WHY JEALOUSY, COMPARISON + DISCOMFORT IS A GIFT

This happens to all of us. None of us are immune to these three things. Jealousy, Comparison and Discomfort. 

• You see someone doing something really well, stepping out, showing up or taking steps towards something exciting and it stings. You question their motives, pick holes in their methods, inwardly (or maybe outwardly) have a pop at their action. Jealousy.

• You watch as someone launches a new thing that is really similar to your idea. You agonise over what they are doing because they are doing it in ways you hadn’t thought of or with seemingly more ease or traction. You follow closely, weigh up how your version of that thing isn’t as good or executed as well, sinking into feelings of being an imposter or worthlessness. Comparison.

• You brew an idea for something, let it simmer and realise all the work that is ahead of you to make it happen. You maybe mention it to a few people, don’t get the responses you wanted and that sense of failure hangs close. You shut things down before you even begin. Discomfort.

But what if these three feelings don’t have to be enveloped in pain? What if they are guiding markers, leading us towards understanding something really true about ourselves?

I want to flip the idea that jealousy, comparison and discomfort are feelings that we should go into battle with and show how, if we frame them just a little differently, they can give us some solid information and motivation that will propel us into action instead of hiding and shutting ourselves away.

Here are three reasons why we should capture these feelings and lean into them a little more:

1)    THEY POINTS OUT TO US THE THINGS THAT ARE REALLY PRECIOUS TO US.

What if instead of being frustrated or annoyed by jealousy or comparison we took information from it? What if we could loosen the power of these feelings over us by activating our curiosity.

When those feelings arise, instead of fanning them into full flame, what we can do is tune our mind to slow down and be curious about what our reaction or response is telling us.

“I’m having a strong reaction to this situation or person – I wonder what it is about it that is bringing up these feelings for me”.

Our brains are wired to get answers quickly and often we repeat patterns that we have learned over the years that are unhelpful to us in a bid to rationalise our way out of discomfort.

If we activate curiosity instead, we can actually learn some incredible truths about ourselves in the situation. What we can do is harness the feeling of comparison or jealousy to unlock some deeper stuff that is probably going on for us and use it as fuel to move ahead instead of throwing the towel in or getting competitive and frantic.

Feelings of comparison are actually really useful and can reveal for us some of our deepest desires.

INSTEAD OF THIS:

“Oh – every time I hear about that person speaking at events it makes me feel really behind. She is everywhere.”

ACTIVATE CURIOUS THINKING:

“When I hear of people getting opportunities to speak at events it sparks something in me that might lead me to think that I would quite like to do that. I wonder how I can connect with people to see if that could be an opportunity for me”.

 Do you hear the difference in the tone? Curiosity opens us up to possibilities instead of allowing old patterns of how we manage comparison and jealousy to steal our joy.

2)    THEY CAN SHOW US THE POTENTIAL AVAILABLE TO US.

When we view jealousy, comparison and discomfort as a gift, rather than something to banish, we can allow ourselves to see the potential for movement.

There are so many temptations around us in patriarchal culture that try to usher us into the mindset of scarcity and not-enoughness. There are not enough customers, not enough ears that will listen, not enough time to do something different, not enough space for me to bring the thing I really want to to life.

This BS messaging keeps us small.

What if we saw women who are putting themselves out there as allies instead of competition? What if you saw someone doing something that you would love to do and instead of feeling like you’ve missed the boat you could think “that is inspiring and if she can do it, why not me too?”.

Staying in discomfort, jealousy and comparison reinforces a culture of scarcity and pits women against each other instead of seeing it as a window from which we can view what is possible for us as well.

The next time you have those feelings come up, practice this updated way of thinking and do one small thing that will move you towards the idea you have – it will serve you so much better than rolling around in the pain of scarcity and inaction.

3)    THEY ARE ALERTING US THAT SOMETHING SIGNIFICANT IS ABOUT TO HAPPEN.

When jealousy, comparison and discomfort hit, you can be sure that you are on the precipice of moving towards something significant for you.

