002: How Lettering Changed My Life

I’ve struggled with my mental health for over 20 years. For the longest time, I had no outlet for dealing with and navigating through my struggles with mental health. After reaching a low point in my life, a friend encouraged me to use my creativity as an outlet and I never looked back.

I fell in love with the creative practice and using lettering as a way to get out of my own head. Words started to mean so much more to me and I was constantly taking notes on words that had meaning and value to me. Today I am sharing how I found out about life coaching and the shift I had with the negative voice in my head. I share how creativity can bring you mindfulness and why you should spend time doing what you love instead of only pouring into others.

What you’ll find in this episode:

Lisa's experiences with depression and anxiety in her youth and reaching her lowest point
The story of how lettering was the surprise hobby that she didn't know she wanted
How lettering positive phrases helped improve her mental health tremendously
Why you should embrace the imperfections of creativity and invest in yourself!

Read the transcript of the episode below:

How did I get here? How did lettering help me with my mental health? We're going to be talking all about that today and more. You are listening to the committed to create podcast episode two. How lettering changed my life.
welcome to the committed, to create podcast. I'm Lisa Funk, and I am so excited to hang out with you here. As we talk about the power of creating with our hands and our minds, I like to keep it real, remind you that you are not alone and share specific ways that creativity and mindfulness can help us live even more meaningful and joyful lives. I am so glad that you're here.
Hello, and welcome back. I'm excited to say welcome back because we're on episode two. Now, today we are talking about how lettering changed my life. I know you're thinking, Lisa seriously, this is a little dramatic. It is a little dramatic, which is perfect to set the stage because we're going to be talking about my high school self, which was extremely dramatic.
I was very dramatic in high school. I was emotional. I was a middle child. I like to blame it on that a little bit, you know, looking for attention. Okay. Also, I started struggling with my mental health and at the time I didn't know exactly what was happening. Then it was not as common to understand anything about depression or anxiety or mood disorders or anything like that.
I just thought that. I don't know. I don't, I honestly, I knew that I felt stuck a lot. I knew that I felt very sensitive and my family would joke that I was in a funk. And that is how I felt, which is so hilarious now, because funk is my last name. And every once in a while, I still get into a funk. But back then it was really hard and I didn't know what was wrong and I didn't know what to do. And you feel terrible. Okay. So I'm not going to go into every single thing that I have gone through with my mental health or that I tried with my mental health. I think as the podcast goes on, I will share a lot more of those bits and pieces.
But I will say that over the next several years, I tried many different things to help, including therapy, medication, natural homeopathic treatments, all kinds of different things. And many things helped to varying degrees at different times. But in 2014, I hit a low. It was definitely one of my lows. I had lost my brother the year before I had just had my third baby and I suffered an incredibly serious blood clot.
I had a DVT in my left leg. That was so crazy. You guys, in the space of about 12 hours, I went from not experiencing any symptoms to first feeling like it was a pulled muscle, then it kind of felt like sciatica. Then my left leg was swelling up to twice the size of my right leg and I was in so much pain.
And then my left leg started turning blue. I realized obviously something was seriously wrong and went to the hospital. Found out that I had a very severe blood clot that went from my belly button to my foot, my toes, basically. And all the superficial and deep veins ended up having surgery. They found out that the artery was compressing my vein near my belly button.
And so all the blood was pooling and clotting from that point down, this is not super important to the story. But it was really scary. I also had pulmonary embolize in both lungs. I was in the hospital for a week and then my leg was so messed up from all of that. I couldn't walk. I ended up coming home and having home health care home nursing.
It was crazy to get to where I could walk again, took me a month. And I had a brand new baby and two other small children, and I was struggling big time with my mental health. There were some other things going on. Some parenting struggles. I was. Just felt like I was drowning. I really did. And at that time, my amazing friend, Lizzie, Lizzie, I love you.
She had suggested many times that I should sell my little chalkboard signs or my lettering signs. I would help make some signs for her when she would sell her handmade goods at boutiques. And I had always said, no, I'm not sure. Nah, I don't know. And that year I knew I needed an outlet. I didn't care if it made any sense financially.
