On Being The Good Girl... .

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Many years ago, I learned that being "a good girl" was the highest value. Good girls were loved best. Good girls were pleasant and accommodating, at all times. Part of that was generational and part of it was being raised in a home where my thoughts and feelings didn't matter. The only thing that mattered was pleasing others.

And I was a good girl on the surface. I never expressed negative emotions. I accepted my fate with a high degree of stoicism. I never, ever, expressed anger.. because being angry meant that people went away. I didn't speak up on my own behalf because I believed my duty was to accommodate others and to bend to their will.

In that, I would find some degree of acceptance. And maybe sometimes I'd even be liked. Even if it was just for a few minutes. Once in a while.

It was safest to not have a strong voice.

So, the Good Girl pattern became ingrained. And it was reinforced again and again. And I even reinforced it myself. I used Thai culture to reinforce it, even though people in Thailand certainly have no reservations about speaking their minds.

They just do it with kindness and consideration.

Lately, I've noticed that there is a powerful, strong voice inside of me ~ and she wants to be heard. I've begun to communicate with her in my private journals. She wants to be accepted, too, not just as the passive, meek half-person who will always go along with what someone else wants. Not as just the penned-up person who so fears disapproval that she only speaks when it is absolutely safe to do so.

The me that you read here isn't the me I am in person. In person, I am actually very meek, almost to the point of being mousy.

I do almost anything for approval. I don't disagree. I know my place. I don't interfere with what anyone else wants. The only time I can recall getting angry is over V's loud music. That did cause me to blow up.

And, oh, I was so shocked when I didn't get kicked out of here! In the past, speaking up always meant dire consequences. There seemed to be no middle ground. It was all or nothing. Either I was completely compliant or completely alone.

That is not acceptable any longer. I have a vision of who I want to become. Loud and boisterous, coarsely outspoken or demanding, is not part of that vision. But a whole person, absolutely! And whole people sometimes speak strongly.

I want to be a person who is in service to others but not at the cost to my very own spirit.

Sometimes to be of service to others, we have to be strong, I think. We have to speak up ~ even forcefully at times. Can anyone imagine what the world would be like now if Rosa Parks never spoke up? How about Sonia Johnson? How about Billie Jean King?

The world would be a vastly different place if those women hadn't used their strong voices. African-Americans might have fewer civil rights. Women would still be the property of men. Lesbians would still have to hide in a closet if they want to play professional sports.

My desire for this next few months is to become more aligned to Spirit, more aligned to the me I know I can become. And that me has a voice.

And it includes speaking my mind when I feel the need to do so. Not in my typical smarmy, passive-aggressive way ~ but just as a statement of how I feel or believe. The commitment I make is that I will always be kind. I will always be respectful. I will always be considerate and courteous.

But I have to stop being "the good girl". I have to stop begging for approval by smothering the very essence of who I am. As anyone who has read here for any amount of time knows, I am not all good... not any more than I am all bad... or all meek.. or all strong.

Sometimes I might sound awkward... or inexperienced... or maybe even nerdly and strange.

I am all of those things. And then some.

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So.. how have you found your voice? And how do you use it today?



Peace,


~Chani