The Truth About Your "Bad" Side (And Why You Should Embrace It)

Amy Edwards: Oh, I have a lot about this. I was taught to be a good girl, period. Growing up in Texas, you know, in the what? 70s and 80s for me, cuz I was born in 1972, I was taught to be a good girl. I was taught to look a certain way. I was never taught to that that anything about bad girl was okay or going to be okay in any way, shape, or form. But as I'm reflecting on this, I'm like, fiery. I was taught to be a good girl, or people won't like you. But guess what?

People are going to judge you either way. I mean, as a good girl, have you ever felt good enough? Does Does the good girl mentality mean that you feel good enough? No. It's definitely a recipe for never feeling good enough. And, and, and feeling good enough is actually taught to be bad. So, I journaled for a long time. I would write in my journal. I would sit down and I would be like, okay, I'm being realistic and, you know, writing down how I feel in my emotions. And this is probably this is not that long ago, right?

Probably even 10 years ago. And I would go through these phases of journaling, and I was a motherfucking broken record on these. I would beat myself up and and think I was being, I don't know, realistic. And and a good girl, really, because I was just understanding all the things I'd done wrong and ways I needed to be better and all of this. And you know what the bad girl does, the quote, unquote, bad girl does? She gasses her ass up. She gasses herself up because that's what we're taught is not the good thing to do.

That's not what a good girl does. A good girl doesn't just boost herself up. And you know what I did with those journals? I got so sick of it that I was like, this is grossing me out. I literally threw them all away. I should have burned them. But I threw them away because I was like how is this serving me at all? It's just a bunch of negative crap. And that's the good girl? That's what I've been taught? That's what I think I need to be doing? Yuck! So, instead, this was this partly why I'm doing this topic, because I realized when I was journaling the other day, I realized that I was just boosting myself up in every single way with what I was writing every day.

I'm like girl, you are manifesting, you are doing amazing, everything is always working out for me. It's stuff like that. The stuff you see on social media that's like the boosts that are hard to believe, right? All those affirmations that we're not taught. Instead, we're like, sit down, shut up, whatever. Cuz what does a bad girl do, right? Does a bad girl over-apologize? She always saying, "I'm sorry"? No. Is she standing firm in her boundaries? Well, that's what like a bitch is, right? Oh, she's a bitch. You know, I would say what, 95% of the time that we're calling someone a bitch, they're actually just enforcing their boundaries.

Right? Like, because you I know I was going to say you, I feel like a bitch when I'm enforcing my boundaries. And that's one of the practices of this, right? If you need to understand it in a very, very practical way, which I definitely do all the time, it's that this is a muscle. You don't lift, you know, 50 lb on a curl on the first day you go to the gym. I still don't lift 50 lb on a curl. But, you get it, right? You can't do the heavy lifting unless you've trained. And so, this just takes training and it's an uncomfortable space.

But that is where our power lives. It lives in this autonomy and this Essentially, at the heart of it, is a knowing that you're going to be okay, right? Because I think the good girl energy is like, oh shit, I better be good to be loved, to succeed, to be accepted. But really, the good girl energy is a recipe for getting walked all over. It's a recipe for being taken advantage of, for someone taking credit of your work, for not using your powerful voice, for staying in situations that are you're unhappy in, that aren't honoring you.

You are talking to the bad girl that left two marriages, because what does a good girl do, right? The good girl stays. The good girl does what everyone's expecting. And I didn't do that, and it was so hard. I had a nervous breakdown flat-out, had a nervous breakdown my first marriage when I was leaving it. But I, and I knew the good girl what would I had agreed when I got married to raise my child, if we had children, to raise our children in a certain religion. And I knew that my heart was not in this religion, but I tried.

I wasn't raised in it, and I converted, but I didn't I didn't feel it in my heart. And I knew that my spirituality was much wilder. Meaning that I really love and respect all religions, and I think that there's a commonality in the heart of them. And it's about love and it's about being a good person, you know, those sorts of things, like really fundamental. That's what I believe. And my husband, once we had a child, I could not adhere to this religion and raising my child that way, and he said to me, "I don't want you to teach her what you believe."

And that raised so many questions in me, right? Because I just thought, oh, I have to be this good girl. I have to adapt and adhere and conform to what's expected and this this idea. When really, in my heart, I I wanted the freedom to teach my child something that that was true to me. And I thought, gosh, you know, what? Do you even love me? Do you know me? Do you love me? And and that was a tough realization, too. But so there was a lot. You know, it it's complicated, right? If you're leaving any relationship, it is very complex, right?

And I mean, usually there's not just one thing that you're like, that's it! You know? But the good girl would do what was expected. Like, keep your promise? I'm not trying to advocate for anything unethical here. I'm advocating for what's true to you and true to me. And in that situation, what was true to me was really honoring that, and I I just felt like I couldn't live that life, that good girl life, that good expectation kind of a thing. I was going to lose myself, right? And that's this powerful bad, bad, girl bad, whatever.

Like, bad side. Your bad, quote, unquote, bad side is just this strength. It's really a label put on by, you know, whatever it is that society is saying. It's like so arbitrary, cuz we're not talking about going out and committing crimes. We're not. Like like if you're talking about the bad boy, right? Like it's not like that. It is what's being put on us as the bad side, what were taught and what we've adopted within us over the years, over the course of our lives. And untangling all of that, right? It's standing up for yourself.

