Ashley’s Substack Podcast

What if the work still matters before anyone sees it?In this video, I’m talking about creative confidence, writing into the void, and the private devotion of making things without immediate proof that they matter.I share memories of my dad’s early-morning spiritual life in the Yukon, my own experience starting Substack during a very “what the hell is happening” season, and the dull pain of creating before any recognition arrives.This is for writers, creatives, teachers, coaches, entrepreneurs, and deep-feeling people trying to keep their work alive in a world obsessed with metrics.Wannabe Wisdom is for people who know they’re meant for fuller expression. Subscribe, read along, or come hangout with me in this little pocket of the internet where we try to stay human while making things.This video essay is inspired from the essay “The Courage To Be Unseen” that I wrote in November, 2025.With Love & rebellion, 💛Ashley aka Fake Guru 💬 Question for the Comments:What do you keep returning to when no one’s watching? Tell me about your private practice, and what keeps you tending to it. It might be the thing someone else needed to hear today.👉 Have a Story You Want Told?Wannabe Wisdom is slowly opening a space for subscribers to submit personal stories to be featured on my YouTube channel, Wannabe Wisdom Diaries, and here on Substack—retold by yours truly, in third person.I’m looking for stories about identity, reinvention, intuition, heartbreak, grief, healing, and strange little turning points. Basically: if something happened and afterward you thought, “Well. I guess I’m different now,” I want to hear about it.✨ Paid subscribers are considered first, because this space grows through the people helping sustain it.Submitting doesn’t guarantee your story will be featured, and I’ll always contact you before moving forward.👉 Submit your story here: Wannabe Wisdom Stories: Open Call This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wannabewisdom.substack.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wannabewisdom.substack.comYou know that feeling where you're genuinely trying to be present and receive the goodness in your life… and your brain, bless it, immediately hands you a cortisol spike and a to-do list?And the list goes something like this.Rest after the emails. Joy once the laundry’s done. Peace when you finally become a slightly better version of yourself and drop o…

This is your Tuesday edition of Wannabe Wisdom Diaries. I publish every week. In this conversation (my first solo Substack Live 🙌), I talked about why it can feel so hard to define your work when you’re not offering one neat, obvious service. When you are the brand, and your work lives at the intersection of voice, story, transformation, creativity, and lived experience, the “what” can take a while to name. That’s why I keep coming back to the why.I shared some of my own path through communications, acting, writing, hypnotherapy, and Substack, and why I believe your “why” is often the real engine behind everything you build. The offers may evolve and the format may change, but the deeper mission usually stays the same.We also talked about Simon Sinek’s idea of starting with why, from his TED Talk How Great Leaders Inspire Action, and the strange challenge of building a business around your voice, plus the very real experimentation phase most of us go through while figuring out what we actually offer.This one is for anyone trying to go from blocked to expressed and turn that into something valuable for their audience.Apologies for getting cut off at the end, thanks to my glitchy internet. Thank you for bearing with me. 😅👉 P.S. I’ll be doing these live videos every few weeks, and I’ll share the theme ahead of time. Please leave suggestions for topics in the comments. 🙌✨There will also be chances to hop on live with me, especially if the topic connects to your work or creative journey. It’s a lovely chance to share what you’re building, get visible, and connect with my audience in real time.✨ Paid subscribers will get first priority, then I’ll open spots to everyone else.Before you go, I’d love to know where you are in your own naming process. This will help me choose future live topics and create resources that actually meet you where you are.Thank you Monica Fernandes, Emmett Tatter, Nicole Starker Campbell, Ahmedina, Brian D Smith and many others for tuning into my live video! Join me for my next live video in the app. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wannabewisdom.substack.com/subscribe

