If you want to live your life as an exclamation rather than an explanation, it's likely you're going to have to part ways with one of your dear childhood friends. This person may have served you in a number of ways as a young child, but no longer supports you much as an adult. Think I've looked up your history in the where-are-they-now high-school yearbook web sites? Naah. My experience tells me this childhood friend is someone you know very well. She's been with you through thick and thin. She's your internal good girl.

The dilemma is that your internal good girl is no longer cutting it. Call me Lucy the 5? psychiatrist on this one, but my personal experience has taught me that being a good girl is no longer good enough for today's woman in today's world.

Time to say ciao to your inner good girl and hello to your inner Bodacious Woman!

It seems to me that most of us continue to be good girls into adulthood because we think there are no alternatives. On one end of the spectrum is the good girl, and on the other end, is the b-word, the bitch. There, I said it, as if you didn't know. How can we not know? It's the term all women fear far more than good girl!

I don't consider myself a bitch and haven't knowingly been called one, though if I were, it wouldn't bother me, at least not now. You see, there's something about a bitch that I respect: She sticks up for what she wants and makes no bones about it. From that perspective, I could wear the baseball cap a friend enthusiastically gave me with the embroidered letters B.I.T.C.H. and the phrase "Babe In Total Control of Herself" scrawled beneath. Oops, maybe I have been called a bitch! I guess I didn't notice-we were having so much fun!

What I'm not so wild about is the bitch's delivery or about how she abuses her power and influence to get what she wants, or about how she seems to be filled with anger most of the time. I just don't want to live that way. At the very least, the negative undertones are an emotional quagmire that would scare small children and a few adults.

So, if being a good girl isn't good enough for taking care of yourself in today's world and being a bitch isn't either, then what's the alternative? Being bodacious, of course! Being bodacious can be thought of as a combination of the bitch chutzpa, good girl respect for others, and a huge splash of positive, spirited energy to boot!

Most women I know want to feel empowered. They like to be positive. The key ingredient to creating this powerful elixir is to be authentic. That means looking within and making you the reference point to how you see life, and making decisions based on your own internal know-how. It's taking responsibility for determining your view of your world and how you're going to act in it. It's having the courage to be in charge of your life. That's being bodacious

Copyright (c) 2007 Mary Foley