Good Girl No More, Part 2: The Alchemy of Righteous Rage

Recap and Introduction:

In PART 1 we explored the deep roots of the "Good Girl" archetype, how it shapes women’s behaviours and expectations in relationships, and what happens when this role becomes too constricting. We discussed how, over time, the suppression of one’s true desires and needs can lead to a build-up of resentment and anger—culminating in what I call "Righteous Rage." This rage is not just a reaction but a necessary and powerful force for change, signaling the end of the Good Girl era and the beginning of a transformative journey. If you haven’t read Part 1 yet, I highly recommend starting there to fully understand the foundation of this discussion.

Beneath the Rage: The Deep Grief and Pain

Before we dive into the power of Righteous Rage, I want to speak to what lies beneath it. Rage is often seen as a destructive force, but underneath it, there is a well of deep and overwhelming hurt. When a woman is in the throes of Righteous Rage, she might appear strong, fierce, and unyielding or cold and shut off. But beneath that surface, there’s often a profound grief—a mourning for the parts of herself that she had to abandon to fit into the mould of the Good Girl. There is a sorrow for the love and care she gave without receiving the same in return, for the times she silenced her voice to keep the peace, and for the pieces of her soul she lost in the process.

This grief is tender, raw, and deeply vulnerable. And - spoiler alert - this grief is pivotal to the transformation we’re being invited into. For now, it’s important to understand that when a woman expresses rage, she’s not just fighting against what has hurt her—she’s also protecting the fragile parts of herself that have been wounded. 

The Many Faces of Rage

So I’ve been repeating the word “rage” here without acknowledging that it doesn’t look the same for all of us.  The way it is expressed depends on many factors - the culture we grew up in, our upbringing, our nervous system tendencies, our temperament… My rage, for example, didn’t include a raised voice or direct blaming of my husband.  My primal animal body back then would never have allowed me that kind of outright “fight” response; to keep me safe in the world, it relied much more heavily on flight and freeze. So in my Righteous Rage, I simply shut down any positive feelings toward my husband and distanced myself from him by focusing on my career and motherhood.  For a long time I didn’t even let myself know how profoundly hurt and angry I was. It was only when I allowed that numbness to fully lift, that I could make use of the wisdom and life-enhancing wisdom of my rage.

The Wisdom of Rage: Unalchemised Desire

Many women (including me), when they first encounter this powerful emotion, try to suppress it. They’ve been conditioned to believe that anger makes them "bad," that to be called "angry" is an insult, a sign that they are losing control or stepping out of line. 

However, as Kasia Urbaniak beautifully describes, Rage is "unalchemised desire." It’s the raw, unfiltered expression of what we deeply long for before it has been shaped, refined, and articulated. Inside the Rage, if we can listen not to what it is against, but to what it is for, we find the blueprint for more beautiful relationships.

Rage, alongside the grief beneath it, tells us what we care about most. It highlights where our boundaries have been crossed, where our deepest desires have been ignored, and where our most sacred values have been violated. When we stop seeing Rage as a negative force and start recognising it as a messenger, we can begin to understand what it is trying to tell us.

What is it that you truly desire? What do you truly want from your partner? What is the unmet need at the heart of your anger? When we start asking these questions, we move from fighting against what is wrong to fighting for what we deeply want. And that is where true power lies—not in the suppression of our anger, but in the alchemisation of it into a force for positive change.

The Evolution of Power: From Good Girl to Righteous Rage

Through a developmental lens, each of these stages holds its own wisdom, its own necessity. (Just like each childhood developmental stage - no matter how tricky - plays an important role in the creation of an adult). We cannot shame the Good Girl (GG) for her attempts to survive within a system that asked her to diminish herself. Nor can we dismiss the Righteous Rage (RR)  that rises when she finally says, "Enough."  The only way to reach true synthesis—where power is integrated, balanced, and creative—is by honouring the stages that came before.

Thesis (GG). Antithesis (RR). Synthesis (??).

Synthesis is when we step out of the Either/Or—I can either be devoted and loving (GG) OR maintain my boundaries and tend to my needs (RR)—into the Both/And, in which the best of both previous stages are integrated to create a new whole. Unfortunately, there may not be a way to skip the messy middle bit straight to the neat conclusion. Believe me, I’ve tried. But no one expects a newborn to walk, or a toddler to calmly express their displeasure. 

