, we are driven by perfectionism. And then shame is a really tricky emotion because shame is a manifestation of the immobilization of our nervous systems.

It’s a collapse in our nervous systems. So when we feel shame, we also feel stuck. And if you feel stuck, What’s driving your stuckness is that you are afraid. You’re not going to get something perfect. Therefore you won’t do it at all. Then you’re staying in that cycle of shame and stuckness. And that is an indicator that you could be in.

Good girl programming. Another way that you might be in good girl programming is if you judge and criticize empowered, embodied women for how they behave or dress or speak or post online. So if you encounter an embodied authentic vocal, empowered woman, Then your inner good girl is going to feel fucking intimidated by that woman.

And instead of allowing yourself to be inspired by her and challenged by her, and maybe even learn something from that woman, your inner good girl and the inner judge. Co conspire. And they talk about all the ways that that woman is wrong. Look at how she dresses, what a slut look at all that makeup she wears.

I wonder why she’s trying to get so much attention. Um, look at those clothes. Like she’s clearly trying to attract the wrong kind of man. Um, can you believe she would say something like that online? I mean, God, how inappropriate the nerve of that woman. Um, and so we criticize and judge. These very empowered, embodied, authentic women.

And it’s because we don’t have access to our own empowerment, embodiment, and authenticity. And we feel threatened by women who do so we need to make them bad and wrong so that we can continue to be good. there’s a lot of circular reasoning and a lot of things that don’t make sense about being a good girl.

And it’s incredible that as nonsensical as it is so many of us have operated under this program. Another way to know if you might be a good girl, is if you have difficulty tapping into your sensual and your sexual expression, I used to associate the word sensual with sexual and because I was raised as an evangelical fundamentalist Christian in the Bible belt.

Sex and sensuality were off limits. Um, obviously I was able to access them or I, I should have been able to access them once I got married, as long as I remained pure and holy and I was a Virgin whenever I got married, like that was the promise. If you save yourself for marriage, then when you get married, you were going to have the happiest marriage and you’re gonna have the best sex for your whole.

But up until the wedding night, you’re supposed to stifle that in yourself and any kind of sexual curiosity or sexual exploration is totally off limits, uh, because God wants you to be a Virgin until you’re married. and even if you weren’t raised in religion this same mind, fuck around our sensuality and our sexuality exists outside of it.

Um, so sensuality is not so much about sex. It’s just about tapping into your senses. And so one of the ways that. Has helped me to become more embodied and connected to my body is by honoring that I am a sensual person and that often doesn’t have anything to do with sex. For me being sensual means I like to create environments for myself.

And for other people that include all the senses. So I want good food and good drinks. I want good music. I want to be in a beautiful location, surrounded by beauty. Um, I wanna feel good in my body. So I’m tapped in to my senses and that is sensual experience that can include sex, or it can just be sensual experience by itself.

Um, and this also includes sexuality. So there was a lot of shame for me associated with my body and with sex and sexuality. Um, and to this day, this is an area that I am still doing a lot of work to heal my sexuality, because I believed that I was bad for. Fooling around with boyfriends. When I was in high school, I believed I was wrong for wearing a bikini or a spaghetti strap dress, or a piece of clothing that showed my stomach or shorts that were too short or whatever.

because I was raised in such a conservative, patriarchal environment that women’s bodies were, uh, or they attempted to control women’s bodies by shaming them for dressing and behaving and moving and speaking in certain ways. And that definitely stifled my sensual and sexual expression. Another way that you might be a good girl is if you feel resentful towards people on the outside, but you smile and you keep going as if everything is fine, you continue to show up and you put a smile on your face and you grit your teeth and you make it through it.

And all the while you’re feeling resentful, but you won’t set the boundary. You keep showing. And you keep acting as if everything is fine. And the subconscious belief there is that I’m supposed to be giving, I’m supposed to be serving. I’m supposed to be volunteering. I’m supposed to be giving my time. Um, I’m supposed to be generous.

I should be, I should be, I should be. Um, and then people don’t reciprocate that. Or people don’t show up and meet your needs the same way that you show up and meet their needs. And so then you start feeling resentful, but of course, per my first point, you’re afraid to bring anything up and set a boundary and ask for what you need or what you want, because there is a part of you that truly believes that you’re not supposed to do that, that you shouldn’t ask for what you need and what you want because you’ll inconvenience people and disappoint people and put people out.

