The Life Of Bryony - "It Changed My Life. I Couldn’t Carry On Living, Giving Myself Away Like an Endless Resource": Anna Mathur on Good Girl Syndrome and People-Pleasing

Episode Date: October 21, 2024

Welcome to Life of Bryony, where we dive into life’s messier moments. GUEST: ANNA MATHUR: In this week’s episode, I’m joined by psychotherapist Anna Mathur, who discusses the debilitating effects of "Good Girl Syndrome." We chat about the pressures women face to please others, the emotional toll it takes, and the internal conflict of suppressing one's true self for the sake of being liked. Anna shares her own experiences, from people-pleasing to burnout, and the journey toward setting boundaries and reclaiming her sense of self. This candid conversation covers the difficulties of saying 'no,' the need to unlearn perfectionism, and the empowering moment when you realise that you don’t have to be ‘good’—you just have to be you. Anna’s latest book ‘The Uncomfortable Truth: Change Your Life By Taming 10 of Your Mind's Greatest Fears’ is out now.   GET IN TOUCH: 🗣️ If you want to get in touch, I’m only a text or a voice note away! Send your message to 07796657512, starting with LOB. 💬 WhatsApp Shortcut - https://wa.me/447796657512 📧 Or email me at [e-mail] Don’t forget to share this podcast with someone who you think might benefit from it!  Bryony xx Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Life of Briony, the podcast where we take a deep dive into life's messier moments. This week, we're talking about something a lot of us struggle with. Well, I struggle with it, and so I wanted to talk about it because it's my podcast, and that is good girl syndrome. It's that overwhelming need to be liked, to be perfect, and to never let anyone down. Does that ring any bells? Joining me to get to the bottom of this is psychotherapist Anna Mather, who knows all too well about the costs of people pleasing and how it can lead to burnout. We had a really honest

and refreshing chat about how freeing it can be to stop living for others and start living for yourself. It changed my life because I couldn't carry on living, giving myself away as if I was an endless resource. So if you've ever felt paralysed by the fear of disappointing others, and I know I have, this episode is definitely for you. So this week I got influenced. I hate it when that happens, when you basically see something enough in your Instagram stories or TikTok or wherever it is you happen to do your social media. In my case, Instagram, I got influenced by an advert for Victoria Beckham Beauty, specifically this eyeliner that was like dark green, sparkly. I mean, realistically speaking, not an eyeliner

I'm going to use all that that much I rarely use eyeliner in itself but I was like god I need this eyeliner so I found myself late at night in bed I spent the money I think it was like 30 quid and actually quite a lot for an eyeliner but um anyway I bought it and then I forgot I'd bought it and then yesterday I was sitting in the kitchen at the kitchen island which is where I write my column each week and I was writing my column and the door went and it was a courier delivering my Victoria Beckham beauty eyeliner guys I had not paid for special delivery just so you know and it came in this beautiful box. And then I opened it. No word of a fucking lie. The eyeliner was in a dust bag, you know, like those dust bags that

really expensive shoes come in, like proper cloth bag. And I was like, what the hell? And then I opened the bag and then there was the eyeliner and then it came with a sharpener guys then there was a little envelope that contained all of these exquisite samples of posh's perfumes I kept looking for David unfortunately he was not there I was like god this is I mean no wonder Victoria Beckham Beauty is in debt. If it's sending everyone. I read that, I think somewhere. I really imagined Posh sitting at home, like wrapping it all up for me,

personally handing it to the courier who bought it to me. Like, oh, thanks, Posh. Thank you. But it got me thinking about, because I suddenly thought suddenly thought oh I can't use this now this is a for a special occasion this eyeliner you know and all the things that we in our lives we either get given them or we buy them ourselves and then we never use them because we don't think that we're good enough for them basically so. So things like, I'm talking about things like body lotion, or like a bubble bath, a perfume, or a candle, you know, all those kind of like luxury self-care things that you think, oh, I'm going to splash out on this and then never use

