046: Removing the Pressure

When you allow yourself to remove some of the pressure we put on ourselves, it can really fill our souls. In this episode, I’m talking about letting go of the pressure we feel to do and learning how to rest, take a break and give yourself that soul care you really desire. Nourishing yourself will allow for deeper creativity and a better you and that’s exactly why I am practicing what I am preaching and taking a summer break to rest and reset.
What you’ll find in this episode:
A segment with my daughter about creativity
Why I am taking a break this summer
Why you should audit the things you are doing
How to take the pressure off of yourself
Read the transcript of the episode below:
 When you start feeling burnt out or stressed, do you allow yourself to take a break? This is episode 46: Removing The Pressure.
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. Hello, my friend. And welcome back to the podcast. We have made it through 46 episodes. I launched the podcast one year ago. I am really proud of myself for sticking with it and creating so many episodes. I have really enjoyed the chance to kind of reflect and think about what's helped me and share.
And I love that it feels just kind of like a personal way to connect with you. Because you are hearing the real me, this is not scripted. I am really laughing at myself. A lot of the time I am making mistakes. I'm sharing personal tidbits. I have aha moments right here on the podcast, and I love that. And I feel like those of you who listened to the podcast, we just connect in a different way because I am able to share a little bit more deeply here than I do anywhere else on Instagram or anything. So I'm just so glad that you're here over at my house, on my big blue couch. 
My big blue couch is, let's just say it has seen better days. And so I'm kind of in the market for a new couch and my mom, hi mom. She listens to the podcast every week. It's so sweet. She was like, oh, but it's the big blue couch. And I said, I know, don't worry. I'm looking for another blue couch, because I still want you to come over and hang out on my big blue couch. So it's gotta be blue. I actually really love blue couches. So there we have it. 
I am going to start out before we get into the meat of the episode, we're going to have a segment called my creative kids.
All right. So after I recorded episode 44 with my oldest daughter, my other kids found out about it and they were like, huh, I want to take a turn. I want to be on the podcast. And so. I am thrilled to have a fun segment with my other daughter, who's six years old, today on the podcast. We talk about her creativity and I just love it.
So now you can enjoy a little interview with my other daughter. All right. So for today's segment, we get to talk to my other daughter because she wanted to take a turn on the podcast and I wanted to talk to her about her creativity. So first of all, let's start with her introducing herself. Don't tell us your name, but tell us how old you are and what you like to do, and anything else you want to tell us about yourself? First of all, how old are you? 
Daughter  (D) : 6 and a half.
Yes, you'll be seven at the end of the summer. And what do you like to do? 
D:  I like to do crafting and going on trips. 
Yes. We like to go on trips as a family, huh? What was your favorite trip? 
D:  going to California. So fun.
Why was that your favorite trip? 
D: because we could watch the sunset, and we could go in the oceans, we could go on boat rides.
Yeah. See cousins. We like to go to the beach house with cousins. We rent a beach house with cousins. That's so fun. 
Okay. So today I wanted to talk to you about your creativity and your art. What are the favorite ways that you like to make art? 
D: Paint a sunset and I love to paint like silly food, which they have funny faces.
The food has faces. 
D: Yeah. 
And you like to draw. 
D: Yeah. 
What do you like to draw? 
D: I like to draw, um, I like to draw dogs full of donuts, I like to draw kitty cupcakes!  
And what is the most important part of drawing for you? What is the most important part?
D: Cute eyes. 
Yeah. So one time I was doing something for you. What was I doing? And you wanted me to do cute eyes. Oh, I was doing the embroidery, the  and I was stitching it. And she was like, uh, can you make it have cute eyes where it's like a big circle and you fill in almost all of the circles. 
D: With little half circles.
And then you have little half circles that are left white, a little half circle at the top, right. And a little half circle at the bottom left. That's kind of small. That's how you make cute eyes. It's very important when you're drawing, right? Yes. At least for your style. 
And then tell me. About. Why do you like to give your pictures? You like to give your pictures away. You like to make pictures for people, right. And why do you like to do that? 
D: Because I like to be creative. I like to make crafts. I like to draw whatever I like. I like to be creative. 
Yeah, and it makes them happy? 
D: Yeah. 
I have another question for you. What do you think about hand lettering? 
D: I think it's really beautiful. And I can only write my name.  
Yeah. But that's pretty good for kindergarten. Yeah. I think you're doing amazing. And you like to trace in the book, right? She's done a lot of tracing hand lettering, which is super awesome. 
Okay. What do you think about me as a mom? 
D: I like that you sometimes let us go over to our friend's house. You let us eat fruit snacks. You get us toys, you get us dinner. And I like that we have a great mom. 
What is your favorite thing to do with me? 
