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Well-known for her speaking and dramatic sketches at the popular Women of Faith® conferences, author Nicole Johnson explores the tension and differences between what women long for and what they live with. By exploring these two worlds with her one-of-a-kind, thoroughly engaging storytelling, Johnson uncovers a woman's true name, Princess Heart.
Knowing how women love to discuss their struggles and feelings, author Nicole Johnson says, "Let's get together and talk about it." And she provides this insightful Conversation Guide to get the discussion rolling. Readers will be encouraged to discover their true name, and find hope for living in the midst of a not-so-fairy-tale world.
In Preparation:
Read chapter 1 of Keeping a Princess Heart. To open your time and further your discussion, watch the "Princess Heart" sketch on the DVD of Keeping a Princess Heart.
Once upon a time ... we were little girls. By day we read from our books of fairy tales, and by night we dreamed of the way our lives would turn out. On Sunday nights we parked in our pajamas two inches away from the television. Tinkerbell would fly out waving her wand and putting fairy dust on all the letters on the screen, signifying that the magic was about to begin. The music would swell, and we would hold our breath with excitement as we watched our favorite stories unfold.
Do you ever find yourself these days wondering, what happened? Does it ever seem that somewhere among the prince, the kids, the laundry, and the carpool the fairy-tale company must have been bought out and is now bankrupt? Does it ever feel like life played a cruel trick on you?
Whether we would consider ourselves happy or not, most of us would openly acknowledge that the reality of what we've ended up with is so very different from our dreams. Walt Disney didn't do women any favors, or at least it feels that way on most days. Snow White, Cinderella, and Sleeping Beauty seem to point the way to a life we could never really have, yet it's obviously one we continue hoping for anyway. So let's go back and take a look at some of those early dreams and how they got formed.
* Let's Talk about It ... *
What were a few of your favorite stories from childhood? Do you think the dreams for your life were shaped by these fairy tales or stories? If so, which tales had particular influence on you? Why? In what ways were your dreams from childhood realistic or unrealistic? Try not to judge them by the now, but try to remember what they meant to you then. Was the fulfillment of those dreams a real possibility? What are the biggest differences between what you had hoped for and what you are living with today? People wrongly assume that these kinds of questions or feelings of discontent only start to surface around midlife. That's often the case, but a crisis is created when loss starts stealing our dreams, no matter what our age is. What were the beginning assaults on your dreams? When was the first time you can remember thinking the world wasn't going to turn out right? In an interview with 20/20, Bruce Springsteen commented that our greatest losses in life happen before we are twelve, and then we spend the rest of our lives trying to deal with them. Why do you agree or disagree with his statement?
Some days we feel so far away from our original dreams that we fear we've been tricked and taken to some other life (without our written consent). We think sarcastically, This is not what I signed up for! Unfortunately, Walt Disney can't help us with this. He never wrote anything about how to hold on to beauty or hope or grace when disappointment silently slips handcuffs around your dreams and leads them down the steps to a very dark dungeon.
The hard truth is, many of us have watched some of our dreams die before our very eyes-the desperately longed-for child we could never have, the marriage that didn't survive, despite the agony of trying, the illness that stole away a parent or a friend. In the wake of such losses, we seem to have no choice but to trudge on, day after day, through a life quite different from the one we imagined we would have.
Can you identify a dream that you have watched die? How old were you? What messages did your heart receive?
**** The World Should Have Been Otherwise ****
Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps, for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are and what they should be. -William Hazlitt
Hazlitt is right. The world is not what it should be. We know this deep inside. Singer Natalie Imbruglia put it this way: "Illusion never changed into something real. I'm wide awake and I can see the perfect sky is torn." She's right, too. We are living underneath a very torn sky. On one side are all the dreams of our hearts, and on the other are all the difficult realities of our lives.
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We are split between what we wanted and what we got ... what we hoped for and what we have ... what we longed for and what we live with.
Dreams Realities Life-long marriage Painful divorce Having children Infertility Beautiful home Bankruptcy
What do you find most challenging about living between "what you longed for" and "what you live with"? List some of your dreams and their corresponding realities. Can we dare to hope that there is something more than treading water in the gulf of disappointment between the two?
Does the Shoe Fit?
When have you let your heart go to one extreme or the other in trying to make sense of this world? Have you given up trying to make sense of the world at all?
The evidence of this torn sky is all around us. Turn on the radio and you hear a lyric full of love and hope in relationship, and the very next song is full of the hate and rage of having to survive alone. Compare two women's magazines-one will have flowers and beautiful scenery promising the fulfillment of all your dreams, and the other will ditch the flowers, trying to appeal to you, the "smart" woman, by telling you to wake up and take what you want from this world. Go to two different movies in a week. One will be a warm romantic comedy of boy meets girl and the other a cold, crushing drama of a mis-spent life. Below are some examples of these extremes that we find in our culture. List more examples under each category.
Movies
ROMANTIC COMEDY CRUSHING DRAMA You've Got Mail The Piano ___________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________
Songs
SYRUPY LOVE BALLAD ANGRY RANT "Can't Live, If Living Is Without You" "I Will Survive" ___________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________
Television
IDEALISTIC SITUATION CYNICAL SITUATION COMEDY COMEDY Father Knows Best Married with Children ___________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________
Magazines
BEAUTIFUL, PICTURESQUE, HARD-HITTING AND HOMELY SUCCESSFUL, WORLDLY Martha Stewart Living Cosmopolitan ___________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________
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It's not my wish to frame any of these songs or shows as good or bad, but to point out the mixed messages and the confusion this creates in our hearts. No wonder we feel the tension so deeply-we are in a constant tug of war.