because you're too frightened to. This is too special. And I'm saving this for a special occasion. And then it's like, well, hang on. We are all guys by dint of being alive, pretty fucking special. And I thought, no, I am going to use, I'm going to use this eyeliner. Every day I'm going to wear sparkly green eyeliner because who knows what tomorrow brings, you know? And what I'm trying to say is, use the thing that you've been putting off for a special occasion. It could be, I don't know, a bottle of champagne someone's given you or a bottle of Prosecco or a lipstick or a body oil or a bath oil. Get in that goddamn bath tonight and empty the bath oil into it and lie there and lavish in your specialness. That's not even a word, is it? And the specialness of you and of

this moment. That's what I want you to do. Take that item in your house or your flat or wherever you happen to live, that thing that you've put off using and use it because you're goddamn special. My guest today is Anna Mather. She is a psychotherapist and a bestselling author who's passionate about bringing therapeutic insights out of the consulting room and into the public space, which is great because I know we can't all afford to have therapy each week or even each month. And I'm a big advocate of improving mental health. So I'm so delighted she could come on.

She hosts the popular podcast, The Therapy Edit, and our chat today about good girl syndrome ties in quite nicely with her new book, The Uncomfortable Truth. We cover challenging the need to please others and how to confront that fear of not being good enough. Good girl syndrome. Do you suffer from it? Because I do. And in fact, I have found this such a crippling affliction, by which I mean, I have this pathological need for people to think I'm good, to be perfect, to not let people down, to be liked by everybody. and I wanted to do an episode on it because the feedback I got from my followers on Instagram was off the scale like obviously a lot of them suffer from good girl syndrome too and Anna I wanted you here because your book The Uncomfortable Truth deals with this yeah quite powerfully there's a chapter called even just reading it out makes me feel like, some people don't like me. Ouch.

Anna, you're a psychotherapist. Explain to us good girl syndrome. I think it's just that. It's that need to be seen as good by the people. I mean, for me, that was so entrenched in my identity that, and other people experience this too, if someone doesn't seem to like you or doesn't seem to get you or thinks anything other than good things about you it can prompt this real panic like a really visceral feeling of kind of shame or a desperation

to put it right I would be desperate even someone that didn't even actually talk to me but also I think it comes up for me quite a lot now, is someone cross with me. Yeah. And that is really childlike because I am 44 fucking years old, you know? Yeah. And I know objectively that if someone is cross with me, the world will continue to spin. But in here... Inside, it's internal.

This is so painful. And most of of the time people aren't cross with me they're not even thinking about me i mean that's the kind of like the headline realization but even if they were it would be okay because sometimes people are cross with you sometimes they are and sometimes they're cross with us because they should be we've done something that is you know worthy of that and sometimes they're cross with us because they should be we've done something that is you know worthy of that and sometimes i cross with us because of a reason completely outside of our control i remember this girl at uni and i used to feel like she didn't like me and she was annoyed by me so i went out of my way it was like my project to get this girl to like me and i could not understand

i'd be there like in the middle of the night rucking my brains as to what I might have done or said and one night after a few vk cherries I think it was back in the day she turned to me and she said I've just realized why I don't like you and I was like I wasn't wrong I wasn't wrong she didn't like me and she said it's because you remind me of my cousin who wasn't very nice to me and I was like all this time I've been falling over myself to try and change how you feel about me. And it was because of your cousin. It has nothing to do with me at all. So this is OK.

So in your book, you talk about your own childhood experience of people pleasing, of good girl syndrome. And I do think this is instilled in us. I think, you know, I want to get into the reasons for it in a bit. you know, I want to get into the reasons for it in a bit. But I do think broadly speaking, girls as children, we are, especially those of us of our generation, I'm not sure it's so pronounced, like my daughter, for example, I don't think has it as much because I think we're better saying, no, you don't have to be a good girl. You know, you just be you. But and I know that Gen Z are much more sort of kick ass about it in a way that I still can't do but I do think our generation sort of a lot of women in their 30s 40s 50s it's you

