The Strategies That Kept You Safe Are Now Keeping You Stuck
You learned early that being agreeable, accommodating, and low-maintenance kept the peace with others. You became the easy one. The flexible one. The one who never complains.
You say yes when you mean no. You smile through discomfort. You manage everyone else's emotions while ignoring your own. You apologize for taking up space.
These patterns worked, they got you through childhood, helped you avoid conflict, and kept relationships smooth, especially with the challenging people in your life.
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Now you're exhausted, resentful, and feel disconnected from yourself. You're doing everything, but it never feels like enough. You doubt yourself and struggle to trust your own judgment because you've spent so long deferring to others.
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The NICE GIRL patterns that once protected you are now the very thing holding you back.
Any major life transition will eventually expose your NICE GIRL patterns.
A health crisis (burnout) that forces you to slow down look critically at your life. A job loss that removes your 'capable' identity. A relationship ending that requires you to advocate for yourself. Chronic illness that makes accommodating others impossible. Grief that won't let you smile through the pain.
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And for many women the major life transition that exposes it is motherhood.
You can people-please your way through life. Smile through discomfort. Overextend on no sleep. Override your body to meet everyone else's expectations.
Many women do. Maybe your mother did. Maybe your grandmother did it too. Maybe you watched the burnt-out mom who never said no, never asked for help, never took up space with her needs.
But you don't want to be that woman.
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Being a NICE GIRL is exhausting. The constant self-doubt. The perfectionism that's never satisfied. The guilt every time you prioritize yourself.
Generation after generation of women taught to be agreeable, accommodating—to make everyone comfortable while ignoring their own needs.
But you don't want to keep passing this down.
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The world doesn't need more exhausted women who feel disconnected from themselves. It needs Self-Assured Women. Women who trust themselves. Who advocate for their needs without guilt. Who set boundaries and stay connected. Who can disappoint people and still be good people. Who model that being 'good' doesn't mean making yourself small.
This is the transformation from NICE GIRL to Self-Assured Woman.
Not about becoming 'not nice.' About becoming self-led. About breaking the pattern so your children—or the young women watching you learn something different.
Clinical Expertise Meets Embodied Experience
I'm Aleta - I understand what it's like to feel depleted, resentful, anxious, and disconnected from myself after spending decades prioritizing everyone else and doing everything possible to keep the peace in everyone else's lives. I've personally felt the impact of healing the NICE GIRL pattern - and I'm passionate about helping other women step into their own version of Self-Assured Woman.
Being sensitive, empathetic, emotionally observant, caring, and generous are all traits I've come to love about myself once I learned how to harness them in a way that didn't leave me feeling resentful, overstimulated, anxious, and exhausted.
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If you're someone who wants to still be kind and caring and generous but do so in a way that doesn't leave you empty, you've come to the right place!​
​A little more about me, I'm a Registered Social Worker (RSW) working in private practice, specializing in trauma-informed therapy, Internal Family Systems, and integrating women's physiology.
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My love for supporting women in the perinatal stages of life as a birth doula is what inspired me to became a therapist, specializing in perinatal mental health. I understand how women's bodies hold wisdom that cultural conditioning teaches us to override - whether that's during birth, in relationships, or in daily life.
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A few additional credentials:
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RSW, Bachelor of Social Work
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Internal Family Systems (IFS) Training
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Advanced Perinatal Mental Health Training
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Somatic Experiencing® Training (in progress)
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Birth Doula (DONA trained)
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Childbirth Educator (BeboMia)​​​​
you can't hate yourself into a version of yourself that you love
True, deep, nervous system level healing is done when you learn to accept and love all parts of ourselves, understand that the NICE GIRL and people pleasing tendencies are well-intended coping mechanisms and adaptive behaviors designed to try to keep you safe and happy. What once kept you safe is now holding you back from the version of yourself you're becoming.