D: I like to paint with you. 
And every night, what do we do every night? 
D: You always tuck us in, and we get to chat.
And what do me and you always do during our chat? 
D: We always play this game where you have to guess the animals, first the letter, and let's say. I said "c" which animals name is that? Starts with a "c", what is that? Cat! And if you got it right, then you get a point. 
Yeah. You're so good at that game. And it's really fun to play with you every night. 
D: I like to do the hard ones. 
Yes, you do. You tricked me. You stumped me sometimes. 
D: But now you are the good one!  
Sometimes I think of a good one! 
Okay. Is there anything else you want to tell the people? 
D: Nope. 
All right. Well, thanks for being on the show!
I hope you enjoyed that fun little chat.
One thing that she said before we were recording was that she loved sharing her drawings with people because one of the reasons was because she likes her drawings. And she thinks that they're pretty. 
And I just thought how many of us can really say that we like our art and, and she's not like worried that that might come off as bragging.
She's not worried that she might be, you know, puffing herself up. She's not self-conscious about saying that, she's just so innocent and saying, I like sharing my art because I like my art. 
Now, a lot of you might say, well, I don't like my art, so it's hard for me to say that. But part of it, I think is just that she enjoys creating. So she may not think that it's perfect, but she thinks it's great. And she doesn't overthink it. She is one of my kids that is so sweet and aware of other people. She loves creating things for other people. So if she sees somebody she knows, or she knows she's going to celebrate a birthday, she will take some time to create a special drawing for someone and bring it to them. If I have a friend come over to visit, a friend that's my age, and we're just chatting in the backyard or something, she'll sneak away and go draw something for them and bring it out. And it's just so sweet and I loved her thoughts on everything. So I hope that you enjoy that little segment for today.
All right. So the title of this podcast is removing the pressure. And I just wanted to talk about what it's like to decide, to take a break from something, to decide to stop doing something. And the reason why this came to mind is because I have decided to take a break from the podcast this summer. 
If you've been around here for awhile, you may know that I love traveling with my family and being with my kids while they're off of school. And it's just one of the things that I treasure the most, and I have had a lot going on. And while I could work really hard and try to figure out how to record everything before I go, I just decided that I am going to take a break. 
And there are so many podcasts that you may not have listened to yet. We have 46 episodes now. And so there are a lot of episodes to go back and revisit. We will be sharing some of the clips and thoughts from those throughout the summer on Instagram and in our newsletter. 
By the way, I do highly recommend that if you want to kind of keep in touch over the summer, the best way to do that is going to be through our newsletter.
So you're going to want to go to handlettereddesign.com, scroll down to the bottom. And there's a little box where you can enter your email and we've been sending out free lettering tutorials every week. We've been sending out little mindful moments and uplifting and encouraging thoughts. It's really brief. It's not going to take you a long time to go through, but it's full of value. So. Definitely want to encourage you to head over to the website, to sign up for the newsletter. Of course, on Instagram and Facebook, you'll also get a lot of that information too, and that is going to be a great way for us to keep in touch over the summer.
So I was thinking about how for a lot of people, taking a break like this would be really hard for them to do. And I'm not saying that I just flippantly decided like, oh yeah, I don't care about the podcast. Like I definitely care. And I really enjoy it and I love connecting, but I know that there are certain signs that I have when I might need to take the pressure off and take a break from something.
When I start feeling burnt out, really tired, stressed, irritable, any of those things, it's time for me to take a look at what's on my plate. So I just want to encourage you as well. If you find yourself feeling really stressed, overwhelmed, super busy and burnt out, that maybe there's something on your plate that you can take a break from.
Maybe there's something you can eliminate altogether, forever and ever, but at the very least, maybe there's something that you can take a break from that will help you to have more time and space for the things that are going to really energize you. Or, just to take a nap. Okay. Or to  take a rest or just relax.
And we all can be in tune with what we need. You may be listening and thinking, you know, I've been resting for awhile, I've been taking it easy. And what I need right now is to kind of challenge myself and push myself to do something that I've dreamt of or you know, that I want to fit in. And that is great to, you know, what's right for you.
But I think even if we're not going to take a break or start like resting all the time, this concept still applies because likely we're all doing things that we just are doing out of habit because, either it's what we've always done, or it's what people expect of us. And I think that we tell ourselves that if we're a good fill in the blank, a good mom, a good member of the neighborhood, a good soccer mom or friend, or church member, that we will do fill in the blank and we don't want to mess with what we've committed to do. We don't want to change the perception of ourselves. But I just want you to think of all the things that you put pressure on yourself to do.
Now you may be also getting pressure from other people that have asked you to do things, but think about all the things that you're doing, that maybe aren't bringing you joy. Aren't  things that are contributing to your wellbeing. 
