I went to various catholic girls’ schools for many years, including five years in boarding school. Some good times, some ultimately deletable. Probably like you, the concept of being a ‘nice’ or ‘good’ girl was force-fed into me. It’s taken me years, a lot of personal development and self-examination to release it. To give myself permission to be true to my core values.   And I’m still working on it.

As women we have been trained to be nice. We ‘do’ nice, we say nice things and we portray ourselves as nice. Most of us fear that if we are not nice, we have to be nasty – which of course is not true. In my experience that generally leads to anger and resentment, resulting in splattering nasty all over the place.

Here’s a challenging thought. For those of us wanting to be true to ourselves we have found out that our ‘niceness’ is ultimately linked to a dishonesty in ourselves.

If we want to be more honest, we have to be willing to let go of our ‘niceness’. In releasing it, we find ourselves becoming more honest. Becoming honest about ourselves and our lives is an essential step toward mental, emotional, physical and spiritual health.

Often, when we say we are being nice to protect other people, the person we are actually protecting is ourselves.

Your Challenge:

How are you doing with self-honesty?   Do you still find yourself tumbling into the ‘niceness’ trap? How have you released your addiction to niceness and allowed yourself to nurture your self-honesty?

Really keen to read your thoughts and comments below, or email (trudy@trudyarthurs.com) if you prefer. Always know, everything is treated as confidential.

‘Til next month, be gentle with You.

©Dancing Leopards Ltd 2018