Episode 117: Releasing Control, Closing Loops, & The Power of the Subconscious Mind with Jenna Knapp
Podcast
Episode 117: Releasing Control, Closing Loops, & The Power of the Subconscious Mind with Jenna Knapp
“Closing loops creates mental real estate for creativity to grow.” — Jenna Knapp
This episode is your invitation to explore creativity through the lens of space, support, and the subconscious. I’m joined by Jenna Knapp artist, NLP Master Practitioner & Trainer, and founder of Have Cake Creative.
Jenna opens up about how hypnosis, closing loops, and timeline work allow her clients and herself to unlock creative momentum, especially when capacity feels stretched.
She shares how releasing control, receiving support, and working with the subconscious helps creative visions actually come to life. Jenna reminds us that creative blocks are often just signals for space, not signs to stop.
When we nourish ourselves, clear the mental clutter, and connect to future vision, creativity can return with ease. Jenna’s resources + a digital Future Letter Writing Kit are in the show notes on Substack, please let us know if you do this!
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, or on your favorite podcast platform while you cook, clean, or create. Get the full show notes & transcript below.
What’s in This Episode:
What first sparked Jenna’s return to her own creative projects after a year of supporting others
The definition of NLP and how subconscious language, beliefs, and nervous system patterns shape our capacity to create
How releasing mental loops makes room for creativity to flow
Practical ways to close loops, clear mental space, and get out of overwhelm
How hypnosis and accessing altered states support spaciousness and creative freedom
The radical mindset shift of receiving support — including hiring assistance and reframing control
Why being your own bottleneck feels familiar, and how awareness helps you step out of that pattern
How her creative process around Dear Self With Love Planner changed this year when she embraced delegation, rest, and support
Resources Mentioned:
Mental Wealth Method Self-Study Portal
Creative State: Self-Hypnosis for Creative Projects
2026 Dear Self With Love Planner
Yanina Mora, the editor of this + many more podcasts
Future Self Letter Downloadable PDF
Questions to Reflect On:
Sit with these questions: Journal, take them on a walk, create a voice note, chat with a friend, or sit with a cup of tea and reflect on them.
Leave a comment below or connect with us on Instagram @chefcarlacontreras & @havecakecreative to share your takeaway from the episode.
In what ways are you being your own bottle neck? I know this can be a hard one to look at, even as a type this.
What is your current capacity to create? If you could close some loops and reclaim mental real estate, what would you make? What would be possible for you?
xo Carla
PS: Upgrade to Nourished Creator Studio on Substack for quick-hit micro workshops, BTS Podcast, and simple tools to help you work on your creative dreams now, not someday.
Disclaimer: Always seek the counsel of a qualified medical practitioner or other healthcare provider for an individual consultation before making any significant changes to your health, lifestyle, or to answer questions about specific medical conditions. This podcast is for entertainment and information purposes only.
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About Jenna Knapp
Jenna Knapp (she/her) is a multi-disciplinary artist, writer, and creative partner who helps people turn half-baked ideas into meaningful, finished work.
As the founder of Have Cake Creative, Jenna works as a creative assistant, coach, and cheerleader for entrepreneurs and creatives who are overflowing with ideas—but need support pressing publish. A late-diagnosed AuDHD entrepreneur herself, she understands how tender and vulnerable the creative process can be, especially when brilliance meets overwhelm. Her work is rooted in the belief that clarity, external accountability, and compassionate structure are often the missing ingredients between inspiration and completion.
Jenna brings over 900 hours of coaching experience alongside more than a decade-long art career, helping clients meet deadlines, break down daunting projects, organize creative chaos, and stay connected to their original vision. Sometimes, what makes the biggest difference is simply having someone in your corner—someone who can hold the vision with you and help you keep going.
Alongside her client work, Jenna maintains a deep personal art and writing practice. She earned her BFA from the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design in 2014 and is a recipient of the Mary L. Nohl Fellowship for emerging artists. In 2019, she created a permanent labyrinth during her artist residency at Lynden Sculpture Garden, now visible on Google Maps and featured on The Worldwide Labyrinth Locator—a living symbol of her long-standing passion for holding space and inner reflection.
Today, Jenna’s art practice focuses on Dear Self With Love Studio, a project devoted to building bridges between who we are and who we are becoming. Inspired by a pop-up letter-writing workshop she first hosted in 2018, where participants wrote letters to their future selves and received them back via snail mail a year later, the studio explores how intentional reflection and future casting can shift our relationship with ourselves.