Now I am not going to tell you that it's okay, you don't need to ever do the laundry and you don't ever need to clean your bathrooms. And you don't... no. I understand that we can look at the bigger picture and say, I actually do want to have clean clothes. I actually do want to live in a somewhat clean house. So I am going to do some things that I don't want to. But I like my reason for doing them. I don't necessarily enjoy the process of doing certain things, but I really value the outcome.
I value having an organized and tidy house. I value time with my kids, even if I may not enjoy hearing every single thing about, roadblocks or Pikachu, or I don't know, fill in the blank, but I value that connection. So I like my reason for doing it, but there likely are a lot of things that we're just doing that we don't have to do.
And maybe sometimes it's just taking a break, like the podcast. I love talking with you. I love sharing ideas. If you know me in real life, you know that I am a talker. It's not hard for me to find things to talk about because I don't really stop talking. It was very easy for me to do. And I didn't realize for a long time just how introverted my husband really is.
And wow. He really is awesome because he lets me talk his head off all the time. So I love talking and I love doing the podcast. So it's not that anyone's forcing me to do it, but sometimes I put pressure on myself saying if I were really committed, then I would never miss a Monday, you know, or I would never miss a week and I would keep doing this, but I just want to say that you can be committed to something and still take time off.
You can be interested in trying something and going through the process and still let yourself take a break. We're not robots, we're not in a race. There's no finish line where we're going to win and we need to be better than other people, or even than ourselves yesterday. 
Some people are like, I don't want to compete against other people, I just want to compete against myself. I'm like, I don't even want to compete against myself because some days I don't want to do more than I did yesterday. I don't have to accomplish more than I did necessarily last week. I want to take a look at what my needs are right now. And sometimes that's really hard to do for me.
It's very easy to be in tune with other people's needs. I can look at them and say, oh, I think that they need this or that. And when I turn inward and say, what do I need? Sometimes that's hard for me to really put my finger on exactly what I am needing. And I have to take some time and space to be still to quiet distractions, to put the screens away, to be with myself and to really dig deep and say, what do I really need? That's going to really bring deep satisfaction and joy and not just be checking something off the list because society has put that list there. Or I've put that list there for myself. Is it meaningful to me? Is this something that I still really want, or am I doing it just because I always have.
So I also just want to remind you that this doesn't mean anything about you. If you decide to take the pressure off, take a break from something, it doesn't mean that you aren't some super amazing person. The truth is that you are still wonderful and amazing. We can allow ourselves to take a break and we can also allow ourselves to change, to change gears, to shift, to change our mind about something.
I remember in the past, having people say things like, well, I thought you didn't like doing that. You know, like I'm surprised you're doing that. I thought you didn't like that. Or I'm surprised you're eating that. I thought you didn't like those. And it's like, so silly how we sometimes want to keep others from changing.
So we'll say, oh, it's so weird that she's doing that now, she used to be so against that. And she used to make fun of that. Now she's doing it. Oh, she used to make fun of overalls and look, who's wearing overalls now. I don't know. It's just like one of those things where, why do we care? Why do we want to keep track of what people have said or what we have said and not allow ourselves to change?
Of course, those are really silly examples like wearing overalls, but it's can be so much bigger than that too. Maybe you have said something about someone pursuing a hobby or deciding to run a marathon. Maybe you thought that they're spending too much time away from their kids or too much time with their kids.
And all of a sudden you decide, you know what? I actually want to try it. This thing or homeschooling or not homeschooling and sending my kids to school or something. I don't know what it is for you that maybe you've had in your head that you're supposed to do, or that you've said is the right way. And it's okay if you change your mind. And it's okay if you take a break. 
When I talk about taking the pressure off, it's so good to look at, what is that pressure and where do we think it's coming from? Do we see it coming from ourselves? Do we see it coming from an organization? Do we see it coming from society or from a family member or an expectation from school or church or these other places? Where is this pressure coming from? And can we take a little bit of the pressure off?
 And I'm not talking about quitting everything in your life. Okay. I'm talking about allowing yourself to take breaks and maybe allow for some more fun, maybe it's that you want to spend more time doing things that are super enjoyable.
I know this is a really silly example, but for a long time, anytime I was listening to something on my phone, like with, you know, my headphones in, it was like a business podcast or a self-improvement podcast, or, you know, a self-help audio book. It was just always this kind of productive listening, I'm going to be learning, I'm going to be growing. And this past year, I realized that, man, I just felt like I was just like striving, striving, striving all the time. And that's great. There's nothing wrong with wanting to better yourself. You guys. Listen, I was the teenager who was reading chicken soup for the teenage soul. Okay.
