Hello Reader,

What Might Be Under that "Good Person" persona

In last week's email newsletter, I introduced the good girl (or guy or they) persona - it lives in the layers and is often unconscious. On the surface, we might describe ourselves as "Recovering People Pleasers. I do, and many of my past and current clients do. This "being a good person" drive runs deeper than surface-level people-pleasing. It’s a full-bodied, often unconscious, survival strategy... and unhooking from it takes more than just setting boundaries or saying no. Let’s break it down:

At its root, being the "good person" is about earning safety, belonging, and worth through compliance, niceness, and self-denial. It’s often instilled early in childhood, especially for those raised as girls in families, religious systems, or communities where approval and love are conditional. (I speak often of the good girl, and many of the men I have worked with over the last 20 years have also been unconsciously driven by this inner coping mechanism).

This internalized role says:

• Be easy. Be polite.
• Don’t upset anyone.
• Don’t be too much.
• Always help.
• Be likable, agreeable, and low-maintenance.
• Be selfless, even invisible.

The need to be seen as good isn’t just about manners or behavior. It’s about emotional survival.

Underneath it is often:

• Fear of abandonment or rejection​
  (“If I’m not good, I’ll be cast out or unloved.”)
• Internalized shame​
  (“There’s something wrong with me, so I need to prove I’m good to be worthy.”)
• Perfectionism + control​
  (“If I do everything right, I can avoid pain or blame.”)
• Spiritual or moral conditioning​
  (“Goodness = self-sacrifice. Anger, desire, or assertiveness = selfish or bad.”)
• Disconnection from authentic self​
  (The performance of goodness replaces actual inner truth, needs, or messiness.)

I know the pain of these underlayers - here's a tiny bit of how my story:

It was a few years ago when I made the deepest connection to my need to be good. In third grade, I was shown a movie of the bible story about Lot and his family fleeing from Sodom and Gomorrah. In the movie, Lot's wife was "bad," and she literally turned into a pillar of salt, which then disintegrated in the wind. Poof - disintegrated. Invisible. Insignificant Gone. That girl got in trouble!!!

Sweet, innocent, third-grade me sat on the floor, silent, and petrified.

This was just one the ways my unconscious drive to "be good" was formed. I share as an example.

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Being good worked for this little one. It kept the peace and got praise, and oftentimes, even when we are done being an overfunctioner, people pleaser, and good for everyone else, it's a bit of a challenge to unwind on the inside. Letting go of this deep identity is really letting go of Self-Abandonment and building Self-Trust. So even if parts of you now feel resentful or burnt out from it... Other parts are still scared to let it go.

Letting go of being seen as good can bring up:

• Guilt
• Fear of being misunderstood
• Grief over relationships that relied on your self-abandonment

A shaky sense of self (“If I’m not good, who am I?”)

There are actually skills to learn. This is what I help my clients do.
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I'm here when you are ready.
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Love,
Allison Crow

Allison Crow, M.Ed. IFS L1 Practitioner & Coach, Certified Expressive Arts Facilitator, Author Soul-Full Living, LLC, www.allisoncrow.com