In this episode, we dive deep into the complexities of the "good girl" and "bad girl" personas. What happens when a good girl goes bad? Can a bad girl be reformed into a good girl? How do good girls and bad girls show up in relationships? Iyanla is joined by special guests Damon "Bware" Vanzant and Coach Stormy Wellington, a reformed bad girl, to unpack these questions.
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I am Ayamla. I had a baby daddy relationship. I spent time in a relationship with a married man. I had to learn the skills and tools required to make my relationships healthy, fulfilling and loving. Welcome to the r Spot, a production of shondaland Audio in partnership with iHeartRadio. Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, and Welcome to our spot, the place we come to talk about relationships, all things relationships, all kinds of relationships, and the people in the relationship. Because you know, a relationship is really a neutral thing, but when you put people in it, it can be a divine experience or a hot mess. But we want to learn the tools, the skills, the principles, the practices that will elevate all of our relationships into fulfilling experiences, loving experiences, the places we go to heal and learn and exchange the most powerful parts of us, the parts of us that are loving and kind and generous. So today we're going to cook up a really peppered stew ha a stew about people in relationships and their history and their past. And for me, it kind of grows from the lyrics of a song sung by Jasmine Sullivan treat us bad, make us sad, then wonder why we are mad, because I know that is a story for so many women. They are mad as hell about the way that they've been treated. But one of the things that's kind of grown out of this, out of the treatment women have experience and about the experiences that they've had, it's this whole notion of a bad girl and a good girl. There's an age old, principal practice expectation about women in relationships, and that's that they are good girls. Good girls. Now what in the blazon of Jesus is a good girl? Is that a church girl? Is that a virgin? Are there virgins anymore? I don't even know what is a good girl for me. A good girl was one she was, first of all a virgin, or she lied about being a virgin, or could fake be in a vision. She went to church, She you know, wore her dresses at a respectable length, her hair was always cofferred, and she probably had some white gloves, and she wore her purse and the crook of her arm. And a bad girl was one whose dress was a little too tight or too short. She was one who climbed in the backseat of the car. She was one who had really a bad reputation. She was a skunk, and that's what we used to call them in my day. They don't even use that word anymore. She was a skunk and she was fast. Oh yeah, she was fast. Those were bad girls. Today, bad girls are rewarded. There is a bad girl's television show, and we see so many things on social media and in the world where bad girls are getting a check for being bad, and the badder they are, it seems that the more we like it. But when you talk to men, when you talk to men about these so called bad girls, they are not feeling it at all. Okay, So here's the question that we're going to look at today. We're gonna look at this and I've got two co hosts with me today who have very strong opinions on both sides. What happens when a good girl goes bad? What does that look like? And what does that mean? And can you take a bad girl and make her good? That's what we want to look at. Good girls, bad girls, and what is the meaning of it all. So I've got two co hosts today. I've got Beware from carab Life Media and he is in the dance hall arena, so he sees good girls gone bad, bad girls gone good and when they mix it up with bad boys, good boys. I mean, it is just a thing to behold. And I have with me this morning as my support my other co hosts Stormy Wellington, who is known worldwide as Coach Stormy. Coach Stormy, and she uses her influence and her platforms and her voice. I love it her voice to really help thousands and thousands of women embrace their authentic self. And what if that authentic self is a little feisty, what we call bad, what does she do with that? And what do the guys think about it? So welcome, Beware, Welcome Stormy. I think we've got a hot topic this morning, so I want to dive right in. I'm going to start with you, Beware, since most women really want to please and attract men, Can you tell me what is a good girl? What do you, as a man consider to be a good girl?
What is that a good girl is? Oh, my opinion, is a woman that that she's foundedd in the knowledge of herself, a culture, her history of community, relationship with God is also in there. That's like first and foremost, because that's going to determine how she shows up in the relationship. Is the effort is the information that she has. So if she doesn't have the right information or that that information that you say is good, she's not. She's not going to be able to show up as as good in the relationship and then should show up other than that. And and it seems like that's like a very common thing today amongst a lot of brothers that I have conversations with.
What is that they want a woman who has the knowledge of herself well.
Woman that shows up and she doesn't have that knowledge to sell because there's there's a there's a flip side to the point, which is this delusional thing where she believes, feels thinks that she has a certain value because of what she looks like, or how tight al how tighter clothes are, how big a BdL is, or her or her fake breasts, or or or how long and climb risk her weave is, how expensive it is, like that mean means something to her and to the women that she's trying to compete in the press, But brothers don't really see no value in that.