And so you stay quiet, but you also stay resent. Another way you might be operating under good girl. Programming is if you have a voice in your head that is always telling you that you’re not enough that you need to do more, you need to give more. You need to take care of others. You don’t deserve self care.

You haven’t earned self care. Self care is frivolous. Um, self-care is selfish. If there’s a voice in your head that is kind of whispering these things to you, and you’re letting that voice run the show, then you’re probably operating in good girl programing. And until we become aware of the good girl in us and recognize that inner judge’s voice that we believe is our own and unpack the shame around all of that.

And then embrace, accept, and embody our own authenticity. We will continue to stay silent and resentful, small, not using our voices. Stuck in shame and we will be so damn good. so back to the voice in your head, that’s something that I do a lot with clients is as I invite them to share whatever they’re feeling or whatever they’re thinking.

Um, and then try to locate, is this my voice? Like, is this actually my voice or whose voice is it? And I really, really love the book complex PTSD by Pete Walker. Um, I’ll put a link for that in the show notes. It’s one of my favorite books that I use all the time. With my clients and with myself, and he talks about how the inner critic forms and the way our inner critic forms.

And everyone has an inner critic. It’s a facet of our egos. Um, if you’re into internal family systems or parts work, it, it is a part and everyone has one. And the inner critic forms whenever we have. From a very young age, these outside voices, whether it’s our parents, our teachers, older siblings, uh, grandparents, aunts, uncles, the bully at school, whoever it is.

And they’re telling us all the things that we should be doing, they’re telling us how, you know, we’re not good enough and we need to please them. And maybe we are in a dysfunctional home. And so we have to, uh, please and serve and give. Parent our own parents and we become caretakers and we’re trying to pacify everyone and keep the peace.

Um, Or, you know, this is where stuff around like eating disorders and body shame and all that arises because from marketing and media, you receive messages that your body isn’t thin enough that you’re not pretty enough that your skin isn’t glowing enough that your hair isn’t blonde enough. Um, you know, whatever it is.

And this is all coming at us from the time we’re born. And at some point. The voices that are on the outside, telling us all of these things morph and they become our own inner critic. And so we think that that voice is our voice because it’s coming from inside our minds and it’s running the show a lot of the time.

But actually if we think, if we can become aware of the inner critics voice, then we can ask whose voice is this? Because I know it’s not. like, I know that I would not talk to myself this way, because this is not loving. This is not compassionate or caring. I’m not cutting myself any slack. I give other people more grace than I give myself.

Why is that? And the root is that at some point, all of those critical external voices morphed into your own internal critic. And the only way to set yourself free from that is to become aware. Of that voice and then take it back to where did I hear these messages first? Where did this come from? This belief about that?

I’m not worthy unless I make perfect grades. Where did that belief come from? What’s driving this perfectionism. Because nobody would consciously choose that. And as soon as you are consciously aware of it, then you can begin to make changes and no longer choose it. So that inner critic, that voice is not the voice of the self, the highest self, the voice that shoulds on you.

The voice that’s like, you should lose weight. You should eat fewer carbs. You should eat no carbs. You shouldn’t take up space. You shouldn’t speak your opinion. Um, you shouldn’t eat meat. You should eat meat. You should eat sugar. You should eat more vegetables. You should play with your kids more. Um, I should work out more.

I should give more money away. I should be making more money by now. I shouldn’t say what I’m thinking. I should be a better ally. Um, I shouldn’t buy that. I should be a better wife. I should be a size smaller. I should cook more. I should go to the gym more. I should meditate more. I shouldn’t think those thoughts, all of the shoulding that is not your voice.

That is not your voice. That is nobody’s authentic voice. That is the voice of our inner critic or our inner judge and the judge, the inner critic is in a never ending battle. With the good girl part. So if we’re talking in terms of like parts work, the inner critic is a part and the good girl is also a part and these two parts are in a never ending battle.

So the good girl part is hyper vigilantly scanning the environment. That is another way that you can know if you’re a good girl as if you experience hyper vigilance, she’s looking outside of herself for cues of validation and safety. She’s desperately hoping that she can be seen as good and worthy of belonging, worthy of money, of rest of happiness, of ease, of intimacy, of great sex, whatever the good girl just desperately wants to be deemed good and worthy.

Meanwhile, the inner critic is constantly telling the good girl that she’s still wrong and therefore UN worth. So the good girl anxiously, right? She’s driven by anxiety. She’s performing and people pleasing. She over serves and overachieve and over exercises and overgive and over diets. And she stretches herself trying to be enough.