Hi loves,Happy Saturday. ☺️✨There’s a lot happening behind the scenes at Wannabe Wisdom. Some of you know I’ve started turning my written essays into spoken-word YouTube video videos on Wannabe Wisdom Diaries, and I’m also going to let those videos live here on Substack.This story is about the time I cried so hard in a yoga class in Tulum that it briefly became an event. In this video, I explore grief, the body, yoga, and what happens when your nervous system decides it is done waiting for your mind to catch up.I went to Tulum for yoga teacher training, but apparently I also went to publicly unravel under a straw roof at 6:30 in the morning. Sometimes grief waits for the perfect moment to spill over… like, say, a yoga class. If you’ve ever looked fine on the outside while carrying something unresolved, this one’s for you. 💛Prefer to read the essay version? You can find it here: 👉 Have a Story You Want Told?Wannabe Wisdom is slowly opening up a space where subscribers can submit personal stories to be featured on my YouTube channel, Wannabe Wisdom Diaries, and here on my Substack, Wannabe Wisdom — retold by yours truly, in third person.I’m looking for stories about identity, reinvention, intuition, heartbreak, grief, healing, and strange little turning points.Basically: if something happened and afterward you were like, “Well. I guess I’m different now,” I want to hear about it.If all goes well, we’ll plan a Substack Live around it too. Consider it your press tour. 🙌✨ Paid subscribers are considered first because this space grows through the people helping sustain it.Note: Submitting your story doesn’t guarantee it will be featured, and I’ll always contact you before moving forward.👉 Submit your story here: Wannabe Wisdom Stories: Open CallThank you for being here.For reading, watching, and making room for deeper, fuller expression, the unruly questions, and the parts we don’t always know how to say.Life is precious and short and, somehow, long.And what are we doing, really, if we’re awake but not alive?With love & rebellion,Ashleyaka Fake Guru This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wannabewisdom.substack.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wannabewisdom.substack.comHi Loves,I’m starting something new here: sending theta therapy sessions directly to your inbox.This is the clean version: ad-free, downloadable, and easy to return to whenever you need it. You can watch or listen straight away.This session is a short hypnotherapy practice for stress relief. I guide you through breathwork, progressive relaxation, and a gentle visualization to help you release tension and meet conflict from a place of steadiness and calm.It’s especially supportive when your body feels braced, or when you need a grounded way back to yourself.Unlike meditations that ask you to rise above what you’re feeling, this one stays with whatever stress you might actually be carrying.A note: the visualization involves a beach, so it’s best listened to somewhere quiet and safe. This session supports wellbeing, but it isn’t a replacement for professional care.✨If you’re a free subscriber, I also share public theta therapy sessions on YouTube here.✨If you’re a paid subscriber, you get the cleanest experience here: ad-free sessions delivered directly to your inbox, plus access to the full archive, including past sessions and accompanying essays, here. 👉As a paid subscriber, you can explore all subscriber-only posts here. If there’s a theme or situation you’d love a future session for, leave it in the comments. I’m building this in real time, and your requests help shape what comes next.Also in the archive:

One of the things I care most about is helping people go deeper in their storytelling and create from a place that feels fully alive. That’s the heart of what I do here on Wannabe Wisdom.But I also love sharing what I’m learning as I go, especially the practical, challenging, and very real parts of building a writing life online.I’ve been on Substack for almost three years now. Time has flown, and the platform changes fast. That’s part of why I created Substack Shop Talk: a series where I share the behind-the-scenes of writing on Substack.If you’re new to Substack, one of the most useful things to understand early is the difference between Notes and Posts.This is a free, 20-minute, beginner-friendly tutorial on how Substack Notes work, how they differ from long-form posts or essays, and how to write for an online audience.Because Notes are not essays. And a lot of people are accidentally writing them like they are.In this video, I cover:* the difference between Notes and Posts* what Notes are actually for* how to think about writing for online readers* why readability matters* how to make your writing feel human, not overworked* how I personally use Notes to support deeper writing* restacking Notes and PostsIf you’ve been circling Substack and trying to get your footing, this will help.✨ If you liked this video, you’ll love my full tutorial workshop, Getting Started on Substack (Without Losing Your Mind). Paid subscribers get instant access included with their subscription.Or 👉 purchase it as a one-off for $37.Also, check out the article I mention in the video: The Art of the Substack Note in 2026.Welcome to Wannabe Wisdom, Diaries of a Fake Guru. I’m Ashley Evans. Glad you’re here. 😊Evolving loudly. With love + rebellion.— Ashley This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wannabewisdom.substack.com/subscribe

