The Nice Girl Syndrome by Beverly Engel Read Free Book Online

first part of this equation—unearthing the false beliefs that lie underneath your Nice Girl attitudes and acts. Following are the ten most damaging beliefs that can create the Nice Girl syndrome, along with an explanation as to why and how each
    belief contributes to Nice Girl behavior.

    The Ten False Beliefs
    Even though there are different types of Nice Girls, they often have certain beliefs and attitudes in common. These are:
Other people’s feelings and needs are far more important than my own.
If I am nice (and fair) to other people, they will be nice (and fair) to me.
What other people think about me is more important than my self-esteem, my health, or even my safety.

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If I am good and perfect, I will be accepted and loved.
If I act naive and innocent, people will take care of me and I won’t have to grow up.
I don’t have the right to stand up for myself or act on my own behalf.
Anger is a destructive emotion and shouldn’t be expressed, especially directly to those with whom you are angry.
It is better to avoid conflict at all costs.
There is good in everyone, and if you give someone enough chances, he or she will eventually show it to you.
Women need men to protect them and support them finan- cially.
    I suggest you go back up to the top of this list and circle the sen- tences that you believe are true. For some of you, this may mean that you actually circle each one of these beliefs, whereas others may circle only one or two. Now put a checkmark next to those beliefs that you still act on even though you really don’t believe they are true.
    These circled and checkmarked items will be the false beliefs you will need to exorcise out of your mind and heart. In addition to the information in this chapter, there will be a separate chapter devoted to each of these false beliefs in part 2 of the book.
    As you read over the list, you may notice that there may be a seed of truth that mutated into some of these false beliefs. For exam- ple, although there certainly is good in everyone, we don’t have to get burned over and over again by waiting around for it to finally emerge in someone. Kindness and tolerance can often soften even the hardest heart, but these traits can also be an open invitation for others to continue manipulating and taking advantage of us.
    Nice Girls need to learn that these beliefs and attitudes are sim- ply not working for them. In some cases, this is due to the fact that Nice Girls need to practice beliefs and attitudes opposite to those listed. For example, it is true that anger can be a destructive emotion; many people cause a great deal of harm to others because their anger is out of control. But this is generally not true of Nice Girls, who tend to have the opposite problem—that of repressing and suppress- ing their anger. They usually need to give themselves permission to
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    acknowledge, feel, and express their anger in constructive ways, to not continue to ignore or deny righteous anger. They need to learn that anger itself is not a negative or destructive emotion—it is what we choose to do with it that determines whether it is positive or negative.
    In many cases, women have been brainwashed to believe these false beliefs, often starting when they were small children. Sometimes this brainwashing came from society at large; other times, it came from specific messages or behavior from parents or other authority figures.

    How Do We Reverse This Brainwashing?
    Needless to say, it can sometimes be difficult to reverse this brain- washing and help women to face the truth. In part 2, I offer reme- dies specifically designed to counter false beliefs and to help install beliefs that are more conducive to becoming a Strong Woman. I also offer the concept of “positive and powerful statements” to help counter the negative messages that drive Nice Girl behavior.
    Positive and powerful statements are