What’s cookin’ good lookin’

Hello and happy Friday!

This is a quick update on my life, my blog, and things to come. As you likely know, I’ve been doing a lot of work lately. Working on my brand, my site, my content. Working on InDesign and Illustrator. Most importantly, working on myself and letting my self-work guide the rest.

What I’ve found is that All Who Ponder, while a lovely amalgamation of journals, current events, poems, and my thoughts in general, hasn’t been serving me (and therefore probably hasn’t been serving you) to its fullest potential. And that’s because for a loooooong time I haven’t been serving myself to my fullest potential. 

You see where this is going, I’m certain. When we work on one aspect of ourselves it affects all other aspects of our lives yada yada yada.

My vision for this blog was always to learn more about myself and my perspectives by learning more about the world, and, in turn, to help other people do the same. I’ve always understood that true self-reflection and mindfulness is the only way to progress and grow, it just wasn’t until now that I realized what’s been holding me (and plenty of others) back.

What I’ve come to find is that self-work is great –– I grow every day and can see the ways my mental health and personal progress are affecting my work, relationships, and overall well-being. Yet every time I’m faced with a new opportunity to grow, an honest perspective to see myself through, or a different worldview to consider, I still manage to meet these phenomena with the same defensiveness I always have.

And before I started beating myself up for solidifying healthy coping mechanisms but never unlearning my defense mechanisms, I realized that this is just another crossroads in my life that I’m going to learn from. Through All Who Ponder, I hope to help you learn, too. 

Starting next week, I will be rolling out two new series: Prompted and Ponder This.

Prompted will offer biweekly journal prompts to guide our self-discussions and reflections, and pose questions to help us honestly uncover our truest and best selves. Ponder This seeks to expand our worldview and teach us to question our perspectives by exposing us to new and surprising truths about our world. 

Hopefully these will make more sense when you see them on your Instagram feed, but I hope you choose to meet these guides with true reflection, even if they make you a little defensive at first. 

You can also expect more podcasts (the first Friday of each month) in more accessible places (think Spotify, Apple Podcasts, etc.) and more regular blogs and posts (every Friday other than podcast days). 

Thank you for being patient with me, and if you haven’t been patient then thank you for being quiet about it. I still have plenty of weird odds and ends to fix on my site, and plenty of brainstorming to do (maybe I’ll host a Zoom brainstorm session for anyone in need of some creative inspiration in the future). But this is the happiest, most disciplined, and most enthusiastic I’ve ever been about the state of my life blog and I hope y’all are just as inspired to follow along with me.

I’m excited for what is to come and the things we’ll learn about ourselves and each other along the way.

With love and a total reset,

Jacklyn

Featured image by Markus Winkler from Pexels