Episode 11- Breaking the Good Girl Conditioning-One Truth At A Time

✨ Free Resource: Breaking the Good Girl Conditioning Workbook https://app.typeset.com/play/J7XO7K

 Being the “good girl” once felt safe — until it became a cage. In this raw and heartfelt episode, Maxine shares her journey of releasing people-pleasing, over giving, and performance-based love. One truth at a time, she invites you to say goodbye to who you were taught to be and rise into who you truly are — unapologetic, whole, and free.

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Transcript

Maxine Bingham: 0:01

Hi, and welcome back to Soulfully Aligned. I am Maxine Bingham. I am not sitting here today as a coach, not as a strategist or a guide, or even a voice that has answers today. I'm sitting here as a woman who's fully telling herself the truth, and I am inviting you to do the same. Today I am writing from the part of me that is still tender, still raw from the part of me that still flinches sometimes when I have to speak up from the version of me that has spent years, decades trying to be everything for everyone, trying to be liked, to be nice, to be enough, but something has shifted. I found myself sitting at my computer staring at my screen. The cursor was blinking, the page was blank, and it wasn't because I didn't have anything to say, but it was because I had too much to say, too many Barrett stories, too many yeses that were really meant to be nos. Too many days of trying to be the good little girl. I realized that I have been performing a version of myself that felt acceptable. And you know what? I was so good at it that I forgot who I was underneath it all. That's what this episode is about. It's not a lecture, it's a letter. A letter to the girl in you who tried her best to the woman you are becoming who is so done performing. To the part of you that wants to scream no and also weep because you are afraid that you won't be loved if you do. So, if this episode feels like it was written for you, let me reassure you. It absolutely was. And if it feels like it's written by you than it is because you and I, we are breaking free together today. Let's go. One truth at a time. Part one, the weight of good. Let's talk about that word. Good. That word, it seems so harmless, right? You're such a good girl. You're such a nice person. You're so helpful, you're so thoughtful, so sweet. And what they don't realize is behind. Every one of those compliments is a cost, a silent soul, deep cause that only you know, because when they say you are so good, they don't see, they don't see the way your stomach knots before you say yes one more time to something that you don't wanna do. The way your voice shakes when you try to say no. Then you backpedal smile and say, it's okay the way your heart breaks every time you silence yourself to avoid confrontation. Being good felt like safety until it started feeling like a burden. For me personally, it showed up in over apologizing for things that was not my fault in managing other people's emotion like it was my job. In trying to keep the peace, the fixer, the one who made everything okay for everyone else, even if it cost me my sleep, my joy, my voice, but I didn't call it pain back then. What I called it was kindness. I called it being the mature one. I called it being the one that everyone can depend on. Until one day I finally realized that goodness shouldn't come with my abandoning myself as a side effect, I wanna be really honest with you. There were season of my life where I felt proud that I didn't need anything where I wore my independence. Like it was some form of badge of honor, when deep down I was just afraid to be a burden to anyone. I thought if I could just be good enough, nice enough, helpful enough, maybe then I'd be chosen. Maybe then I would feel safe. But you know what? I was wrong. All it did was teach people that my needs didn't matter, that I was always available when they needed me, that I would never make a fuss. I would just do what they ask. And eventually I started to believe it as well that I was only lovable if I was easy to love. So I need to ask you something very hard. Where have you been? Good at your own expense? Where have you confused being liked with being loved? Where have you been holding your breath, waiting for someone to finally notice that you were drowning under the weight of being the strong one? The nice one. The one who never, ever complains. It's time to put it down, not because you are being ungrateful, and it's not because you're angry, but it's because you, my sister deserves to be free. Part two, one truth at a time. You don't rewrite your life in one sweeping declaration, you reclaim yourself one truth at a time. That's how the unraveling begins. It's not what the grand gesture, but it's with a soft whisper. You finally choose to hear. For me personally, it started in my smallest moments. The first time I said, I actually don't want to do that, and didn't apologize. After the first time I took a nap without feeling guilty, the first time I left a conversation that drained me without explanation. These moments, they don't look big on the outside. On the inside, there are revolutions, one truth at a time. I wanna share something with you and maybe it will sound familiar. You see, I don't need to prove my worth by overgive and I'm not responsible for other people's happiness. I can be kind without being accommodating. I am allowed to have needs. Even if it makes those around me uncomfortable, each truth that I spoke felt like a deep breath. I didn't know that I needed all these years a thread pulling me back to myself, stitch by gentle