Showing Up Fully & Authentically

What Do YOU Think?

Me in my element with the redwoods of California.

It’s been a while…

I feel like I say that every time I come back to my newsletter or pretty much anything these days. Or years, really. I keep creating plans to schedule and prepare content not just for this blog/newsletter, but in all the places, but I just can’t seem to stick with it, if I even start at all. And I think I may have realized part of the problem.

It’s not that I don’t have so much—so very much—I want to share with you. I do! And time is always a thing, but it is for everyone, and connecting with you is important to me. Where I get bogged down is deciding what to tell you.

Because there really is so much.

I mean, I have stories I’m excited to work on and share with you—both fiction and real life. As “Author Kristie Cook,” there’s the next Knights of Souls and Shadows book, and another project I’ve been fleshing out that more fully ties together Soul Savers, Book of Phoenix, KOSAS, and Havenwood Falls. At the same time, it weaves in musings and fictional tales inspired by my travels.

Which leads to Kristie Cook the digital nomad and VanLifer meandering my way through life and the world while also doing DoorDash and UberEats in the places I go. And let me tell you, doing deliveries in these cities and towns gives me so much insight into the places I visit and the people who live there—and so many stories.

Arch Rock in Brookings, Oregon.

Then there’s Kristie who walks the shamanic priestess path, deepening her spirituality and connection to the Earth and to the Divine. The one who believes in magic, that we all have it, that we’re all given gifts and have the sovereign power to explore them, create with them, and share them. After all, isn’t that what “gifts” are for? To be given?

And wait! There’s more! Because of course there is. I, like you and everyone else on this planet, am more than just one title or role. The stories, insights, wisdom, and gifts I have to share come from all the various threads that create the fabric of who I am.

Yet somewhere along the line, I picked up a piece of “wisdom” that it all needs to be separated to be most effective and successful. Actually, I know where this advice comes from: the most important piece of marketing is to know your audience. Knowing my audience means segmenting my content so those who want to know about only my books, for example, don’t have to wade through stories from my travels or how to heal our energetic bodies.

So wanting to be a good marketer, I tried to separate these, creating a ridiculous number of brands—the author brand, the editor/publisher brand, the energy healer/spiritual coach brand, the VanLifer brand… As a strategic thinker, I get caught up in the how to do it all—the frequency, the channel, the medium, the way each feeds the others to have the biggest impact on my audiences as well as on my own business and life. It’s become so overwhelming that I end up doing none of them well, and many not at all. In fact, I go into survival mode, focusing on the bare minimum to simply get through life, and I’ve been trying so hard to actively move myself out of that mentality.

A very wise woman, Becca Syme, teaches and preaches to QTP—“question the premise.” And it dawned on me that I needed to QTP the need for all of these different brands. In some practical and legal ways, yes, there needs to be separation. But when it comes to connecting with you, with the people in my life, to this blog/newsletter, is it necessary? Do I really need the many different places and channels to share the various aspects of my life, or can I at least start with one main hub—right here—to be myself fully and authentically?

Since I’m not doing many of the different things at all and those that I am doing I’m not doing well, I want to explore how to bring it all together right here in my newsletter/blog, aka Substack. My new fiction project feels like it should be serialized, dropped in chapters or short stories, on a weekly or monthly basis. Life’s musings and stories can be sprinkled in along the way, along with videos and photos from my travels. And I hope some of you find value in the insights and wisdom I share from a magical, spiritual perspective.

It would be somewhat like how I used to be on my Facebook profile, sharing all the different aspects of my life…but even better. There are so many more capabilities here, and I’ve been trying to move away from that platform as much as possible. Here, you’ll actually get to see what you want right in your inbox, not shown what some algorithm has decided on your behalf, hiding the rest.

I’d separate each post into topics and areas here on the site. I’m pretty sure that’s possible. So you’d be able to choose what you want to give your attention to and ignore the rest. Some of the content will be behind a paywall, for those who want to support my writing and my travels while receiving extra benefits in return. But much will be accessible by anyone and continue to land in your inbox for your convenience.

What do you think? Would you be okay with me showing up here fully and authentically, sharing all the various aspects of who I am? Or do you only want to know about my books and writing? Your opinion is important to me, so please let me know, either in the comments or through a private message, if you prefer.

Whatever and however you want to hear from me, I am grateful for you. I appreciate you. Thank you for being here, for reading, for being a friend.

Until next time…

(P.S. I just realized, as I’m about to post this, that I had already titled my Substack presence to do precisely this: incorporate magic, meanderings, and life’s musings into my author platform. Huh…)

Walton Lighthouse, Santa Cruz, CA