Our brains are wired to alert us when we are inching towards unknown territory or putting ourselves out there in a way that might make us vulnerable. It will use jealousy, comparison and discomfort to try and tug you back into that place of safety and comfort. You don’t have to let it.

My friends, this is not where you are made to stay. Comfort zones are rarely comfortable. They are there for when we need healing and deeper restoration, but not for when we want to take steps towards the things that feel really true and freeing for us.

I urge you today to look at how you’ve been handling feelings of jealousy, comparison and discomfort and see if you can give yourself permission to learn from them and lean into the powerful information you can gain from framing those experiences differently.

ASSEMBLY SPRING/SUMMER GATHERING 2019

Another Assembly Gathering has come and gone and I can’t wait to tell you all about it…

These Gatherings are like markers in the year for me - signifying the beginning of a season, a punctuation mark to welcome in something new. They take months to plan and it feels like they are over so quickly so I love to be able to record it all here and keep the memories of these special days alive.

This year for our Spring Summer Gathering I wanted to host it somewhere fresh, somewhere peaceful, somewhere that immediately felt like a retreat from the daily grind and the chaos of life. It didn’t take me long to know that Origin Community Farm was going to be that space. From the very first time we went to check out Origin as a family - a working flower and vegetable farm, cafe and community space - I felt at home. The team that run the space are some of the very best people you could know. They care deeply about what they do, they are creative, insightful, welcoming and generous and the space they have created was just the ticket for gathering almost 30 women together to eat, drink and escape routine for a while.

I’ll give you a quick overview of the day, but really these pictures from Ruth of Native Ivy do the talking for me. It’s so special to have the moments captured by such a brilliant photographer - I’m sure you’ll agree…

Everyone arrived to Origin and were welcomed with a seasonal botanical cocktail, mixed up by our in house mixologist for the day - Laura Turley. We had beautiful fresh canapes from The Edible Flower and settled into chatting to new people, bathing in the sunshine of the garden and getting familiar with the goats and chickens in the yard.

That’s me giving important information like who to talk to if the bog roll runs out…

Then everyone split off into two workshop spaces - half the group heading into the cafe space for a floral crown workshop with the lovely Vicky from Origin and the other half heading into the flower polytunnel with Laura to mix up some botanical cocktails. The groups then switched over so everyone had a chance to do both workshops. Everyone immersed themselves fully and it was so great to see all the variations of beautiful floral crown creations - from big Frida Kahlo style headdresses to dainty earthy crowns; it was pretty stunning! Even those that came thinking they didn’t have a creative bone in their body soon left chuffed with what they put together when they had the right tools and time to get on with it. Sometimes that’s all we need eh? The foraged cocktail class was a big hit too - lots of homemade garnishes and infusions were sampled and Laura was a wealth of knowledge on how simple it is to create impressive cocktails from natures bounty.

After the workshops and JUST as the rain and wind began to howl, we crowded into the polytunnel to sit down for dinner. We dined on three incredible courses put together by The Edible Flower - each one sublime. Nettle and nutmeg soup, dulse soda bread with local Abernethy butter, all the seasonal salads loaded with colour and flavour and the most delicious carrot and goats cheese tart tatin. The wine flowed and we finished up with a dreamy summer fruit pudding and geranium cream, lounging around the big table like the Floral Queens that we are. It was so lovely (and my favourite moment of these events) to look up and down the table at the diverse group of women gathered - many strangers before this day - all making connections and finding common ground.

I’m so grateful to have had a BRILLIANT team to help me put this Gathering together - especially the amazing Steph from This Old Home who took care of all the details, knew exactly how and when and what to get to bring my ideas to life. Steph worked really hard to source the right stuff and make sure everything looked and felt beautiful - from the styling of the workshop spaces to the tablescape and outdoor areas. I’m so grateful to get to work with women who are creative, warm and dedicated.

All the little details matter and we had beautiful linen napkins in a gorgeous light grey provided by Magic Linen and they set the tone of the earthy table so perfectly. The little linen goodie bags were an extra treat and were filled with organic, eco toiletries from local eco retailer Bamboo & Beeswax and a beautiful organic cotton food bag provided by Tracy from BTS Concept Store in Coleraine. Menu’s were designed and printed by Natalie at Keady Row.

