{"id":8106,"date":"2021-12-09T17:57:49","date_gmt":"2021-12-09T23:57:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/twprod.wpengine.com\/hardship-to-change-jennifer-turner\/"},"modified":"2025-05-26T15:00:16","modified_gmt":"2025-05-26T21:00:16","slug":"hardship-to-change-jennifer-turner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tailwindapp.com\/blog\/hardship-to-change-jennifer-turner","title":{"rendered":"Turning Hardship Into Meaningful Change with Jennifer Turner"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Just a note:<\/em> This post contains references to drug use and addiction<\/strong>. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Jennifer Turner\u2019s bustling soap business didn\u2019t start with a fairytale. Frankly, it started with a lot of personal pain and turmoil. But that\u2019s the beautiful thing about her story – she found a way to connect her passion and her pain and become a beacon of hope for countless families.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her unique goat milk soaps originally started as a hobby, a way to distract herself from the grief of watching her three children struggling with addiction. It was a secret she kept from everyone but her immediate family for a long time, trapped in feelings of guilt and shame as she worked on her hobby day in and day out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But something happened when she decided to tell her story and go on a mission to put her hope that her children – and everyone struggling with addiction – would get clean in the hands of eager buyers at a local Farmers Market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She built relationships, and a successful business, and realized that the secret she was keeping was one that so very many people in the world struggle with. And now, Jennifer is a mentor and a trusted friend to families all over who found themselves in her shoes. (And, of course, she makes a great soap!)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You won\u2019t want to miss this story. It will give you a new appreciation for goats, natural skincare, humans, and most importantly, hope that things will get better. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cI had this one lady come up to my booth and she was looking at the soaps and I told her what the mission was, and she just started crying. And I said, \u201cYou have someone involved in addiction, don\u2019t you?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She said, “my daughter died last year from addiction” and it just broke my heart. Then we had a good cry together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So you know, it’s those moments that just make the business all worth it.”<\/p>\nJennifer Turner, Soap Addiction<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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In your company\u2019s mission statement, you mention that soap is a metaphor for people getting clean from addiction. What did your life feel like before starting this business versus after?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Jennifer: Well, I was doing soap making more as a hobby while I was dealing with very stressful things with my children. It was more of just a distraction for me. It felt good to do something positive that I had fun doing, and it took my mind off of all the problems that I was dealing with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But once I actually decided to turn it into a business and get serious about it, then I realized that I was making soap for a different reason. It put a flame under me and I became much more passionate about it,<\/strong> and I started coming up with all these ideas of how I could try to connect with families in the midst of dealing with a loved one’s addiction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So my life beforehand, it was just kind of going through the motions – and once I had the mission of making the soaps for a reason, then my desire to do it was just so much more. I\u2019ve done many hobbies before, so many different things to pass the time – but this, I\u2019ve been doing this for 14 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How are your children doing now?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Jennifer: They are all completely in recovery. So my life was dealing with constant phone calls – whether the police to say they\u2019ve been arrested for public intoxication or the hospital to say they\u2019d overdosed and had been resuscitated or that they\u2019d been picked up for this or that\u2026that constant worry and fear and dread in my life that totally consumed me made me not want to go out and do things with other people and talk about my family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But now they\u2019re in recovery, and really before they were in recovery, once I learned how to try to take the focus off my children and not try to fix them, because you cannot fix them, and deal with my own grief and guilt and all the different feelings that come from it. I was able to go beyond that and use my story in my business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But, they are all totally recovered now. One of my children is involved in construction, my other son works for an airline, and then my daughter is working for a financial company. They\u2019re all doing really well, and life is so much different now, not having to constantly worry about what\u2019s going on in their life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What made the biggest difference for them, or how did they make that shift into getting better?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Jennifer: My two sons were out living on their own together, so they were partners in crime. Once my husband and I got to that point where we would not help them anymore, and we convinced the rest of the family that it was not in their best interest to help them anymore – that they had to figure it out on their own, whether they were going to buy drugs or pay rent. If they were going to have to walk or take the bus. When they got to where they had zero money, they were getting evicted, the car was broken down, they had nowhere else to go. That\u2019s when they called me up and said we\u2019re ready to get help. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It had to be them to initiate. You cannot threaten, bribe, or coerce anybody in addiction to have sobriety. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then, my daughter got locked up for doing drugs in a McDonald\u2019s and was court-mandated to go into a program and that finally did it for her. She did relapse a couple of times after that, but she quickly got back on the wagon and said I don\u2019t want to go back to that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You know, you have so many negative memories that you just want to disappear, but now that things are good, you celebrate each and every day for the victory that it is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What advice would you give someone who also has a loved one struggling with addiction?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Jennifer: Connect with people who know what you\u2019re going through. If you can just find one other person that you can talk to and be honest with, then that\u2019s it right there. Not feeling alone, which was such an overbearing feeling for me for years, because I kept it hidden. My husband and I both kept it hidden from everybody except the immediate family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nobody knew in church, none of our friends knew what we were going through and it was just like, take off the one mask and put on the other mask to go out into society and function. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And if people need to connect with me, please call me, email me, text me. I don\u2019t care, I\u2019ll be glad to talk to you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How did you get started making goat milk soap?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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Jennifer: We bought a farm of about 14 acres and it was a lot to manage. We kept asking people if they wanted to come up and cut hay for their horses or cows, and nobody ever took us up on it! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So we didn\u2019t have the means to be able to roll hay and sell it, so we decided to get some goats to do more pasture management.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We were having so much milk that we couldn\u2019t drink enough, and I couldn\u2019t make enough goat cheese. I was making mozzarella and got fed up. It was like, \u201cI\u2019ve got cheese everywhere. I\u2019ve got milk everywhere. What am I going to do with all this milk?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And someone suggested we make soap. That was something I had done with my children back when they were in elementary years, so I already had the basics down of how to make old-fashioned lye soap. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I started researching how you did it, and did probably a year’s worth of experiments with different recipes, and then came up with my own recipe that came out consistently good. I really loved how it made my skin feel, I was like, I\u2019m never going back to store-bought soaps again!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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A post shared by SOAP ADDICTION (@soapaddictions)<\/a><\/p><\/div><\/blockquote>