know it's really pronounced and it comes from this thing as a child good girl the rewards that we got for being called a good girl like yeah it's validating it's like we please people and people are pleased with us when we're good and they're pleased with us when we're neat and we're you know we do what we're asked to do when we conform um but the thing is we have so many other emotions and elements of our identity and opinions and needs that aren't neat so we end up just suppressing from a really young age we have more more mess than me i would say absolutely because that's the very nature of being human i think yeah we it gets affirmed being good because it's easy we're easier to parent when we're scared yeah because really that is it's just it's fear of getting things wrong it's fear of displeasing

someone and when we get the praise back it just kind of getting things wrong. It's fear of displeasing someone. And when we get the praise back, it just kind of affirms that, right? That we're on the right track and we're doing the right thing. So we just suppress more and more and more and more. And then I think we get to the age of 20, 30, 40, 50 and start thinking, who am I? Because I think we've often suppressed so much of our needs and thoughts and feelings and, you know, parts of our identity that don't fit within the nice, good, neat and easy. It's really interesting you say that, like children are easier to parent when they're in fear. That kind of went, ooh. But also, these are skills that we pick up that are useful to us in childhood that aren't so much as we get older. And I think for me, that's what I've started to realize as I get further into my 40s is that people pleasing used to work for me, probably by way into my 30s. imagine good girl syndrome was very tied up weirdly with alcohol and drugs because I felt more confident. I felt more able to be pleasing to people. I felt less awkward, but I also was

able to just numb with drugs and alcohol the effects of when I wasn't pleasing to people. Does that make sense? Absolutely. Like I couldn't deal with that and I just had to drink on it. As I've got older, and I think this is the case for lots of women. And I think in a way, the first 40 years of your life are all about sort of learning to achieve what we've been told to achieve and getting to a certain point. And then the next are like, but hang on, do I really want this? And do I really want to live in these ways that I've been told I should do? I'm not sure I'm making sense, but like, for me, I think really what I realised is people pleasing used to work for me. Being a good girl used to be a thing that worked for me and it got me really far in my career as well. And now in my 40s, it will undo me

because the gap between what I'm saying out loud and what I'm feeling inside is often so huge that I cannot sit with that discomfort anymore. And that's why I wanted to do this episode because it's that realisation that I can't be two people in one anymore. I have to be me. I have to be what's in here. And obviously, to a certain extent, we have to sometimes we have to do things that we don't want to do to please other people it's when the gap becomes so huge that you can't ignore it anymore yeah but it's that fear of disappointing people when actually it's a really healthy thing to do is it yeah because actually people that care about us can withstand a bit of disappointment and often we put other people's wishes over our own well-being. Yeah, I sort of went on my Instagram and I asked people to give me their examples of their kind of good girls.

Okay. Gone bad. This one really gets me. Saying yes to plans with different people on the same day at the same time because you're scared of saying no. Fear of disappointing people. Fear of disappointing people. It's there, isn't it? Oh, I do this all the time.

Do you? I'm like, yeah, sure. And are you aware that you've already said yes to something else? Or are you just... Yeah. And there is a part of my brain going, what are you doing, Bryony? Yeah. Going to one, quickly escaping feeling really bad that you're leaving early to go to the

other to honour that one and resenting both of them. So you're there, but you're resenting it. You know, you're resenting that person. Do you not know how much I've got on? You're irritated with yourself for accepting it, rushing. And it's a completely unenjoyable experience. And if that person was a friend and they cared about you, they'd probably rather you just said no.

Of course, because it's less annoying as well. Also, if you do, because often I end up just like cancelling at the last minute. Yeah. I kind of think I'll just kick the can down the road. Yeah. This is an interesting one.

People pleasing within my family to keep the peace, specifically with my late father who behaved appallingly. That's a difficult one. Yeah, that is. But then your family home, you know, that family dynamic

isn't a place to retreat to and feel accepted in, you know, because actually the only reason you feel accepted there is because you're having to contort yourself. So you don't feel at home with your family because you're not being authentic. So I think the more ways that we can find to start being more authentic in these settings, the more we'll get that feeling when we're in certain people's company because we can just be okay here's some of these are quite funny okay ordering a sharing mushroom dish on a date when I'm allergic to mushrooms yeah I can just really see that like yeah sure yeah even though I'm going to be vomiting in the toilet half an hour later. But again, that's fear, isn't it? And actually, sometimes it can be, you know, worry about perceived weakness because I'm sensitive to something or I'm tolerant of something. What might that person then think about me as a whole person? Are they going to think that I'm a bit of a princess and I can't eat this and I can't do that and I can't go there?

