Learn to be a loving parent to yourself; then you can best be a loving parent to your child. Because we live in a culture that does not honour emotion, feeling is a skill that needs to be learned. The more we practice feeling our own emotions, the more we can support children when they need us. The more we express a range of feelings in front of them, the more they will feel comfortable expressing a range of feelings in front of us.
When I wrote The Girl and The Sun children’s book, I never imagined I would be launching it directly in the middle of a global pandemic. But it seems that now is actually the perfect time for the book to be available to the world. While we all try to navigate this new existence, a book about kindness (to oneself and others) appears to be more pertinent than ever, especially when it comes to encouraging kindness in kids.
“Love yourself like you love your children. Always. Even when you don’t feel like it. Yes, you are annoying sometimes. You act one way when you want to be acting another. You complain when you want to be grateful. You are irritated when you want to be patient. You are human, just like your child or loved one is human. And does your love for them wax and wane depending on their behaviour? No. Love is consistent and present, and it is always there in the background while you work hard to be there for them, even when it is difficult to do so. This is the love you need to give to yourself.”
True self-love does not come from your cloud (your ego or negative self-talk). It comes from the sun in your heart (your soul or true self). It is unconditional. And it involves having a continuous dialogue with yourself to ensure that you are emotionally, mentally, and physically supported as you move through your day.
Bullying awareness wasn’t a thing back in the 80s like it is now. If you are a parent, you can be sure that the harassment you experienced (or gave) would not fly in today’s school. But it still exists, and as parents we can support our children so that the emotional pain from it does not turn into a frozen ball that prevents them from sleeping when they are 40. Here are 10 things I wish I knew...
You are allowed to be angry. It is not ok that you and I, and all those who identify as girls and women in our culture, have been told we should be thin because we are meant to stay in our box and be quiet. It is not ok that we are meant to spend hours and hours of our precious life obsessing over what we are eating, feeling disconnected with other women because we are jealous, and standing in front of a mirror and hating what we see.
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 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.
Parents you do not need to meditate right now. Every second of your life is a meditation. You wake up in the morning to face another day of parenting, playing, teaching, cleaning, working, texting, and planning – and you feel the overwhelm approach. It’s like a wave. You let it crash over you. Then you find your bearings. You take a deep breath. You walk to the kitchen to grab a coffee. And you smile at your kids like the day is going to be awesome. That is a meditation.
When we heal the pain, we are preventing it from traveling to our kids. We are stopping it. Ending it. A large task indeed. But I have found that when I look at it as a larger task of my generation then I feel inspired to commit to my own personal growth because it is bigger than me and my pain. It is huge. I imagine the ripple effect through generations, and I thank life for giving us all these curveballs. Without them we would never be forced to look within. We’d still be progressing and accumulating and escaping with Julia Roberts and double-breasted business suits forever…
As a culture, we are so disconnected from our spirits. We are so disconnected from our bodies, and from our emotions that reside there. We are like a bunch of walking heads. We are so disconnected from our hearts, which means we are disconnected from our values and knowing what is important to us. We are so disconnected from our earth, from our communities, and from each other. Because we are disconnected, we hurt. And so we make decisions to get away from hurt and be happy. Because we are a bunch of walking heads, we think the answer lies in our minds so we fill our brains with more information on how to be happy.
“When I noticed his hands too tense to play the piano, I saw him slump in his chair. He turned to me and said “Everything is gone from my life. I am not worth anything anymore.” I remember feeling so shocked that my beautiful dad, in his wise age, could be so wrong. He had no idea the worth he had to me. To our family. Just sitting there in a chair, his presence was so deeply loved and appreciated. He was worth so much. We are all worth so much just for being here. What a lesson I learned in that moment…”
We are all on a journey. As young children we feel fully connected to our sun. We are present with life. We feel our emotions as they arise. We act intuitively. We listen to our heart. We feel connected to others and the world around us.
Then we grow older and we start to hear a voice inside our mind. It seems to float above our head like a dark cloud. This voice pulls us out of the present. It has us reflect on the past or worry about the future. The voice decides we are better than some people, and worse than others. It teaches us we are separate from others and the world around us. It informs us that, if we are feeling bad now, then we will feel better if….we have more friends, more power, more money, more things, more and more and more.
We start to believe this voice. It is very convincing and it seems that a lot of people are listening to it who appear to look happy. We want to be happy too so we start to follow the voice’s messages: you are not enough so you need to work harder, be better, move faster, get more, have more, and be more. At first we feel powerful, so we keep following. Harder and harder we work. Higher and higher we climb. Further and further we travel.
Until something happens. Usually an experience that knocks us down to our knees. And the bubble bursts. We realize we don’t know who we are anymore. We miss life. Real life. The life that immerses us in all the colours of the rainbow. The real colours. We miss connection with others. Real connection. The kind that has us open and deeply honest. We miss the sun in our heart. Our real heart. The one that connects us with all of life. The one that has been with us from the beginning. The one that has been watching us on our journey aware that we would follow this path as all others have done before. The one that has trusted we would eventually return.
And we do return. Now we are wise. We are wise of the ways of the journey. We know the voice will continue to be loud and enticing, but we know it is a path we have traveled before. A path with many promises that lead to nowhere. We are now home. It feels so good to just to be. So we decide to stay.
The 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, 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 a thorough explanation of the sun, cloud and rainbow metaphors.
