I had a session with Hiro yesterday, which was brilliant and kooky and amazing, as always.
And she said something kind of like this:
“For someone as successful as you are …. well, it’s fascinating that there’s this part of you who believes prosperity has to come in tiny, tiny increments. From the doghouse to the stables, and only later to the house.”
Of course I hadn’t told her about any of this. She saw it. But I knew what she was referring to. It was the dolls.
There were two of them.
Two sisters.
They were poor. They had nothing and no one. They dressed in rags. They lived in the forest, finding shelter under the trees.
They were strong and tough, and had creative ways of getting by.
They used found wood to build a hut between a cluster of boulders. They made forest art. They picked mushrooms and berries.
Once they found a market or a fair at the edge of the woods.
And each week they would hike there and trade their forest findings for things they needed.
Clothing. Books. Pots for cooking. One time someone even gave them an old sewing machine, which they fixed up and began to make cushions and blankets.
Years went by.
Their crafts became well-known in the surrounding villages.
They moved into a cottage.
They were beautiful and happy. Making, building, creating, trading.
And as time went on, their lives became more comfortable until eventually the experiences of cold and fear and lack were just memories.
Or until my parents called to me that it was time for dinner.
Nope. Just me.
Whenever girlfriends came to play or I was at their houses, I was always astonished by how these girls would just start at the end.
They would set up the dolls in a gorgeous house with lots of clothing and a car. A car! And furniture. And boy dolls.
And then they’d … play. It made no sense.
That wasn’t a game. That wasn’t playing. The play was the process. There isn’t anything to do at the end except sit on a couch reading a book and basking in the good.
My girlfriends would also get annoyed at sharing the nice clothing and playthings for the dolls with me, because I wouldn’t actually use these for hours. They didn’t understand.
It’s your game. That’s the part I always forget.
Hiro, in her wisdom and her wonderful ability to be a complete sillyhead wackopants, said I could go out and get some dolls.
That I can rewrite the game.
Make up a new game for them. Change the game. Play again. A different kind of play.
But I couldn’t even imagine a new game. That is the game.
Finding the quality.
Hiro: What is the quality at the heart of this game? If this game is sacred play, what’s going on? Your playing was never about acquisition or growth for the sake of growth. So what is its truth?
Me: Well, there’s something about patience. And trust. And hope.
Hiro: And ingenuity and creativity. Taking action on your own behalf. Activating your powers. Elegant and unlikely solutions. All the things that make you such a good businesswoman.
Me: Oh.
Hiro: Take these qualities and these elements and make a new game.
The zen of the giant collective Comment Blanket Fort.
I would love for you to play with me.
With dolls. Or in your head. That counts too.
Or just thinking (out loud or otherwise) about what this.
What some of our hidden ideal narratives of “success” might be. And where we trip over these imaginary scenarios.
As always, we all have our stuff and we’re all working on our stuff. So we let people have their own experience and we don’t give each other unsolicited advice.
I am going to get two dolls. And take them to the Playground.
postscript: The new Rally page (Rally!) is up. I still don’t know how to explain how great it is but at least now you get a feeling. There’s another page too that’s a Rally FAQ — I hope we covered everything, but if not you’ll let me know.
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Oh Havi, how do you always know just the thing to say, at just the time I need to hear it?
I am in the process of re-writing my success… or rather, of resurrecting the personal view of what I want my life to be, that has been living dormant within me for years. The change is big and scary… but also incredibly exciting!
.-= Heidi´s last post … Fall is here- and change is in the air! =-.
Oy.
Thank you. This comes up at home a lot… “you can’t just SKIP to the END!”
I think I’ll bring some dolls in January (the next Rally is on my birfday so I can’t get to Portland, but my husband already marked off time for the one after).
Hmmmmmmm.
.-= Shannon´s last post … Just One Card- Four of Wands =-.
I have been opening up to the concept of changing the narrative lately as well.
Mine overtly runs as “get into the big show,win the big award, be discovered, live happily ever after creating and selling what I create”
Of course when I didn’t immediately get into the big show, the monsters started coming out.
The feelings of unworthiness didn’t go away even after I started getting into other shows. Smaller success. It just didn’t count because it wasn’t big and dramatic and WOW.
