This morning as I was shuffling around the house doing various chores, drinking coffee, and enjoying a relaxing morning exercise of qi gong I was pondering what topic I wanted to explore on my blog post for the week. By now I have at least two lists in notebooks so if I really can't come up with something I can consult those lists. I was saved from having to rely on my past self as a resounding feeling of gratitude overcame me.
Gratitude.
Could I really write an entire blog post about gratitude? Sure. Why not!
A marketing expert would likely cringe at this suggestion. Writing about gratitude doesn't necessarily help my SEO. It doesn't create backlinks to my products and no one is online searching for a product to purchase using the word "gratitude". Although it is clear at times that one purpose for writing this blog is to increase the reach of my website but in reality it is serving a much greater purpose than that evidenced in the responses I get from you all when something I write strikes a chord.
For instance, take last weeks blog where I wrote about the holidays and how we spend them at Pink Moon Goods. My intention was to give you some information about what things look like around the shop during the holidays and to answer the question I get a lot "will you get more in for the holidays." But in doing so I shared some of my personal feelings about the holidays while also doing my proper marketing job of inserting some links to products.
Two things happened. We got a lot of orders for towels and other goodies (you all took me seriously about the towels) and I got an email from a customer that thanked me for sharing my sentiment saying that she really needed to hear that.
Gratitude. Yes, I really can write an entire blog post about it.
Gratitude is an antidote for many ailments. Have you ever had a moment where you felt that you didn't have something you wanted? Where you felt somehow lacking because you couldn't buy some item or you couldn't afford to eat at a restaurant you wanted to try or take a vacation that sounded really amazing? Often this feeling arises when one is in a state of feeling strapped financially because of some unexpected expense. I have felt this many times and the older I get I have to say the better I have gotten at squashing those pesky feelings with thoughts of gratitude. It is truly remarkable how when you stop and take a look around you find that you actually have an abundance available for you.
This obviously can look different for each person but in our home it often starts with my husband and I literally looking around our home and acknowledging how blessed we are to have a roof over our heads. We marvel at how abundant our food supply is because although we can't eat at every fancy restaurant that we want to eat at as often as we like we can do it enough and otherwise we can afford the groceries we need to sustain our lives. We may not be able to afford extravagant vacations but we have been fortunate to be smart enough (thanks to credit card points) and to have kind people in our lives to figure out how to travel internationally two times this year.
Feeling sorry for oneself is not helpful. I find changing that attitude into one of gratitude attracts much more abundance into ones life even if it's because you are literally reminded of all that you have.
In 2018 my husband and I travelled to New England for our honeymoon and it was on this trip that I started to visualize what my retail shop could be. There was one major problem: I had a full time job that was very demanding. I could not see a way out of that. I literally thought I would be there for the rest of my working days. I was grateful truly to have the stability and financial security of this job. My parents always struggled financially so being a financially sound adult was not something I really had seen modeled very well. But here I was, a 47 year old adult with a retirement fund, a home that I owned, and a pretty decent income. Why would I want to leave all of that?
As with many folks, the great pandemic of our time changed everything for me. It made it basically imperative that this idea of mine to open a retail shop had to manifest. There was no longer a choice for me so I started to put things in motion with the goal of leaving my job at the end of the academic year in 2022. Making such a huge life decision came with many sleepless nights and moments of anxiety about whether or not this idea of mine could actually work. While my business was growing the question of how sustainable it was for me to support myself and this business ate away at me. I still remember a friend of mine asking me in October 2022 (a month after my shop opened) if I would be able to support myself and my embarrassingly honest answer was, "I don't know."
Because at the end of the day, having a cute store is fun. People love it here. I here so many sighs of relief when folks walk in the door. Just today as I was writing this a woman came in for the first time and I am not exaggerating when I tell you that for the first five to ten minutes she just repeated herself over and over saying, "oh how neat." These are the things that tell me that my idea is working for others. But is it working for me. Is it doing what I wanted it to do for my life?
When you own your own business and you see a post on social media about another business closing its doors your heart sinks. It feels like a kind of threat and inside you say to yourself, "is that going to be me one day." I am realistic and understand that yes, of course, one day I will close these doors for the last time but I think every business owner that realizes that wants that day to come on their own terms. They don't want it to come because the business wasn't supported or didn't work or was poorly managed by themselves. The messaging spinning around out there in the world makes it seem like it is almost impossible to actually own and run your own business and support yourself. I can't tell you how many times in the last week I have read the sentence "times are tough for small businesses."
In all honesty, I don't feel that way. You know what's coming....I actually feel incredibly grateful. My business is thriving and I actually am supporting myself. I have two steady shop helpers. Customers rely on us for certain goods or gift giving moments in life. Folks reach out to ask me if I can order something for them because they would rather get it from me than buy online. In general I do feel the impact of a growing awareness and commitment to support small businesses like mine. You all see my vision and it is exciting to you and for that I am exceptionally grateful.
Is the business doing what I set out for it to do for me? Absolutely. It has given me freedom to control my environment after not being able to do that for 15 years. It has given me several creative outlets and different avenues through which to share them. This business is working because it is providing me with a place to express my desire to serve this community I have come to call home.
One of the things about my last job was I never quite felt that I fit in. I felt undervalued and under-appreciated. If I had to offer some explanation for that I would say that it was simply because the people I worked with and for just didn't get me.
You all get me. You value me and what I am offering to the world. You seem grateful that Pink Moon Goods exists in the world. You make me excited to come into work everyday. And for that I am absolutely eternally grateful!
Gratitude. I did it. Thanks you for reading.