Okay, So let me ask you this so you're saying a good girl doesn't have what'd you say, a BBL What is that?
No, that's a fake butt.
Oh, so good girls don't have fake faith.
Good good girls.
Don't have fake butts.
That's not what I'm saying.
Okay, what are you saying?
What I'm saying is when a woman shows up and she has a knowledge of self, that's what makes her good. And what does the knowledge of self look like? When she shows up with the knowledge of self, well cultural, cultural or knowledge, a historical knowledge or spiritual foundation, she shows up in effeminine energy. That feminine energy is that's like if you were to think the nurturing, loving, caring part of God and manifested on earth as a human being, it would look like the woman. So when she's interest in that feminine energy, she's shown up with that with God or ask God or God in her is being expressed and that comes from knowledge yourself, and she doesn't have that knowledge it. So she's going to show up based on how the world's shaped her think it how the world supported her influenced her to think. And when you look at how modern women show up today, it's not really working for the black community.
Okay, all right, miss Stormy who. Let's start here with a basic definition of a good girl. What's a good girl in today's world.
I believe that a good girl is a woman that's grin found it first of all, in some spiritual practices, whatever that may be. I respect everybody's belief, but I think that you must know that you don't have the power, you are part of the power.
Number one.
I also believe that a woman that rooted on respect, integrity, character and honor is a good girl. A woman that knows her place, knows her responsibility. And I'll tell you I had a BBL when I was actually twenty one years old because I kind of had no choice. And I'm forty four years old today and I had to get that BBL removed because it was really causing some issues. And I'm a good girl. I'm a single mom of three, and I always was not a good girl. But I did not like how I was showing up. I didn't like the example that I was, and so I went and did the work two step in my feminine power in to be a quote unquote a good girl.
I'm not married.
I am single, but I do date one man and I respect him as a man, and I do think that a lot of as women. Because of our circumstances in our environment, we don't have the capacity to be feminine because we are taking on a lot of makaning rolls. So I just want to let him know that that we are going, yeah, yeah.
We're being mother and father.
We're being the ones that go get the money, you know, and then we try to we try to cook and clean at the same time. So it's not as easy as it used to be for us to be in that feminine role because we don't have the capacity to do it.
So wait a minute, because I don't want us to lose track of the stew we make, and we getting ready to make a cake and pancakes and Chitling's okay, let's get the stew on the stove and then we'll start putting more ingredients in. So if I heard you, because I listened with my ears and my eyes, and my tongue and my lips and my hair follicles and my nipples, I listen with everything, I think I heard you misstore me say that you weren't always a good girl. Did you say that?
Yes, s'am, I was not all it's a good girl. Okay, So let's talk.
About what is a bad girl? Talk about that.
So I'll tell you, first of all, I don't want to stay bad girl because I don't want to judge, because we don't know a person's circumstances. You know, never judge a man about his success, but what he had to overcome to be successful.
At thirteen years old, I didn't have no mom and no dad.
He was gone, and so I got into survival mode and I was a stripper at thirteen. I didn't want to be a stripper. But if you have no food and the water is off and you found a way to make some money, then that could be considered a bad girl.
But if I was a bad girl, circumstantially, let me define bad and I'm not no heat, no judgment. We're talking about in the way the world looks at it. So you are absolutely right. Circumstances will force us into situations that don't honor the best, the highest, and the truth of who we are. But the world will still look at that as bad a bad girl. So we're not judging. But let's get a definition out there that people can understand. Okay, all right, Okay, so you were stripping at thirteen.
I was stripping at thirteen.
I was stealing food out of the grocery store at thirteen, I was stealing clothes at thirteen. I was still in school with no mom and no dad at thirteen, and then end up having my first child at fifteen. So I could look like I'm a bad girl, right, But I had no choice. I was surviving. I was not doing these things because I didn't have anything else to do. I was trying to feel for myself. So people labeled me. You know, I used to have to steal. I used to dance, and I used to schem and scam because I needed to eat. And then I had a child at fifteen, so I was definitely enabled band girl until I started to get exposed to another way. And that's what makes me, you know, grateful to him went through all the things I went through, because I do believe that some girls are bad girls by choice because they just don't want to try to be good girls. And if some girls are bad because they have to survive.
