Bad Girl vs. Good Girl

Oprah's LifeClass 8: When you Know Better...Do Better

I was raised in a structured - disciplined home. My parents are still together and I am so grateful to have been born to them. As Iyanla Vanzant suggests, our soul chooses who we are born to and if you really sit back and think about it that statement is so profound.

I tell everyone that my parents were way more strict on me than my sisters...I guess the oldest gets the most discipline. Especially for first time parents (IDK), but I was raised to be a good girl. (i.e. no cursing, no dis-respectfulness ever, no doing people wrong just cause, no staring at people, no back talking, etc.) My sisters and I always blame my mother for raising us to be too good. Meaning, we could have been saved a whole lot of heartache, if my father was our teacher.

Fast forward to my college years...I started dating this guy the end of my freshman year and fell head over heels in love with him. Well we went through a situation of betrayal that I couldn't get over and I was tired of being a good girl. I was tired of being the nice girl. I was tired of being what my mother raised me to be. Good girls always are taken advantage of right? No.

I started smoking weed very heavily and fell into a lifestyle that was so NOT me. I was wearing a veil over my eyes and my heart; shielding me, from any and everything. I stunted my growth and some of the things I was saying, wearing, places I was going, the person I was trying so hard to be, was not me.

So this in class Ms.Winfrey clearly states over and over and over:

When you know better, you do better. You should not judge the person you were. You should only judge the person that you are and the woman/man that you are going to become. You don't have to hold yourself hostage to who you've been or what you've done. It's never to late to change. The moment you realize that you are not what you want to be or where you want to be, you can turn it around. Doing what you shouldn't be doing is one of the greatest teachers..

Never present dark energy into the world. The thing that you do is not you and everybody acts out of their own pain. And that is exactly what I was doing. Acting out.

Once I re-learned who I was and what I wanted, I threw the bad girl image away. I fell in love with me and the things that brought me joy. I knew I changed after I purchased some items from a store and for some reason, what I owed the store wasn't paid in full. Once I looked at the receipt and realized that I owed this small business about $16 additional dollars, the very next day, I went and paid what I owed. See the thing about Integrity is this: you are always being watched. Every situation where you know to do the right thing but refuse to do it, is being graded. One day you will be held accountable for knowing better but not doing better...

Class 8 adjourned.....

Statements in bold are quotes from Oprah

Class 1: The False Power of Ego
Class 2: Letting go of Anger
Class 3: You become What You Believe
Class 4: The Truth will Set You Free
Class 5: Joy Rising 
Class 6: Everybody has a Calling
Class 7: Aging Well
Class 8: When you Know Better