I'm Faredae, the founder, formulator and creator of The Sage Faerie.
I'm 47 and have lived in MI almost my entire life. Growing up I pictured myself a stay at home mom raising kids in a home with a white picket fence.
Life didn't turn out that way.
When I share about my story and who I am I feel it's important to take it all the way back to the beginning.
I was named Audrey Lynn Miller when I was born.
I grew up in an unhealthy environment. My parents divorced when I was really young. My dad remarried pretty quickly. My stepmom was not an emotionally healthy woman to be raising young girls. She was very young herself and instead of raising strong, confident girls she worked hard to diminish us so we wouldn't outshine her. They were together until I was 13.
My mom was an alcoholic. When I was in kindergarten (sisters are 1 year and 3 years older) she would leave us home at night with nothing but the junk food in the cupboard for dinner. Sometimes having the dysfunctional couple upstairs "watch" us. My dad got full custody of us by the time I was in first grade. I don't have a lot of detailed memories from my childhood, that happens with abuse.
My mom started dating a man and at some point after he came into our lives, I don't really remember exactly how old I was, he began to sexually abuse me. I lived with them when I was in 2nd grade. My dad pulled me out of there because of the lack of care. He didn't however look hard enough at the actual living situation to see all that was going on.
The abuse continued for a couple of years whenever I would stay with them. My mom was too drunk to notice what was going on. She stayed with him until he died about 16 years ago. She learned of the abuse about 9 years ago when I finally had the nerve to tell her. We spent that last 10 years of her life repairing our relationship. She passed away 4/14/21.
I'm telling you this because without my whole story, you wouldn't be able to know how I became who I am today. About 18 years ago I was a part of a women's group, beginning my path to healing from my childhood abuse. One month we decided to do a ceremony to release the life our parents gave us and step into the life we are choosing for ourselves. We thought it would be fun to pick a new name too. Not with the intention of changing our names, just to represent the new life.
At the time I was walking my dogs every day at the park. We would walk in this huge field and most days we'd spend 1-2 hours there.
I have always love fairies. I love their magic and just the whole idea of them. So, when I was looking up names I knew I wanted a fairy name. As I scrolled through hundreds of names I landed on one with the perfect meaning.
Faredae: fairy goddess of the fields
That was it! That was the name I wanted. That was in 2005.
In 2012 I had my first miscarriage. That baby is what truly led me on a path to natural healing. I began to work on my body and spirit on a deep level. I knew the trauma from my childhood was the cause of my infertility. During this time of healing I really noticed I began to feel unattached to Audrey. I was no longer that person.
In 2014 I began introducing Faredae to the world. It took a couple of years before I felt comfortable enough to tell people in my life that I no longer wished to be called Audrey. Some people struggled (still do) but most people accepted it. Now many people say they can't even remember my birth name when they look at me. Even people who have known me my entire life. In 2021 I legally changed my name to Faredae Lynn Miller.
I will honestly tell you I would not change 1 second of my past. It made me the woman I am today. It put me on a path to heal spiritually and physically. I ended up having another miscarriage and was never able to bring babies into this world. But I spent a couple years working as a doula, which my fertility issues led me to do. I was able to experience birth and mothering through this work. It was very healing for me. I no longer do that work, at least for now.
After ending my doula career, I put my energy into the gym business that my husband and I owned. I met him in 1999 when I began working for him. We started dating in 2004 and by 2007 we were running the business together. I stepped away a little bit during the years I did the doula business but by 2016 I put all my focus on the gym. We also owned a tanning salon but honestly I didn't have any love for it at all and was not happy there.
By 2019 I was feeling a desire to start some sort of hobby that could make me some side cash. That's when I learned about making body butter and slowly started adding other products. Six months in, the pandemic hit.
Our gym and tanning salon were closed and we were trying to figure out how to move forward. One of our trainers who had been wanting to buy the gym for years approached us and so we sold the gym and closed the tanning salon.
By late summer 2020 we no longer had any brick and mortar businesses and we were figuring out a new way of living. My husband is 20 years older than me. So he moved into retirement (he still hasn't really accepted that) and I enjoyed being home and continuing to learn to make products. By the end of 2021 I had built a pretty good inventory and I was doing craft fairs and slowly sharing my business.
2022 was a slow go for the first half of the year. We lost our last dog and for the first time in 16 years we had an empty nest. After 6 weeks I couldn't take it and that's when we adopted Zekiel. I didn't want a puppy because they are so much work. So we got a 2 year old shelter dog and quickly realized the joke was on us! A puppy would have been so much easier. But like everything in my life, I wouldn't change it for anything. He immediately became my everything.
My business got put on hold a bit while we got him settled in to his new amazing life! By October 2022 I was ready to get back at it and spent the end of the year at events and in my kitchen making products.
Here we are in 2023 and I finally feel like I have a solid legit business. Every moment of my life has led me here. I am so grateful to have you on this part of my journey with me.
I'm Faredae, the founder, formulator and creator of The Sage Faerie.
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