And the inner judge is telling her she still isn’t enough. So the good girl doubles down and she repeats the cycles again and again, and again, and over time she gets smaller and smaller. Her authenticity is no longer able to shine because she is lost in an ocean of shoulds and she is lost herself. She doesn’t know that she’s lost.

So then she’s harshly shaming, judging and criticizing other women, especially women who challenge or intimidate her women who have access to their own authenticity and are embodied in it, which is something the good girl isn’t being a good girl shows up in business. If you’re an entrepreneur or a business owner.

Being a good girl, definitely shows up in business. Some real life examples that I have are whenever people send me a DM and they tell me their pain story, their trauma story without asking me if it’s okay. And then they’re like, what would you do? What would you tell me to do? I need advice? And the good girl in me is like, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, they’re hurting so much.

They have so much trauma. They need my help. I should help them. And in the past I would start answering them back and I would be giving them recommendations. And I would be asking questions, trying to dig deeper because I’m a coach and I’m a helper and I’m a healer. And so my heart is to help people. But what am I getting out of that that’s not a reciprocal relationship.

like they’re dropping into my DMS without my consent, telling me their trauma story without my consent, asking me for advice and that boundaryless, good girl wants to give them what they want, because if I don’t, then there’s the belief that I’m not a good person. I’m not a generous person that I don’t wanna help people.

But the truth is, is that’s good girl programming because it is not okay to ask. A professional of any kind to give you free help, especially if you haven’t asked, if you can even share your story with them. So that’s one way that it shows up in business. Another way that the good girl programming shows up in business is in the money that we charge.

So. For the longest time, I was afraid to raise my prices on anything, because I have a value that I want trauma healing and nervous system education to be accessible and affordable for people. And so if I raised my prices, how was I gonna be able to make my work affordable for people? But then on the flip side, we’re living in a time with extremely high inflation, extremely high gas prices.

Like it’s really okay for me to give myself a raise to account for that. Right. But the good go programming is like, no, you need to spend less money. You should just spend less. You should cut back on the things that you have. You should cancel Netflix. Like that’ll, that’ll help. Right. It’s crazy making . So it definitely shows up in our businesses.

Uh, good go programming, absolutely shows up on social media and I actually have a real life example. So one of the things I’m gonna share with you about at the end of this episode is that I have a new offering called unlearning the good girl, and it’s a work. So I’ve been posting about it on Instagram all week long if you’ve been following me.

So yesterday, a woman asked me to consider offering the good girl workshop on a weekend because she is a working woman and she would like to be able to attend the live workshop, but she couldn’t because we’re offering it during the week. So she asked if I would do it on a weekend and I responded by saying that I would consider it, but that I generally don’t work on weekends because I have a life and a family.

And I’m also not teaching this workshop by myself. I’m, co-teaching it with Chelsea Horton, from healing embodied. And so offering it on a weekend, isn’t just up to me, it’s something that Chelsea and I would have to decide together. And the time that we chose happened to be during the week. And it’s a time that worked for both of us, another woman came to the comment thread and commented.

I was going to sign up until I read that aggressive comment. We have lives and families. So this is good girl programming showing up on social media stating that I honor my time by living my life. Instead of working on the weekends is not actually aggressive. It’s just a simple boundary for how I spend my time.

And I don’t wanna work all weekend because I have a life in a family. It isn’t good or bad. It isn’t right or wrong. It’s not aggressive or passive. It just is. and it is a sovereign embodied choice that I have made that is perceived by disembodied good girls as aggressive. So an IBA, uh, as I mentioned earlier, whenever I was talking about ways to know if you’re a good girl is if you criticize and judge embodied authentic women, I an embodied ed sovereign woman.

Is a threat to the good girl because the good girl is disembodied and boundaryless and not sovereign and inauthentic. Also imagine if I had been a man if a man were to say, actually I don’t work on weekends so I can spend time with my family. Like people would be praising him all over the place. We would say that he’s devoted and he’s a keeper and we’d likely compare our own husbands and partners to that man, wishing that they would be more like him and prioritize their families and their weekends.

But when a woman does the same thing, other women who are operating under good girl programming will call her aggressive and are offended by her boundary. Good girls hate it. hate it when embodied women honor their time and energy, because a good girl is never able to honor her time or her. And even if we’re not doing it on social media, the truth is, is that we’ve all done this in some way.