I didn't care. Meaning I didn't care if I made any money. I was like, I just need something. And I had no idea that in that moment that I decided to just go for it. It was a little pop-up shop boutique for three day a three-day boutique. And I decided to create some chalkboard signs for that. Had no idea that that would be the beginning of an incredible journey of creativity and mindfulness, but I just started, I thought I just need something.
I just need something for myself. I always wanted to have babies and I always anticipated that motherhood would fulfill me in every possible way and that I wouldn't need anything else. I waited all of my twenties too. Get married and have babies. Okay. I really did want to get married, but I also wanted to get married so that I could have kids.
I wanted both. And so when I got married and was able to start having kids, it was like, I just assumed that that would be all I would ever need. And I didn't think I would need any hobbies or anything else. Well, by the time I had my third baby and my mental health was. Not in a good place. I decided that.
I was going to try out a hobby. I was so used to giving everything that I had to everyone around me. And it's not that they were telling me no one was telling me I wasn't allowed to have a hobby known as telling me I couldn't do anything for myself. I just was kind of on autopilot. But at this point in 2014, when I had just had my third baby, I decided to go for it.
And I created these signs to sell it this little boutique and I loved it so much. It wasn't even the business part of it. I mean, I was blown away that we pretty much sold out of the signs in that first, that first boutique, but it was the creative practice of just taking some time. To use my hands to create something.
And let me tell you those first signs were not the best work I've ever done, but it didn't matter. All of a sudden I had found something where I was using my creativity and I was just taking a moment for myself. And I was getting out of my mind. My overworking mind, I don't know about you, but I am an over-thinker her my mind likes to go a million miles a minute and kind of rehash the past and worry about the future and spin out.
And so to use my hands and do something creative was huge for me. It was just a moment to get out of that brain to get out of that over working. But well-meaning brain of mine. And be creative. So I started doing it and I started doing it every day because I loved it so much. And I wasn't amazing at it.
I started with chalk art and I loved it. And then I started trying to learn more about brush pens and. Honestly wanted to throw them in the garbage, because I didn't think that they worked. I really thought from watching other people use them on Instagram. I thought that they just magically worked and looked like calligraphy.
So when they didn't, I was extremely disappointed and discouraged and didn't pick them up again for a while, which is why once I figured them out, I decided to teach other people how to use them because. Well, so many people were asking, but that's another story for another day. I just started learning this and doing it because I enjoyed it, even though I wasn't perfect at it right away, even though I didn't know exactly how to do it, whether it was the chalk or the markers or pens or whatever, I just became.
So. In love with this creative practice. And what started happening was I needed things to let her, because I was lettering every day. And so I started looking for positive quotes, uplifting quotes. I started looking, I would just start looking for positive words and all of a sudden everything in my life.
Like all the words in my life, all of a sudden became way more important. And they just started sticking out to me. So we would be singing a hymn at church and all of a sudden the words in one of the, and one of the verses would just stick out and I would write it down or type it out in the notes section of my phone so that I could let her at later.
And then I would be reading a book and one phrase or one sentence would just pop out at me and it would be so meaningful. I would type it in my note section on my phone so that I could let her it later. And then, and I was finding these things everywhere. It would be in a conversation with a friend that they would say something, or I would say something, it would be in a scripture or in, you know, a song that I would hear.
I want to say on the radio, but I probably wasn't actually listening to the radio, but I would just start hearing words everywhere. And I was always on the hunt subconsciously or consciously for words to letter. And so I would keep this running lettering list and I started lettering meaningful and uplifting words every day.
And when I was lettering, I would be writing and rewriting. All the word, the phrase or the sentence over and over again. And what I didn't realize at the time was that I was changing my thoughts. I was changing what I was focusing on. I was changing my thinking and writing and rewriting them. Not only was this.