I am currently working on my presentation for the Kennedy museum on Thursday night (the Athens Ohio one not the “real” one 😉 and did a timed writing to help get the narrative framed for the talk.
And what came up was this: I did get into the big show the first time I entered. I won an award! And I sold the piece!
And I totally forgot/disregarded it because it wasn’t *the* big show,and it wasn’t “Best of Show”.
Like the only success that counts is a certain variety of success.
Plenty of food for thought here, but for now I need to write a narrative on “water towers and why I make art about them”
.-= Andi´s last post … The Sketchbook Project- Week Two =-.
This is fascinating…and has me wondering what my hidden story is about ‘success.’
Coincidentally(?) I was pondering such things this morning on my walk and realized that one of the things that scares me about the thought of making lots of money (one version of success) is that if we have lots of disposable income, my kid will grow up to be a brat. And given that we currently have a reasonable income as a family, I’m more worried about raising a brat than about ending up a bag lady.
When I spell it out like this, I can see how ridiculous it is, but really- that’s the story (or part of it at least!) that keeps me stuck.
Very interesting. Must go investigate this story further…
.-= Liz´s last post … My Favorite Things- October 1 =-.
Wow. So powerful.
Dolls were very important to me as I was growing up. They still are, if I’m honest. My rag doll was the main character, but she was at the heart of a whole huge family of dolls. The cast changed slightly from time to time, but pretty consistently the rag doll had a charming and kind (but busy) sixteen-year-old sister, a mean thirteen-year-old sister, at least one younger sister, a younger brother, and an infant sibling (sometimes twin infants). My own sister, who shared a bedroom with me at the time, had her own doll family who lived in the “house next door” that was her own bed. Her rag doll and mine were best friends. I don’t remember all the details of the stories — bratty sisters were mean to our protagonists, and ultimately got their come-uppance, as our heroes’ wit and spirit shone through it all.
I really love how, in your game, there are two of the dolls. They begin with nothing, but together.
Hmm. I am thinking about the stories and scripts that live in my own head, that get played out in my own life. Which ones help me? Which ones hold me back?
This is a really big topic. So much to reflect upon; so much to play with.
I may want to get myself a rag doll now.
.-= Kathleen Avins´s last post … RE-re-invention =-.
Peals of laughter…..My cousin Mo used to get SO angry and frustrated with me because when we played with dolls, I NEVER wanted to play in the nice dollhouse I had. I would spend endless hours creating hot tubs for them on the hill in her backyard by digging a hole and lining it with ziplocks and then “tiling” it with marbles. And so on….. When the building was “done”, so was playtime. She always wanted them to be living in the dollhouse already doing, stuff? that I cannot fathom even now.
Also, my dolls for those games were all given to me by her mom and by my other aunts because my mother didn’t approve of dolls. smiling.
Great post.
Thank you!
I wanted to be an architect since I was a tiny girl, drawing plans of treehouses that my contractor father wouldn’t build because he knew he’d get into trouble with the building inspector.
So instead, like Mari, I built for my dolls. I never played with them, like acting out stories. I would clear out all the shelves in the closet and make elaborate apartments and furniture for them. For my toy horses, I would get pieces of wood from the alley and build them stables. So glad I got tetnus shots.
Architecture school was much less fun. More splinters, more accidentally cutting my hands with exacto blades and then supergluing the cut together so I wouldn’t bleed all over my models and drawings, and then – oh wait, superglue is in my eye I need to go flush it out in the water fountain. Calls home to my dad and his answer, “You’ve got to have fun with it. There’s no other way you’ll like it unless you figure out how to make it fun.” Wise man.
.-= Megan Lubaszka´s last post … What Is A 504 Plan =-.
Eee! That is my face and my quote up there on the new Rally page! Ooh I am tickled and honored and smiling now 🙂
I love your dolls’ life — it is a very good one. Like Megan, I spent a lot of time arranging the doll furniture and making wee lamps out of thread spools and medicine cups, and stuff like that. I loved the order and the tininess of doll-things back then, and I still do today. I also love the idea of bringing your dolls to the Playground, I bet they will have a lot of fun there! Tiny doll blanket forts where they can hide and tell secrets and stories!