So I guarantee that you have done it to another woman at some point, such as if you have SLU shamed another woman, because you judged her as a modest or quote too sexual. If you’ve unfollowed another woman, because her content challenged you in uncomfortable ways. When we’ve gossiped about another woman’s appearance, her boundaries, her sens expression, or how she uses her voice.

When we’ve attempted to guilt another woman because she didn’t give her time and energy, the way that we thought she should when we’ve judged another woman, because she refuses to fawn and people, please. And when we’ve shamed other women for being too much. So it shows up on social media, it shows up off social media.

I personally believe that the good girl programming is at the root of what is called the sisterhood. And so the sisterhood wound is this thing among women. It starts when we’re very small girls, when we are pitted against each other, we’re compared against each other. We compare ourselves, um, to other girls and women, whenever we feel intimidated.

By another woman or girl. And instead of being inspired by her, we need to make her bad and wrong. Um, when we gossip about other girls and women, when we shame other girls and women, when we are jealous, when other girls or women succeed, Um, that is the sisterhood wound. And so rather than allowing ourselves to be inspired and challenged by strong embodied, authentic and sovereign women, the good girl judges, she criticizes and she shames.

because she’s disembodied and inauthentic and boundaryless, and you may even be listening to this. Some of these examples I’m giving and being like, wow, Lindsay, this is really harsh. Like this is kind of bitchy and if you are, um, there’s no shame or judgment on my end, but that’s your inner good girl. Um, I’ve done all the shaming and criticizing and judging of other women, myself and the good girl programming is so unconscious.

And I know that no one would consciously choose good girl programming. Like nobody is gonna cons consciously make the choice to judge and shame and criticize other women. Nobody consciously makes the choice. To not set boundaries. Nobody consciously makes the choice to not use their voice and to keep themselves small and stuck.

Nobody consciously chooses anxiety driven, perfectionism followed by shame. Good girl programming is not a conscious choice. It is something that is indoctrinated into us. It is not something we can think our way out of. It’s not a mindset problem. It’s not our personalities. Good girl programming lives in the.

And to free ourselves from it. We cannot think our way out. We have to feel our way out and we have to move our way out. So I wanna talk about this from a nervous system perspective, because the nervous system is absolutely involved in good girl programming. So think about the things that good girls can’t do.

Set boundaries, question authority, think critically, use their voice, um, speak up for themselves. Being able to do these things, to set our boundaries, say no think critically protect ourselves change patterns in our lives. It requires the mobilization of our nervous systems. All of these things require movement in our bodies.

Which requires access to our healthy fight response. If in childhood, our boundaries were crossed our no was not honored. Our body was not respected. Our self-defense was forbidden or impossible. Then the nervous system has no other choice, but to shut down access to the fight response, because it knows that fight and flight are not gonna work for your survival in those situ.

And so we become immobilized into some state of collapse, which is also called freeze. And then we continue this pattern of nervous system immobilization into adulthood, and that limits our ability to mobilize our nervous systems and assert ourselves. And the good girl does not assert herself. And then we wonder why do I feel so unsafe to use my.

Why am I not able to speak up for myself? Why will I not just let myself wear what I wanna wear? Why will I not just say this thing on social media? Why won’t I make money? Why won’t I raise my prices? Why can’t I, um, embody my authenticity, the way that I see other women embodying their authenticity. And the answer is not as simple as well.

Just change your behavior, just start setting the boundaries, just start using your voice. The answer’s not that simple because the good girl is literally programmed into our. So we can’t think our way out of it and we have to feel and move our way out of it. And this starts with unfreezing, the nervous system.

So in polyvagal theory, the freeze, uh, state of the nervous system is at the very bottom. It’s the immobilization of the nervous system. The emotions that are associated with this state and the nervous system are things like shame, helplessness, hopelessness, feeling stuck, feeling apathetic, feeling bored.

Um, depression, things like that. If we are going to assert ourselves and set boundaries and. Dress how we want and reach our goals and raise our prices and all the things that we wanna do. We cannot do those things in an immobilized state of shame, collapse, helplessness, hopelessness, and apathy. We have to be able to move up the polyvagal ladder out of immobilization up through mobilization and into our healthy fight response.

So how do we do that? Right. Like if this programming is so deeply ingrained into our bodies and in our nervous systems, how do we get out of it? How do we unlearn it? And so that’s what I wanna share with you. My friend, Chelsea Horton from healing embodied, um, and I are teaching a brand new workshop called unlearning the good girl and Chelsea and I organically created this workshop.

