How often have you sat aside a female friend, who was bawling because her relationship ended, while repeating “I’m a good woman. Why can’t he see that?” For some reason, when things go bad, we have a tendency to sit there and rattle off all of our good traits – “I’m smart. I’m successful. I am pretty. I am…. And I am a good woman.” But is that really what we should be going on about?
A week ago I created a vision board. I’ve spent 3 hours carefully selecting words and visuals I had printed out, found in magazines and bought in sticker form. I created a giant visual to remind me what I stand for and what I truly want in life. Why am I mentioning this here? Because I think when we keep sitting around and desperately attempt to tell us that we are “good women” we are missing the point completely.
Getting what we want in life has little to do with being a good woman or not. It has, however, everything to do with honesty, accountability and integrity. Everyone experiences hardships and loss. But if we keep finding ourselves staring at the ruins of yet another failed relationship, or worse, marriage, it’s time to look at our core character and personality traits; namely when it comes to how much stock we put in truth/honesty, accountability and integrity.
Let’s look at truth and honesty. When we choose the same bad situations and people time and time again, regardless if we are doing it in our professional lives or personal relationships, we are violating the principals of truth and honesty – especially with ourselves. We all have instincts and gut feelings. These tell us usually from the get go, or at least after a certain time, when things are off and not right. Being honest with ourselves would dictate that we acknowledge and see these bad situations for what they are, and then make decisions accordingly. But usually, we ignore any and all signs, lie to ourselves and keep choosing what doesn’t serve us. We call it strength, loyalty and love, even though our actions are not aligned with either one of these nobel notions.
Moving on to accountability. Looking the other way and ignoring the obvious is not strength; neither is remaining a victim. There are things that happen to us that are bad and that we have no control over; but when it comes to relationships in all of their forms, we are fully responsible for how much we are willing to put up with. We are accountable for our actions, thoughts and words and while I fully understand how we are psychologically and neurotically hardwired to repeat behavioral and thought patterns, we also have the ability to “wake up” and change them – if we so choose. We are responsible for how our life works out, no matter how much we claim it isn’t so. We have more power than we are usually willing to give ourselves credit for and can extend said power to leave what doesn’t serve us behind, instead of continuously choosing to settle. There is no power and greatness in settling for what you know isn’t right.
Everything we are depends on our word, followed by the actions to support these words. Integrity is, in my opinion, the most important trait we have and without it we are nothing. We can’t tell ourselves that we are “good people” while we keep falling out of integrity with ourselves and others. If we say we won’t stand for certain behaviors it should mean something. Sadly, we allow emotions and strange justifications to run rampant and control the outcome of situations – situations we often chose and allowed ourselves to be in. Not standing for certain behaviors doesn’t merely mean that we whine about behaviors from others, no, it also means that we will not engage in the same destructive, dishonest, crazy, mean, selfish and cowardly actions we accuse those around us of.
It doesn’t matter how “good” of a woman you are, if you don’t believe so yourself. Being good means being good with yourself first. If you can’t stand for your own values, if you don’t have enough self-worth and confidence than all the talk of being a good woman is useless, because you will keep settling for less than what you deserve and ever wanted. Not being good to yourself also means that you will keep drawing exactly what you said you didn’t want.
The price we pay for not being good to ourselves is much higher than just a bad job or relationship. Consistently living a lie, by engaging in a life and situations we neither chose, nor wanted does something to our very being and soul. We run the risk of slowly and steadily becoming bitter, angry, desperate, disillusioned, dishonest, depressed and weaker. The more we become our lesser self, the less we are the good person we claim to be and the more we are willing to settle and perpetuate the cycle, making more bad choices, engaging in more self-defeating behaviors and attracting more of the wrong partners.
I am a good woman, but have done a bad job in being good to myself. So I am telling all the other good people out there, male and female, you can’t be good to anyone if you can’t be good to yourself first. Good is a state of mind and shouldn’t just be reserved for every thing and being who waltzes in your life or presents itself to you. Good should be reserved for yourself first and then those who’ve earned it and deserve it.
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made perfect sense!! insightful write up!!
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Hello!! Glad to see you back.
Yes, we often forget that our actions, more so than the actions of others, determine our life and what happens in it.