So it's, you know, what's the wider message? so it's you know what's the wider message what's the fear there is that if i turn up and i just say i can't have mushrooms that they're going to think me as a person is a bit complicated and i might be rejected so bring on the mushrooms this one i'll take it this one the next one i'm going to talk to give you anna i think this one really explains how good girl syndrome can fuck up your own life on a kind of a really practical level. Accepting a job I knew wouldn't be the best idea because the interview panel really liked me. I mean, whoa. It's going down a whole path in your life that you're going to be there working maybe long hours under stress and then thinking I don't even want to be here anyway so you can't bring your authentic

self into that job you're actually not respecting the job by accepting the job yeah or yourself yeah all those people that have hired you and they're going to be investing in you because actually you know deep down it's not the right job Being okay that my boss of 14 years pronounces my name incorrectly. When you're aware of that, you have a choice. Either I honour myself, but it's also honouring my boss. Because one day down the line, when they find out they've been saying my name wrong for how many years, how are they going to feel? You know, it's not just about protecting my own embarrassment or their embarrassment. Now it's about thinking, what do I want them to feel down the line?

Who does that really say anything about? And often it would say something about you. So let's get into the whys of good girl syndrome. So you, in The Uncomfortable Truth, you talk about how you realise some people wouldn't accept you regardless of how well behaved, how well intentioned you were. And then you talk about an early experience with a teacher who was just really horrible to you. And you say, I did everything I could to appease her, assuming that if she disliked me, there must be a reason. And the reason lay with me. Yeah.

That's really interesting. This is what happens, isn't it? We assume that it's because of us. And if we really knew how little what other people thought about us was anything to do with us at all, that would instantly be so freeing. So freeing. I think it is true that everyone comes into situations, isn't it, with their own layers. Yeah, layers and lenses and experiences and prejudices and the judgments and the assumptions and it's all there and we have no control over that. cross with you being paralyzed with fear of saying no to someone because you talk a lot about how you

were a yes woman through and through saying yes was your currency I believed that spending all my time and energy fulfilling the desires and needs of others was what made me acceptable and probably why I became a therapist really let's just legitimize the people pleasing and helping others by making that my actual job so but this is the thing so we hear about trauma responses which are things like flight fight freeze but what the one we don't hear about that often is the form yeah can you talk us through that a bit that's basically the people pleasing that's basically in the face of challenge in the face of feeling threatened That's basically in the face of challenge, in the face of feeling threatened.

Instead of going to fight, fight or freeze. Actually, what can I do to make you like me? What can I do to make sure that I'm safe? What can I do to take you from that aggressive stance into maybe the, oh, poor you. I'm not going to hurt you stance to make us feel safer. And I think people pleasing is often a trauma response. it's often a coping mechanism because it's affirmed and you know we can often do well by it I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be where I was now if I hadn't been a people pleaser because it pleases people yes and then people give you opportunities and you're dependable and you get lots done so we end up kind of dragging it

into our lives because when you say that Iively, the people pleaser in my brain that takes up quite a lot of my brain goes, well, OK, so fine. So what is in it for me to not be? Because actually, maybe I do have to just deal with this pain of discomfort. But I know, I know, and I'm sure you're going to tell me this, that we end up bit yeah do spending our lives doing things we don't actually want to be doing and saying things we don't really mean and not expressing needs not expressing emotions like the mental health depths and darknesses I have been through that have been compounded by the fact that I didn't want to burden anyone. I didn't want to need anyone. I didn't want anyone to have to help me. I didn't want anyone to be disgusted by the actual mess that lay behind this kind of neat, easy facade. They might neglect me. They