Yeah, yeah, And I think that that's part of the challenge that we face. We get caught up in the external and we look at it and we label it. So again, we're just putting the ingredients in the stew. We're gonna throw it all up on the wall in a minute. Mister beware, how would you, as a man, define a bad girl?
I think me and other calls star on the same page as that. I don't think it's too much different, might be using different word. But she shows up and she's not grounding us as some type of spiritual philosophy or practice or foundation. She doesn't have any cultural awareness, a think in this shaped by the world and motivated by her emotions. That's a bad girl.
All right, all right, We've got to take a break, but I want to make sure you get this. So get your pencil, your pen and your Hogwarts notebook and take this down. A bad girl is one who has no knowledge of self, who has no spiritual grounding, and who allows the world, the external world, to define her. And a good girl is one who has knowledge of herself and who demonstrates that knowledge, and who more specifically, is standing on a firm, solid spiritual foundation. We're going to talk more about that right after this. Welcome back to the r spot. Let's pick up where we left off. How do bad girls show up in relationships? Oh? Okay, let's talk about that. I was going to ask, have you ever had an experience with a bad girl? But your face has told it all. How do bad girls show up in relationships?
Oh?
Men, a man? Where do I start? All? Right? They show up well as the definition that I just gave. But what would that definition look like in a relationship. It would look like a confrontational woman. It would look like an argumentative woman. It looked like a disrespectful woman. It would look like a woman that she's governed by a delusional point of which is because what she looks like, she thinks that's her value. A bad girl would show up as very, very combative and confrontational. She's not inspiring you, she's not talking to the god in you. I wants her to minister say, you know, as my wife that taught me how to be the man that I am. And he explained how she would do that, and he would say, you know, when she had upset or a beef with him, instead of going she would be like, you know, baby, I really enjoy and I really like and I really look up to you, and I really admire and and really speaking to him in that way to motivate him and to push him to being the man that he is. So when that when not that bad girl, she can motivate a man. She can only excuse the expression, you might got to beat this part out. But she can only speak to the in you. She can't speak to the gun in you because she because she doesn't have those spiritual those footies. So when she when she's grounded, when she had that spiritual of development practice in her life and it's forefront of her life, then then she'll she can speak to that in you. But I haven't experienced a lot of women who do that in my own personal relationships now because of how I'm move and who I am. They'll try to show up and fake it. You know, they'll try to show up in it. They'll talk that language, you know, they talk that metaphysical language, and they're talk that peace brother, peace king, and you know they start off like that, but but it doesn't hold water because very shortly, you know, the truth of who they are shortly comes out and you can't really hide that bad girl.
So the thing that I find very interesting is how you're defining a bad girl is about her presence her speaking how she uh stands within herself as a as a woman, Miss Stormy. Let me ask you this as what the world might say, because you were a stripper, is a bad girl? What about a woman with a high body count? Is she a bad girl?
I would tell you this.
I think that as a woman, you know who you allow intimate intimacy with you. They need you know those so spiritualized with you. I think if a woman is promiscuous, I will be honest with you. Yes, I think that that is one of the definitions of a bad girl. But I want to also speak to about that. He said, I used to be like that. I'll tell you that. I used to be very domasculating. I used to be very abrasive. I used to try to purposely like tear a man down. Until I worked on my feminine energy. Until I realized that if I'm dating you, I'm I'm better off building you up then than tear you down.
And I had yes.
And I want to tell you that I had to do a lot of work, and it came from me looking at how it looked. I watched other women be like that, and I would be like, damn, am I am I, and am I am? I showing up like that, I realized how bad it looked. And then I can tell you this. I started to realize the pattern in my dating that I was dating the same the same men in different bodies. And so when I started to look observed myself, because I observed myself all the time, I realized that it was because of me. I was attracted to me who I was, and so I had to do a lot of work too. I was never promised you with Thank god, I never I don't have a high body count or anything like that. I might have as but I was never a promiscuous girl, right, but I would just you know, stay this to even you, miss like y'all are a lot of women.
Who have a high body count.
I think that that affects their self esteem and because they know that, they kind of feel like they have no value because of it. Because when you have sex with so many different men, you can't help but know that that energy is still within you. So until you go do some spiritual work and get that release, you don't know how much you're being suppressed by those sexual partners.
Okay, so wait a minute, wait a minute, miss Stormy, what about the fifteen, sixteen year old who doesn't have a mother and a father, who doesn't have anyone to whom she's accountable, anyone who's responsible for her. And that's a quick way, that's the oldest profession in the world for a young girl who's unsupervised, unprotected, un guided to make some money. And she's not doing it because she wants. She's doing it because she has to. Just like you, you got to strip some get to lag. Is she a bad girl because she's got a high body count out of necessity?