stitch, and here is what I have come to learn. Truth doesn't demand. It invites. It invites you to be honest. Even if your voice is shaken, it invites you to be seen. Even if it makes you feel vulnerable, it invites you to be you. And I'm not talking about the curated good girl version, but the re the real raw radiant you and I want you to listen. I get it. Truth can feel risky. Because you might lose people and you might lose some approvals, but you know what you're gonna gain. You are gonna start to gain your peace. And trust me, your peace is worth everything to you. So here is your invitation. What is one truth that you have been afraid to speak? I'm not talking about speaking it out loud so everyone can hear it. I'm talking about whispering it just to yourself. Say it now. I want you to whisper it, write it, and hold it close to you, because that's where it all starts. That's how we begin one truth at a time. Part three, the rear view mirror. There is a sacred moment in every woman's journey, and it doesn't always look like fireworks. Sometimes it comes in silence. In a quiet morning when your heart is finally saying, I can't do this anymore. That moment, yes, that moment, that is a portal. It's the doorway between the life that you have been living. And the life that you were actually born to live. And when you walk through it, even if your knees are shaken, you start to see everything differently. You begin to look at your past, not with shame, but with clarity. You start to connect the dots between the girl you used to be and the woman who's waking up now. And you look not just ahead. But in the rear view mirror. Go ahead. Can you see her? The girl who tried, the girl who smiled when she wanted to cry. The girl who kept showing up even when her soul was tired. She's there and she's watching you go, and maybe it breaks your heart a little because you know that you have outgrown her. But you also know she was the one that got you where you are. So let's pause here together just for a quick moment. I want you to think of that version of you. Maybe she was the one who overachieved, the one who Overgive, the one who over functioned, the one who never complained, the woman who held it all together while she was falling apart on the inside. Can you see her now? I want you to tell this to her. I want you to stop the car. I want you to get out. I want you to run back towards her, and I want you to tell her you did what you had to do and I love you for it. But I don't need to perform anymore. I don't need to be palatable. I don't need to earn rest, or love or permission. I am not that little girl anymore, and I don't have to be. That's the beauty of the rear view mirror. It's not for regret, it's for recognition. So you can say goodbye to who you were, not with any form of shame, but with gratitude. Not with fear, but with reverence. And then. You turn your eyes back to the road after you have gotten in the car, after you have hugged that little girl, there is something ahead of you. So much more honest, so much more peaceful, so much more real than anything that you ca could have left behind. But first, you're going to have to let go of the weight of being her. Because you are no longer required to perform softness just to be loved, you are no longer obligated to stay silent in order to be accepted. You are no longer living in the rare view mirror. Why? It's because you are now becoming part four, becoming her without apology. Let me ask you something. Who are you when you stop apologizing? I don't just mean the verbal, I'm sorry. I mean the ways we apologize with our presence, the shrinking, the second guess in ourselves, the walking on eggshells. What if you stopped? What if you walked into rooms without rehearsing your tone? What if you said no and didn't feel the need to explain why? What if you loved yourself so fully that you no longer ask others to co-sign your worth? This part, becoming her is breathtaking, and yet it's also terrifying because this version of you, she's a version that tells the truth. She's the version that gets to rest without feeling guilty. She is the version that speaks without shrinking and people might, might not know what to do with her because they're not used to her, because she doesn't beg. She's no longer chasing, she's no longer performing. She is now choosing. Let me tell you something from my own life. Becoming this version of me has meant that I had to lose a lot of people, and that's the honest truth. There were friendships that faded relationships that couldn't handle my change spaces. I no longer felt saved in because I stopped pretending to be someone I was not. What do you know? But do you know what stayed? It was my peace. It was my voice, my sense of self, and those things, they were worth every goodbye, every closed doors. Because becoming the woman I was born to be meant that I had to let go of the one I was trained to be. It meant giving up the performance in exchange for my presence. It meant trusting that the people who are meant for the real me, the full me, won't require me to apologize for shining my light brightly. So I want you to hear this. You are not intimidating. They're just unfamiliar with the woman who knows herself fully. Now you are not too much. You are the right. Amount for the right spaces. You are not selfish. You my sister, you are sovereign. You are not broken. You are just beginning to bloom the woman you are becoming. She's not here to be liked. She's here for one thing only and that is to be free. So go ahead, take your space, tell your truth, and reclaim your joy. Without any form of apology, part five, we rise together. Let's be honest, this