This book has been passing through the hands of so many people I know these days and after reading it, I can absolutely see why! Doyle is a wordsmith and with this skill, she articulates so many of the invisible external influences and internal forces that so many women today struggle to verbalize but can deeply resonate with. Doyle is a model of bravery and authenticity even when it is far from convenient, even when it blows up her whole life over and over again. Yet, she calls from the other side of the fence, letting readers know that the view is better there, it is worth it. She is an icon for all women and for the LGBTQIA+ community.
Working primarily with teenage and young women, there were pages in this book that I flagged for many of my clients to explore. These pages centered primarily around her understanding of the many barriers that women face when trying to find themselves in a sea of societal expectation. She does not shy away from acknowledging that freeing herself from these expectations was painful, and she explains how pain and hard feelings serve as information, as indicators and alarm bells to be attended to thoroughly, not avoided. This is a message I stress so often to clients, especially my clients who use self-harm and disordered eating to shut away these feelings that are so crucial to their deeper understanding of themselves.
“I learned I would never be free from pain, but I could be free from the fear of pain and that was enough…I can use pain to become…to be alive is a perpetual state of revolution.”
This concept of self-evolution is one I have long been fond of, rather than the idea of arriving at an end version of the self. It gives us permission to be less attached to the results of our lives and to reinvent the end goal many times over.
Glennon shares her story of leaving her marriage after falling in love with a woman and the undeniable pull that was behind it. It would have been the socially safe thing in her life to ignore that pull, but her bravery was deeply rewarded and her pages about her and her wife will tug at even the hardest of heart strings. Glennon avoids boxes when it comes to her sexual identity, instead, modeling a more fluid perspective on love and what it means to follow the heart, across gender and across the country.
This book touches on a range of advocacy themes and Glennon shares her own steps towards breaking through her feelings of paralysis and overwhelm into action. This feeling of overwhelm has been so front and center for many of my clients and learning how to channel our passions into action is a way of cultivating momentum not only in the world around us, but also internally.
“In order to avoid becoming complicit with those upstream, we must become the people of And/Both. We must commit to pulling our brothers and sisters out of the river and also commit to going upstream to identify, confront and hold accountable those who are pushing them in.”
That line makes my social work heart sing.
This is a book about feminism, queer identity, motherhood, race, injustice, religious exploration and marriage, but most of all it is a call to bravery in whatever ways your individual life is presenting it to you.