When I was 9 years old, my grade 4 teacher asked the class to sit down individually and write a pros and cons list about being a girl, or boy. During share-time, it became evident that all the boys could only fill the pros side of their list, while the cons remained empty. All the girls had long lists of cons on their papers and, not one girl had written under the pros side of their list. As we swiftly packed up for recess, I remember being hit with a pang in my chest. It was a pang I felt for the first time this day, and have carried with me every day since.
It is a pang of deep underground anger, unheard frustration, “this is so intensely unfair”, and impotent rage. It is a pang felt by every individual in the face of unacknowledged privilege. It a pang that must be experienced so deeply by those who are Indigenous, black American, gay, queer, transgender, fat in ‘thin North America’, of colour, and/or with a disability.
My teacher that day, in the 1980s, was teaching us about a pros and cons list. Gender inequity was not on her mind. The kids in my class never mentioned the activity again as they rushed out to the playground. But I was hit with a pang.
Something was wrong with the world, and I could feel it deep down in my heart. I started to think that day. Thoughts filled my mind: “they are better”, “I am worse”, “this is so unfair”. Experimenting with bringing my inside world to my outside world, I mentioned the unfairness to my family, to some close friends, and to some adult mentors. But in the 1980s, my experimenting fell flat. Impotent rage.
From a 9-year-old girl in North America, my rage was met with backs turned, confused faces, and rejecting frowns. Having nowhere to go, the rage started to point inward. “I hate myself.” “I hate my thighs.” “I am fat.” “Everyone hates me.” “I am too loud.” “I am too big.” “Fat.”
With anger unexpressed and turned inward, I became addicted. At first, I was only addicted to my thoughts (in my children’s book The Girl and The Sun, I call our judging thoughts ‘the cloud’). Then I became consumed by my disordered eating. Later, drinking, and the underworld of depression and anxiety.
But, you see, I didn’t have a choice. As a little girl, I tried to let the world know about my anger. In the 1980s, the world was disgusted by an angry girl who should be pretty, small, quiet, and nice. So, I had to put it somewhere, and against myself is where it went.
Today, I write this from a rediscovered place inside of myself. After years of traveling inward and unraveling pain, I uncovered my heart (in my children’s book, I call “my sun’). In my traveling, I found the girl from years ago and garnered her strength, her insight, her beautiful sensitivity, her honesty, and her rage and I now own it. I now see the world through her eyes. And thanks to the medium of social media, my truth can now spill out in words.
Glennon Doyle says that, if you identify as a girl in our world, then you have only two paths to travel: addicted or angry. My daughter sees the world and tells us what is not fair. She looks outward, feels the pang, and speaks her feelings about it. She brings her inside world to the outside. It is the world that it wrong, not her.
Sometimes her pain makes me feel uncomfortable because it meets the residual pain I still have inside me. But uncomfortable is life. And truth. My wonderful daughter is ok to go there because she is connected to something so much deeper inside of herself. She lives from her heart. And so do I. And so do many individuals who feel the pang. Watch out world, change is emerging.
When we decide not to believe the judging cloud in our mind, and instead let the sun in our heart lead, then we feel free to paint the world with our own unique rainbow. The sun, cloud, and rainbow metaphors that make up the story in my children’s book The Girl and the Sun were molded piece by piece from my own pain and subsequent drive to overcome it. I use these metaphors every day to parent myself and my children. They are not my own ideas. They come from many teachers along the way: Anita Johnston, Eckhart Tolle, Byron Katie, Jeff Foster, Tara Brach, Marianne Williamson, and many counselors and colleagues who guided me along my journey. Through The Girl and The Sun I can now share them with the world. Please visit www.ashleyandthesun.com/free-handouts-parents-and-teachers for free handouts and www.ashleyandthesun.com for a thorough explanation of the sun, cloud and rainbow metaphors.