I often find my path to a goal seems to be measured, careful, often work-ful, and this makes it a delight when a goal happens to come about in some unlikely, ease-ful way. Because of course, can one really *plan* for unlikely coincidental miracles? I supposed, but it might make me show up late to a lot of things, or eat toast for dinner more often than I might like.
I like the quality of ingenuity, and the careful clear-eyed quality of DIYness that allows your dolls to access comfort when they have earned it. Something tells me they weren’t necessarily sad about doing everything themselves? Even if it is a lot of work it sure does feel good at the end.
.-= Jesse´s last post … Very Personal Ad No 10- Asking is hard =-.
This is fascinating and timely because I just realized that my vision of self-employment requires at least 1-2 years of hard struggle before I can even begin to think about making a living at it. Because otherwise (in my head), people won’t like me, and I need to be liked. I would like to play with that story. I’m not afraid of struggle, but I would rather not think that it is required.
When my sisters and I played with dolls, we would spend the entire day turning chairs and tables and objects into a house (or in our case, a castle), trading clothes, arranging everything beautifully, and then we’d have our dolls get ready for the ball and be bored immediately after the ball. The play was the getting ready part; when the getting ready was done and the dolls could just live, that wasn’t fun at all. Ohhhhhhhhh, she says.
.-= Elizabeth´s last post … ode to joy- volume 39 =-.
Lots and lots coming up for me on this. Like how I didn’t really play with dolls – instead, I had a rainbow set of markers, and I built families out of them. The blue and red markers were the parents of the fuchsia big sister and the pink little sister, and orange and dark green were the parents of two lighter shades of orange. 🙂 And the older sister markers dated light blue and light green marker boyfriends. Needless to say I had a big sister with a Social Life. 😉
Too bad it’s too late for Shiva Nata over here (or else I won’t be sleeping all night), but there’s definitely a session waiting with the heading ‘what is my narrative’ (written in pink marker, perhaps?) in a few days.
Again, thank you. Thank you.
.-= Sari O.´s last post … The Vortex of Terror of Being Seen =-.
Ah, yes. My hidden narratives.
In my heart, I don’t believe that success is possible. My narrative goes the other way, which is that you start out with a lot, and then it slowly dwindles to nothing, and you are alone and penniless.
This is probably why I’m afraid to actually take concrete steps to start an actual business. Because who likes dwindling? No one likes dwindling. My childhood was all about dwindling.
It’s time to change this game, for sure.
.-= Amber´s last post … The Solitary Girl =-.
Wow, what a perfect post for me right now. What is success, anyway? Does it have to involve struggle? Is the struggle important?
Perhaps struggle makes it Real.
Or perhaps struggle makes it Okay.
or perhaps struggle makes it Stick.
…but what if struggle really just makes me tired?
…and doesn’t do any of those things?
hmmm…
.-= Leela´s last post … shame and silence are deadly =-.
Oh, this is interesting.
My most beloved doll as a child was a Holly Hobbie cut-out pillow IN PROFILE. You never saw her face.
In my mind, she was sort of a mystic because she always knew what I was thinking (imagine that!). I didn’t really ‘play’ with her as much as have telepathic conversations. She was very sympathetic.
Now my internet avatar is a cow…in profile…and my face is nowhere to be found (at the moment) on my website.
(Cue Halloween music) Funny!
My most vivid memory of ‘play’ was with little Fisher Price people who were essentially little wooden pegs with round heads -but no arms or legs. All of them fit into chairs, sofas, etc, that had a little cylindrical hole in them.
However, they seemed to enjoy the cruise ship in the bathtub that I devised out of an empty styrofoam egg carton the best.
Chuckling, I’m realizing now -for the first time?- what a cute kid I was …and how telling childhood play can be!
Thanks, Havi.
.-= Rupa´s last post … A Simple Way to Determine Your Life’s Purpose =-.
I would start by drawing the dolls. I was very obsessed by paper dolls when I was a kid and had a collection of about 50 of them. And I liked to draw and cut out my own, complete with lots of changes of clothing, of course.