The part of business we don’t talk about enough is the part happening inside us.In this Live, Dennis Berry and I talked about emotional intelligence, but really we were talking about the inner skills underneath everything else: focus, distraction, dopamine, purpose, self-awareness, and the ability to pause before reacting.This is the kind of real-life practice that shapes how you lead, how you relate, how you make decisions, and how you keep going when things feel slow, uncertain, or uncomfortable.What stayed with me most is how much business asks of us emotionally. Not just strategy or discipline, but the ability to notice your patterns and work with your thoughts.We enjoyed this conversation so much that we decided to do another one in April. This time, we’re going deeper into the practical side of building on Substack: how to think about it when you’re just starting out, the etiquette, the relationships, monetization, and how Dennis helps clients set business goals and move toward them one step at a time.So this first conversation is really about the foundation: the inner skills that shape everything else.That’s the part of business we don’t talk about nearly enough, IMO. 😎Hope you enjoy this chat.With love & rebellion,AshleyThank you Jeff Long, Oddwood, Caner Şen, Ahmedina, Destiny Verdugo Rios, and many others for tuning into my live video with Dennis Berry! Join me for my next live video in the app. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wannabewisdom.substack.com/subscribe

In this live conversation, Kristi Keller 🇨🇦 (HomeBody(ish) Magazine and Unstack Substack) and I untangle the myth that you’re supposed to have one clean, consistent “voice” online. Especially on Substack, where your business self, your grieving self, your funny self, and your slightly inappropriate self all end up sharing the same feed.We talk about what happens when audiences overlap: when clients can see your Notes, when readers follow you across publications, when the people you know in real life might be quietly watching. How do you balance that? How much do you share? And who exactly are you supposed to be?We also get into:* changing niches without warning* losing subscribers and surviving it* humour as a survival tool* the strange pressure to be “authentic” in a performative internet ageIf you’ve ever wondered whether you’re too many people to fit into one newsletter or worried about who’s watching when you hit publish, this conversation is basically permission to be human!Thank you Nicholas “DJ Dreamy”Sargent, Steve Harper, Ilias Shepherd Marrow, Mariella Candela Amitai, The Secret Ingredient, and many others for tuning into my live video with Kristi Keller 🇨🇦! Join me for my next live video in the app. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wannabewisdom.substack.com/subscribe

The first thing I ever published was about a dead mouse floating in a toilet.I remember staring at it longer than I should have. Not because I was deciding what to do. But because something inside me had already decided.I was going to write about it.And that realization filled me with a strange shame.Because it revealed something deeply suspicious about my character. Something opportunistic. Slightly predatory. Like I was less interested in living my life than in harvesting it.It was 2007. I was back in my family’s cabin in the Yukon, trying to use the bathroom without waking anyone. The bathroom had no walls, only wooden shutters that slid into place like you were assembling privacy in real time. I closed them carefully, turned around, and there it was.Floating… Waiting.And instead of solving the problem like a normal adult, I stood there wondering:Is this… what I write about?It was the most interesting thing that had happened to me all week.And that terrified me.Because it meant I had nothing else.No stories. No proof my life was moving forward. Just me, and a dead mouse... and the sinking feeling that if I didn’t start writing, I might disappear entirely.I had started a WordPress blog with the extremely subtle and not-at-all embarrassing title Firecracker Set Free, which perfectly captured who I believed myself to be creatively: explosive, despite feeling completely inert.The mouse floated there, silent, indifferent.And I realized I finally had something to say.Even if it was about this. (Maybe especially because it was about this?)I didn’t know it then, but this was the beginning of everything.So I wrote my first post about the mice we lived with in that cabin, and the deeply squeamish experience of having to poop with a dead mouse staring up at you.But even as I hit publish, my inner cat critic pounced.Don’t say poop online. Ever!!!You know this doesn’t matter, right? To aaaanyone.There are real problems in the world.Another Dead Thing I Didn’t SaveI’d like to tell you that this launched me into a bestselling WordPress blog, but no. I had no audience and absolutely no confidence. And after about two posts, and one minor breakdown trying to understand the backend of WordPress, I quit.However, on my way back to Vancouver, I had a wildly audacious idea. What if I pitched a column to the biggest newspaper I could think of?I found the editor’s email. I bought a book on writing query letters. Took myself very seriously. And sent a pitch to the Yukon News.