Instead of an email, Reader, please pretend that you and I are sitting in the corner booth at Damask Rose, my favorite Oakland coffee shop.
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You’re drinking a latte, I’m working my way through an iced chai and we’re talking about the people-pleasing tendencies you’re trying to rein in.
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​Now, if you’ve been reading my emails for the last four weeks, you probably know that my incredibly popular Good Girl Recovery Program is currently open for enrollment.
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It’s one full year of structure, support, and real transformation - and the monthly cost is about the same as one therapy session.
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GGRP is truly a life-changing program annnnnnnnd I know that life is busy and complicated and the stars don’t always align for everyone.

Regardless of whether you join us inside the Good Girl Recovery Program, here are 3 really important things I want you to know:

👪 Good Girl-ing is systemic, it’s not a personal failure

I know a lot of us have been fed the story that Good Girl-ing - people pleasing, subjugating our needs, failing to advocate for ourselves - is something of a personal failure. We believe it’s a problem that’s unique to us, our upbringing, our brain chemistry, or that we’re not “fighting the patriarchy hard enough.”
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And while everyone’s version of the Good Girl looks different, you did not do something to bring this on yourself and this is not your fault. If you were socialized to be a woman in the Western world - on some level - you were raised to be a Good Girl. Even if your family of origin didn’t raise you that way, you saw these lessons play out on tv, in movies, books, and in the world around you.
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Even more importantly, you’ve seen real life evidence of what can happen when women stop being Good Girls: Anita Hill. Christine Blasey Ford. Rachel Zegler. Serena Williams. Amber Heard. Sinéad O’Conner. Rose McGowan. AOC. Tarana Burke. Greta Thunberg. Ilhan Omar. Emma González. Megan Thee Stallion... The list is endless and full of women the world tries to punish when they don't play by the patriarchy's rules. Even if you don't know all these names, I bet you could make a list of your own.

Fish don’t know they’re in water. Most of us aren’t really aware of the systematic ways we’ve been taught to be Good Girls. So if you’re struggling with the negative effects of Good Girl-ing: you’re not alone and it’s not your fault.

🥺 You’re probably tolerating a lot more than you realize

In Module 1 of the Good Girl Recovery Program, we work through one of my favorite activities: The Tolerations List. It’s pretty simple: You list out 50 things you’re currently tolerating in your life and then consider what it would take to remove that toleration for good.
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Most of my students can easily list 10 or 15 things they’re tolerating - big things like “I know my salary should be higher” or “my neighbor keeps using my parking spot.” But when I nudge them to keep going and fill the whole list, they’re often amazed at what they discover.
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They realize they don’t feel supported by their partner or they’re avoiding family gatherings because their mom comments on their weight. Sometimes it’s tiny things like tolerating a squeaking door hinge or a broken phone screen.
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Either way, the result is usually the same: Each of us is tolerating a lot more than we realize and all those tiny tolerations can end up feeling like death by a thousand paper cuts. Identifying them is the first step to eliminating them.

💪 Your body is your own

Don’t skip this one! I know you understand this in a “no means no” way, but do you understand this in a down-deep-in-your-bones way?

Every single one of us spent the first years of our lives having our caregivers dress us in clothes we may not have liked, being held when we wanted to be put down, and probably being forced to hug and kiss people we would have preferred not to hug and kiss.
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We have a whole module devoted to this in the Good Girl Recover Program, but as a reminder: you get to say what happens to your body.
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Your body does not belong to:

• Your partner
• Your children
• Your medical provider
• Your parents
• Your church
• And - most importantly - your government (!!!)

Of course, I could talk about each of these topics for hours (um, that is exactly what we do inside GGRP - along with tactical, practical ways to deal with them) but I don’t want to overwhelm you via your inbox!!
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​If you’re interested in the Good Girl Recovery Program and want to chat about if it’d be a good fit, I’d love to talk to you! You can grab a spot on my calendar for a quick, no-pressure chat here!​
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Xox,
Marcia