The beautiful hand-painted ‘Gather’ banner was made by Kate Morrison and pulled the whole space together, dontcha think?

The night was coming to a close before we knew it and we huddled around the firepit with mint tea and lavender biscuits. One by one, everyone headed home, taxi’s arrive and just like that it was over!

A huge thank you to everyone who helped out, especially the magnificent team at Origin who let us have full run of their space for the day. And to the women who came to the Gathering, and the women who continually support Assembly in many many ways - thank you. YOU are the heart and soul of Assembly.

ON BEING A GOOD INFLUENCE(R)

I remember as an older child having conversations with my mum about influence: what kind of influence was I on my friends? What kind of influence did they have on me? That kind of thing. Maybe she saw an early rebellious streak in me. Or maybe she knew that influence was powerful – that our actions, our movements, decisions have the weight and the power to impact others; a pretty big concept to hold onto as a child but has stood me in good stead (except for my teenage years where influence was waylaid, and I got into my fair share of teenage mischief). So the idea of influence has been a strong thread in my life and I attribute my deep sense of responsibility (holler to all my enneagram ones out there) to be a good influence to those early conversations.

And now that word seems to be pretty popular, ringing in my ears when I dive into the world of social media. Some people are using it as their job description, PR’s and Marketing Teams are including it as a significant part of their campaign plans and strategies and I’m interested in having a conversation about what it really means – what mantle we are giving this term of being ‘an influencer’…

As most thorough blog post researchers do (!), I asked my friends on Instagram what the term ‘Influencer’ meant to them and the response was compelling.

Answers ranged from:

“A synonym for leader”

“Someone with the power to sway you for good or bad in your mindset or actions”

“Someone who makes an impact – positive or negative”

“Someone who lives in such a way that others want to imitate and become more like”

“Someone who inspires me to more, who’s further along than I am”

“Someone that changes your thoughts/viewpoints and is then followed by action”

 To this:

“Smart use of our covetousness by those with something to sell/advertise”

“Instagram accounts where staged pictures are tagged with #ad or #gifted. Insincere posts”

“Someone who gets paid to tell you something is good – which makes me want to do the opposite”

“Someone with high social media numbers meaning they can get paid to promote other peoples’ goods”

“A manipulator”

“An advertiser”

“Someone who influences people to buy more shit they don’t need”

“People who will happily sell a lifestyle they won’t fund themselves”

“Often someone disingenuous”

“Someone that gets paid to encourage others to buy a product”

“Someone with a large following that is approached by brands to create ads in exchange for free products”

“*A bunch of eyeroll emojis*”

“Consumerism”

“Someone that uses social media to make money by getting people to buy things they don’t need”

“Parasites”

“Unauthentic”

“Wankers”

 (folks, tell me how you really feel though…)

“Someone trying to sell me something”

“People who get freebies on Insta”

“Desperate bids for attention”

“Someone who is famous on social media for doing very little” 

YIKES. I had almost 100 replies – 20% of them pointing towards the diplomatic, thoughtful meaning of the word and 80% of them with a pretty negative view of what this term now seems to represent in society.

 And so, I want to talk about that. I want to open up the conversation of ‘influence’ and share a little bit of my own thoughts around it, what it means for women and see if maybe we can reclaim this word back to its positive potency.

I need to caveat that this isn’t a conversation that is intended to shame anyone. That’s never my goal – shame never really produces any change, only mistrust and fear. And it’s not a conversation about whether doing sponsored or gifted content on social media is bad or good. I am super proud of being able to use my own platforms to share about brands that I believe in – that I know contribute to the good in the world. This conversation for me is about reminding myself and the women I know and love that our influence is important and worth our intentionality.

What’s interesting to me is that when it comes to this online ‘influencer’ culture, it is mostly women who are drawn in. Of course, there are men who also have large followings and engage with campaigns and ads, but by and large the influencer marketing world is a female-powered machine (women as influencers and consumers of influencer content) and lately I’ve been wondering if there are undertones of patriarchal control that contribute to it being this way...