“What if I write a column, All the World’s a Stage, about a small-town girl chasing acting dreams in the big city?”At the time, I was relentlessly pursuing acting and had just been accepted into a cutthroat acting class I’d start when I returned to the city. I hit send. Refreshed my inbox. Heart pounding.His reply:“I love it. Let’s try a bi-monthly column. Can we start in two weeks?”I was floored. (I literally fell out of my chair onto the floor.)No blog… but a real, paid column. OMG.I wrote for nearly a year. I sent every piece to my dad, who helped me refine them. Secretly, I hoped that somewhere along the way I’d get my big acting break. Spoiler alert: stardom was not in the stars.But turning awkward moments from acting class into stories? That worked. Because, as I learned, everything is copy. Everything Is Copy My eternal thanks to Nora Ephron (famously known for writing “When Harry Met Sally” and more…) for that wisdom. You can watch her incredible life story below, for free.Nora’s mother was a screenwriter, and she used to say “Everything is copy” over and over to Nora and her sisters. Nora once said she’d come home with what she thought was the worst tragedy of her life, deep in self-doubt, and her mother would plainly say, “Everything is copy.”What she meant, Nora later realized, was this: when you slip on a banana peel, people laugh at you. But when you tell people you slipped on a banana peel, it’s your laugh.Everything is copy. Even the dead mouse.But knowing that and living that are two different things. It’s one thing to believe your life is material. It’s another thing to be responsible for producing it on demand.When Writing Stopped Being OptionalI wrote the column for a northern audience: people who knew exactly the kind of awkward, small-town, existential absurdity I was living through.My favourite column was about having to do a strip scene in acting class for a character I was playing. It felt eerily similar to the time I came face-to-face with a bear while jogging off the Alaska Highway.We both froze. Just stared at each other.My body completely took over. I couldn’t move. I swear the bear was deciding whether I’d be tasty or just annoying to eat. Eventually, it broke eye contact and bolted into the forest.That same freeze response showed up in acting class: that feeling of helplessness, exposure, and humiliation.That column ran for about a year before it fizzled out. What I remember most, though, is how blocked I felt during that period… and how the discipline of a regular column forced me to find a way in. Being blocked has always been part of my writing process. I’ve come to understand why. I’m deeply sensitive. Highly sensing. Which means before words arrive, there’s usually a storm to move through first.That sensitivity is a gift. But it also means there’s a lot of internal noise to clear before anything coherent reaches the page.That’s why I created Wannabe Wisdom, Diaries of a Fake Guru.If you’d like to go a little deeper, paid membership includes prompts, courses, and audio practices designed to support your creative process. It also helps sustain my work. Free subscribers receive weekly essays.Today, I write for the sensitive. The stuck. The scribblers and the seekers. I hope to help empathetic souls move from vague, swirling thoughts to published words. From self-doubt to hitting send. From knowing they have something to say to actually saying it.Through essays like this one, I want to remind you: this is hard for all of us.Last week, I wrote about dancing in my underwear for 400 strangers. I even turned it into a spoken monologue on YouTube. 👇Writing on Substack isn’t so different from that first blog, or that newspaper column. It’s about showing up, blocks and all.And here’s the thing. For many people, the block isn’t creativity. It’s tech.If the platform, the setup, or the “am I doing this right?” questions are what keep stopping you, I’ve built a course to clear that hurdle so you can focus on the real, thrilling work: your true voice on the page. Here’s my secret: start small. And remove the friction that keeps stopping you.👉 If tech has been the thing holding you back, you can learn more about my course here. 🎯 Getting Started on Substack (Without Losing Your Mind)👉 $37 on Gumroad✨ Or included with a paid subscriptionYour stories are waiting for you.PS. If the idea of finding your voice online feels especially complicated, this Friday, February 13th at 2pm PST I’m going Live with Kristi Keller 🇨🇦, the incredibly smart and FUNNY Substack writer of HomeBody(ish) Magazine and Unstack Substack. We’re talking about “The Myth of Having Just One Voice When You Write.”Thanks for being here.With love & rebellion,Ashley aka Fake Guru This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wannabewisdom.substack.