120 Love Notes

I have an idea, and I am really excited about it! Let’s pretend for a moment that I am a talk show host, mostly because I’ve always wanted to be a talk show host, but also because I’d like to invite you to a 2026 CHALLENGE, and it seems more fun if it’s on a talk show; like maybe we will all get printers under out seat!

We talk a lot about gratitude, and gratitude is great, obviously. In my finer moments of being a human I write down ten gratitudes a day. Gratitude changes the way our brain operates, where we are hard wired to see danger, we start to see joy. We want to stay alive, and so we often get stuck in survival mode, in hypervigilance, in sticking to the same small routines that didn’t kill us, or hurt us the last time. It’s amazing that we want to stay alive, amazing, but can we let ourselves really live? That’s the question. Which one do you want, staying alive or living?

When we train our brain to see gratitude, pockets of peace, joy, beauty, we also begin to see possibilities where we had previously seen none; our actual vision literally expands. One way to do this is a gratitude list, but also ending the day, week, month by asking yourself, What is going well in my life right now? What am I proud of myself for? What do I love right now? These are all signals to our being that we are safe, because we may have self driving cars and expensive gummy candies, but our bodies original operating system is still running the show; if you are being chased by a whoolly mammoth you aren’t gazing in wonder at that giant double rainbow over head. Even when we are upset or scared, we can often find at least one thing of beauty, or we can at least start to look for it.

Like going to the gym consistently, these practices will change the way we live, but there’s one little tiny problem… Other people.

Now, other people are UP TO STUFF!! They are always doing things that’s out of our control!! They are messy and we want stuff from them, and then we don’t, and they want stuff from us, they are in a good mood when we are in a bad mood, they take what we think is ours, they are unpredictable, they die. Take the zenest of monks you can find and put them in a Toyota Corolla in the Trader Joe’s parking lot in Silverlake, and their heart rate will start to soar, they will probably even curse, but only in their inside head voice. We can get all cozy in our private bubbles of beauty and gratitude, but we are hard wired, designed, made to connect and attach to OTHER PEOPLE.

We have a mammalian attachment system. Our neurobiological system is programmed to get close, to bond, to ache when we lose each other. We are designed to CO-REGULATE! We are designed for a Trader Joe’s parking lot!! Our entire hormonal structure is designed TO ATTACH. I like to know what we are working with, and not ignore it or spiritually bypass it, because then we can really get in there and create effective change.

I have had this idea many times over the past few years, but it was in a recent correspondence with Chelsea Kinch about her What I Loved Questionnaire that I decided to really go for it! I have gushed on previous newsletters about Chelsea’s work. I came upon a painting of hers at a store on Maui, and then had to do some detective work to find out who painted the piece that stopped me dead in my tracks. I think paintings are alive, and their aliveness corresponds to the aliveness of the hands that painted them. I felt a pulse and I had to know what was behind it; Chelsea.

I was so moved by her answer to Before I die I want to… When I emailed to thank her for that part she wrote, God the more time goes by the more I realize loving the people around you while they are still here is the only thing that really matters. I needed the reminder, because, Same.

Love is the thing I avoid, and the thing that makes me happiest. My favorite thing in the entire world is laughing with people I love, or hugging them, or telling them the truth, or singing Call My Maybe with them. The things I am most proud of in all the things I’ve accomplished is that I’ve made anyone feel seen and loved ever. This is what matters. The letters I have gotten from past clients, the people I don’t know that well that told me the truth and I didn’t judge them who later told me I made a difference in their lives, the people who have let me be their best friend, and hold them through downs and ups; these are my best moments. My entire life this is all I have wanted, to let everyone know it’s okay to be human. I don’t know why, it’s just how I came out. Maybe it’s what I need, because we teach what we need.

AND I am always panicking and closing up and getting scared, running from the woolly mammoth in my mind, and memory, but I hope to ALWAYS come back to this knowing!

SO… back to the talk show host Jen…

Starting January 2026 I intend to send out 10 Thank You notes a month. Maybe I’ll send notes to old therapists, lunch dates, childhood friends, best friends I see often, or who live across the country. Maybe I’ll encounter a stranger that helps me in some small or big way. I don’t have a plan, except to go to the store and buy 10 cards every month and see how it unfolds.

DO YOU WANNA JOIN ME IN THE 2026 THANK YOU NOTE CHALLENGE???

Let’s build our web! Let’s Co-Regulate! Let’s help each other! Like Kimmy says in My Best Friend’s Wedding, If you love someone tell them!

Thank you Chelsea for the reminder. Somebody PLEASE PLEASE buy all those works on paper so I don’t! PLEASE. Shop here! Read her interview below and LOOK AT ALL HER MAGIC here!

I wonder what happens next!!!

I love you.

Keep me Posted!

xxJ

The Questions with artist Chelsea Kinch

Where were you raised? Has the landscape of that place influenced your work in any way?

I was raised in Rhode Island. I love Rhode Island and I feel like having that beating through me spills into the work. It’s such a salt of the earth place, people are raw and have grit. I can say the same about my paintings.

What book are you reading?

On Earth We are Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong

What was the last thing you fell in love with?

Italy

How do you re-charge your creative battery?

Travel and time in nature

What do you love most about yourself?

My heart and never ending quest for self discovery. I am a bit obsessed with the inner journey, reflecting and healing- although I think that many artists feel that way.

When and where were you happiest?

I remember being really happy during my 29th year on Maui. I had just gotten through a heap of therapy and trauma work and was really starting to feel light and grateful for all past versions of myself.