After a lot of very kind and thoughtful support these past few days (THANKYOU ladies! you know who you are) I am BRINGING BACK MY SHOP BABY! And this time it's here to stay. Last night and thismorning I have been working on re-setting up my little crafty corner on Facebook and getting all my creations photographed and uploaded. I still have a very long way to go before I can officially open, I want to make sure that everything is done right this time. I realised that so much has happened since 'the beginning' (as I'll call it for now) and it's time to sit back, think it over, accept it and share the tale with others. I will not name names, I will not go into too much detail but I will explain my feelings, my reactions, and my resolve and why I did what I did.
Let me share my story with you, it's personal, I feel it's important but this time I know I can handle it nomatter what life throws at me.
One year ago, I don't remember the exact month, I first found out that you could have a 'Page' on Facebook. I had no idea they existed before then, I didn't even really know what it was or what it did so I did some research (and by research I mean clicked 'Create a Page' and fiddled with it until I worked it out). Having your own 'shop' in a high traffic area such as Facebook? Was it really that simple? Well, setting it up is easy, you can upload pretty much anything and try (yes try) to sell it if you wanted. Running it however, finding a place within the millions of other pages who do the same thing, establishing yourself, is not at all easy. Being unique is harder than it seems, something you think is original and your own turns out not to be. Which is all well and good normally, being unique is a good thing, just not so much if you're trying to make a bit of money from your hobby (online). I realise that is a very cynical outlook, but that's how I feel about it. But what can you expect? I said myself that setting up you're own page was easy....everyone can do it!
Not only that but you find yourself to join all these 'like ladders' and 'share' pages to try and gain more 'likes' and essentially have a further reach once your friends get sick of you hounding them with links and requests... but what does it really get you? To participate you have to like everybody elses page too which leaves you with a newfeed PACKED with all these feeds from pages you'd never seek out and like on your own. How do you feel when you think about your page being one that all the other people wouldn't seek out on their own? Not a nice feeling really, so that becomes a bit redundant. I suppose it's perfectly ok if that doesn't bother you, but it bothered me.
If you look back through my blog to my first posts and back through to here you will notice the watermarks on my photos change. That's because, in this past year I've had 3 pages. Yup, 3. First, 'A Touch of Vintage Inspiration' then 'Sew Sweet Handmade' then 'The Pretty Little Dragonfly' and a group I set up thinking that would work better than a page 'Sweet Little Shmoogle Beans'. One after the other... you know why? I ran away. I gave in, I let my resolve crumble and I let the figurative enemy win. Because everytime I felt inadequate and like I had no talent or was made to feel that way but other people (and believe me that happened too!) I gave up. I've never really been a very strong person, I tend to feel more than I do...as in I let me emotions and thoughts take over my practical side of actually doing something about it. I guess that's why I never confronted anyone about it; what was the point when all my past experiences on the mattered with the other person feeling smug and like they were king of the world and me feeling like s*** for opening my mouth in the first place! I lost my enjoyment, all I could feel was anxiety, nerves and spite and that was not a place I wanted to be in....at the time though I felt like I didn't have a choice. Yesterday a light bulb pinged on in my head...out of the blue, and for no reason at all.
" Strength is not measured by your ability to not feel pain, it's measured by your ability to accept that pain is part of life, and learn how to avoid it next time."
I realised that I was allowed to feel hurt, it's perfectly ok to feel insulted, or scared, or upset or broken...that's all part of being human! I didn't have to stay positive all the time, I don't have to hide the way I felt, or the way I'm feeling now from anyone. Why should I? I'm not that kind of a person. Sometimes I wish I could hide my anger better than I do, I wish I had the ability of expressing myself without fear of consequence but that's not the way I am.
What I SHOULD do though, and I didn't realise this until recently, is that I shouldn't ALLOW those feelings to take over my soul and make me into something ugly. It's ok to feel them, but don't let them consume you. In essence, changing pages, running away, starting over again and again is a pattern I was forming, and not just in terms of craft shops, but in my life too. When something get's too much, or I feel I can't cope I take the flight response. I always have! Obviously writing about it isn't going to suddenly change my life, but I can become more aware of it and take action to change the why I resolve things.
Has all this come about from opening a little craft shop?? Yes! It certainly has! It's funny the things that make you jump back and say 'wow!'...what's that old saying? Something you've lost in always in the last place you look... something I hadn't realised I'd lost was in the last place I thought to find answers.
I am starting again and I'm doing it with resolve, that nomatter what happens, nomatter what people say or do, nomatter how hard it may get at times, I will NOT give up. But I need to make some promises to myself first.
People are always going to have an opinion of you nomatter who are or what you do. I am just going to have to learn and get past my paranoia that YES there may be people out there to 'get me', people may not like me or what I do, or who I am, what kind of person would I be if I expected everyone to like me all the time?? But it's ok, that's their choice and I don't have to make it part of my life.
All this time I tell myself I'm not that good... well it's not true. I DO have talent! I can design and write my own crochet patterns, I have an imagination, I can draw, I can write, and I am so much more than I thought! I can do it :o)
No more spite, no more competition, no more hiding and no more negativity. I am starting over with all the right intentions this time :o) I love my craft, my drawing, taking photos; it's all such a big part of my life that I would be crazy to give it all up!
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