might run away. They might disown me. But actually what chronically happens is that out of fear of not being accepted, out of fear of being abandoned by someone else we are chronically abandoning ourselves we're abandoning that inner child that says i really need some support right now we're saying shut up crack on now we're abandoning that part of us that says i need help i need a hug i need a cup of tea at someone's house because they haven't offered it yet like how can i it's what we silence and what gets lost we end up losing ourselves and living for everyone else so you've just spoken there about the mental health costs of people pleasing because actually about your own costs to you personally, burnout. Just talk me through a bit of what happened to you. So I think it can be circumstantial or it can be a self-fulfilled thing where we want to

people please. We're perfectionists. So we're actually putting ourselves, we're expending so much energy trying to get it right. We're expending so much energy trying to get it right we're expending so much energy letting other people steamroll our boundaries because we want to be good you know i haven't got the capacity for this but i'm going to say yes because i want to maintain how you think about me and there's circumstantial so we think about the pandemic or we think about people that are parenting children whilst caring for parents sandwich generation sandwich generation and if you add the circumstantial the demands and the pressures and the constancy of our current culture and on top of that you layer people pleasing and perfectionism which is often quite tied up you're giving constantly

what you don't have and burnout happens when we chronically overlook the limits of our own resources and that happened to me I mean I lived life at 100 miles an hour tended to everyone around me didn't really want to fly that flag of like actually I'm not really okay here which to be honest was like life-changing for me when I did do that and it takes a lot of strength and bravery but often we're kind of forced into that place because we just end up broken. And burnout for me was so visceral that I crashed. I could not even tell my husband what I wanted for dinner. Really? No, I can make simple decisions.

I didn't have the capacity to even engage with my children. I didn't even go on my phone, which that's not right. I wanted to lie on the sofa and stare at the back of the sofa. I couldn't deal with any noise, not even the happy playing noise of my kids. My nervous system was so exposed. Yeah, it felt like I had no skin. I had no resilience, no nothing. And it gave me this. It changed my life because I couldn't carry on living, giving myself away as if I was an endless resource anymore. And I had to start putting in boundaries and I had to start saying no because sometimes circumstances will pull everything out of us but if we're people pleasing and we've got

that perfectionist trait in us and that drive then we're just going to find ourselves crashing because we're not endless machines it's really humbling people often use that analogy on an airplane they say if the oxygen masks drop you put yours on first before trying to put it on your child and you know I know that I am much better at self-care and all of that stuff but the the place I do drop it is consistently caring for others ahead of you know like I will say yes to things when it's almost impossible you know and i wondered if there's anyone listening how do we learn because it's all very well knowing this stuff but how do we then learn to have these difficult conversations and prioritize our inner resources

because you're right we are not just infinitely you know available we're like fossil fuels we will run out we will run out and how do we have those conversations how do we learn to kind of drop from there to there which is from our head to our heart yeah because this stuff is hard so hard and it means having difficult conversations because how do we have it means having awkward conversations it means saying no and knowing that you don't have to do it in a sharp abrupt way you can say no nicely can we role play let's role play give me an example right you've asked me to come to your let's say book launch yes and i just don't like going out in the evenings yeah that is my time where i just like so with you i'm zen and I want to just chill. And that's

when I have my me time. But I often say to people, yeah, sure. And I genuinely believe that I will go along. And then on the day, I'm like, I just can't do this. This is so me. Something that I face quite often, actually, I get asked to go to London in the evening. And it's a logistical faff, but I could probably find a babysitter, right? I could probably sort that out but I would say thank you so much that sounds amazing I am absolutely rubbish in the evening and I'm a bit frazzled how else can I support you you have the most amazing time how else can I support you and that's honest it's honest I'm not saying I can't do it but also calm you know when people say no is a whole sentence because I am very much the over explain why I can't do things so when I do I'm like oh sorry but then this is

what you know and the person's you know like someone will go would you like to come out for dinner and I'll be like oh I would but so and so's got you know I've got to do this for so and so and that for the other person and this and they're standing there going okay just say no I think it depends on the relationship doesn't it because if it's an email and it's a you know can you come to this event oh you know i'm not able to be there but thanks so much have a great time that's enough if it's a good friend the choice is am i authentic in my response do i say you know what i am awful in the evenings like i just want to hibernate in the evenings yeah that's where you refuel you want