I've always loved self help! Always loved self-help. I was reading seven habits for highly effective teens, okay. And I have, you know, continued that love. And a lot of it is because I have always struggled with my mental health. And so I was grasping for things that could help me figure out how to feel better.
And I do love growth and progress. And so it was natural for me to gravitate toward podcasts and things like that that are going to help me push myself and grow and learn. And I just come to this place where I'm like, okay, I am ready to allow myself to have fun and to enjoy my time without needing it to be productive without needing it to be a stepping stone, to some goal, to check off of the list. It's okay to take that pressure off. 
And so this last year I decided one of the ways that I was going to do that was to start listening to audio books that were fiction and just fun. Lighthearted. I have a friend that kind of teases me about the whatever it's like rom-com books, basically that I like to read.
I do read some more serious things every once in a while, but I just have needed something light that is just going to be fun and lighthearted. And maybe it's because the world has been kind of heavy this past year, too. I just have needed something in my life that's not putting more pressure on me to be growing and learning and always checking off a box.
So that's a small example, but I just want you to think about what are the ways that we are putting pressure on ourselves or allowing ourselves to feel pressure coming from somewhere else. To keep us doing something that may not be serving us anymore, or that we could take a break from. 
And we just have to remember and remind ourselves that we don't ever earn our worth, that we are valuable. And sometimes our values get a little out of whack and we start believing that we need to do certain things in order to be important or successful or loved. And it's just not true. 
It's okay to have fun. It's okay to rest. There's no competition here. And just finding a balance that works for you. That feels good where you're not feeling overwhelmed and stressed and burnt out.
So I hope that that's helpful. I am going to take a break this summer from the podcast and I'm going to enjoy the time with my family and being present with them. And I hope that you will think of something that you can take a break from. And maybe something else that you want to add in to your life where you're going to find kind of a little bit more of what you're craving.
I know that for me, I've just been kind of craving stillness and presence and we need to put our mental health first. Even though they might be good things that we filled our life with this, isn't like, oh my gosh, I've been doing drugs and I'm going to stop doing drugs now, this is not like some evil thing that I'm trying to eliminate. No, it's an amazing thing that I love. And it's okay to take a break and tell myself I'm the only one putting pressure on myself to do this. 
So I hope that you will know that I'm thinking of you this summer. I hope that you'll go back and listen to older episodes that you might need. There's so many good ones about making time to create starting, even when it's hard, failing, all of these things that we kind of struggle with. It's that voice in our head that keeps us from the creativity. It keeps us from doing the things that we want to do. And I also want to encourage you this summer to be creative, to pick her hobby and to make some time for it every day. 
And maybe that's what you do when you take something else off of your plate that you don't put pressure on yourself. This is not a box to check off. This is for you to feed your soul. Soul care. This is nourishing. This is not to be perfect. This is to enjoy the process of putting pen to paper or chalk to a chalkboard. We're going to be having a chalk art courses and our chalk art online stuff coming out this summer. So be on the lookout for that in our newsletter and on social media, but pick something that you can do, you can do it together with your kids, with your friend, with your family and allow yourself to enjoy some creativity this summer.
I also want to recommend grabbing some lettering notebooks that you can take with you on the go. I have loved grabbing, either one of our small notebooks that can fit in the perfect pen pouch, or you can get one of our spiral bound notebooks. They are so great for taking with you. That's one thing I love about lettering is that you can do it anywhere.
You can do it in the car, on a road trip on an airplane, while you're sitting at the beach, I have done some really fun lettering on trips to kind of use as a journal. I have some really fun pages from London when we went and I could write down and draw some of the different things that we did, and it's just a really fun journal.
So I want to encourage you to take creativity with you, get some supplies to have that you can throw in your bag. It does not take up a lot of space and you can just have fun with it and enjoy it. This isn't something again, that needs to be hung in a museum. This is for you, you, and it really does fill your soul when you allow yourself to take the pressure off and to create for the process.
So have an amazing summer. I love you. I'm grateful for you. I will be over on Instagram. If you want to connect there, we'll be linking to older podcasts and definitely make sure you sign up for the newsletter that comes out every week. So much good stuff in there. I am making a bunch of lettering tutorials with little tips and tricks that are gonna help you so much.
And we're always sharing uplifting stuff for you too. So anyway, have a great summer. I love you. I'm grateful for all of your reviews and messages, and I just think you guys are the best. Thank you for being here. And I will be back before you know it.
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I hope that my podcast has left you feeling inspired and excited to create the life that you want. If you’ve enjoyed listening to this podcast, I’d love for you to subscribe so you can continue to hear more. Want to get to know me better? Connect with me on my website or on Instagram to keep up with everything that is going on with me and my business.
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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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