So interesting, I'll tell you. If you look at it from that perspective, of course not. But let's be honest. If you have slept with ten fifteen men by the age of fifteen, you have ten to fifteen soul times.
And no matter how.
We want to put a story in a twist, because again I was a stripper, I was a stripper. I know for a fact every man that you ever have sex with, you see them some way in your life.
You a.
That energy of them show up. So you are and you are a bad girl. And I'm gonna tell you what what has changed my life? When I put real titles on what something is?
It?
Helps me to realize that that is a problem that I need to solve. And so when you label something as what it is, but you don't become victim of that thing, I think that helps you to move to the opposite of that, you know, because the goal is not to stay the same. The goal is to say, Okay, this is who I was circumstantially. But when do you get to a point that you say I shouldn't be sleeping around with ten fifteen men. That's tamp down my stuff, word and my stuff. Sure, I guess you have to do it.
If you have to do it, I guess you stop sleeping with men when you can get old enough, maybe to get a job, you know, or where somebody takes you in. I just want to make that clear because in today's world, there are a lot of young women who are on their own and they will turn that way. Then there's a lot of young women who choose it because it has money attached to it. But beware, I'm not letting the men off the hook here. Let me ask you a question. Yes, many men want a bad girl because she's also fun and sexually adventurous. Uh huh, you've heard. I know you've heard that that men want a lady.
Freaking a bed.
So is a freaking a bed a bad girl? And what responsibility do men take for supporting women and being bad in order to please them? Let's let's have that conversation, mister Beware.
Well to answer the second question. First, men play a major role in that as the leader of the family of the community, or supposed to be leader and the family of the community. You know how he's set in that tone. So if he's if he's not grounded in his spiritual practice, if he's not guided his knowledge and self. And this is the man that she's laying down with, one of those brothers they call body counts. And if she's allowing him to deposit himself into her body, that's the role that he plays. Because as all of you sisters mayn bear witness or not, maybe I can share this from my experience. When you and a strong, emotionally heightened relationship with a woman myself, then what I find is that she begins to take on my characteristics, she begins to talk like me, she begins to use my language, she begins to pick up my habits, and she starts to exercise my mindset. So if I'm a brother, that's not well I'm supposed to be in life. You know, the sun shines on the moon, no sunnin sunshine shine on the sun. So if the sun is not shining the way supposed they shine, everything in the galaxy is going to be impacted and affected. The man is symbolic for the sun, the woman is symbolic for the moon. So in this case, how does the good girl become bad? Well, the minister always says that most no good women are no good because of some no good mad.
Okay, let me ask a question. Wait a minute, wait a minute, let me let me take this the take this to another level. So you're you know, you've got knowledge yourself and you're in the world. I mean you know, you got your wife at home and you go out and cheat on her.
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Okay, that was that was me. You go out with the bad girls. Okay, So what do you think that you having the good girl and dishonoring her or betraying her trust or violating her by being with the bad girl. How do you balance that out? What is that about?
Well, if I'm using my own situation, right, you know what may seem good to you, may not seem good to me. So you you could call my situation good from the outside looking in, but me that's sitting in the inside of it, it may not have been a good experience for me. And you won't know what that experience is like for me until you conversate with me or communicate with me. And I shared that with you. So I can't see how people can say a situation is good but when they don't.
Know, well, which situation are you talking about. She's home, she's following, she's following your lead, she's doing what it is that you know your partner is to do as a woman with self knowledge, and blah blah blah. And then you see a bad girl and you lose your durned mind.
Yeah I don't know, but I mean that's that's that's how that is hypothetical, this hypothetical situation. Excuse me, I'm being tongue tight. So I like to deal with more in reality, miss miss so and so saying that the bad girl is she's tempting. In my opinion, the good girl is the most exciting. You know, She's the one that's exciting to me. And again, for me, the good girl is the one that's grounded in the knowledge of self. She's grounded. So just because the other one me look nice and she speaks nice and got a nice voice and go to church on Sunday, That's what I'm saying. That appearance can be an illusion to someone that's looking out in but for those for those who on the inside, they don't experience that person that's good for me. Good is that woman that's speaking to the God in me, that woman that's that that that that can speak to me in such a way that she can motivate me by by with simple words or a simple touch or a simple gesture and both motivate me to be more in tune with the God that that's within me, more in tune on my divine mission, more into on my divine assignment. That that's what's good to me and and and to me even in the bed. Those girls are even more better than the one that do acknowledge itself because the one I have knowledge it self, she's in tune with that feminine energy and she know how to turn it on. That woman that don't have a little femininity, it's just a it's a dance for her it's just choreograph. That's what it is for. She don't know nothing else. She's not connecting with her man's spin fit going on there.
