Blowing the First Seed
Have you ever picked a dandelion clock and blown the seeds into the wind, with no idea where they'd land? Stories work the same way. Wherever they land, they take root and grow into something useful. In this first episode of Dandelion Tales, Pollie Rafferty of Change the Script™ explains who she is and why she's starting this podcast. It's about the stories behind the stories: the women, the businesses, and the tales that have been reshaped by patriarchy and misogyny over the generations. It'...
Have you ever picked a dandelion clock and blown the seeds into the wind, with no idea where they'd land? Stories work the same way. Wherever they land, they take root and grow into something useful.
In this first episode of Dandelion Tales, Pollie Rafferty of Change the Script™ explains who she is and why she's starting this podcast. It's about the stories behind the stories: the women, the businesses, and the tales that have been reshaped by patriarchy and misogyny over the generations. It's also about finding and sharing stories that can give our young people the hope and connection that old fairy tales no longer offer.
Pollie tells how storytelling found her in 2005, when anxiety and depression had kept her inside her own home. She talks about the first time she stepped onto a stage, and about the old tales of strong, resourceful women that helped her. She also shares a secret about the Arabian Nights that most people don't know.
In this episode:
- Why a "weed" is really one of the most useful plants on the planet, and what that says about stories
- The stories behind women, businesses, and history, and why they matter now
- How sharing your "ordinary" story can help someone else feel less alone
This podcast is for anyone who wants to help future generations, and for every woman who has ever felt her story wasn't worth telling.
🌼 Subscribe, and tell Pollie what you'd like to hear or what you'd like to know. She loves to research your questions.
Dandelion Tales is brought to you by Change the Script™: changing internal stories for a better future.
🔗 www.changethescript.org
Intro music By my 13 year old Jacob Rafferty
Pollie Rafferty Dip.Narrative.therapy, Cert HE Psychology is known globally as the Speakers Storyteller. She is a neurodiverse entrepreneur, author, storyteller, international speaker, and founder of Change the Script and Dandelion Tales podcast
Pollie discovered performance storytelling in 2004 while overcoming crippling anxiety that had kept her trapped in her own home. Since then she has spent years researching storytelling and narratology, trained with a former UK Storytelling Laureate, and developed the STAR Storytelling System — her own original framework for helping women find and share their stories with confidence.
She has lived experience of neurodivergence (autistic, ADHD), fibromyalgia, hypermobile EDS, anxiety and depression — and has used the power of story to change her own life from the inside out. She knows what it feels like to be silenced. And she knows the way through.
https://www.facebook.com/pollieraffertychangethescript/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/pollie-rafferty/
Hello and welcome to Dandelion Tales. This podcast is sponsored by Holly Rafferty from Change the Script. Changing internal stories for a better future. I'm Holly Rafferty and welcome to the first ever episode of Dandelion Tales. First, I want to introduce you to myself and to the podcast. It's going to be a quick five-minute intro to see if you want to subscribe, like and carry on listening to me. Dandelion Tales has been named Dandelion Tales for me because I believe stories are like a dandelion seed. When was the last time you picked up a dandelion and blew that clock so that the seeds flew away and you had no clue where they were going to go? A story's like that, and like a dandelion. It flows off into the ether and you don't know where it's going to land, you don't know who's going to hear it, what they're going to make of it, or or anything else. But the guaranteed thing is it is going to grow into something useful, just like that dandelion seed, because no matter where that lands, it is going to seed. It's going to become a beautiful, useful flower. It's only us that if it's a weed and shouldn't be around. It is the most useful plant on the one of the most useful plants on the planet. It's it's got loads of uh vitamins, minerals, you can eat every single part of it, and it's food for the bees first thing when they start coming out in the spring. Dandelions are so important, and so are stories. So with Dandelion Tales, we are going to be looking at the stories that are behind the stories. The stories behind the women, the stories behind the businesses, the stories behind the stories that have been manipulated by the patriarchy, manipulated by the misogyny that is existing today, so that women can take their full power. So Dandelion Towns is all about female empowerment and education, instruction, letting people know what is actually going on, why the stories have changed, what we can do to change them, and what we could do to get more stories out into the world and to to share them with our young people who need more support than ever. Because our fairy tales are no longer serving their purpose, they no longer give us the information that we need, they no longer bring the hope that was required because our young people cannot connect with the characters within. I started off storytelling way back in 2005 when I was overcoming anxiety and depression that had me trapped in my own home. I couldn't go out, I couldn't even go into my own back garden. I was absolutely stuck in that home. It was like a brick wall was stopping me from going out. And that is a story I will go into at some point within the podcast. This is going to be me talking to you and also me talking to other wonderful, inspiring women and everyday women, because everyday stories are just so important. And the first time I stepped onto that stage was when I realised I could actually re-own that anxiety and channel it into something more powerful and more worthwhile. So I started telling stories. I picked stories that were encouraging, that had that had fun, strong female characters in who were who were able to overcome the issues and the problems that they had. And these were old stories, really old stories. One of my favourites is from The Arabian Knights, Thousand One Arabian Knights. Most people don't know that the Arabian Knights stories were actually told by a woman, and her story is absolutely fantastic and amazing, and I will be telling you that too. So there's so many different stories about women that we don't know. There's so many stories about women through history and our history and why things have been told the way they have and how they've been told the way they have that we don't know. That I'm going to uncover, unleash, and share with the world. I'm only also going to share stories of everyday life. I'm going to share my stories because I felt that for a long, long time that my story was not important, that I hadn't done anything good, I hadn't done anything interesting, that my life was boring, nobody wanted to hear what I had to say. But then when I did start sharing, especially about my anxiety and my depression, people were starting to say, thanks for sharing that, because I really needed to hear that so I'm not alone. So I know what to do, so I know how to navigate it, to know that there's just not not just me that's suffering and going through this. And we need more of that than ever. We need to get out there. I overcome the algorithms with all these social media by bombarding the world with stories. So if that's you, if you would like to help support our future generations, whether you're male or female, and you you want to support our female children, young people, young adults, even older women think like me, then sign up, subscribe, and just comment. Say what you'd like to know, say what you'd like to hear, and if there's any questions that you've got, just bombard me with them because I love to research this stuff. That's the Audi HD in me, and I just love doing all of these things. So, a quick five minute intro over and done with. Please do subscribe if you'd like to know some more. Thank you. Bye.