Are you safe enough to be imperfect?

When you remember a recent moment of trying to be a ‘good girl" — performing perfectly, pleasing everyone, or protecting others at your own cost — who was really expecting you to behave that way?

In our latest research, two years on from our quantitative study of more than 1,000 Australian women, we went back and asked exactly that question. 92% named themselves. What began around age 11 as a set of external instructions — be quiet, be helpful, don't make a fuss — has gradually become our internal script as grown women.

It would be easy to turn this into another stick to beat ourselves with. But many of us were quite literally groomed — by families, schools, religions, workplaces and culture — to believe love must be earned by being good.

So we asked a second question: what is actually helping us break free of this as adults? One thread emerged above everything else — self-trust. The skills of self-compassion, secure attachment and self-leadership weren't just ends in themselves. They were the processes through which self-trust was being built. And as that trust grew, safety, belonging and love stopped feeling like things to be earned and started to feel like things already ours.

One of the small daily practices we’ve been playing with to build that self-trust is to gently place our hands over our hearts, take one slow breath in and out, and then say:

• I am safe enough. Check if this is true for you today? The world may be chaotic. Your life may be unpredictable. You safe enough to learn and grow from whatever is happening around you and within you today.

• I am loved enough. Check if this is true for you today? Even if a family member is annoyed with you, even if a friendship is strained, you are made of stardust and are universally wanted and loved.

• I am resourced enough. Check if this is true for you today? Are there opportunities in the world around you? If you need it, are there people you can ask for help? Even on the hardest of days, this is enough to begin.

Over time, repeating these three small truths starts to interrupt the old story that we are not enough until we earn our way to enoughness — which is the engine of so much of our internal good girl pressure.

If you’d like to listen to the full podcast, just hit play above to join us, and if you have questions, challenges, or favourite tools of your own, email us — we'll feature them in the episodes ahead.