Redheaded Jill

The second half of 2023 was a rough one for me business wise.

One of the place I sold food and goods shut down. Another one switched to textiles only and so my homemade products were no longer needed. Another one quit selling my bread. (They still sell my cinnamon rolls, and might be interested in bread again one day… *fingers crossed*.)

I still have the coffee shop where I sell lip balm and I have my etsy shops and potential farmer’s markets…

But here’s the deal. Here is what I’ve learned about myself.

I really like entering into business deals with the “take me at my word” “handshake” method. Not much if anything in writing. Just two people with honest intention planning to work together to their mutual benefit.

I enter into these deals looking at people as my friends. And even though nobody has exactly… mistreated me… they are more business minded than I am. I think of myself as working with a friend and they think of me as a vendor.

Again, I can’t claim mistreatment, and I don’t even fault the other people for their approaches to business. But I am an emotional creature and frankly it hurts my feelings.

The farm where I sold bread is a wonderful place. The couple who run it are amazing, hardworking, God fearing folks. They are smart business people. I consider them friends.

I think I consider people friends more easily than they do me.

So when I saw online that they were going to start selling bread from someone new it felt like a punch to the gut. (I sold sourdough sandwich bread, the new vendor is selling traditional sourdough loaves.) So they’re not even the exact same thing. But to find out because I read an IG post instead of being told in person or even via text. (I visit the farm weekly to get milk.) It really hurt my feelings.

I have talked it out with my best friend. She agreed that while it would have been courteous to warn me in advance it wasn’t necessary from a business perspective. I am learning that I might not be cut out for business.

I would LOVE to make things as gifts and for my family and because I enjoyed it instead of because I need money. But the unfortunate truth is I DO need money, and this is one of my few skills. (This being baking and creating clean lotions and serums.) I want to make a living doing things I love. So I’ll have to change my way of thinking to be successful.

My first reaction when I saw the IG post was, “Ouch… I must make terrible bread.” The second thought was, “Wow… another relationship where I care 100x more than the other person does. Maybe I should cut ties and get milk elsewhere rather than burden them with my presence.” Dramatic, huh?

But that’s what a trauma response is. Irrational feelings. Illogical fears. Applying one or two terrible experiences to any and all experiences in life. I have lost lots of friends over the years because when push came to shove I was doing all the giving with hardly any return and it was toxic. I couldn’t sustain it. I didn’t deserve it. So now when I experience a slight rejection my irrational brain says, “here we go again…”

Thankfully this is part of why I’m in therapy. Because I don’t want to live my life this way. I don’t like irrational thoughts taking over. I don’t like overreacting. I don’t like living in fear of rejection and hurting my own feelings because if I do it first then nobody else can hurt me later because I’ve already done it.

I will continue to support what I like, whether they sell my products or not. I’ll continue to keep trying to find places to sell and people to buy. If other people can do it why not me? Ya know?

I am also going to make THE best, MOST beautiful cinnamon rolls of my life and continue to provide those to the farm… Maybe if I keep putting my best foot forward I’ll find my way back into bread sales.