Having recently become a counseling consultant, comedian Mélanie Ghanimé embraces her passion for personal growth in MIXEDher second solo show which she will premiere this Sunday (afternoon!) in Montreal before beginning a tour of ten cities in Quebec.
“I have clients during the week, I’m busy! “, she says to explain the choice of this unusual time slot, a sign of her assumed desire to do things differently. ” That’s not a show where you want to go to bed right after and it’s not a show you want to mix alcohol with, she adds. There is a need to settle. It’s benevolence and at the same time, I’m getting old, I like it, going to bed early! »
The one who now assumes her “multipotential” (we can also see her on television, especially in the series Leo) decided to produce her show herself, “in pure and harsh innocence”, but with the desire to be independent and “president of [son] business “.
To say of Mélanie Ghanimé that she reveals herself in her new show would be using a bit of an overused expression, but the analogy of the coat she removes is the one she uses to illustrate the liberation she feels by giving herself permission to be vulnerable on stage.
I release myself from something that I prevented myself from being before. It’s a momentum that I can’t stop, a momentum that I want to have the courage to follow.
Melanie Ghanime
Met last Wednesday at Petit Extra, the bistro adjoining the Golden Lion where she will perform this Sunday at 2 p.m., Mélanie Ghanimé said she was “stressed”, even “terrorized” at the idea of presenting this show which breaks with the usual framework of humor and which promises to be very different from the previous one.
During the break-in, she even wondered if she was going too far in her unveiling. Seized with anxiety at the second number, she consulted a therapist to understand what was frightening her. Alongside this vulnerability that inhabits her, we also feel the assurance of one who has found her way. “At some point, I had to accept. I’m tired of judging myself, of limiting myself. Love me, don’t love me. I need to be at peace with who I am. »
Not cheesy, personal growth
But who is this Mélanie Ghanimé who prevented herself from being? Especially a girl who has been immersed in personal growth since she was very young. “I had a really original mother,” she says. She was clairvoyant, did numerology. She read psychopop books and doctor’s books. I was born into it, I’ve always been curious about it, but I’ve always been fooled too. »
She herself admits to having made jokes on the subject. “’Personal growth’ makes you want to roll your eyes, but growth in entrepreneurship is great, growth when you’re a kid is super positive. Seems like people associate personal growth with “love, butterfly, light”. To something cheesy too, a word she will use several times during the interview, often to defend herself from sounding like such when she launches sentences like “It’s not the destination [qui compte]that’s the way” or “You have the right to need what you need”.
PHOTO DOMINICK GRAVEL, THE PRESS
Melanie Ghanime
“You would have told me that I would have said that one day in an interview, I would have said: “Well no, never!” Now, she believes, there is a deep meaning in these very simple sentences that can take time to understand. For the one who has been hosting for two years Melanie consults!a podcast about introspection, personal growth is about discovering the parts of us that we can develop and realize our potential.
“When I understood what I understood in my lessons, I said: ‘Everyone needs to know that.’ I’m going to bring it in humor because I’m disgusted that we find it cheesy. On stage, she will talk about personal development, her journey, her fears and her anxieties, always with humor, with the aim of laughing and growing.
Her approach began with a workshop on human wounds which she followed to build an act for her first show, Raw[e], a number that she ultimately did not present. Realizing that she would need more than a workshop to understand “because it’s very vulnerabilising to go and play in what hurts”, she took this three-year training in helping relationships which notably enabled her to accept his sensitivity, “a quality often perceived as a weakness”, and to dare to approach delicate subjects.
Many bereavements
Having experienced several bereavements, including those of her mother and her spouse, who died in a car accident, she notes the uneasiness we feel when faced with the suffering of others.
Basically, humans, we all walk around with our little backpacks, then it’s hard to be able to say to someone: “Here’s what’s in my little backpack for me and you, what are you wearing?”
Melanie Ghanime
The pandemic was also a trigger for her that allowed her to climb another rung on her growth ladder. “On May 7, 2020, I wrestled that I no longer made anyone laugh and that there was no one listening to me make them laugh. I bawled a cup. I went to get help. This is where I realized that I had spent the majority of my life validating others. »
Today, she accompanies others on their journey, sometimes to help them free themselves from a relational pattern that affects them, sometimes to understand the false beliefs that inhabit them. “I am a bit colorful as a consultant! I warn people: “I may swear sometimes and I will imitate all the guys in your family.” At school, they told me: “You give yourself a lot, Mélanie, you are very colorful.” “Colorful, yes, cheesy, no!
The show presented this Sunday at the Golden Lion is sold out. Tickets are still available in some other cities.