why i stepped back from my successful business + how the lovely self co. came to be…
Not too long ago, lovely self co. was The Lovely Wall Co., a very successful and well known wall-decal and wall decor business. For 10 years I designed, produced, and shipped wall decals all over the world helping amazing people create their dream spaces. For a few years, I was convinced that this business was my calling and that even when I was drawn in a different direction I told myself to ignore it. After all, who was I to give up such a good thing? That would be a dumb move and the biggest mistake ever, right? At least that is what I tried to tell myself.
To give you a little more insight as to why I would step back from such a successful business and pursue something entirely new, we should go back to the very beginning.
Most of my life (since about age 10), I felt that in order to feel safe, loved, and keep the peace in my life, I needed to put everyone in my life and their needs before my own. To say that I was a HUGE people pleaser and the ULTIMATE self neglecter might be one of the biggest understatements in the world. For 20+ years I truly believed that what I wanted and needed did not matter. This ultimately led to me going down paths that were self destructive. I was constantly seeking love from outside sources even if they were extremely unhealthy, violent and abusive. I never knew that I had the love that I needed within myself the whole time and would just accept anything that was given to me because I believed that is all I deserved.
After being able to fortunately remove myself from these abusive situations, I slowly started to move through life in a more productive way but was still stuck in my people pleasing and self neglecting ways. One of the only ways that I ever felt like I was enough was when I was working and working hard. I graduated with a degree in fashion design and dove fully into my work and only found my validation and self worth within work. Within this chapter of my life I became a wife and a mother which perpetuated the self neglect and people pleasing even more. Although I love my husband and my son more than I ever thought I could love anyone, I found that I completely lost myself even more than I had previously as my life was all about them and I didn’t know how important it was to put my own oxygen mask on first thus consistently depleting myself.
In 2011, at one of my self neglect peaks, my husband and I decided to start a business together. I left one of the only fashion design jobs here in Oklahoma to help him pursue his dream of having a vehicle graphics company. After a year of struggling through, we decided to close it down. There I was, jobless and stuck with a giant printer/plotter and a shop space that still had 3 more years on the lease. With my habit of only finding worth through work, I was determined to figure this out even if it wasn’t what I wanted to do.
One day when I was cleaning out our offices, I had found a vinyl sample that was for wall decals and it all clicked. I could use my graphic/fashion design skills and design wall decals and then everything will work out. Essentially I was trying to make the lemons I was given into the best lemonade that I could. It turned out to be pretty darn good lemonade but as with all things that aren’t your true purpose, if you have too much of it you are likely to get burnt out on it no matter how great it is.
Needless to say, I started The Lovely Wall Co. because I thought I had to, not because I wanted to. I was trying to prove to everyone else that I wouldn’t fail no matter how much they thought I would. I was doing it for other people and neglecting what I really wanted even though I had no idea what that was. I worked tirelessly to make it into the best company I could, but I still felt like I was meant to do something else. It never really seemed to satisfy me now matter how successful the business became.
During the 10 years I was building The Lovely Wall Co., I found myself really starting to recognize what I was doing to myself and dove deep into my healing journey. The more I started to get connected back to myself and listening to what I wanted and needed for the very first time, I began to start to recognize that this path isn’t what I was truly meant to do. Even though I constantly felt this tug to do something else, I didn’t trust myself enough yet to know that what I feeling was right.
I kept chugging along, making excuses when I would get the constant nagging feeling that something just wasn’t right until COVID hit. I never would have thought that this would be the push I needed but it ultimately led me to recognize I needed to make a change. Through out covid my business quadrupled and I was so busy that 80 hour work weeks were barely making a dent and my anxiety was something that become extremely unmanageable. Also during this time, the whispers my body was sending me became screams and ultimately ended up being diagnosed with two auto immune diseases with in a 3 month period. It felt as though the universe was sick of me ignoring what it was trying to show me and had no choice but to stop me dead in my tracks. Stop me it did. Within a week of this happening I knew that I was meant to change my life. I then started searching for what that change was.
Through out the years I slowly started to pull myself out of this big, deep, dark hole of self neglect and people pleasing. Finding the right practices, tools, and people to help me was ESSENTIAL + NECESSARY to be able to fully show up as my best version of myself and love myself unconditionally. One day, I just knew that I had a different purpose in this one precious and wild life, so I started my healing journey + learn to love myself fully. Once I did that, I knew it was my mission in life to help other women learn how to do the same for themselves. I finally decided that I wanted to focus on my new path of serving and helping women.
On Jan 1, 2022, I stepped back from The Lovely Wall Co and paused my business indefinitely to pursue this new path and I have never felt more aligned, happy, and excited in my life. For the past 2 and a half years I have been working in the background to become that person for others that I wish I had during my journey back home to myself. Within this time, I became a trauma informed somatic facilitator and educator, a meditation teacher, and have been fully embracing all that I have learned and developing practices, strategies, and pathways to help women become the person they truly are. That is when the Lovely Self Co. was born.
My Vision for the Lovely Self Co. is that we can help every woman know that it is possible to know yourself on the deepest level, trust your inner knowing, and show up for yourself fully. There are so many of us that wish we knew ourselves well enough in order to know how to show up for ourselves fully and know what we need. When we have this deep understanding, we are able to know what we need and go after the life we actually want. We all deserve to be unshakably connected to our inner power and knowing and I am here to tell you that it is possible and I want to help you realize that wish.
Our mission here at the Lovely Self Co., is to help you learn and understand what YOU need in order to show up for yourself in the most authentic and useful way to YOU. By providing you with the information, self reflection, tools, and practices that help you get to know yourself and what you need on the deepest level. In no way is our advice or guidance prescriptive. All of our workbooks are more like guiding beacons that help to shine a light on what YOUR journey needs to be based on YOUR needs and wants.
I cannot wait to help you with your journey to learn to love yourself unconditionally and become your most empowered self and I hope my story can inspire you that it CAN BE DONE. You are worth the time, energy, and effort it takes and we will discover what that means to you together.
XO,
Megan