.-= Kirsty Hall´s last post … How to fix a big mistake =-.
Rupa, I adored my Fisher Price people too. I had a little schoolhouse for them, complete with a bell on the roof that I was just bonkers about. Come to think of it, I used to spend a fair amount of time playing various versions of ‘I’m the teacher’ – no wonder my mum thought that’s what I’d do as an adult. And I guess that teacher part of me has finally found an outlet in the consulting that I do.
My Fisher Price people used to hang out with the Weebles a lot.
.-= Kirsty Hall´s last post … How to fix a big mistake =-.
If I’m not misreading the whole article, I have exactly the opposite situation and it’s even more crippling.
I’m pretty sure my hidden narratives say that I can’t possibly be successful through my own work. I must be “Discovered!”. You know, you do this one great thing and everyone goes “OMG that’s amazing” and it all just happens, fortune, fame, travel, blah blah. So since that hasn’t happened, obviously I’m useless and should just quit. Daft, right? Even more stupid, since I came second place in my category in a national competition last year and yet instead of parlaying that into publicity and success, my internal monologue went “yes, but you were only second, not first” and “yes, but it was the novice, not the professional category”. Grrrrr. I’m going to scrub the words “Yes, but” out of my vocabulary.
The funny part for me reading your article is that you’re trying to break out of your stories, but they are exactly the stories I need to adopt! Can I have them since you don’t need them anymore? The ones where constant small actions, creativity and hard work bring real results. I need them!
@Kara: I ran youth conferences in high school, and we sometimes used this awesome ritual at the end:
one of the adult advisors carried a tiny little cast iron cauldron to all the conferences. In closing circle we’d pass it around. Everyone said one thing they were putting in because they had it in spades and one thing they were taking from the cauldron because they needed it. It was magic, could hold anything and everything, and had been to so many conferences that anything you could possibly need was in there. Your suggestion to Havi that you could use her old stories reminded me of that. Thanks for the memory.
.-= Leela´s last post … stress and a dog =-.
Holy crap. I’ve been dealing with this stuff ALL WEEK and didn’t even see how it was related to my play as a kid.
My slightly-younger sister and I had dozens of “things” (stories) that we acted out, over and over again. But really we only had one story: I was the underdog nobody believed in, she trained me, and through hard work and good character, we won the day.
There’s still a part of me that believes I cannot win if I am not the underdog. That people’s expectations of me have to stay LOW LOW LOW in order for me to have the freedom to exceed them spectacularly in my own way. I’ve spent a lifetime underachieving the vast majority of the time just so that I could blow everyone away with my brilliance once in a while.
I need a new story too. One in which people show themselves to be brilliant at the start, and (through hard work and good character – that part’s still good!) they accomplish wonderful and important things. Not sure about the “winning” part; I don’t think comparisons with others need to play a part in my happy beginnings.
Maybe it’s time to dig ratty old Giselle out of my mother’s basement and see what wild kinds of tales we can tell.
Kat
.-= Kat´s last post … Birthday Party! What I Have Learned- What I have Gained =-.
Rewriting Archetypes + Play + Story + Encouragement = An Encouraging Bird???
Reclaiming Archetypes = Play + Looking + Daring + Games + Fun + Story-changing + Changing-stories
Must think more on this. Once again, you have written Teh Powerfulness just at the moment I needed it.
Thank you so much! 🙂
.-= Birdy Diamond´s last post … Travelling Tuesday – Journeys =-.
Havi, wishing you and your new dolls the most delicious new stories. I can’t wait to see what stories emerge, as you play together.
As for Rallying–one of these days, I will be there to play with you!
Love, Hiro
.-= Hiro Boga´s last post … Down to Earth- Making things happen =-.
Your dolls in the woods scenarios made me think of something I saw the other day…
Let me see if I can find it…
Yes! Look at these dolls:
http://woolandchocolate.wordpress.com/2010/09/30/oh-polly-how-i-loathe-thee
I love the little fairy dolls. I also love this description of the mass-market dolls:
“Nasty, plastic, naked girls with rubber clothing.”
.-= Emily´s last post … Mothers & Daughters Wake the Night =-.