Be a good girl. Words likely spoken to every little girl at one point or another. While I don’t specifically recall the moment the good girl message sunk into my conscious, it’s as attached as a small child is to an all-day sucker. While a “good girl” is never specifically defined, the message is clear. And the message starts with don’t.
Don’t get in trouble. Don’t stay out late. Don’t associate with the wrong crowd. Don’t get bad grades. Don’t be irresponsible. Don’t, don’t don’t. Depending upon who your parent was and their ideal for a “good girl,” you received variations of that message.
And they stick. Like the sucker. I never saw the external message as external to who I was. While slip-ups happened, on occasion, I followed the good girl model. Conceptually, it’s a solid model. The idea was to keep us on the straight and narrow so that we would become responsible adults. Which I am.
Yet, if we’re not careful, the good girl message becomes like a piece of Velcro in the dryer. Everything sticks to it. Descriptors that we may not want but which close enough to “good girl,” that a pile on effect happens. While we’re preoccupied with marriage, kids, career, other people narrative of what life “should” look like we stay in the rut. Honestly, it’s easier than bucking the system.
Perhaps you stay in groove. Or, if you’re like me, you reach the middle part of life and get curious. You expose yourself to different ways of thinking, approaches that challenge your status quo. Brené Brown was my gateway. In simple terms, her books opened my thinking and asked me to give the “good girl” a break.
In the pursuit of a wholehearted life, I’m using Brené’s Guideposts for Wholehearted Living, starting with Authenticity – Letting go of what other people think. The good girl is a byproduct of following what other people think. But if you don’t ascribe to the good girl, does that make you bad? It does not.
The truth is, when you drop the expectation, the label, you have the chance to look at who you are at your core and what you believe. It takes some work, digging around in your heart and mind, because other people’s expectations are entwined with your own by midlife.
It’s not a one and done activity. It’s a journey. Letting go of what other people think doesn’t mean abandonment of every last expectation you’ve adhered to. It means asking if you hold that ideal as one of your own. You might. Or you may not. It’s your choice. Your journey is not creating a new you, it’s discovering who your authentic self is, at your core. What you believe, how you want to show up in the world.
Don’t be surprised if others in your life notice that you’re changing, with mixed reception. You’re allowed to change. It’s healthy and it’s normal. Wholehearted living requires you to have courage, but each of us have that courage within us. YOU have the courage within you. Ask yourself today if you’re living wholeheartedly, or if you need to take time for reflection and sorting out who you are and what you believe. It’s our journey, friends, and I’m taking it with you.