Well, let me ask let me ask you. Well, first of all, let me make a confession. Okay, clutch your pearls right now, clutch them way up to your throat because this is gonna choke. I used to be I used to be a bad girl. All ahead, let me tell you why I was a bad girl because I had bad character. So, miss store Me, my question to you, is a bad girl defined by bad behavior or is she defined by bad character? Because I'm confessing I was a bad girl because I had bad character? What do you say to that, Miss store Me?
Oh my god.
So, first of all, I'm so happy to ask me that question. I promise you I can't make this up this morning, and we're gonna go. I look at the word intimacy and I say intimate, So I want you all to see into.
Me right now.
But yes, yes, I live my life on respect, integrity, character and honor. And that's my acronym for the word rich. You could be the sexiest, the most fabulous. You can have Burking Bags, Chanelle Bags, drive Ron and the Rolexe, I mean Roland joh Ron and the Roads Voice. We'll all kind of be big diamonds. And guess what you have? Poor character? You are a bad girl character. Now, I tell people all the time, hustle will take you places, but your character will keep you there.
You have to have good character.
And I think that you should measure a man, buy his character, measure a woman buy her character. And I love what he said when you know he talked about you know, does she speak to the King and you? Because a woman of good character can only stay good off her tongue. Of course, there are some times where we stay bad because it's necessary.
But yeah, well you have good character, you know.
I believe that you get to open up new doors speeds because people see your soul through your character.
All right, here's the headline. Y i'm la Mama, y i'm la Auntie Yamla was a bad girl.
We'll be right back.
Welcome back to the R spot. Let's get back to the conversation. Woo, we got some This is not a stew, this is a gumbo. We got some pork in here, some beans, some everything cooking up in here. Talking about bad girls, good girls? What makes a bad girl? What makes a good girl? What makes a good girl go bad? How do you get a bad girl to be good? Misstormy, what is it that you wanted to say?
I just think that internally, as we change our internal dialogue, like you, Mama Ayalla, who was once a band girl bad?
I was bad to the bone?
Did you see?
I mean you feeling in your soul when it's time to change this awful levity comes in all of us. I believe we should get to a point where we start feeling it in our soul that this is just not right. And when you get there, you will find the resources to be able to help you to develop in your character and to relinquish.
The bad girl mentality.
So I think long as you grow and mature through whatever that feaster was? So what did she was bad? Did you just can't? We just can't stay bad? And I think that is where a real power lies, where we could say I used to be this, but hey, how I started, Now how I have to finish?
Hey look at me now. So I love to tell people I used to be a stripper.
I love to tell people that I dropped out of school in the tenth grade and I was a teenage mom. But I love to also tell them I to have a choice. But now that I'm an adult and I know better, I do better.
Well. My guests today have really given us all something to think about, particularly me, because I would have never thought that I was a bad girl, but absolutely I was. I didn't even know I was a bad girl, but bad in terms of how we are measuring it and what it is that we're measuring, And a lot of it has to do with what we know and what we don't know, what we do from a place of necessity or habit, or the stories that we make up. It's really about what's in your heart. It's about how you see yourself, how you hold yourself. It's all about what you think is necessary and what you're willing or unwilling to do. Good girls how do they go bad? Bad girls? How do they become good? And what is good and what is bad based on the person's needs, their experience, their history, their personality. Boy, I wonder how many other good girls there are out there who've come to the realization that they were really bad. How many bad girls or people who've been labeled bad girls are good. So I guess the question becomes, how does a bad girl transform into a good girl so that she can become a good wife, and a good mother and a good person, not in the eyes of the world, but in her own mind and in her own heart, understanding that who she was may have been a matter of necessity or miseducation. I want to look at that. We'll talk about that next week right here on the R Spot. Thank you for tuning in today. I hope that you've heard something that you can use to make your relationship with yourself and everybody else better. I'll see you next week, but in the meantime, stay in peace and not in pieces.
Bye.
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