It's the side that acknowledges when you're not happy, and allows you to explore another option for your life. To explore something different, because like I said, we're going to be judged no matter what. And I made a real about this once. I think I'd read a meme, and it was something like, how can we expect people to like us when they don't even like themselves? Like they're over here holding their own feet to the fire, and not even liking themselves, and here we are expecting to be good enough to be liked by someone else. Well, it's all just a big mess.

So, we might as well just embrace the bad side and really step into our own power. Because that feels amazing, and when we do, it inspires others. It inspires others to look at us and go, wow, I can march to my own drum. That's an option? I remember leaving that first marriage, and once my brain actually went there and was like, oh, I I literally can leave. Like, I remember everything just changing, and I knew I was going to be labeled bad by a lot of people. But, and I knew I was going to be vilified.

That's a good word for it. And I knew that, oops, sorry, I dropped my notebook, and I knew that no matter what happened with my child, I was going to be, you know, blamed or held responsible, like if anything ever went wrong, right? I was going to be the one that was like the bad guy, the bad guy. And so, it's being willing to be the bad guy and knowing that you're going to be okay, because you are. You are. I am here to you know, tell you from the bottom of my soul you're going to be okay.

It's tough, though. There's a lot of reps that you got to put in. You may have to have a nervous breakdown like I did. And I can laugh about it now. I literally remember like times I just collapsed. And and I mean at dark, dark times, and I'm not making light of that. And if you get to a point where you're feeling very, very dark, just don't do it today, okay? Whatever the thing is that you're thinking of doing. That's what saved me on more than one occasion. Someone said to me, just don't drink the Drano today.

I thought, okay, I can do that. Next day, felt a little bit better. So, just take a breath, and get some sleep. And sometimes that helps more than we give it credit for, right? Don't drink the alcohol. I've I had nervous breakdowns when I was like drunk, you know, a lot of times. I did it sober, too. Don't get the wrong idea. So, I mean like, I guess that good girl is doing the right thing, and I'm not saying don't do the right thing, but I am saying that you can do it on your terms.

And I think another way to ground yourself into this practice, since it is something we have to put in the reps on, is to take that pause. Take that breath. It's okay to take your time. Man, you know what I hate? I hate like a rushed sales pitch. One time, I remember I was looking for this coaching program, and I don't who this woman was. I cannot remember, and she was like She pitched herself as like a the bikini coach, or something like that. Like, she coaches from the beach, and you can make all this money from the beach.

And I was like, wow, okay. And like, they gave me the hardest sell when I had a call with them. And it wasn't even her, it was like one of her representatives. And all first off, all they talked about was money. Like, "You're going to make all this money, and blah, blah, blah." And I was like, I don't even understand what you're talking about right now. But it was like this hard, hard sell, and very pressure-driven. And I was like, no. And I took my time, and they acted like I was making the biggest the biggest mistake of my life, and I don't appreciate that, A, but also, B, I took my time.

I let myself go. I'm not giving in to all this pressure, and all this like it's false pressure. Like, who cares? You know, who cares if you take if it passes you by, it's not for you. And we can apply that same thing to when we are feeling pressured to be a a good girl, when we are feeling pressured to be whatever somebody else wants us to be, that doesn't feel right, and we're feeling like, oh gosh, okay, I guess I'll do that. All right. All right. That's No, it'll be fine. That energy, mm-mm. That's not your strength, that's not powerful, that's not coming from a place of power.

And we have to learn this, just like we were taught the other, you can be taught this, too. And we don't have to call it being a bitch. I'm not a fan of that. I never used the term like bad bitch, because like I get that it's about a good thing, but I don't know, I'm so picky about the words I use. Now, bad is kind of a fun one, though, because I mean, it has meant the opposite, it has meant cool, it has meant good for almost my whole life, right? Since the 80s, maybe before that.

And so, you know, I just want to call myself like, yeah, if I'm going to embrace my bad side, that's actually so powerful. I'm who's bad? So, remember, I want you to remember that this takes practice. This takes reps. And you may have a breakdown when you start leaning into your bad side. The one that stands up for you, the one that enforces your boundaries, the one that says no, the one that leans into the boundaries that are right for her. And you know what, also? She doesn't have to say like that that's the boundary I made, and so I have to adhere to it rigidly.

Maybe it changes. She changes her mind, too. That's right. You can change your mind a million times. Yeah, I am quoting Shania Twain. So, deep breath, right? Ground yourself in this. Like, you are leaning into your most powerful self just by being here, just by watching this. I, uh, it it makes my heart just burst, because that's what it's all about if we're going to rise up and really be our shiniest selves as we age. And this does get easier, and does get stronger the older you get. But guess what? You're older right now than you were when you started watching this, so.

So, you can already start like really exercising that. How awesome is that? So, you are a shining soul. I'm so happy that we are connected here. If you want to connect further, please subscribe to my newsletter, subscribe to the channel, follow me on social media, everything is in the show notes so you can do that. Follow my other podcast, Anything But Mid. It's comedy wellness for midlife women, and what else? I got a channel on my social media on my Instagram, and I am just just excited to see more power out of all of us as we move forward in the world and as we get older.

Feels good. If I could go back and talk to myself back then, oh my gosh, I would tell her you're going to get through this, and you are going to be so much stronger for it. And you're going to be so glad that you stepped into your powerful side. Bad, good, those are all just labels. What it really is is power, and you're more powerful than you could ever know. That's what I'd tell her. So, maybe she hears me across the the time lines or something like that, so. Anyway, you are a badass, yeah, like subscribe to the newsletter. It's a little dose of of shine in your inbox every Tuesday, and I'm just so grateful that you're here. Keep shining bright. Till next time.