Have you ever asked yourself: What would my life look like if I stop performing for everyone else? For women who are by nature nurturing and giving, that’s a life-changing idea to think about. And no, it doesn’t mean you’re changing your personality to become a self-centered individual. To the contrary… you start to live, lead, and love from your full potential and retire the good girl who’s living out of fear and not out of her own truth. Deslauriers is authentically and passionately talking about that very transition, a fundamental perspective shift.
Her key statement in her masterclass is: the roles that kept you safe as a young girl are now keeping you stuck. Unconscious coping mechanisms from your childhood that have protected you hinder you now, as an adult, in situations where you want to step fully into your power.
There’s the peacekeeper, a woman who will do anything to keep the peace instead of showing up to uncomfortable confrontations to speak her truth. She hasn’t unlearned that no conflict will ever threaten her existence anymore as fundamentally as it did when she was a child. Now she can value honesty over harmony, because there is life improvement happening when speaking her truth.
The caretaker, a classical role a woman learns from a young age to take on, is the belief that you have to take care of and worry about everyone and everything. When the real deal is to actually start prioritising yourself and become soft and kind to oneself first before giving out of overflow. You don’t have to suffer with someone to love them. She has to unlearn that love is bound to overstepping boundaries of oneself in order to help another person.
Another role women tend to embody unconsciously is the fixer. It comes straight out of a childhood wound, from emotional instability, where she needed to learn quickly to be the fixer for everyone in order to guarantee her own safety. Out of the fear of being alone, she rather fixes all the problems of other people than stepping into her own light. It’s easy to feel loved, seen, and valued when you have an important role to play in another person’s life by helping them with their problems.
Uff — and this role, we all know too well unfortunately: the self-abandoner. Girl, are you afraid of being too much? Ever got told you’re too opinionated, too demanding, too strong of a character? Well, we tend to put our light under a bushel in order to fit in instead of asking ourselves: is this actually for me? Is this serving me? Deslauriers says: Be the woman who lets others rise to meet you. State your needs clearly. Trust your intuition. Trust yourself and value that more than any attachment. Self-loyalty over self-abandonment. Your needs matter. Powerful.
Then there’s the role of the strong one. She is so self-independent that she never asks for help, doesn’t need support, can do anything on her own, and forgets that we’re all humans who depend on each other. The lonely wolf is a metaphor I used to rely on all my life without considering the fact that wolves live in packs too. You don’t have to pull it off on your own. Be so much in love with yourself that you allow yourself to ask for support. Queens help queens. A queen is honouring her capacity; the good girl overfunctions and lives in her wounds.
And last but not least, Deslauriers is talking about the role of the breadcrumbler. It’s the conditioning of I take what I get and it’s better than nothing. That’s lack in self-worth. To honour yourself fully, it’s either take me all or leave me. We don’t do half things anymore — no, no, no. That’s a childhood characteristic we can leave behind for good. Hang with people who expand your view, not dim it. Value consistency, clarity, and emotional security. We are allowed to learn that connection without integrity is not safety. And we learn to let it go.
A truly empowering, eye-opening masterclass that I can recommend for everyone to watch and grow into. To come back to the beginning question of what would my life look like if I stop performing for everyone else? Truly authentic, raw, genuine, life-affirming, self-responsible, and self-determined.
Hell yes, women! Let’s retire the good girl. And step into our soft girl era.
Find out more: https://www.sophietalks.com/Retire-The-Good-Girl-Masterclass