We were texting one day and we were sort of laughing about things that we were experiencing on social media and the good girl programming. And for literally the last two weeks, we have been texting and messaging each other every single day, seeing all the subtle ways that this sneaky programming shows up.

And we were like, we gotta teach a workshop about this. like, we have both noticed this so much in ourselves that we have got to start talking about this. So are you a good girl? I mean, really think about it as anything that I’ve said resonated with you. Are you a good girl? Were you expected to be good?

All the fucking time? Were you expected to be obedient and sweet and complacent? Were you expected to be perfect at everything? Were you expected to silence your critical thinking and definitely never assert your needs or your desires? Were you told to ignore your intuition? One of the most heartbreaking things I was ever told in fundamental is Christianity.

It’s a Bible verse that my heart was wicked above all things and could not be trusted. So from a very young age, I was memorizing a Bible verse that told me to disconnect for my intuition and not trust it. So I disconnected from my body’s wisdom. I disconnected from sensation. I disconnected from my body and I ignored my intuition.

This also happens in fundamentals, Christianity, but it happens outside of it as well. Is that we are told to sit down and shut up and cover up because we’re women and we’re told that good little girls are always nice and pretty, and they’re never angry and it’s sneaky as fuck . We are indoctrinated to be sweet, good girls from.

in our bodies. The good girl role feels like rigidity. It’s a very constricted contract state in the body. The good girl role makes us believe that we are only worthy when we’re quote unquote good. And it distorts our ability to discern and trust our inner wisdom. It’s often internalized conditioning that is driven by fear and disguised as I.

So if you’ve ever wondered how do I tell the difference between intuition and fear? Uh, there’s likely good girl programming at the root of that. And the really shitty thing is that good girls never, ever, ever feel good enough. So my childhood being raised in the Southern Baptist church in the Bible belt, um, I can’t remember a time when I didn’t feel the soul crushing weight of wanting to be so sweet.

So pleasing, so fucking good. Um, Christianity taught me that my body was sinful and. Um, that I needed to keep my body covered because I alone was responsible for any lustful thoughts that men might think if they happen to see my stomach or my shoulders or my legs at home, I was being raised by a narcissistic abusive stepfather and a codependent boundaryless mother.

And now I can look back and I can see that my own mother was operating under such good girl programming. So my survival depend. On me figuring out how to be so good so that I wasn’t a burden to my parents. And if I wasn’t a burden, then maybe I wouldn’t get hit. Yes. Physically hit by my stepfather. Then maybe I wouldn’t be punished.

Maybe I would be pleasing to God and my parents and my teachers and everyone else who looked at me. But I was punished. I was punished for questioning my stepfather. I was punished for questioning the church and for questioning authority. And so I had to silence my critical thinking and my inner wisdom to avoid punishment, which disconnected me from my body.

And then later as a young woman, I didn’t know how to speak up for myself. And if I ever did other women would look at me with such disapproval that it shut me up again. As a young woman and a mother, I believed that my worth was found in having a spotless house and volunteering my precious free time at church and supporting my husband, who is a pastor and just being that good and godly Proverbs 31 woman.

So in adulthood, all of this silencing and repression and suppression of my inner wisdom of my voice of my body. It led to debilitating perfectionism, anxiety, panic attacks, disconnection from my body. I feared intimacy and sexual expression. I was afraid of taking up space. I had hardcore self-criticism and judgment, which of course I projected onto others, particularly women who were embodied led to covering my body and keeping myself small and then feeling really shitty whenever my body expanded and got bigger, constantly second guessed myself.

I had so much hypervigilance about how I looked, what I wore my behavior, what I posted on social media and how others might judge me. And to be honest, I still am sometimes confronted by the existence of that programming in my life. And I still have to, um, You know, confront it and step out of it because the good girl programming became familiar to my nervous system and remember whatever is familiar to our nervous systems is what is safe.

Even though it might not be healthy or functional, it felt. Unsafe for me to embody things like intuitive decision making and anger and rage and boundaries and desire and sexual expression central movement. And it has been a long ass journey to notice how deep this programming went and to unpack it and to embody my authenticity.

And actually unlearning the good girl role required me to recalibrate my nervous system because all the things that I’ve been listing that I couldn’t do, I couldn’t do them because they were a threat to my nervous system. So if they weren’t gonna be a threat to my nervous system anymore, I had to recalibrate my nervous system so that I could set boundaries.

I had to recalibrate. My nervous system so that I could post my most authentic truths on social media so that I could feel and express anger and rage. I had to recalibrate my nervous system so that I could work less and not hustle so that I could say no. Um, even so I could be naked in front of others.