This energy lives on through her annual Dear Self With Love planner (now in its fourth year) and her future-self letter writing workshops, which invite participants to slow down, widen their perspective, and reconnect with self-love. Whether through a planner, a letter, or a shared space, Jenna’s work gently reminds people that they are allowed to imagine more for themselves—and to move toward it with love.
Find + Work With Jenna:
Full Transcript:
Carla (00:01):
Welcome to Nourishing Creativity. The cycle of the last few years has left you and me feeling mentally, physically, emotionally and creatively drained. Nourish your very full life through interviews with creatives and entrepreneurs about how they create and move through their creative blocks. If you don't know me, I'm Chef Carla Contreras, a food stylist and content strategist. You can find me Chef Carla Contreras across all social media platforms and more information in today's show notes. Jenna, welcome to the podcast. I am so grateful to have you here, my friend. Can you introduce yourself and how you serve your community?
Jenna (00:50):
Absolutely. Carla, it's so good to be back. Thank you so much for having me. I am an artist, NLP master practitioner and trainer and founder of Have Cake Creative, which is my creative assistance and creative coaching business. How I support people inside of Have Cake Creative is typically my clients are creatives, coaches, therapists, entrepreneurs that need help in their day-to-day stuff happening in their business, but really what the theme that has surfaced is I'm helping them with major projects that they wouldn't otherwise be able to do based on time, energy, capacity to move it across the finish line. And I had a client recently tell me that I feel like a doula to her. So I like to think about myself as I'm a doula for creative projects and helping them come to fruition, which really, the NLP background is a huge part of that because not only am I supporting people with the practical support, it's 100% about the mindset, cheering them on, holding the belief, this is so important too, holding the belief and the vision for them that they can do it, that it's inevitable because having someone like that in your corner is huge.
(01:59)
And then when it comes to being an artist, I hold space for people through my Project Yourself with Love where we write future letters. So writing letters to our future selves out one year in the future, six months in the future. And we also create annual self-love planners. So everything I do comes back to holding space for people to transform and hold that vision of who they want to be.
Carla (02:25):
And you do this so beautifully. As my creative support, you have helped me over the last year push through projects that I have the vision, but I have no idea the how that this is going to happen. And also we have worked on a subconscious level together, and we've done this since 2020. I was in your mental wealth program where I learned NLP with you and your community, and also you support me around holding the vision and aligning my mindset with that vision.
Jenna (03:06):
That's so beautifully said. Yes. Because you can have the vision, but if the mindset doesn't support that vision or if there's a disconnect, it's really hard to step into that person you want to be. So I love that you said it like that. That's beautiful.
Carla (03:20):
Can you tell us about the last experience that sparked creativity for you?
Jenna (03:26):
Yes, I'd love to. So being inside of Hafke Creative for the past year, really, I've been so deep in other people's projects. And my dear friend KP, who was also a student in mental wealth, she sent me this beautifully organized notion document where she was like, "I think that we should co-teach a program where you teach hypnosis writing and how it works and how to get into induction and the embedded commands and positive suggestions and all that. And then I'm going to bring my magic of Metaphor because she's a phenomenal writer and poet and let's hold a space for them to be able to write their own hypnosis script." And I remember I received that Notion document while I was out on a walk and I just felt this full body like, yes, this. And it felt so good to think of like, "Oh, I get to create a program too after helping all these amazing people create programs.
(04:20)
I'm so excited to be on the side of I'm going to get to step back into that teacher role, which I have not done since 2020. And I'm grateful that the opportunity is back in my lap."
Carla (04:31):
Jennifer, for those that are new to the language of NLP and hypnosis, can you tell them what that means and how it can support them in holding their vision, aligning to bigger goals and in their creative process?
Jenna (04:48):
Oh my gosh, yes. So NLP stands for neurolinguistic programming, which if you break it down, I feel like when I was learning this, people were not talking about the nervous system, but now everyone's talking about the nervous system. So neuro is nervous system, working with that animalistic, subconscious, unconscious part of you that is like operating autopilot, which also includes your beliefs, your values. And we can keep breaking it down and look at linguistic is the language that you use when talking about your life, when talking about yourself, the self-talk that happens in your mind, how you speak your vision into the world. And then programming is literally just talking about how our minds are like computers and how we are able to kind of code and rewire and work with being able. And now we also, a more familiar term is neuroplasticity, being able to work with how our minds can change and changing them on purpose.
(05:44)
So when you are a creative and entrepreneur, someone who's holding that vision for what you want in the world, working with the subconscious, working with NLP, tapping into hypnosis, doing timeline work where you're connecting to the future version of you, it helps you be able to really do things on purpose and choose to anchor in new quote unquote programs that can support you in accomplishing your goals. So being able to choose states on purpose, like you want to be more confident, you want to step into a CEO mindset, like being able to know what does that look like, embodying it and installing it on a subconscious level and so that it becomes easier for you consciously, your goals to align with what's already happening on autopilot beneath the surface.
