Releasing The Fantasy of “The Good Girl” with Dr. Shefali Tsabary
Episode 03
We continue with the “For the Love of Transitions” series and it’s giving us so many new perspectives on pushing back against what we’ve always known and finding new ways to grow and evolve into the person we have always wanted to be. This week’s episode really hits us where we live as we pursue to live a life that is “free”; free from pain, free from hurt, and free from bending to the will and opinion of others. Do you think you are living freely? In your soul, choices, and relationships? Do your actions embody the hopes and dreams you have for yourself? Or, are you acting under an assumed role? One that has always told us we need to be “the good girl;” one that is passive, servile and in the receiving position? It’s hard to see through the systems we’ve become so toxically comfortable with. We have families and friends and jobs to worry about and care for and oftentimes it’s easier to fall into the assumed role than to build our own. However, when we wake up to being sovereign in our own authority, there is a liberation like no other. To walk us through this Radical Awakening (also the title of her brand new book) is Dr. Shefali Tsabary. Dr. Shefali is a New York Times bestselling author, a renowned clinical psychologist, and teacher to women as they transcend their fears and illusions to break free from the mold society has forced them into. Dr. Shefali and Jen have a vulnerable conversation about coming into a new and powerful sense of ourselves–and realizing that as women, “We have not been taught to back ourselves up. We’ve not been taught to put all our eggs inside our basket. And we don’t know what it means to have our own back.” Dr. Shefali gently shows us that inner voice that every woman knows she has speaking to her, but is often avoiding by eating too much, being distracted too much, relentlessly serving family or work. Ultimately, freedom comes by not treating your inner knowing as a liar, but allowing it to speak and show you the truth about what’s really wrong and right in your world.
Hey, everybody. Jen Hatmaker here. Welcome to the For The Love Podcast. We’re in a series right now called For The Love of Transitions. And I think maybe where to start before you start listening to this conversation with my guest today is asking a question of your own life— “Am I sincerely living in a free way? Am I free in my soul, in my spirit, in my choices, and my relationships? Do my actions embody the hopes and dreams I have for myself? Do my actions embody my own personal sense of self respect?”
Or is there a chance you might be acting under an assumed role? Are you a version of yourself, a character of yourself? Is something deeply true for you that you are not actually living out of because this part, the outward facing part, is meant to be a certain way, right? There’s an expectation, even your own, even your own. Because this feels so acute to me, I think for so many of us, myself included, we have these visible and invisible roles that have been placed on our shoulders since we were really, really young.
And we assimilated those so deeply that we’re almost unaware of the ways in which we behave and respond and stay silent to keep those things intact, right? Whatever that might look for you personally. Maybe you went to college because that was expected of you. That was what your parents wanted, it’s what your older siblings did, it was what your peers were doing, but it wasn’t your true path. That was not your portal into adulthood but you did it because you were supposed to, you know what I mean?
We’re going to get into it but like relationally, how many of us are inside a broken relationship? It is not working, it is not functioning. There is a lot of pain inside of it. And yet we are lying to ourselves about that or ignoring what signals our bodies are sending us because we want that relationship to be a certain thing. It’s expected for that relationship to be a certain thing whether it’s your marriage, maybe it is the way in which you engage with one of your kids, that is actually a broken thing. But moms are supposed to be a certain way with their kid and thus, that’s the forward facing thing. It could be inside your work that you are deeply unfulfilled.
I would say most of us are trapped somewhere inside a system that is very much steeped in patriarchy and very much steeped in oppression and being essentially asleep at the wheel. Oh gosh, this conversation today. Do you know when you hear somebody say really hard things that are true and you just feel like almost called out? Like, “Yep. Not only do I understand that, that’s me, that’s what I’ve been doing, that’s where I was at. That’s what I did, that’s what I’m doing.” And it’s so hard to admit because I have a version of me and thus a version of my relationships that I prefer, right? The one that I want you to see.
Even the one that I want to be true. And so this conversation is really powerful and I hope you’ll stay till the very end because we have a really fantastic teacher today. And we’re lucky because today we get to hear from the one and the only Dr. Shefali. Dr. Shefali is a really special teacher. She’s a New York Times Bestseller of course. She’s a world renowned clinical psychologist who teaches women to transcend both their fears and their illusions and we talk a lot about that today.
And then essentially rediscover who it is we really are. How is it we actually flourish on this earth? The autonomy that we have over our own minds and souls and choices and relationships being fully present, fully conscious, and fulfilled in our day to day lives. And we’re going to talk about what all of that means. So, listen, Dr. Shefali has been applauded by Oprah and Alicia Keys and Eckhart Tolle. She’s got receipts here, okay? She lives what she teaches.
She’s inspiring, she’s a role model to me. I look up to her and I’m learning from her. And I think you will too. This one will get us. This one will get you. So buckle in and enjoy this really profound conversation with the beautiful… Gosh, you’ve got to watch this one on YouTube just so you can look at Dr. Shefali’s pretty face. And wise and wonderful, Dr. Shefali.
Books & Resources Mentioned in This Episode
A Radical Awakening by Dr. Shefali Tsabary
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