Good vibes only is not a life philosophy I can get behind. Fix it or move on is a different thing entirely and it’s the one I actually live by.
Megan | Phoenix, AZ Florist | Fleur de Vie Studio
Someone told me once that I have a lot of positive energy for someone who went through some pretty dark times.
I didn’t really know what to say to that. I think what they meant as a compliment landed a little sideways because it implied I was performing something rather than actually being fine. Which, to be clear, I was. I was genuinely okay. Not because nothing hard was happening but because hard things don’t require me to stop functioning.
That distinction matters to me.
I am not a good vibes only person. I find that whole framework kind of patronizing honestly. Bad things happen. Hard seasons are real. Grief is real. Stress is real. Telling yourself or other people to just shift their energy or focus on the positive when something genuinely terrible is going on is not wisdom, it’s avoidance wearing a crystal necklace.
(I do wear crystals. That’s not the point.)
What I am is a fix it or move on person. And those are very different things.
What fix it or move on actually means
It doesn’t mean pretending things are fine when they’re not. It doesn’t mean rushing through grief or skipping the hard feelings. It means that once I’ve actually felt the thing, I want to know what the next move is.
Sitting in a problem indefinitely without taking any action is not something my brain knows how to do. Not because I’m repressing anything but because staying stuck in something when there are options available feels like a waste of time I could be using to actually make things better.
The Kansas flower order situation is a good example. My entire order ended up at the wrong florist in the wrong state two days before a major event. There was about four seconds of genuine stomach drop and then my brain just switched lanes. Okay. We’re not doing panic. What do we do next. I started making calls before I even fully processed that the situation was as bad as it was.
That’s not toxic positivity. That’s a nervous system that was built to move toward solutions rather than stay in problems. I think losing my sister and dad when I was younger did something to my relationship with time and with what I’m actually willing to spend it on. Drama that doesn’t lead anywhere has never been able to hold my attention for long.
The part people sometimes read wrong
I want to name this because I think it matters.
Fix it or move on does not mean I don’t feel things. I feel a lot of things. The INFJ in me processes emotional information at a depth that can be honestly a little exhausting. I absorb the energy in every room I walk into. I have been known to spiral about an “oh” response to a bouquet I made for longer than is strictly reasonable.
The difference is I don’t externalize the spiral as a permanent state. I feel it, I move through it, and then I decide what I’m actually going to do. Usually that decision involves doing something rather than nothing because doing something is the only direction that ever changes anything.
This is also why I have very little patience for things that are broken that nobody is fixing. The handball court at my elementary school. The preschool parking lot…(which I’m getting off track here since that’s another blog post for another time…) The parts of the floral industry that gatekeep and exclude new designers for no good reason. When something is wrong and there is an available fix and nobody is doing anything about it, I become a person who builds a case and shows up until it changes.
Not because I think I know better than everyone else. Because I think sitting around being frustrated while a solution exists is genuinely not a good use of anyone’s time.
How this shows up in the work
When something goes sideways on a wedding or at an event, my clients don’t usually find out.
Not because I’m hiding things but because by the time I’ve assessed the situation and figured out what the move is, the move is usually already happening. The panic window is extremely short. Then we’re just in problem solving mode.
I’ve had a full order end up in Kansas. I’ve had flowers stuck in South America two days before a Prada activation. I’ve hand-dyed 975 white carnations yellow overnight, pregnant, on my living room floor, because the farm shortage meant pale yellow carnations didn’t exist in Arizona that week. Every single time the experience internally was about four seconds of oh no followed by a very long stretch of okay here is what we’re going to do.
The clients who work best with me tend to share this energy. Not the dramatic version but the real version. Something comes up, they stay in problem-solving mode alongside me, we figure it out together. Those weddings and events go the best even when the most things go wrong. Because the combined energy in the room is fix it not panic and that actually changes what’s possible.
Life is bigger than most of what we’re treating like emergencies
This is the thing I come back to. The thing I genuinely believe.
I lost my younger sister when I was thirteen and my dad when I was seventeen. Both during years that were already hard. And what that did to me, over time and in ways I’m still understanding, is make me very clear about scale. About what is actually a problem and what is just uncomfortable. About what deserves the weight we’re putting on it and what we’re catastrophizing because we don’t know how to sit with uncertainty.
A late rental is not a problem. It’s a thing to solve. A flower variety that didn’t come in is not a problem. It’s a thing to source around. A budget that doesn’t match a wish list is not a problem. It’s a conversation.
Grief is a problem. Loss is a problem. The big ones are real and they deserve space. Everything else is just something to move through.
I’m not trying to minimize anyone else’s hard things. People get to feel what they feel about what they feel it about. I’m just telling you where my compass points.
Fix it or move on. It’s almost always one of those two. And once you accept that, everything gets a lot more navigable.
Toxic positivity is the idea that you should always maintain a positive mindset and avoid negative emotions, even in genuinely difficult circumstances. It’s unhelpful because it dismisses real experiences, makes people feel like they’re failing for having normal human reactions, and doesn’t actually help anyone move through hard things. Acknowledging something is hard while still figuring out what to do next is a completely different approach.
The good ones handle it before you find out about it. A calm, solution-focused florist has a short panic window and a long problem-solving one. Strong vendor relationships, experience with unexpected situations, and the willingness to pivot quickly are what determine whether a problem stays a vendor problem or becomes a couple problem.
Tell your florist immediately. The earlier we know about a change, the more options we have. Last minute surprises on the day of are much harder to navigate than changes that come in with a few weeks of runway. A good florist would rather hear about a problem early than discover it on wedding day.
Very. Wedding planning involves a lot of decisions, a lot of money, and a lot of coordination happening simultaneously. The couples who tend to have the smoothest experience are the ones who hire vendors they trust and then actually let those vendors do their jobs. Trying to control every detail is exhausting and usually counterproductive.
If you want to work with someone who stays calm when things get complicated, I’d genuinely love to hear about your wedding or event.
Want to work together? Let’s connect.
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