Bear with me.

Recently I have been deep diving into the history of women’s rights and the suffrage movement and am so moved by how relentlessly women fought for a seat at the table, for their voices to be considered worthy in society. They broke rules (and windows), were imprisoned and lost pretty much everything they had to see that women coming behind them would have more autonomy, more ability to be their truest selves. When I think about the here and now, and the rise of women wanting grow followings, become influencers and be noticed by brands, I wonder if we still have some heavy mindset shifting to do around this long history of women not being seen and heard and the patriarchal hangovers that we are maybe unknowingly tethered to.

Maybe some of us are still stuck in the belief that we must clamber to be noticed, or seek the approval of others to be deemed valuable or to belong. After all, It’s only been 100 years – just two generations - since women were able to even vote on what kind of society they’d like to live in – that mindset can take a while to run out.

Maybe some of us believe that the only way for women to make money AND be caregivers is to sell other peoples’ stuff on our social media platforms. Maybe the patriarchal hangover here is that we still feel nervous about not having enough money of our own or we haven’t taken control of our own finances and think that this will do. Maybe the fact that we still aren’t getting paid equal to our male counterparts makes us feel like this outlet gives us at least some power. Maybe it’s because we are only just beginning to see a rise in women holding positions of power or women making sustainable incomes from their own ideas. Maybe because selling our own ideas, products and innovative thinking still feels icky and we’d rather hide behind someone else’s stuff even if we don’t fully believe in them.

Maybe some of us are still telling ourselves that there is some sort of holy grail of validation that will come when we have X amount of followers or Y amount of attention. Maybe we are just afraid to act like we are free at all because to be free to be who you really are is scary and vulnerable and sometimes it feels safer to not even imagine the possibility.

What I would love for us all to know, my friends, is that we are emancipated. We are more free than we have ever been to contribute to the world on our own terms and the table is long and wide and extendable so we can all fit in. All of us.

What I’d love for us to know is that our ideas, our dreams, our creativity and desires are important and worth exploring and sharing. In fact, we desperately need your amazing ideas, your innovative thinking, your empathy, your fierceness, your opinions, your entrepreneurial prowess. We need it because there are problems to solve here on this planet and you might have the answers. Yes, you.

We need it because the way things have been going isn’t really working out too well for humanity and we don’t have time for you to hide your brilliance behind ads and consumerism and the false belief that likes and follows is what makes your life influential. We need to hear the thoughts and ideas of how women are going to make the world better, more tolerant, more creative, more resilient, more beautiful.

I know that you have desires for your life and for the world that you haven’t even admitted to yourself yet because you’re scared - but we need them. We need women that are awake to their truest selves, their deepest desires. Truth be told, I’m not sure I really know anyone whose deepest desire is to share ads for Babybel on their Instagram and believe it to be a meaningful contribution.

“But MEL!” I hear you say. “What if being an ‘influencer’ allows me to stay at home with my kids and that’s what I want to do”?

To that I say – amazing. Being a mother is one of the hardest roles I’ve ever taken on – it is no easy option and the internet has opened up a wonderful community of support for mothers to feel less alone. Brands and PR companies know how much time mothers spend on the internet sharing so I understand that the lure to earn money this way is real. But please, for your own sake, don’t let it be something you hide behind. Don’t put off throwing your own hat in the ring and continue to invest more of your precious time on other peoples ideas than the ones buried deep in your own soul. Don’t believe the lie that this is the only thing you can do to make money or be influential.

Finally, we need to reclaim influence so we can have conversations with our daughters and the young women in our lives about what matters because they need to see our bravery too. They need to know that their dreams and desires and ideas and voices matter as well. They need something to aspire to that has weight to it, that brings light to dark places in the world. I want to be able to tell my daughter about the amazing women in my life that are doing things that light up their souls. I want to have endless amount of role models to point my daughter to and say – “Look what she did! You can do amazing things too!”. I want to be able to divert her attention from the influence of perceived perfection, the numbers game, the popularity contest and endless consumerism and show her a world of women propelling each other forward with their big dreams and big hearts for goodness to reign in the world. I want to be able to hand over to her a legacy of women that are relentless in their pursuit of purpose and passion.

