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This post is going to be raw, heartfelt, a bit negative, realistic, with some pinches of positive in there. It has been playing on my mind for months if not a few years and writing was always my go-to for therapy. Trigger Warning Too!!
Small business the last few years for many has been non-stop pivoting, from increasing costs to cover costs to decreasing costs to stay in competition with the large corporations. When I started blending oils, I was a pilates instructor, my sister had been murdered, the court process took 4 long years. I would work between the trial days, come with very little family or emotional support and bury myself in blending and spiritual books to help me. He was convicted in 2009 and that year we decided to make the move to the Kootenays. My plan was to get the blends into stores, but it didn’t take off, I opened a store in Kimberley, it failed. When I had my son in October, I made the decision to close it and blend from home, I had nothing to lose with a newborn baby in tow and my oldest in grade 2. This was when Toothfairy Tea teething blend, Rest Assured blend for sleep and Good Life for anxiety was born and they took off. Things got quite a bit busier so when we found ourselves now living in Fernie, I tried a storefront again and long story short within 5 years I had 5 locations. Then the world shut down and since then it’s been a dominoes effect. It took a while to really set in how bad the economy, rising costs, carbon taxes, wages and increased products and shipping would affect small business, but we can only struggle so long before it becomes near impossible to profit. I ended up closing locations due to the stress of a drawn-out costly divorce, no legal counsel, no support and not having the mental capacity or physical energy to keep pivoting.
My health took a turn with major burn out and I laid low, still working full time, but not engaged. I started really isolating myself while single parenting, running a business, house hopping because of the rental market and feeling like every time I got up, I was pushed back down. Somehow, through some miracle and a lender seeing how amazing Healing Hollow was, how difficult the 3.5 years had been for me, I was approved and bought my own home. I felt I had made it out alive, the divorce finalized, my own adorable house, my focus was returning, and I had some business decisions to make. I had always been very good to my employees, helping them personally and financially but it had cost me, and I needed change a lot in my life if I was going to start putting my own needs first and standing up for myself-being an empath in business isn’t easy.
At the end of September, I made the hard decision to let an employee go after really trying to make it work, I paid out the wages and was excited to take back control of my business, my hours and my income. I had big plans of how to cut costs, improve products and reconnect with customers but this was halted suddenly on the morning of September 28th when I was assaulted. Standing in my back parking lot, discussing some new ideas for the Christmas season with my long-time employee, I was viciously beaten for 6 straight minutes by my ex-employee’s husband. I was thrown to the ground, kicked repeatedly in the head and face for 6 long minutes while I screamed: “help me”. My pants were ripped off, my arm suffered injuries from protecting my head and face. My life changed, again, in an instant. As I sat on the gravel with a stranger after someone finally came to my rescue, I wondered what I had done to deserve this. How could I be so elated to start fresh and put myself and my needs first to only be almost killed with a few more kicks to the head. I thought I had it figured out this time, I thought all the hard stuff was behind me and here I was bruised, concussed and devastated. The pain during it was unbearable, I didn’t understand how people could have bar fights and such if it was this horrible. The dizziness, head pains, arm injury and effects of the concussion have lingered but, I’m a business owner, so after 2 days of rest I got up and had to move my Cranbrook store to other side of the mall, bruised and black eyed in public, at my own business. I don’t remember those days well, I didn’t paint or set it up like the other stores, there’s no red Healing Hollow paint but I did it. It was a combination of shock, head trauma and anxiety about if the accused would be released and he was released 3 days later. He has pled guilty and will be sentenced in a few months. It has lingered and as much as I have tried to stay positive, I cannot help feeling angry about the lack of support for people in these situations, the lack of compassion and community support, the lack of information for the victims. I will be fine, I will get through this and hopefully be able to help others, but I have had to fend for myself my whole life and know how to do it; I feel for those without those tools, those in different family situations and something needs to change. So many people are struggling these days in so many ways; it is sad to see people not reaching out to others. It is hurtful to hear the misinformation, the false rumours about things that are traumatic to people or personal. The world is unsteady right now and such small efforts go such a long way but many sit on social media judging and making other people’s lives harder. Somehow, someway, I am going to make something good out of this situation when my brain processes why it happened. I laugh and make dark jokes that I thought the last chapter if my book would be the horrible divorce but then the universe was like; “just kidding, second edition coming soon.”
What I have learned is that we will relearn things in life till be stop repeating patterns and I know that my patterns of needing to fix people has caused me a lot of heart ache in life. The assault was the biggest wake up call to put myself and my family first. Please don’t feel awkward in front of me like many have; I may be sad at times or seem grumpy but I’m not, I am a small business owner who cannot take time off right now so I am doing my best to take it day by day and I still love what I do, it’s just been really hard the last few years. To those who’ve been here for my ups and downs, you are a special kind of people.
Xo
Michelle
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