Carla (06:34):
And you have an album on purpose that we're going to put in the show notes. We'll also put mental wealth method in case people are curious about that, as well as the workshop with KP.
Jenna (06:48):
Yeah. We're going to put a lot in the notes.
Carla (06:49):
Jenna, what's your current relationship with creativity?
Jenna (06:53):
Currently, it's all about being able to create enough space to be able to get into a creative place. And that looks like being able to close loops, being able to take that mental chatter, or if I'm at capacity with everything that's on my to- do list or my calendar, I want to be able to close out some open tabs or open loops to be able to feel like, okay, I can just let that go. And I don't know about you, but if I am at a place where I am maxed out on capacity or in the autistic community, like I'm out of spoons, I'm not in a place where I'm able to be creative. So it's really about creating space. And I talk about closing loops, but that's the practical way. There's two other ways that I really, really love to drop in that is wonderful to lean into even if you don't have time or don't have the ... If you're not at the place where you're able to do the practical stuff of facing your to- do list.
(07:54)
And that is dropping into a hypnosis session, which I love to do so much. It just feels like a guided meditation, but you're able to sort of get into this other state, altered state that feels timeless. And for me, that helps create that spacious feeling. And another practice is being able to drop into the Akashic records, which does the same exact thing. So basically being able to access those timelessness, spaciousness states helps me feel like, okay, I have room to be able to be creative.
Carla (08:26):
Can you tell us about how you nourish your creativity? You just gave us some examples, but I'd love to know about your creative process, especially around the planner this year.
Jenna (08:37):
Well, that was different this year because it's the fourth year that the Dear Self With Love Planner exists in the world. And I was really battling with like, wait, does this even get to be released? Because I knew I did not have the capacity to hand ... They're all handbound. I knew I didn't have the capacity to literally make all the covers, do the inserts, do the spiral coils. So talking about receiving support, I took some of my own medicine and I actually hired my aunt to do the assembly of everything. So once the planner was designed and I sent it to the local printer, she has been assembling them and shipping them out across the country for me. And really, I think that that's what it is, is like receiving support, being open to what those different kinds of support can be, whether hypnosis, Akashic Records, being able to close the loop, being able to go for a walk is another huge way that I nourish my creativity, being able to go to bed early, being able to really just get a good night's sleep so that I will wake up before the sun even comes up.
(09:43)
That feels good. That feels like I'm able to access that same sort of timelessness feeling when I do that too. But what's radical is hiring someone to help me with a creative project because there was a point in time where I felt like if I didn't do it, it's not mine and I've totally been able to reframe that where it's like, no, this exists and I get to hire someone so that it can keep existing.
Carla (10:07):
You helped get out the podcast. Maura is editing this and is fabulous too. We'll put her information in the show notes as well. Isn't it interesting that you give creative support to other people, yet it was radical for you to hire someone this year?
Jenna (10:25):
Yeah, it's wild. I mean, I have my own subconscious work to do around that, I think. I feel like it doesn't make sense that I think I have to do it all. And I'm not expecting the people I work with for them to feel like they have to do it all. I think it was something about it just being physical, handmade that changed it. But that kind of stretch, like being outside my comfort zone has been really, really good because it's been even better than honestly what I could have done.
Carla (10:53):
And you sold them out?
Jenna (10:54):
Yeah. There are a few left. We sold out the first one immediately. The small business Saturday was gone within the first three days and we have a few more left. So depending on when this is published, we might be totally out, but look for 2027 is what I'll say.
Carla (11:12):
Can you dive deeper into the mindset of receiving support? Because for me personally, and people are getting a real glimpse of my process in this episode, I didn't want to let go of things and I still have, and you know this from us working together, I still have my hands inside of final things.
Jenna (11:37):
This is such a good question because it's different for everyone and some are way more comfortable with it than others. I'm working one-on-one with eight different people and one podcast, which I can consider a person. So nine different one-on-one type relationships and every single relationship is different in the sense that there's some sort of ... I move the project forward, but there's some kind of check that happens before it goes out into the world. And I think that that release of control, people are able to tap into it if they know they can look at it one more time. But I like how you talk about it too, Carla. You talk about it as like, "No, I just got to sprinkle my magic on it one more time." Because there's such an energetic level to it too. Everyone I work with wants to feel like they're connected to their work.