I’ve talked about how we take saunas naked. And I think probably one of my first realizations, um, even though I didn’t have language to call it good girl programming, like one of my first realizations, that the way that I had been indoctrinated about my body showed up the first time we fired up our sauna and invited people to come over and take a sauna with us.

And everyone stripped down naked except for me and my husband and my husband was wearing. And I was wearing underwear and a tank top, and I had never been naked in a co-ed space before, because that was bad and wrong and off limits and inappropriate and all of that. And it took me a while to be able to, to do it, to be able to actually take off all of my clothes and sit in a room with other naked people, men and women, and be naked and not feel like I was doing something bad.

I literally had to recalibrate my nervous. So, as I mentioned, I have teamed up with my friend and former good girl, Chelsea Horton from healing embodied, and we are gonna be teaching a three hour live workshop called unlearning the good girl role. And in this workshop, we are going to cover what the good girl looks like in relationship with self and with others, how it looks at work in our businesses and how we show up.

we’re also gonna cover what the good girl role feels like in your body. And what’s going on in your nervous system. I’ve given you a little bit of a taste in this episode, but we’re gonna go way. We’re also gonna talk about why and how the good girl role develops, and finally, what is needed to unlearn this role and set ourselves free.

Chelsea and I are gonna be guiding you through powerful embodiment practices and nervous system work that is going to help you access your power, shift your patterns, and reclaim your authentic self-expression. Um, because hint, hint. No woman’s authentic. Expression is the good. None of us are authentically the good girl.

I hope you can hear the excitement and passion that I feel about this. I really, really wanna help women unfuck themselves from the exhausting role of this good girl. And as a recovering good girl, myself, I want women to feel the sacred, anger, and rage that is required to activate our fight responses.

And set ourselves free from this role. We’re not gonna set ourselves free in a state of immobilization or collapse. And I can honestly tell you that this workshop that Chelsea and I are gonna teach is what my inner child needed to hear. This is what my inner teenager needed to hear. This is what my early twenties self needed to hear and what my early thirties self needed to hear.

And it’s gonna be in depth. it’s gonna shake things up for your inner good girl. Creating this workshop with Chelsea so far is shaking things up for my inner good girl. Even more than the work I’ve done has already. and we’re gonna hold you in a powerful and safe container where you can explore and learn and create and play in your body to break free from this role.

So that is what this episode is about. And I will have links below so that you can sign up for unlearning. The good girl. We are teaching this workshop on Wednesday, September 21st from 1:00 PM to 4:00 PM central time. That is 11:00 AM to. 2:00 PM Pacific time. We’re teaching it on zoom. Um, if you buy a ticket, the replay is included.

So if you can’t make it live, but you don’t wanna miss the workshop, you’re definitely going to want to buy a ticket before the workshop. We will not be selling the replay after the workshop, and then you can get the replay if you can’t come live and you can watch it at your own convenience. Um, Chelsea and I are talking about possibly creating some sort of a group program for this, or course, we’re not really sure where it’s gonna go, but it’s it.

Something is being birthed um, and it’s gonna start with this workshop. So the cost for this workshop is $99 for ticket. Um, it’s gonna be at least three hours long, and as I said, the replay is included with your purchase. Um, And unfortunately, because Chelsea and I are marketing this workshop together, I can’t offer any kind of financial aid or discounts.

Um, so $99 is the price. I’m sure we will teach this workshop again. Uh, it definitely won’t be until like spring of 2023, because of all the things I have going on and all the things Chelsea has going on. So if this is. Resonating. If this is pinging you, then I just encourage you to go ahead and get your ticket.

Now, even if you’re just gonna catch the replay, it’s gonna be powerful. You are definitely gonna learn, uh, some stuff and you’re gonna unlearn some stuff. And I’m just really excited to see what’s possible for you. Whenever you have some awareness around how the good girl programming is showing up in your life and learn to work with your body and with movement and with embodiment to unlearn and break free from this role.

And then truly. Be your most authentic, amazing, beautiful self. And then be inspired by other embodied powerful, strong, authentic women. Instead of feeling threatened by them and needing to criticize them and tear them down. So that is all I have for you today. Thank you so much for listening to this episode, and I hope you have a wonderful, wonderful week or weekend, depending on when you listen to this links for unlearning, the good girl are gonna be below in the show notes.

📍 So make sure you click before September 21st and get your ticket. And I will talk to you next time.