So, to every woman who finds herself seething with anger (or numbing it) after years of suppressing her needs, I say this: Celebrate what the revolt means. Your anger is not a sign that you need to burn down your life; it is a powerful indicator that you are ready to grow. When the Good Girl revolts, it signals the reclamation of all the parts of herself she cut off in order to stay in the tribe. And let me tell you, the tribe will be all the richer and more powerful when you are WHOLE.

The Gold and the Danger of Righteous Rage

We’ve seen that Rage is unalchemised desire, the raw expression of our deepest longings. But as powerful and necessary as Rage is, it comes with its dangers. Without direction, Rage can destroy more than it creates. If allowed to burn unchecked, it can tear through relationships, leaving wounds rather than healing them. Or worse, when it isn’t used at all, but suppressed —then, this glorious woman will spend half her time, exhausted, overwhelmed, and numb, and the other half seething at her partner.

The true power of Rage lies in its alchemisation—when it is harnessed and directed with clear intention. Because it is life force bursting forth, demanding to be recognised, demanding to create something new. The danger lies only in misdirecting this force. If you channel it solely at your partner—unless he rightfully deserves it—you risk losing sight of its true purpose.

The Role of the Partner

This is where the role of your partner becomes crucial. When he feels attacked, he becomes confused and defensive, or dismissive and shut down and he does not hold this space for you. Whilst your blame is leveled at him, he is caught in his own shackles, flattened by the weight of expectations that have kept him in his place, just as you were kept in yours.

But what I’ve noticed about many of the men I work with is this: they have a deep, almost primal, desire to serve, to play a positive role, to support and protect their woman, to contribute to something beautiful, and to be acknowledged for it. As women, it can be hard to fully grasp the depth and meaning of this drive in men. Unfortunately, they have no idea how to do this… yet. No one ever told them. The Good Girl certainly didn’t and Righteous Rage is a brilliant alarm signal to say “This is not OK” but she’s not yet turned that into a clear vision. Somehow, we need to shift from blaming them for the role they’ve been stuck in—to explicitly inviting them into a new, positive role to play in the creation of something better.

More on what this role might be in Part 3! For now, I’ll just say that I am hopeful this role will be both challenging and deeply fulfilling for him. He can celebrate the life force bursting forth from you and become your ally in this process, protecting your life force as it moves from numbness through rage to clarity and power.

What’s Next? 

As we stand on the precipice of this massive transition, it is clear to me that we could not be anything but lost! I believe we are the first generation to face this transition en masse. Good Girls have existed for millennia; Angry Women with Righteous Rage have been out in the open at least since the Suffragettes, and we owe them so, so much. The upheaval we’ve seen in relationships, reflected in soaring divorce rates, is no surprise given the magnitude of this change.

Intimate relationships have been in a no-man's land ever since, with no elders to guide us in how men and women can truly love each other in this new landscape. Good Girls and Good Boys knew how to do relationships by following the rules, no matter how restrictive. Righteous Rage knows how to tear those rules down, while Confused Partners often retreat into work (or more unhealthy coping mechanisms), avoiding the painful loss of their partner’s esteem.

The ones who know what to do next are only now in the making. We are those ones.

That is the challenge given to us. Will you accept it?

In Part 3, we’ll dive deeper into the role your partner can play in this transformation. How can he break free from his own flattened shackles? How can he stand beside you, not as an opponent but as a co-creator of this new paradigm? We’ll explore how to invite him into a positive role, a role that is not only supportive but also deeply empowering for him. For this, I’ll be drawing on past and present clients who have shown me what it looks like, on my husband and the beautiful ways he has shown up for me, and I’ll also be interviewing some male colleagues of mine. Watch out for this one!

In Part 4, we will explore what true synthesis looks like. What does it mean to move beyond Righteous Rage? How can you embody this power in your daily life and relationships? What does it look like to live in a way that integrates all the stages of your journey—honouring the past, harnessing the energy of transformation, and stepping into a balanced, creative, and empowered state of being?

But for now, celebrate where you are. Celebrate the revolt, whether it is just beginning or is already in full swing. honour the Righteous Rage. And know that the journey from Good Girl to what is next is a path of alchemy, where every stage is a necessary part of your evolution.