(12:25)
They don't want to just hire someone who's running socials and they never look at it. That's not what it's about. They want to be connected to it. So at least the people I work with, they are comfortable releasing control around moving things forward, but then they want to give their attention in the final part, but they might have never gotten to the final part if they didn't hand over the bulk of the work.
Carla (12:49):
And this is where I want to get into creative blocks because if they hadn't handed over the project from your perspective, would this have been something that sat on the shelf for them?
Jenna (13:03):
Yeah. I love where this is going. Honestly, yes. It would be something that either sat on the shelf for a long time and it would have been like, "I'm going to get to this soon or I'm going to be able to get to this in 2028." I have a client who we accomplished a lot in our first year together and she was like, "I wouldn't have gotten to any of this until 2026 and she hired me in 2024." So accelerating timelines is a way that hiring support can kind of look ... But yeah, I think that's why I'm so passionate about bringing my background with the mindset work, the subconscious work, the NLP work to the table because I can see that the practical support, the hands-on being inside of the business moves so much forward. And when you pair that with the mindset, it's such a juicy combination and recipe for success.
(13:58)
And the last thing I'll say about this is when people hire me to move a project forward, that's what they say. They're like, "This wouldn't have gotten done without you. " And I think it's a really, really bold thing to invite someone into your business. And it's a vulnerable thing to invite someone into your business to show all the inner workings of not only how things work behind the scenes, but how your mind is working with moving things forward too, because I see people get in their own way and I see people be their own bottleneck and they know they're their own bottleneck and that can happen even when you have support. So there has to be this awareness of handing it over. And Carla, you acknowledge that too, that you feel that sometimes where you're still in it. And I think there's a level of trust that needs to happen before you can really lean into that, but it can happen step by step.
(14:53)
And little by little, you've given me more and more with that trust.
Carla (14:58):
And I think that that is, it's important to acknowledge and also have the awareness of being your own bottleneck. And this is also really important for people tuning in to understand and perhaps identify and ask themselves the question of how are you being the bottleneck in your own projects, in your own work, in your own creative projects that you want to get out into the world? And do you need someone to have support through that? And whether that's hiring someone like me who's a content strategist and bringing your strategy out in the world and connecting all the dots, or whether that's Jenna or downloading a hypnosis from her, what are the ways that people can support themselves in moving forward?
Jenna (15:48):
And you just summed it up really well. It can look like hiring actual support, but you can do so much on your own too when it comes to the mindset stuff because I really do believe that's the biggest piece where you can have something on your to- do list, you could have a tech thing come up and it just derails you to the point where you're like, "Okay, well, this is going to be at the bottom of my to- do list for the next three months." Where if your mindset is like, I am capable of figuring out anything, I'm capable of problem solving, I'm able to have this learning growth mindset, that can move things forward too. So of course I'm going to say that hypnosis is an amazing tool to be able to have. And I think not only is it because you can literally feed yourself really positive, loving suggestions, but it helps you build a practice of being able to slow down enough to carve out the time, to listen, to build what we call the trance muscle of like when you're able to drop into a hypnotic state and you're able to really access that.
(16:48)
If you're familiar with meditation, you know that it gets easier with time to be able to drop in and get to that place. So even having that kind of relationship with yourself through a practice that you dedicate yourself to can move so much forward because how we do business is how we do everything and how we do our personal life is how we do business and it all is connected.
Carla (17:08):
Thank you, Jenna. Can you tell us how we can find you, how we can work with you, how we can support you?
Jenna (17:13):
There's three different ways that I'd love for you to connect with me in my work. Number one is if you are really into this, if any of this really resonated with you, I invite you to dive into the Mental Wealth Method self-study portal, which is all about learning NLP for yourself. And that is an incredible archive of material from live lessons when I was teaching MLP at the practitioner level. And it's been redesigned so that you can learn as a self-study so that you can apply all of that to your own life, to your family, with your kids. And if that's maybe too much of a deep dive for you, you can check out KP&I's new course coming out called Creative State. That's four weeks and we're kicking off at the end of January. And then special for this podcast, I did create a download for you guys that is all about closing the loops and helps you drop into a practice of writing that future letter to yourself if you'd like to collapse time and kind of have a small taste of what it's like to work with your subconscious by connecting with that future version of you out at the beginning of 2027.
(18:28)
And there's instructions that you'll be able to follow, but it's a really, really beautiful New Year's practice.
Carla (18:35):
Thanks so much for tuning in to Nourishing Creativity. You can find me chef Carla Contreras across all social media platforms and more information in today's show notes. While you have your phone out, please leave a review on iTunes or Spotify. This is how others find this show. I really appreciate your support, sending you and yours so much love.