to be protective over that space so you either go to the thing is it a question of also like that's it working out what are so if you start working out what are your ways of replenishing your own resources because it's all well and good learning to have difficult conversations but if you don't know how you replenish your own resources and you're just sitting around feeling bad yeah for having said no to someone because that's the other thing like I can say no I can lay a boundary if I absolutely have to but I will then waste at least another eight or nine hours feeling bad about laying that boundary it gets so much easier and that guilt just ebbs away

because you know that even if that other person might be disappointed, potentially they might be a little bit hurt. Maybe they feel unsupported. But you know that actually what you're doing and sitting at home on the sofa that evening is you're actually honouring them because you're not there resentfully. This is the other thing, and i've learned is that i am infantilizing

friends and family by assuming that they were can't handle their feelings of disappointment and hurt and this has been one of the really powerful things there's two things and i'll get on to the next one in a moment but one of the things that has really helped me to transform my good girl syndrome has been knowing that I am not responsible for other people's feelings yeah I'm responsible for not acting like a dickhead yeah that is in your that is your remit But if someone is hurt because a decision I've made doesn't directly benefit them, that is not for me to caretake. And I also think that we, by thinking,

oh, this person won't be able to handle their disappointment. You know, people can. They're like, of course, it's disappointing that you can't come to this thing or you can't do this thing. But I love you and I'll get over it. Because I know you're not doing this from a malicious place so knowing that I'm not responsible for other people's feelings has been really helpful to go oh yeah I'm talking to an adult here absolutely and recognizing that we can withstand disappointment and the healthier boundaries we

hold the more we get used to disappointing people and realizing that it's not the end of the world. But also, as we don't keep giving what we don't have, I think because we feel very viscerally the resentment or the burnout, you know, we can assume that that other person is going to be feeling that when actually they're probably not. You know, as we hold healthy boundaries it's honoring the relationship there's not all that kind of like background guilt resentment do you know what's taken me to be here do you know I've had to sacrifice but you know and it's just all those other feelings that just get mixed up with doing something that actually don't have capacity to do here's the other thing that has transformed my relationship with people pleasing and good girl syndrome it's realizing that perfectionism is a patriarchal trap that has been put on us

to make us feel that we have to be perfect and we can only exist if we're hitting certain goals and we're being good and we're being likable and we're also being ballsy and we're also being strong and we're also achieving this and that and the other that notion of having it all which has been put on us which is impossible and we don't have those same expectations of men no like we just don't know you know some men will obviously have those expectations of themselves but there is not a societal pressure to be perfect right and when I remember that the need to be perfect in everything and to not slip up and to not upset anyone is actually a sort of tool of the patriarchy to sort of keep me down I go well fuck that I'm gonna fuck up right that's it it's human it's liberating and I think the more and this is what I see in my clients and myself the messier I have got in life metaphorically like in in all the ways

I've never been so messy and chaotic I've never felt so content I've never felt so myself the times in life I was the neatest the most pleasing to the world and the people around me I've never felt so suffocated I've never felt so suffocated. I've never felt so low. This is freedom and it's messy and it's disappointing and it can be hurtful and misunderstood sometimes, but it's authenticity. Have you ever heard of people pleasing, known as people pleading? No. That was so helpful for me, recognising that actually in this desperation to please others, we're needing something back. I used to think it was this kind of you know altruistic part of me like it's wonderful that i'm a people pleaser why would i not want to please well this is the thing people often think that it's a good it's

almost like a positive but it's not it's a total flaw if you've ever had a really people pleasing friend you know it's actually annoying it's yeah and I look back and I think, man, I was so needy. Really, everything in me was all about I felt it was all about giving. But really, I needed everything back to fuel my self-esteem, really to hold up my my very fragile ego. I needed to know that I was pleasing people. And that's quite exhausting for yourself and for other people when they feel like, actually, you've given me this, but I need to thank you because you need me to thank you and you need to be recognized and you need to be acknowledged and validated and thank you isn't enough. freed by it. And I think part of it is accepting that there will always be this part of me, like Rome was not built in a day, so it's not going to be undone within a day, you know,

