Find your purpose and live it

Twelve years ago, my business Steel Petal Press was born when I decided to design and print my own holiday cards to send to friends and family. Since then, the business has expanded to include a full line of greeting cards sold across the country: home goods, wedding invitations, and personal stationery. In the spring of 2016, we moved into our current location in Logan Square where we opened up a flagship retail shop in the front of our space.

I love that I get to keep the history and tradition of letterpress alive with my business. One hundred years ago letterpress was the standard for all printing but has changed into a boutique printing process. All the equipment I use is vintage which fits my personality and lifestyle. I love that I get to be creative and see my design ideas come to life while keeping the craft alive.

Although I have a successful business it hasn’t always been a walk in the park. Not only do I deal with the day-to-day challenges that come with being a small business owner, but I have a 10+ year journey with mental health challenges. Specifically, Generalized Anxiety Disorder. Over the years I’ve discovered that stress triggers my anxiety. Stress can come from the fact that I’m a perfectionist or that I can be a workaholic. I often forget to take the breaks I need to take care of myself, which is when my anxiety can get the best of me.

There is still a stigma around mental health, even though 1 in 5 American adults experience mental illness.  As a society, we’ve made strides to talk more openly about it, but there’s still so much more ground to cover in that arena. That’s why I have made efforts to make my story more public. Mental health conversations need to become mainstream. The more we talk about mental health the better we can understand each other, and maybe together we can lessen the stigma and shame by sharing our experiences. I hope that through storytelling, it can help others who are suffering feel a little less alone. 

I experienced my first episode with mild anxiety in high school. As a teenager, I had a lot of confusion and angst. I had all of these feelings balled up inside of me and I didn’t know what to do with them. At the age of 15 I would ask myself questions like: What’s the point of this life? Why are we here? What are we doing? I was too young to have any conscious understanding of why I felt so angry. My parents forced me into therapy, but I hated it and was not willing to get help. Ultimately, at that time, I wasn’t able to openly communicate what I was feeling. Anxiety ebbs and flows and eventually, I worked my way out of that low period of my life. 

The next time I really noticed a profound increase in my anxiety was in college. I had been feeling off for several months. It all came to a head one day when I stayed up all night writing in my journal and concluding that I wasn’t OK and needed to seek help. My roommates tried to talk to me the next morning and I began crying hysterically. I was inconsolable for hours, literally multiple hours without a break.  A friend was able to eventually drag me to her psychiatrist who put me on medication and although it got me to a functioning place, it was definitely not the proper dosage for me. I was sleeping 14 hours a night, I gained 25 pounds, and I felt overly medicated. What did work for me was when my university took me out of school for a semester and I was forced to rest and reset. That time away from the pressures of everyday life at school was crucial for my recovery. Stepping away gave me space to heal.

Similar to my first episode with anxiety, with time I recovered and the anxiety went away. I ended up going off of the medication because while on it I didn’t feel like myself. It made me feel like a different person. But inevitably, the anxiety returned when I found myself in another triggering situation.

It popped up again when I was 26. I was spending time at an artists’ studio up in New York and it was a thrilling time for my career, but at the same time, the environment was extremely isolating. When I spend too much time alone I get inside my own head and my thoughts start to spiral. I now know that I need a balance of being on my own and being with other people. After finishing up the artist workshop I went to live with my parents. That ended up being the worst decision for my anxiety. I love my mother very much but found that living with her was a trigger. Once again, I started having intense mood swings and long bouts of crying. I decided to leave the triggering situation by moving out.

If you’re able to step away from the situation that’s triggering your anxiety that’s ideal, but that’s not always how life works, unfortunately. Sometimes you can’t step away. When I started my own business that wasn’t an option. It wasn’t something I could just walk away from.

My most recent episode with intense anxiety was a few years ago when I opened up my retail business in 2016. At the time, the presidential election was happening which was piling on added stress to the already high-pressure situation of starting a new retail business and the financial responsibility that comes with that. If that wasn’t enough, a week before the holiday season (one of our store’s busiest times), my studio manager went into a coma. At the time she was my right-hand person for the business and I went into the holiday season understaffed and strained. I had to do her job on top of my own, sometimes working up to 16 hours in one day.

But even after getting out of the woods of the December busy season, I was still having severe panic attacks. I think it was leftover residue from everything that had happened. There were mornings where I would break down crying and could barely bring myself to go into work for the day. I knew that everything I had done that worked in the past, like taking time off to rest, was not an option at this time in my life. This was my business. I had to show up for it every day. 

I went to a psychiatrist again, except this time I had a much better understanding of my history with anxiety. He was able to prescribe me the correct medication, which has made me feel like myself again. But not only do I feel like myself, I feel like the person I was meant to be my whole life. It made me realize that all the moments in my past where I said I was alright, I actually wasn’t functioning at my fullest capacity. The medication has been life-changing.

Looking back at the bad times I’ve been through with my mental health, I think I was battling two things: 1.) Not knowing myself or understanding my anxiety, and 2.) Feeling like taking medication was a form of “cheating.” I know now that you should never see taking medication as “cheating” if you need it to live a better life. I’ve come to terms with the fact that medication makes me a better person. I have a chemical imbalance and I need medication to feel functional and balanced in life. There shouldn’t be a stigma around that.

If you’re a fellow small business owner and struggle with anxiety or another type of mental illness, here are some tips I’ve learned along the way:

Know your triggers and be able to identify them when they’re starting to occur: For me, the number one indicator that I’m entering a high-anxiety time is sleeplessness or insomnia. Therefore, I keep my eye on it and am cognizant about getting enough sleep every night. Chances are you have a signal that creeps up on you, letting you know you’re stressed, overwhelmed, anxious, depressed, etc. Pay attention and monitor for those signs. 

Write down your feelings and thoughts: This has been a lifesaver for me. It is so important to write about what’s going on inside. One of the most rewarding products I’ve ever created at Steel Petal Press is our mental health trackers. We offer a rainbow mood tracker, a monthly mood tracker, a daily anxiety tracker, as well as a self-care checklist. I’ve received such positive feedback on these products, including many uplifting stories about how the trackers have helped them through a tough time. Letting people know they’re not alone has given me such a sense of purpose.

Know that you are not alone and that it’s ok to feel the way that you do: Talk to someone if you can and tell them how you are feeling. There is someone out there who loves you and wants to help. When things are hard I definitely try to pause and recognize everything I’ve done, gone through, or what I have. Pausing, giving thanks and feeling gratitude for everything I have in life is what keeps me going. Relationships are #1 for me: my husband, my friends, my employees. I recognize the large role they have in helping me survive and be well.

Find your purpose and live it: I realized a long time ago that I wanted to have a positive impact on the world. To do that I tapped into my talents: being creative, creating beautiful things, helping people laugh, and being joyful. With time I’ve realized my business is also an opportunity to be a mental health advocate for people. Because of this, I consider my business to be one of my primary purposes in life and a huge reason I consider life worth living. 

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