It became this very meditative and mindful practice for me because I was getting out of my mind and using my hands and focusing on something that became really therapeutic, but it was also the positivity and helping my brain to focus on the good things and the positive things. So I just kept doing this.
And at the time, I didn't know why it was so beneficial to me. I just knew that I loved it and then it made me feel, feel better. And so I kept doing it and I kept going. And at previous times in my life, I had tried so many things, different things for my mental health. Like I said, I could go through, it would be, it will be several episodes, but I'm sure I will touch on the different experiences I've had eventually.
But I ended up finding out about life coaching and I had been, I had done years of therapy and I loved it and it helped me so much. And I had done medication and I had done many things. But when I found life coaching, it was different. They were focusing on changing your thoughts and they were focusing on the future and goals.
And, and as much as I loved therapy, it really was the perfect thing for me. I think at the time, But I wanted to think in the future, I didn't only want to, you know, just kind of go over the problems and rehash the past and keep talking about the past and all of that. But I was ready. I was ready to try something new.
So as I started learning about that, and also just learning more about mindfulness and affirmations. I started lettering these affirmations. And I think that lettering is the best, but lettering the affirmations. Took it to a new level. For me, it wasn't just the lettering and it wasn't just affirmations.
It was this practice of writing them out. I felt like it helped to ingrain it more inside of my mind and renew my heart. And I really started to believe these things and slowly but surely in negative thoughts that I used to have were slowly. Leaving and the positive, new thoughts that I was introducing into my mind were taking out more real estate.
And I am so grateful for that. And it was this gradual shift as I was learning about mindfulness and I was doing my lettering and I was combining them together that before I knew it. I almost didn't recognize my brain. I had always had a really inconsiderate, unkind brain. And I used it used to tell me things like.
What is your problem? What is wrong with you? You are a moron. You should be able to figure this out. Why can't you ever do anything? Right? I mean, my inner dialogue was not pretty. If someone else had ever talked to me the way that I used to talk to myself, I would have been appalled. If someone ever talked to my children, the way that I used to talk to myself, I would be.
So furious, like so upset, but I didn't think anything of it. I thought that that's just how people thought. And I thought that maybe it was important to think that way so that I would shape up and change. I had no idea that thinking so negatively, it was only gonna cause pain that it was only gonna cause suffering.
But I didn't know how to change it. And for a long time, I didn't even know there was anything wrong with that. And I, one day we'll talk a lot more about all of this, this is what this podcast is for. But today I wanted to talk about my lettering and how it really did change my life. All of a sudden I had something that was for me.
I had something that was mine at the end of the day, I could sit down and take a moment to myself. To do my thing and it was lettering. And for you, it might be something else. It might be embroidery. It might be watercolor. It might be quilting. It might be cooking. It could be anything. And it could be a lot of those things.
And one of my goals is to incorporate a lot of other versions of creativity, a lot of other types of creativity into my life. And that's going to be part of what we do here too. We're going to do all those things that we want to learn together, but I just started to feel like I had something of my own and.
Yes, I did learn more about it. I did improve my skills and it was fun to get better at it, but I'll tell you that I got just as much benefit to my mental health at the beginning, as I do now. I just needed something even when I was tracing, even when I was just really trying to do one letter at a time and figuring it out, I loved it.
So I kept doing it. And as I learned about affirmations and I learned about thought work, I started lettering these affirmations and figuring out that this lettering was really a mindful practice for me. And I do love meditation and I try to incorporate it more into my life. I'm not like some amazing meditation expert, but I do enjoy it.
