Self discovery
Every year, I find myself a little bit more. I learn more about my fears and how to challenge them, I learn more about what I like and what I don’t like. When I feel most and least confident. Frankly, the answers to these questions change and I expect that will remain true as I carry on with life. However, as I approach my first quarter century, (yes I turn 25 this year) I can honestly say that some things that are core to who I am are becoming a little clearer.
This weekend I hosted 8 beautiful women at a sewing workshop as my pilot event for Lavendame. Now before I take you on the who, what, when, why journey of Lavendame, I remembered a little plan I had when I was about 14. I wrote all about it in a blue hard cover note book. It was going to be called “Purple touch” and while I don’t remember all the details but it was definitely about empowering women. I remember being fussy about the little details like what shade of purple would be my theme and what my logo would look like. I knew I wanted to make an impact with women in my community but that’s about all I remember.
This brings me back to the core things that make me tick. Empathy, Empowering women, Art, Family, Faith and Community. Everything I do draws from these pools. I suppose I’ve known this for a while but only subconsciously so. The idea for Lavendame started brewing years ago when I first started plotting my vision for my life, a vision of building economically sustainable communities. At the time it wasn’t called Lavendame; it wasn’t called anything. The idea of Purple touch was then a distant memory and I was feeling a little lost for purpose.
Fast forward to December last year and I had a yearning to create an arts based community of women in the city. Women like me, who spend the greater part of their day at a job, being a polished and professional version of themselves, spending too little time doing things that ignited their passions and investing all of their creative energy in developing decks and finding the best way to tell the client that they need to make a decision or kick rocks. I missed sewing, I missed blogging, I missed experimenting with other creative outlets like painting and knitting and baking and writing. I missed being well rounded and doing things for me! I was certain that there were other women in the city that felt the exact same way so I was determined to make that community happen.
I talked the idea over with my family and inner circle and slowly began to gain confidence that this idea was worth pushing for…Then the fear kicked in. What if there are other people doing the same thing or similar things (there are). What if I jump into this too soon and it’s half baked and everyone hates it? (Welp!). What if there’s no reasonable way to sustain this (still figuring this out). I wrote my ideas out in painstaking detail, mulled over them and wrote some more. I talked about it again with family and with God and everyone’s feedback was Just Start Already!
The first time I reached out to a sewing studio for this, I literally had to psyche myself up; “pretend this is just like reaching out to book an event for your birthday” “Just ask if they even do private events” “Just try!” I am so thankful to the lovely people at The Make Den for answering the thousands of questions I had and making great recommendations. After I finally locked down the location, I psyched myself up once again to reach out to my friends to see if they would come. Fear and fulfillment are neighbors I guess because with shaky fingers I typed up the message and sent it out to a few friends, anxiously awaiting any kind of response. The yeses trickled in and I sat on my bed bawling and laughing because I was just so happy anyone would be willing to take that chance on me
The dust has settled now from my first event, feedback is coming in at a steady pace and it’s generally positive, constructive and very actionable. More events are coming up for Lavendame so stay tuned on our Instagram. There’s a peace that comes with doing something you were made to do and I definitely feel this is one of those things
Let me know in the comments if you have any stories of finding yourself, where are you in that journey?
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