work is sacred, but it's also very lonely because when you stop living for approval, you start noticing how much of your world was built around it. And when you change the rhythm of your life, the people who dance to your old beat. Some of them will not follow. That's why I want you to know you are not the only one. There is a whole army of women, women like me, doing this work right alongside you. No, you may not see them, but trust me, they are out there. The ones who are sitting in their cars crying after saying no for the very first time. The ones who are starting over in their forties, fifties, sixties, after decades of living for everyone else, the ones who are whispering their truth before they have the courage to speak it aloud. We are the ones who rise quietly, who heal in a gentle way, who remember who we are, one truth at a time. So no, you're not out there alone. Because every time you honor your boundaries, you are given another woman permission to honor theirs. Every time you choose truth over people pleasing, you are planting a seed for freedom. Every time you say, I deserve better, the world around you shifts just a little towards your liberation. This work, it ripples. And one day we'll look around and see each other whole honest and free, and we'll smile and we'll say we did it together. So now we have come to the end and I want to do a closing meditation with you, and the title is Goodbye. Good girl. So I want us to slow everything down just for a quick moment because you have been holding a lot, and I'm not just talking about just for today, but for so many years and for some of us even decades. So first before anything else, I want us to honor that. Because you have survived what you didn't think you ever could. You have smiled when your heart was breaking. You have carried burdens that were never yours to hold in the first place. You have bent yourself into shapes that made other people comfortable while you disappeared a little more each time. So right here, right now, this is your moment. And this moment is yours. There is no expectation, no performance, no pressure to be anything but fully present. So go ahead and find stillness wherever you are seated, standing curled up in bed, driving. I want you to let your breath begin to soften. I want you to inhale slowly through your nail nose and hold it gently, exhale through your mouth. I want it to feel as though it is a quiet surrender again. This time when you inhale, you're gonna say, I am safe. Exhale, I am seen. Inhale, I am whole. Exhale. I am enough. I want you to feel the weight begin to lift, not all at once, but in layers. Now gently place your hand over your heart. Let it ground you. Let it remind you that you are still alive. You are not just existing, you are now becoming the woman that you are always created to be. I want you to bring an image to your mind. You know that good girl version of you, she could be eight, maybe she's 28. Maybe she's the you from a year ago. She's standing in front of you. She is holding all the roles she was told to play. The sweet girl, the helper, the achiever, the peacemaker, she is exhausted. She is beautiful. She is doing her best. And now you step forward and you gently take her hands, you look into her eyes and you say, I see you. How hard you worked to be loved. I see how often you silenced yourself to make others comfortable. I see how afraid you were of being rejected, misunderstood, or abandoned, and I want you to know I'm not mad at you. You did what you had to do in order to feel safe, but you don't have to carry that anymore. I am here now. I can hold us. I choose truth, not perfection. I choose peace, not performance. I choose to live, not just survive. Now, I want you to imagine her letting go of those old roles, one by one, they fall to the ground, like heavy coats that she no longer needs. She steps forward. She's much lighter now, and you wrap your arms around her. You are not sending her away. You are integrating her, loving her, releasing the pressure, reclaiming her voice. And now I want you to repeat. Repeat this softly, lovingly, like you're blessed in the ground. You walk on. I bless the girl who learned to survive by pleasing. I honor the woman who's learning to live by truth. I release the belief that I must earn love. I release the belief that I'm only vulnerable when I'm needed. I release the belief that silence is safer than self-expression. I reclaim my voice. I reclaim my body. I reclaim my time. I reclaim my dreams. I am no longer shrinking to fit into spaces that I have outgrown. I am no longer apologizing for needing rest, space or peace. I am no longer bending myself or people who never learned to hold me. I am worthy of love that does not require me to disappear. Breathe, let those words become a reality in your body. And now, from this place of peace and presence, I want you to whisper to yourself, welcome home, because I truly, truly missed you. Go ahead, let it land, and I want you to say it again. Welcome home. My beautiful, beautiful love. You don't have to perform here, you don't have to earn your place. You belong just as you are. And now, slowly I want you to bring, you want you to bring your awareness back to the room or the space around you. Wiggle your fingers. Take one more grounding breath and know this. You are no longer the good girl. You are the whole woman, the true woman, the free woman, and that is more than enough. This is your sacred return. This is your gentle rising. This is your truth, whispered, lived and embodied. You are no longer performing. Now you are present. You are powerful and beautiful. Beautiful sister. Now you are home.