Do you feel the pull? Do you wonder where your heart is supposed to go? The good news is, you're not crazy. And you are not alone in our struggle. Every woman is internally wrestling with the same challenge of how to keep her dreams alive in the midst of life's hard realities. It's the match of the century-the Perfect World vs. the Real World. Which will win our hearts? It's a universal tug of war of spiritual proportions. Every day the back and forth continues, often generating enough force to make us wonder if we will survive.
We will look at the contrast between the "perfect" world and the "real" world more fully in chapters 3 and 4, but a preliminary explanation is important here. Often in our confusion about our hearts, we seek the simplicity of one or the other of two extremes. * * *
Creating a "PERFECT" WORLD
In a valiant effort to keep our dreams alive, it's easy to hold on to the illusion of our dreams instead. And the difference between the two is enormous. We rightly want to defy the disappointments and pain of the world by trying to create a better world, more like the fairy tales of our youth. But instead of cultivating the good things from the heart of a true fairy tale, we may create a saccharin kingdom of illusion and denial-a pseudo-Eden where we refuse to allow clouds to rain on our parade. We try to stay in the safety of a "Father Knows Best" world, singing love songs, and looking at pretty pictures.
* * *
Surviving in the "REAL" WORLD
On the other side of the torn sky, in our valiant effort to deal with our very real disappointments, we mistakenly give in to the illusion of ultimate disappointment. We rightly want to face our difficulties head-on and not live in denial. We want to grow up and mature. We want to be able to accept the hand that we have been dealt and face our tragedies without sugarcoating them. But instead of facing our tragedies and allowing them to help us mature, we may grow cold and cynical or bitter and angry, creating a private dungeon of disillusionment. This is a pseudo-hell where we won't allow any good to interrupt our misery. We feed this misery by watching TV and film characters that are disillusioned and by listening to the music of other angry women, all the while seeing ourselves becoming more "cosmopolitan."
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Of the examples of dreams that you listed above, where does your heart find the most connection, and why? Which extreme are you in danger of living in the most?
If our overarching desire is a meaningful life still full of hopes and dreams, the illusion of a perfect world offers the equivalent of a diet soda to quench our deep thirst. The so-called real world serves up a double shot of Scotch whiskey. Neither is a satisfying choice, but we return to each, time and again. Ask yourself the following questions:
If the "perfect" world is all there is, what happens when I get too weary to pretend any longer?
If the "real" world is all there is, what will keep my heart from dying in such an overwhelmingly brutal place?
Because the illusion of a sugary sweet world looks perfectly positive and the darkness of the so-called real world seems honestly negative, it would be easy to rationalize that together they will balance out each other. But it never works that way. Two halves will never make a whole when both are illusions. Unfortunately we end up like ping-pong balls going back and forth between "fake it" on one side and "get over it" on the other. For our hearts, saccharin or arsenic is poison either way.
Mirror, Mirror on the Wall
When you look in the mirror, do you feel more like the wicked queen or Snow White?
What causes either reaction?
Whose voice in your head answers back?
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* Let's Talk about It ... *
In responding to life's disappointments, do you try to control your circumstances, striving for perfection, or do you more commonly become cynical and angry about life? What kinds of disappointments do you find that trigger these responses? What are some practical ways we can mature through life's difficulties without becoming jaded on one hand or too idealistic on the other?
While most of us can vaguely sense that both worlds are incomplete, the choices are confusing.
I think we all recognize by now that it wouldn't be so hard to have the heart of a princess if we lived in a fairy-tale world. Discuss for fun for one joyous, unreal minute what that might be like:
The birds would wake us in the morning, we would have beautiful clothes laid out for us every day, a song would always be on our lips, and our good fairy godmother would be there to make certain our dreams always come true. Everyone would love us, and we would love everyone in return. Yeah, right, back to reality.
And in the real world it wouldn't be so hard to give up hope instead of struggling day after day to keep our dreams alive, because in this not-so-fairy-tale world, life is hard. Now discuss what life feels like on the hardest days:
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We could openly acknowledge that the birds have gone south for the winter and probably died along the way. We could be cynical about everything, be mean to everyone, who cares? After all, we spend our days chained to the washing machine, covered in Cheerios, and on hold with the phone company! Why not admit we're miserable and create misery for everyone else? It's not so unattractive.
Either way wouldn't be so bad, if we could pick our way and live accordingly. But we simply can't be satisfied by living exclusively in either world-both worlds are seductive and dangerous illusions and impossible to live in consistently. So we keep watching, listening, and consuming, trying to make sense of it all. Which world is the most real? As we have discussed, movies, songs, television, advertisements, life experiences all add to the dilemma. They exercise their influence and pull and push. Believe this promise or give up on that dream; let go of that faith or hold on to this product.
Where do you feel the pulling most deeply?
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Keeping a Princess Heart in a Not-So-Fairy-Tale World by Nicole Johnson Copyright © 2007 by Nicole Johnson. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Overview
Well-known for her speaking and dramatic sketches at the popular Women of Faith® conferences, author Nicole Johnson explores the tension and differences between what women long for and what they live with. By exploring these two worlds with her one-of-a-kind, thoroughly engaging storytelling, Johnson uncovers a woman's true name, Princess Heart.
Knowing how women love to discuss their struggles and feelings, author Nicole Johnson says, "Let's get together and talk about it." And...