being okay with that and not beating myself up for that bit of me that doesn't like upsetting people and doesn't like saying no. But one of the other most helpful things is knowing that I don't have to be good. Yeah yeah I don't have to be a good girl I can be a bad girl you know because I am a human actually that's what I need to be not a good girl not a bad girl not any kind of girl I need to be human and I need to be me and there is no box that perfectly sums up all people, do you know what I mean, that we can put ourselves in. We are all many, many things. And it's like that word, but, you know, when people, I always remember going on this like crazy retreat.

And I remember every morning the person taking the retreat would ask us how we were and people would go, I'm feeling anxious, but hopeful. And she'd go, no, you're feeling anxious and hopeful. And it's that ability to be lots of different things at the same time that we just don't allow ourselves. Yeah, and so let those emotions teach us something about ourselves. So I think for me, learning actually to be a woman rather than a good girl has meant that I've started to see emotions and not judge them so harshly right I used to really judge rage especially around my kids and I used to think you know I'd shout or

I'd lose it or and especially in the pandemic it's really heightened and I used to just feel so much shame because it was rage and being good so like far apart from each other right I used to think what does this say about me as a person like Like, I shouldn't be like this. I shouldn't. And actually, once I stopped judging rage and anger, I started seeing it as overwhelm. But sometimes, it's all just too much. And then when I stopped judging this emotion, I could start thinking, okay, what do I need? And it meant I didn't just kind of shut myself down when I was feeling anything other than good or. But also that guilt that we have, I think, as parents of my children shouldn't see me be angry that perhaps can come from, you know, if you yourself have had parents that were angry all the time. But we then forget that actually it is OK for your children to occasionally see you be crossed because that is life you know and they

can cope with that they will be able to cope with that and it's really important that we model to our kids the full range of human emotions so that they're equipped to go out there yeah you know our job as parents isn't to give them these like idyllic perfect happy childhoods wouldn't be helpful no it's to teach them how to deal when shit hits the fan yeah and we're gonna mess up our kids i'm literally i might as well start saving for therapy for my kids because i will mess up my kids because a perfect parent cannot teach kids to navigate a very imperfect world and the most important thing that i can do for myself is make sure that i'm okay to do the things to to prioritize the things that nurture me. And this is what I couldn't do when I was a good girl,

because I felt guilt when doing anything for myself. When actually I realized that I'm deserving of fun. I'm deserving of rest. I love saying to them, yeah, I'll do that in a minute. I'm just sitting down for a minute. I need them to see me prioritize rest, because I don't want them to think they grow up and then it all just goes out the window but also when they hear me angry when they hear me rage is like actually

really great so many amazing things have happened in our world because of rage you know that sense of injustice it can motivate us to change things but if I'm hormonal and grumpy with the kids I just make sure they know it's not their fault this is my emotion and this is why and this is what I'm going to do so we can just you know we have those moments and then the most important thing is is what happens after it and how we explain it and I think a lot of us as kids didn't get parents say sorry that that wasn't actually your fault yes Yes. I'm tired and grumpy. So we internalise that. We think that must be our fault.

So therefore, if I'm nice and neat and tidy and non-demanding and non-needing, then my parent will never be upset or angry. So Anna, what I have got from this for anyone watching or listening at home who wants to sort of bite-size it down is disappoint early. Yes yes get that disappointment in get it in early be authentic tell the truth keep it short remember you are not responsible for other people's feelings and work out what it is you need yeah so true You wrote a poem. I did. That's basically about good girl syndrome.

And I never wrote this to read out, you know, I wrote this purely therapeutically. And actually, I feel quite emotional when I read it because I've changed so much since this. I think it's when I... When did you write it? And what prompted you to write it? I must have written it about five years ago. And I think I was just starting to think, you know what? I deserve to have needs too.

I deserve to be supported. It's okay for people to be disappointed. It's okay to ask for space. Turning yourself into a sort of like Chez Long for everyone else to relax on while it's actually putting your back out. Yeah. That. That.

