Breaking Free from the ‘Good Girl Syndrome’

The ‘good girl syndrome’ is an ingrained pattern of behaviour that arises in childhood. It leads adult woman to be overly agreeable through the suppression of their own needs at the expense of themselves. It is a combination of people pleasing, codependency and sometimes perfectionism. At its extreme it leads to loss of self, burnout and severe depression.
 
The biggest step to recovery is to strengthen ourselves internally because when we have the good girl syndrome we constantly look outside of ourselves. This is because when we were children, we grew up monitoring our caregivers to ensure they were okay and subsequently looked for constant feedback or validation from them. This is what made us feel safe, so now as adults we look to any perceived authority or important person in relationship to validate us. This will likely include our parents/caregivers (still), partner, people at work (especially a manager or supervisor), head person of any group, anyone we perceive as an ‘expert’ and potentially some of our friends. We still feel the need to prove ourselves and when we’re not positively validated we feel like we’re somehow ‘wrong’ and at fault. So the aim is to establish a feeling of safety that is separate from any of these others, and ultimately is within ourselves, so we no longer rely on external validation.
 
It is also important to hold compassion for ourselves and the people around us (including our parents). We were all doing the best we could given the circumstances. As children we will always choose to sacrifice parts of ourselves (and lose some of our authenticity) over our attachment to our parents or caregivers because they are responsible for our survival when we are children (at least that’s how our nervous system sees it).
 
From this point of internal safety and compassion for ourselves and others, we can begin to go to the roots of our behavioural patterns and ‘lift the lid’ on our suppressed emotions. This stage must be done gently because going too fast runs the risk of emotional flooding where our newly felt emotions rapidly become too much and we then risk getting caught in overwhelm.
 
Among the emotions most suppressed is anger. Most women are taught from an early age that anger is ‘negative’, wrong and ugly. It is usually layered under shame and fear and it requires slow and gentle work so fear can be worked through, shame unpacked and the anger eventually befriended, reframed and redirected into one’s own power. It then can be used to create and/or hold boundaries which are so important to recovery from the good girl syndrome.
 
There are likely to be many layers to breaking free from the good girl syndrome and it will often rear its head when we are challenged in life particularly when we are going through life transitions. But with awareness, internal strength and emotional processing we can heal from it and the rewards are enormous. When one has broken free (even partially) one no longer fears the judgment of others. We have a better knowing of what we want in life and are no longer afraid too express it. We don’t wear a mask anymore. We have more time and energy to do what we want with whom we want. And ultimately, because the good girl syndrome tends to be a generational pattern, helping break free of this pattern helps our children, and ultimately their children, so it’s no longer passed on.
 
I have created a group programme to help women break free of the good girl syndrome. It’s called ‘Free to Be Me’. If you’d like to be in the next handful of women to be in this, live programme learning together how to break free of being the 'good girl' using the ‘SERENE” pathway so you can stop worrying about what everyone else thinks, begin to rediscover your true self and finally feel good about yourself again, please join my priority list by clicking here and you will be first notified when the doors open to it again. When you join this list you will also be notified of my next FREE masterclass on breaking free of the good girl syndrome. It's an hour long live, interactive session with me, that comes with your very own workbook and no further commitment if you don't feel that taking it further is for you. 

Best wishes
Joanne