behind the scenes: why I’m ditching 2/3rds of my product line

time to go behind the scenes and spill the tea on why I almost totally threw out my whole business… and what I did instead

I had a 💡lightblub💡 moment earlier this week while writing the astrology for the Full Moon Lunar Eclipse in Scorpio. The one thing I always tell folks about Eclipses is how they unfold like a story — each Eclipse a chapter in the narrative, with little clarity arising until the Eclipses have passed.

Yesterday (Friday, May 5th) the final Eclipse in Scorpio occurred, on the same day as Solar Beltane. So I took my own advice and started reviewing my journals and calendar from the past 18ish months since the first Eclipse in November of 2021.

Y’all… this was exactly when I first launched my full apothecary line. And I had completely forgotten about this timing connection. 😳

A quick backstory… In September of ‘21 my long-term contracting gig ended abruptly and the multi-month travel plans I’d made for ‘22 (the reason I left my favorite apartment and beloved Kittery, ME framily) also fell through. With so much “free time” suddenly on my hands, I decided to go for it with Garden of the Moon and signed up for a number of holiday markets for the upcoming season. The story in my head was that “I need to have products for everyone if I’m gonna be at these kinds of events. I’ll scare people off if I’m just there with the Cycle Support Kits talking about periods.”

And so I took the recipes of tea blends and other herbal tonics that I’d crafted for my family and friends as gifts and developed a whole product line. I went from having one signature product (the Cycle Support Kits) to having a full apothecary with 13 different offerings.

My first event with a full apothecary line was just 3 days after the November ‘21 Eclipse…

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Markets and Feeling Meaningless

In the past year and a half, I’ve done nearly 50 events — from farmer’s markets to festivals, holiday maker’s markets, and pop-ups. Hauling my tent, bins of products, and beverage dispensers for cups of tea to-go. I’ve met so many truly wonderful people through this process, and I’m genuinely proud of all I’ve learned.

But I AM TIRED, my friends.

Events are so hit-or-miss when it comes to traffic, sales, etc… and one of the hardest things was questioning, “Am I actually making a difference doing all this…?!”

I had heard one of my business coaches once say, “When you try to serve everyone, you wind up serving no one.” And that’s truly how it felt. Like I’d spread things so thin that there was no “oomph” behind anything I offered.

Where was the fire I felt when I launched Garden of the Moon in 2019? My passion was for serving women in reconnecting to our monthly cycles, and I felt like maybe 1 in 10 convos would connect with this original mission I had.

After the ‘22 holiday season, my health hit an all-time low. I spent January through March doggedly dragging myself out of the hole I’d climbed into, from stressing myself out with business stuff and living in a house with mold. I’ve been working with a new practitioner for the past 5 months, uncovering stuff that others had completely missed (🙄). During all of this, I was really sitting with some big questions…

Do I want to keep going? If I do… what needs to change so I actually love this business again?

Part of me (the most exhausted part that had no energy, or drive and felt sick all the time) wanted to say “eff it” and throw it all in.

Every good idea probably starts with a terrible one

But what I landed on was realizing that I needed to prioritize my work with the Kits, the Sacred Cycle Oracle and all-things women’s cycles, phases, and seasons. In March, I landed a small grant to pursue rebranding and designing new packaging. The ball was rolling again!

I planned to pull the Cycle Support Kits out of Garden of the Moon. They’d be their own brand, and Garden of the Moon would be sort of like a personal blog and general apothecary with my other products.

…Yea! That’s it! That’ll make things better — start another business!

🙄 🙄 🙄 🙄 🙄 🙄 🙄 🙄

The REAL reason it’s felt so sucky

In April, I started a business class at a local entrepreneurship development center. I knew I needed some guidance around finding direction with Garden of the Moon, and daaaang did I find it.

About midway through the 7 week course, one of my mentors started pushing back and questioning my plans to start a whole new brand for the Kits.

She asked “What is it about Garden of the Moon, as it is right now, that you feel like you need to separate from..?” And it friggin’ hit me…

I’ve felt SO out of integrity the past 18 months of running this business.

Having all these “random” products in order to try and “include everyone” felt so far from my mission and my intention, from the WHY that I know was at the root of how GOTM came to be. I finally put that into words in conversation with her and felt my eyes welling up with tears.

I felt like I had abandoned Garden of the Moon — the creative entity that came to me while vacuuming my apartment in 2018. (Another story for another time…)

My mentor said “Ok, well then it sounds like what you actually need or want is to ditch all the other products. Is that right?”

YES. YES THAT IS CORRECT.

Remembering the Mission

And so here we are my friends. In an effort to remember WHY I chose this path, why I feel so strongly about supporting women, and to reconnect with the possibility of truly making a positive impact…

We’re going back to the basics!

Here’s the mission statement I created in the business class:

Garden of the Moon’s mission is that through the ritual and physical nourishment of herbal teas and education, we are committed to helping rewrite the limiting beliefs that so many women hold about the female body by embracing the superpowers within each phase of our monthly cycles and the seasonal arch of our lives.

↑ THIS is where it all began. And THIS is where we are both returning to and moving towards.↑

I deeply believe that Garden of the Moon chose me to bring this work forward, and it’s hard not to feel guilty, ashamed, or like a failure when I look at how it feels like I abandoned her the past year and a half… But part of this is also being in deep trust with the fact that IT’S ALL A PROCESS. There’s so much I never would have experienced had I not made the decisions that I did. And now, now I feel so much clearer about the path forward.

To top it all off? My health is finally turning around too 😉 Coincidence? Maybe. Either way, I’m feeling hopeful & inspired for the first time in a looooong time.

All of this, just as the final Scorpio Eclipse drops in. The storybook is nearing its end chapters, and the last of the releasing is here to clear the way.

… are you still reading?

If you’re still reading… dang, you nosey, huh?!

Kiddingggg 😜 I’m so glad you stuck around and heard me out. Writing this has been deeply cathartic for me — seeing the journey with clear eyes and a compassionate heart.

Shout out to everyone who’s helped support Garden of the Moon so far. I’m so grateful to each of you in so many ways. I hope you’ll hop over and grab some of the goodies that are 25+% off this weekend before they’re gone for good!

Big Love 🫶

Em