However, I found that sometimes it was hard. Sometimes I didn't always figure it out or make a way for it in my life, but I could do other things in my life mindfully and lettering became something that was really a natural thing for me to do mindfully. And so that's why I ended up creating the guide to mindful lettering, never in my life did I imagine I would be creating a mindfulness guide created with the medium of lettering, but it really, it really did change everything for me, combining the creativity and the mindfulness together. So I continue to use lettering as a way to focus. As a way to breathe as a way to slow down. And I know that there are so many forms of creativity that provide that same mindfulness if you do it in the right way. And I can tell you from experience that there are two ways to do creativity. One is a perfectionistic way where you're hard on yourself and you beat yourself up and you don't enjoy it because you're expected to be perfect or right away that does not have the same health and mental health benefits.
But when you can embrace the process, embrace the imperfection and allow yourself to just be terrible. Allow yourself to just enjoy the process. Just enjoy putting the pen to paper. Even if all you're doing is tracing. Even if that's all you ever do in the guide to mindful lettering, I put a bunch of affirmations because I wanted people to be able to trace them and write them again on their own. And some people only ever trace them and they still find so much benefit from it because it's just the practice of focusing your hand to the pen, to the paper and thinking about these positive phrases. And I know that it's really made a huge difference for me, and that is my story.
That's my story of how lettering really has changed my life. It's given me something that I can identify with something that's just for me. And it's really shown me that it's okay as a mom, that I take time for myself. And that I am not only just pouring into everybody else all day long. It's okay for me to take a moment to do something that's creative.
That's just for me. And you know, what's so cool is that it's been the greatest example for my kids. Number one, they see that I'm a person. And that they're allowed to be a person too, that I have interests and they can have interests. And the other thing is that I can also do it when I'm with them. It doesn't have to be something that I have to get a babysitter for, or that I have to leave or buy a tunnel of expensive things I can be sitting right, right next to them while they're doing their Play-Doh or their coloring or their lettering too.
So fun to share that passion with them and I can have my little thing and I enjoy it so much and it's just been so great. I didn't think that I needed a hobby until. I decided it was so worth it, that I was drowning. I felt like it's not that I didn't recognize myself anymore, but I had lost myself and not in the good way I had lost myself in a way where I felt completely depleted and stuck.
And once I started giving myself permission to create and to follow my passion and my interest and my curiosity to learn more about this particular type of creativity, I just was so filled up, combine that with learning about my mind and how it worked. Oh my gosh. It's been life changing. So that is my story for you, of how lettering changed my life.
Hopefully now hearing it all, you might not think I'm quite so crazy. As you may have thought at the beginning, where did the title of this episode? I'm so excited that you're here and hope that you'll continue to stick around on this journey. As we talk about creativity and mindfulness, and I hope that you will take a moment.
Or a minute or five minutes to create today. I hope that you will give yourself that gift and knowing that it doesn't need to be perfect. If you want to try lettering, I hope you'll come check out. Our lettering stuff. The guide to mindful lettering is a great tool for that. Come to committed, to create.com and you can see all of our lettering supplies and how to get started.
If that's something you might be interested in, if you have something else. That he kind of have some curiosity about maybe it's painting, maybe it's organizing or home decor or whatever. It might be hope that you'll follow that and give yourself even five minutes. You'll be surprised how much that might fill you up.
So I just want to thank you for joining me today. If you are interested in learning more about creativity and mindfulness, we have created a free guide for you. It's called five creative steps, less stress, and more joy. You can find that@committedtocreate.com slash less stress. And I would love it. If you would submit.
The podcast, leave us a rating and a review that will help this podcast and keep us going. I am so excited that you're here and I can't wait to talk to you in the next episode.

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Jennifer L. IN LOVE!! What a perfect idea! I am a plant mama too, like Lisa. I also manage a great deal of anxiety. I got into lettering a couple years ago as a creative outlet and discovered a multitude of treasures in the lettering community! This book that Lisa created with her daughter is just perfection! It's all the feels for me! Thank you both!!!
Cinthanie C. EXCELLENT BOOK! I really enjoy taking a minute each day to slow down and apply my hand to something that is not only emotionally supportive but relaxing and fun to do!! The mantras for everyday are very helpful for me. Thank you for your work and bringing such a high quality product into my life!

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