Anyway, take it away, Anna. Okay. It's called Take Your Space. A string of sorry falling from my lips, an unconsidered reflex for brushing your leg with my bag as I walk by. A single seat left on the tube, tired legs and pregnant bump ignored by myself, but not by others. Standing resolute, a teen with a confident swagger collapses into space I didn't claim. She knew she was worth it. Imposter syndrome, you'll discover I'm not worthy of your cost of time and energy.

So I'll not rudely shatter your momentary illusions, I'll just sit quietly. You'll find your own way to my conclusion soon enough. Swallowed words, too many spoken over. Moaned down by a barrage of other people's noise. Misunderstood, leaving me with echoes of my own dialogue in my mind. Louder voices drowning out stuttered attempts to verbalise. Step back and shut down. It's so much easier to be less than to fight for space amongst the more.

Silence needs. I'll meet them myself. Why burden another with my words and wants when I can silently scrape together my own resources? Furious self-sufficiency maketh man a lonely island. Words of others like sticky post-it notes assumed as truths and ruminated over until they become tattooed into a heart that couldn't fight them as false. Surely the minority. Uttering spiky words or causing unintentional pain a better place to tell me who i am to see the bad

in my good hey i'll let you assign my price accepting gifts with an awkward shuffle blushing cheeks compliments ricocheting off the heart like pebbles skimmed off a taut sea bending a burden back backwards spewing saccharine sentences i don't even believe so that you're like me you could write poetry about your like for me it won't be enough for me to believe that that's your truth you wish you were older a little bit taller somewhat quieter a lot more wiser much more patient less outrageous lower maintenance more contagious I need to be more I need to be less stop no more envying those, taking space and talking sentences without apology, claiming seats without a sorry, requesting quenching water without a tensing of the shoulders.

No more swallowing words out of fear as to whether they will be mistaken or misunderstood, which they may. In fact, they will. But that is not a reflection of the value of them being heard. You're a messy complexity of humanity with needs and wants and sometimes profanity of ugliness and sweat and space and pride and love and need. And that's OK. Flex the muscle of your voice, throw out your arms and claim your space that was yours all along. Stop ending sentences with questions and prefixing with just because you are never just anything. Exercise the sinews of your voice box, no speaking in whispers and avoiding confrontation.

Don't devalue your innate worth with apologies and intonations. Learn to grow to love your powerful voice as a lioness recognizes the authority of her roar. The thoughts and feelings of others about you and either facts and all your business laugh freely regardless of snorts and tears your joy is worth experiencing and each peel of laughter will become easier even if it's only you who understands the joke walk stronger hold your head higher line lips in crimson red and wear color or don't but if you don't not because you don't want to don't because you don't want to not because you fear being seen your purpose might feel entangled and confused but

you have purpose all the same that's a promise you don't need to be less you don't need to be more take your space without apology without bended knee or slipping into the comfort of the background grow slowly but surely into yourself. You are never just. Anna Matta, thank you so much. Thanks for having me. A huge thank you to Anna. I think one of the biggest takeaways for me is that you don't have to be good to be loved.

Remember, you are not responsible for other people's feelings. And as I said that, the good girl inside me went, so I'd never leave you without a recommendation. And this week, I want to stay on the theme of treating yourself to something because I suddenly thought, oh God, what if you don't have anything at home that you've been saving for a special occasion? Or what if for whatever reason you can't afford to get a nice luxuriating thing? And I wanted to give you my sort of tip for a not very expensive way of treating yourself, right? Which is to get yourself on Amazon, or you can actually go to a supermarket. They sell this in Asda and get yourself some Epsom salts. I am obsessed with an Epsom salt bath, guys. They cost about £2.50. Not expensive

at all, but they are so good for you. That's my recommendation. Epsom salts. If you think a friend might benefit from this episode, please share it with them. I'm back on Friday with a bonus edition of Life of Briony where Anna and I will be answering some of your questions. You can also reach out with your own thoughts or questions for future episodes. The details are all in the show notes. See you Friday.