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wannabewisdom.substack.comHi, friend.I’ve spent the last couple weeks putting together my first digital product, and I’m excited to finally share it with you: Getting Started on Substack (Without Losing Your Mind). It’s a one-hour guided video walkthrough, plus a written companion you can come back to anytime.I made this for Substack newbies who are ready to share their voice but would like a little guidance getting started. And if you’ve already been writing here for a while, it’s for you too. It distills what I’ve learned over two and a half years and 60+ essays (mostly by figuring things out the hard way).The goal is simple: make Substack feel lighter, so your voice can bloom. ✨ The workshop is free for paid subscribers, or $37 USD on its own. [Purchase it here], or upgrade to become a paid subscriber and get instant access for less than it costs to doubt yourself for another month. 😊 Thank you for being here. Truly.Getting Started on Substack (Without Losing Your Mind)Hi! I’m Ashley Evans. I write Wannabe Wisdom, Diaries of a Fake Guru. Welcome. I’m really glad you’re here, especially if you’re a deep-feeling creative who’s been circling the idea of writing online and finally decided to step in and start, but need a little help getting a lay of the land!I help people move through creative blocks like overwhelm, imposter syndrome, and paralysis so they can come into fuller expression without forcing it. Starting anything new (especially new technology) can feel daunting. But I’m here to walk you through step-by-step.I started writing on Substack two and a half years ago with zero subscribers and a single goal: to build a consistent writing practice. My practice started on a monthly schedule, and eventually became every two weeks, and then weekly.Sixty essays later, and after a couple of unexpectedly viral Notes, the audience has grown to about 2.5k readers. But it didn’t happen quickly. I wrote into the silence for a long time, working through procrastination, self-doubt, and all the familiar resistance that shows up the moment you decide to take yourself seriously.If you’re curious, you can read my full origin story:My hope with this guide is simple: to help you get oriented on Substack without overwhelm, so you can get to the fun part! Writing, publishing, and connecting with other humans who care about similar things.Think of this as setting up your writing space… and then learning how to hang out there.Do this at your own pace and return to it as many times as you need. Remember, if you hit any trouble spots, feel free to DM me.✨ P.S. The transcript companion for this video is below.So, cozy up with a cup of tea or your favourite beverage!Let’s begin!

Writing and publishing form a kind of tightrope. You listen to your gut about what’s ready to share, but you also try not to freeze in the paralysis of perfectionism.On Friday night, I went to the touring Michael Jackson Broadway show with a friend who had loved MJ as fiercley as I had when we were kids. Sitting in the dark, tapping my foot to “Billie Jean,” I suddenly remembered a “talk show” I once hosted for my grade-six class.Talk shows shaped a lot of ’90s television, and the likes of Ricki Lake, Jerry Springer, and Oprah Winfrey shaped me, too. I wanted to be Oprah, so I cast myself as her. My skinny, black haired and blue-eyed friend Jordan, played Michael Jackson. In front of our peers, I “interviewed” him so aggressively about the sexual-abuse allegations that he cried. Real tears. I tried to console him, startled by how blurry the line between art and real life could get.Cut back to 2025. I’m in this theatre again, sitting beside my adult friend, singing along to every song. Well, every song except the five minutes when I fell asleep. Not because the show was dull, but because I wake up at five every morning, and my internal clock doesn’t care about Broadway or expensive tickets.Free subscribers get weekly essays & creative confidence boosts. Paid members unlock step-by-step guides, prompts, $400+ in theta audios to turn self-doubt into fearless expression—plus exclusive pricing on products. Ready to move from reflection to transformation? Join us.The production gave me everything I wanted: crotch-grabbing, explosive dancing, moonwalking. Still, it carried that familiar jukebox-musical gloss. I always wish musicals were a little grittier, and that preference alone keeps me from being a true musical-theatre nerd. The Book of Mormon is closer to the musical I imagine: satire, political commentary, and plenty of dirty jokes.The actor playing MJ was uncanny. The hair, the slender frame, the elegant hands captured that strange mix in Michael: fragility paired with an almost unbreakable force. The story hit all the familiar beats: his Jackson 5 years, Joe Jackson’s severity, the rise to superstardom, and the carefully trimmed edges around the allegations.Onstage, a documentary filmmaker trailed MJ, trying to understand how he worked. She asked him, “How do you know when a song, or a show, is ready to tour?”