zoom out

The pixels build the picture

For as long as I can remember I have been one to start ideas, see them through and then move on relatively quickly. As someone who gets new ideas very often, it’s hard for me to focus my energy into things long term. There is always something new catching my attention!

This is something I love about myself but it can also prevent me from feeling grounded. Like my mind is always ten steps ahead and my body can’t keep up. My dear friend KP reminds me this level of ideation is my Human Design as a Manifestor and that has been a necessary permission slip I’ve kept in my back pocket. But lately I’ve been feeling the pull — a craving — for more grounded energy.

Is it safe to commit to something long term? To let something become muscle memory? What energy gets freed up if I shift out of constant conception mode and into commitment mode?

I think of my dear friend Natalie who has been writing a blog post a day since the beginning of 2019! Natalie’s documented five full years of life now. I think of people who have the patience to learn languages. To teach themself how to play the piano. To grow a garden.

All of the time channeled into a specific area of focus has very real tangible results. Where dedication can be measured and the focused energy becomes an archive, a fluent conversation, a song, a salad.

Being in year two of the Dear Self Self-Love Planners is shifting the way I think about projects. Renewing the PO Box where folks send in their future-self letters is further evidence that I am committing long term to this. I want to give this thing roots! I want to nourish the soil with rain and minerals and see what can happen with each year of growth.

It feels really good to be engaging with a project that is holding my attention. It’s been so fun to experience new ideas as extensions of the planner where they still have a home base, a grounding force.

Like how the continuation of future-self letter writing workshops that can happen on different timelines and with different groups of people throughout the year. And the new Monthly Forecast Circles that will build a bridge between the planner and my space-holding practice. And now, this Intention Of The Week (IOTW) idea where I can pull from the weekly planner prompt and share it in this love bubbling cauldron of community with you.

So without further ado…I bring to you the first Intention Of The Week! Whether you are already a DSWL planner user or not, you are invited in to use this weekly email as a reminder to set your intentions for the week ahead.

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Last week while assembling planners I was catching up on the We Can Do Hard Things podcast when I came across this episode where Glennon shares her Letter From Love with Elizabeth Gilbert. The Letters From Love project that Gilbert has been sharing here on Substack is gorgeous. I just learned about it and I want to learn more. It was beautiful to hear both Glennon’s process of how difficult it was to tap into that place of literally letting Love write to her and then, the final result that channeled through her.

If you can’t listen to the whole thing I highly recommend listening to the part where Glennon reads her letter (28:20 - 36:30) . It’s the medicine my heart needed and the powerful reminder that sometimes, we don’t have the full picture when we are in the messy middle. Sometimes it won’t make sense until we can zoom out.

In her letter, Love illustrates this concept to her from the perspective of those optical illusion books. The ones where you look at a very confusing jumble swarm of pixels from different angels, eye crossing perspectives and arm-length distances. Then, when looked at just right, a picture within a picture is unlocked.

This week I’m holding the intention to zoom out. To remember the big picture, not just the pixels. Even if I don’t know what the big picture is just yet! I’m holding the intention to zoom out even when I’m in a messy middle and need more of the timeline to unfold before the full picture will unlock. But that’s okay. Because even just knowing that eventually it will unlock has been a balm to the worrying that it won’t.

And for now, I can zoom out enough to recognize that I have never lived through anything where eventually the bigger picture hasn’t unlocked. Today, this week, I will live inside of the pixels that will later become the big beautiful reveal.

With Love,

Jenna

P.S. Will you share your intention for the week ahead with me?

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• Next Saturday is the Winter Carnival at Lynden Sculpture Garden! If you’re in the Milwaukee area this is an incredible family-friendly free winter event! I’ll be in the labyrinth with a new project and would love to see you there!

• Next Sunday (10am-12pm CST) I’m hosting the first Monthly Forecast Circle for DSWL planner users and you’re invited! In this sliding scale workshop we’ll move through some group exercises and have co-working time to complete our end of the month reviews and beginning of the month forecasts in our planners. If you don’t have a physical planner yet or live outside the US you can now download the digital version that is compatible with GoodNotes and PDF annotation programs! It’s never too late to jump in and start using your 2024 planner!

• KP Kaszubowski & I are hosting the second iteration of our poetry workshop, Actively Missing You, on February 3rd at Lynden Sculpture Garden! We will continue to explore themes of grief, change and loss, but this time through the lens of transformation and personal evolution: shedding layers to make room for new growth in anticipation of spring. It would be such a gift to see you and write with you there!