And so we need to continue to reclaim influence; to amplify the voices of women who are putting their bravest selves into the world with their own ideas and voices – to champion their influence. Let’s shine a torch on the important ways that women are shaping the now and changing the future and channel our energy into something that lasts longer than a current trend could ever offer.

We need to do that because we need to be able to see and to show what is possible – how our influence can have impact. We need to support women who are courageous enough to put their heads and ideas above the parapet because when they get brave it should give us license to as well. Seeing someone in their stride should set us alight and fuel us to do the same – not cripple us with comparison or envy. We have work to do ladies: fears to manage, ideas to explore, problems to solve, dreams to make space for, legacies to shape and there is so much more room here for your influence than you can ever imagine.

ASSEMBLY WINTER GATHERING 2018

It’s been a couple of weeks since we had our Winter Assembly Gathering so I wanted to show you what we got up to! It was such a beautiful evening. 40 women; making, eating, and getting to know each other as we gathered at this years Winter venue, Portadown Town Centre Market. The amazing Lauren from @litphotographyni captured the whole evening for us so beautifully - makes me want to do it all again…

We had The Edible Flower team on board for catering so we were kept fully fed and watered from arrival - spiced rum with hot apple juice and homemade pretzels that I can’t stop thinking about to this day. Those girls are geniuses with their flavours and expertise. They really are top class caterers and it’s always such a pleasure to have them on the Assembly team.

Once everyone arrived we split off into workshops - half heading over to Becky to learn about natural remedies and make a healing herbal tea and the other half over to Gill, (our amazing florist who installed that beautiful foliage suspension and the incredible circle installations while having a newborn baby in her arms) to make some natural alternative wreaths!

And then we feasted! We had four courses of amazing food by Team Edible Flower. They knocked it out of the park with the menu. Lentil, beetroot and goats cheese starter, slow cooked beef rendang with jasmine rice for mains, spiced ginger cake with caramelised apples on top for dessert and rose meringues and green tea to finish. Glory be. The eating is my favourite part. It’s when everything slows down and we get to sit and chat and take our time and savour.

The table was set with beautiful stonewashed linen tablecloths c/o our friends at Linen Me and simple, elegant brass candle sticks from the amazing Fetch and Sow. We hung warm light festoons c/o Lights4Fun from the industrial ceiling to bring some warmth to the space (hanging them caused some serious marital tension between Dave and I but it was worth it in the end…). We also used Linenme napkins to wrap up the little treats we put together for all who attended. Everyone received a gorgeous paper-cut print by Cotton Papier, a pair of my favourite ever bamboo socks by Thought Clothing, a little sample of Neals Yard Hand Cream and Facial Serum from small batch Irish natural beauty company Sana Naturals. A big thank you to the awesome brands that contributed gifts - they were perfect.

As always, being round the table, getting to make and learn and be together felt magical. What a serious delight it is for me to bring women together in this way - to make space for our own creativity and to build community. I don’t take it for granted that women are brave enough to buy tickets and come to Assembly for the first time on their own, or that they come back because they have made connections they want to foster. Thank you to everyone who came - it’s only ever as good as the women who come.

All of these images were captured by Lauren from LIT Photography who is such a talented warm person and a real gem to work with. Aren’t they wonderful?

Finally, I just want to say a massive thank you to everyone who has been part of Assembly this year. To those of you who have joined the Members Community (almost 80 of you now!), everyone who has hosted, helped or attended one of our Gatherings, Sessions, our charity Clothes Swap and Skydive, the Winter Market and the Movements Group Coaching Course (PHEW). Needless to say it has been such a learning curve for me to lead in this way this year and I have absolutely LOVED meeting so many amazing women here in Ireland who are doing incredible things, have brave and beautiful ideas and want to be more courageous with their lives. Here’s to all of that and more in 2019.

P.S. My monthly newsletter ‘The Understory’ is going out this week - if you want to get it, see the box below!