About relationships. Gender. Identity. The rules we inherit. The roles we perform. And why so many perfectly strange human behaviours have somehow been filed under normal.
WRITER. CREATOR. SPEAKER. MUSICIAN.
FOUNDER OF STOP SHRINKING.
Why do we do the things we do, and how much of it did we actually choose?
I have
questions.
Different outlets. Same basic obsession:
CURIOSITY HAS BEEN A TERRIBLE CAREER COUNSELLOR
One question tends to lead to another.
Why do women learn to soften an opinion before anyone has disagreed?
Why are men taught to need people less, then blamed when they struggle to let anyone in?
Why can someone be wildly confident onstage and still disappear inside a relationship?
And how much of what we call personality is actually adaptation with excellent PR?
I talk about relationships, gender, identity, motherhood, confidence, culture and the strange little instructions we absorb about who we're supposed to become.
Some questions become videos. Some become songs. Quite a few become arguments with myself. Apparently, this is a career now.
ONE LIFE. SEVERAL WAYS OF EXPRESSING IT.
A quick glimpse into my world.
Ideas, music, messy questions and a lot of curiosity.
ONE QUESTION GOT PARTICULARLY OUT OF HAND
You can take up enormous space in the world and still disappear inside a relationship.
I know because I've done both.
Shrinking doesn't always look like silence.
Sometimes it looks like being incredibly capable.
Understanding everyone.
Keeping the peace.
Reading the room before you read yourself.
Saying “whatever you want” when you absolutely have a preference.
Becoming so good at explaining someone else's point of view that your own is left patiently waiting in the lobby.
Eventually I became fascinated by the gap between knowing who you are and actually being able to stay that person when connection feels threatened.
That became Stop Shrinking.
It's not about becoming louder, harder or treating compromise like a personality defect.
It's about noticing when staying connected to someone else starts requiring you to leave yourself.
And learning how not to.
SOME QUESTIONS NEED A BIGGER ROOM
I’m not particularly interested in telling people what to think.
I'm much more interested in giving them something they're still arguing about in the parking lot.
My talks explore the weird rules hiding inside things we all call normal.
The opinion you softened before anyone disagreed.
The text you rewrote four times.
The room you learned to read before you learned to read yourself.
Big ideas. Very ordinary evidence.
And ideally, at least one moment where half the room thinks:
Wait. Do I do that?
SOME THINGS ARE BETTER LOUD
I also have a microphone.
This seems important to mention.
Long before I started making videos about relationships, gender and the peculiar things humans do to belong, I was making music.
I'm the frontwoman and co-founder of Mystical Joyride.
Music is where a different part of me gets to speak.
Less explaining. More instinct. More volume.
Considerably better lighting.
WORK WITH ME
Your brand has something to say. So do I.
Let’s collaborate.
I work with brands and creative teams when there's a genuine fit between what you're making, what I care about and the people who trust me enough to keep listening.
I'm interested in smart ideas, creative freedom and collaborations that feel like actual content rather than an advertisement wearing a fake moustache.
If you've got something interesting in mind, I'm listening.
THE WORK CHANGES. THE QUESTION DOESN’T.
What if some of the things we call
“just who I am” aren't who we are at all?
Maybe they're things we learned.
Rules we inherited.
Roles that once made sense.
Ways of belonging that worked beautifully until they didn't.
I don't think the answer is to burn down everything we've been taught and emerge dramatically from the ashes with a completely optimized identity.
Sounds exhausting.
I think we start smaller.