The Short Story of ‘DEVOTED CONTEMPLATION’

‘DEVOTED CONTEMPLATION’ came to me quite a few months before I truly chose it as my Substack’s name. It felt like it completely captured the essence of what I do there and gave me goosebumps, but it also didn’t feel like it was just time yet––it needed to marinate a little longer for reasons I did not know at the time…

It only became time over this past year when I decided that I was going to truly make my practice of writing AND sharing my work an act of utter devotion––one that I was fully committed to as if my life force depended on it (which it honestly does), one that would become the closest thing to my version of religion, one that I would follow with unrelenting faith remembering that I am my best version of self when I am showing up again and again to the notepad or pages doc. I finally stepped up into the Kristen that IS devoted to her writing practice and in doing so, I earned my new newsletter name. ‘DEVOTED CONTEMPLATION’ is a promise to my craft. It’s a promise to the holy act of creation. It’s a promise to myself and what I know I am capable of. It’s a promise to my ancestors who weren’t able to express themselves so freely and that because I can, I will. What a privilege that we forget we have.

(For when we write, we cannot hide from ourselves.)