Photo: Jenna Knapp
Dear Self With Love Studio letters
Dear Self With Love Studio letters
Dear Self With Love Studio holds space for folks to be easy with themselves through reflection and self-acceptance. Led by Jenna Knapp, the studio offers a variety of products and resources as means of monitoring growth, setting goals and celebrating oneself. Driven by a passion for connecting peoples’ inner selves with their future selves, Knapp hosts the Dear Self With Love Podcast as well, exploring topics such as healing, being present, self-love and renewal.
Knapp, whose certified title is Neuro Linguistic Programming Master Practitioner and Trainer, has over four years of experience in life coaching with seven years in mental health and self-care advocacy. Neuro linguistic programming works as she describes, “We have these generational patterns that can pop up in our lives, and our subconscious mind stores everything we’ve been through while it also has predictions about where we might be going. We have the gift of being able to play into those timelines more by future-casting.”
Before launching Dear Self With Love Studio, Knapp facilitated private one-on-one empowerment coaching and Neuro-Linguistic Programming certification training through her online platform, Mental Wealth & Wellness. After keeping busy with two rounds of certifications teaching these modalities to other life coaches during the first year of COVID lockdown, Knapp decided to phase out Mental Wealth & Wellness, explaining, “I ran into some sticky areas because the coaching industry is unregulated, and I quickly felt out of integrity to continue facilitating these certifications. It felt really good to do those two rounds, but I still had all of these tools that I wanted to continue sharing in different ways instead of only sharing them with other life coaches.”
Future Selves in Present Tense
The idea for Dear Self With Love originated from an art workshop Knapp did back in 2018 where participants wrote letters to their future selves in the present tense. At the turn of the new year, Knapp mailed everyone back their letters and received a warm response around the activity. While formulating a new direction from Mental Wealth and Wellness, Knapp wanted to go back to her roots with why she entered the space-holding industry in the first place and realized she could expand upon the concept of the 2018 workshop.
“It was my favorite project I’d ever done,” she recalls. “Everyone was in their own element having conversations with themselves and it was such a beautiful energy. People came up to me articulating that it really moved things around for them. Once they got their letters back, they would tell me that things either came true or went in a completely different direction; it really evoked this sense of wonder that I wanted to keep giving people.”
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Breathing fresh air into the idea, Knapp launched Dear Self With Love Studio in November 2022. Her approach with this brand emphasizes more physical tools than Mental Wealth and Wellness had while still retaining its core values of empowerment and self-reflection.
One of the studio’s core features is the 365-day planner. Designed functionally and aesthetically by Knapp herself, it incorporates techniques such as daily check-ins, written affirmations, end-of-the-month reviews and forecasting the upcoming month. Knapp had always wanted to implement a tool like this into her practice, saying, “People should have something that they can channel into day to day, regardless of where they are or if they have access to a coaching session.”
Photo: Jenna Knapp
Dear Self With Love Studio planner
Dear Self With Love Studio planner
Pop-Up Workshops
The pop-up letter writing workshops have been revived and continued, of course. Knapp likens the activity to creating time capsules where folks can ask themselves what they want in life on a personal and holistic level. “It’s easy to think about where you should be a year from now,” she elaborates, “but it’s different to really stop and have someone ask you what you want to be feeling and make it a sensory experience—what’s a smell that grounds you, what are you eating, what’s a song you want to be listening to--things like that.”
A zine providing instructions on writing letters from home is available from the Dear Self With Love Studio online store.
The studio also offers a variety of stickers including mailbox-shaped ones (representing the letter writing), “Full Cup Club” ones (a coaching series Knapp facilitated about “pouring from a full cup”) and a sheet of them themed around self-love activities. “I love stickers so much because they’re short and sweet reminders of things you might need the message of on a daily basis,” Knapp asserts. “They become visual anchors, whether you’re putting them on a water bottle or a computer.”
Knapp recently launched the Dear Self With Love Podcast in February, which is available for streaming exclusively on Substack. Podcasting has allowed Knapp to feel like she’s connecting with many at a time rather than one at a time, plus it gives her a sense of longevity; she contemplates, “If someone isn’t listening in that moment, they could be listening two or three years from now and it could be exactly what they need then - sort of like what the letter writing does.”
She appreciates the Substack platform for its visual components, explaining, “Whenever I post a podcast, I’m also able to have a write-up and photos to go with it which adds a lot more texture. It makes it feel more like a newsletter.”
Dear Self With Love Studio will have more pop-up workshops in the near future, starting with one at Lynden Sculpture Garden on September 2 from 1-3 p.m. - link here.
“I still do not have it all figured out myself,” Knapp concludes, referring to using the skills she teaches. “But I think what allows me to be so empathetic and in love with this work is the fact that I’m right there with everyone. Whenever I have a message for someone, chances are I need to hear it too.”
Visit Dear Self With Love Studio’s website at dearselfwithlove.com for more information or to get in touch. Listen to the Dear Self With Love Podcast at jennaknapp.substack.com.