“I feel it in my body,” he said, his voice soft and lightly feminine.He went on. He can sense when the work is drifting, when it’s turning sentimental or repetitive. He can feel when it needs to be torn down and rebuilt. Another artist might let those moments slide, say “good enough,” and keep going. But he can feel when the work has slipped out of truth.MJ was naming something I needed to hear: your gut is the truest collaborator you have. If a line or an idea feels off, listen to it.“Your gut is the truest collaborator you have. If a line or idea feels off, listen to it.”My own gut told me not to publish the essay I’d planned for this week. As I scrolled through it, I kept thinking, this is all s**t. I’m forcing ideas together. I’m trying too hard, and it’s not working. It doesn’t feel right. I cut the piece from 4,300 words to 2,000, then down to 300.I almost decided not to publish anything at all. But then I reminded myself that done is better than perfect.“Done is better than Perfect.”Based on last week’s poll, the biggest creative villain in your life is paralysis—41 percent of you named it. Perfectionism followed at 29 percent. So maybe you need the same reminder I do: done is better than perfect. It’s one thing to listen to your gut when something feels off, and another to freeze and abandon your practice entirely.Revisions: On Cutting, Clarifying, and Trusting the WorkI was there on Sunday night. I asked my husband if I could read him my essay while my eyes were already drooping. “Sure, babe,” he said, and then started snoring before I reached the subtitle.As he slept, I cut and cut. Fatigue makes me intolerant of b******t. I had 4,300 words when I went to bed and 300 when I woke up. My husband rolled over and cuddled me. “I don’t know if I’m going to send an essay out today,” I said. “That’s okay, babe,” he answered.So I began the reconstructive surgery. I told myself: it’s okay if you don’t publish. Then, simplify everything. What’s the one thing you’re trying to say?“Simplify Everything and ask yourself: what’s the one thing you’re trying to say.”For me it was the Michael Jackson story. I cut whole tangents: Rosalía, the misattributed “real artists steal” Picasso quote, Paul Thomas Anderson, even a couple of Substackers I’m obsessed with right now.And here we are. I did it.Question for the comments: Was there a moment in this essay that made you recognize your own version of creative paralysis or perfectionism? I’d love to hear what came up for you.Also,btw...Many of you told me you’re wrestling with the same mix of paralysis, perfectionism, and “WTF am I even doing on Substack?” energy I used to wrestle with too.So I’m building something for us: a mini-course called Building a Creative Home on Substack. It’s a practical, soulful guide to finding your footing here, showing up with consistency, and keeping your sanity in the process.I’ll share the details soon. If it sounds like something you’d love, tell me in the comments or just reply “yes.”It helps me shape what the course becomes.💛 Your support is what makes this newsletter possible, and keeps the one-woman creative team behind it (hi 👋) caffeinated, inspired, and writing. If you’d like to support this work more directly, becoming a paid subscriber is the simplest way. Either way, thank you for being here.About me: I’m Ashley Evans, a writer, actor, dancer, and former communications shapeshifter who spent 16 years crafting stories and managing delightful chaos for an animation studio behind Rick & Morty, TMNT, and Teen Titans Go! Now I help blocked creatives find their voice through Wannabe Wisdom, where more than 2,400 deep-feeling humans read my honest pep talks. I’ve died in many award-winning horror shorts, teach hot pilates and barre, and live with my husband and our silver lab, Thor, who is much wiser than I am. You can also follow me on Instagram. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wannabewisdom.substack.com/subscribe

Hi friends,This Canadian Thanksgiving, I was grateful for something we rarely toast: free speech—the chance to say what I believe about love, creativity, politics, or the weird mystery of being alive—without getting punched.However, lately that freedom feels fragile. Sometimes I think hitting “publish” has replaced skydiving as our generation’s adrenaline sport. I’m lucky to use my voice, and I hope to use it for good.A voice is a profound thing, isn’t it? It’s the heart and mind turning into sound…air, breath, intention. A few words can start wars or create peace. I think of Truman’s command that dropped the atomic bomb: Eighty thousand lives gone in a breath.When I was eight, I believed that if I could sing like Whitney Houston, I could save the world. (In my twenties, that fantasy shifted to Adele.) I’d press record on my little cassette player and belt “And I Will Always Love You” with all the power my tiny lungs could muster. I sounded like a cat dying in a wind tunnel.I imagined my voice echoing across mountaintops—disarming soldiers, easing childbirth, making criminals drop their weapons mid-heist. Voice, even then, felt like sorcery. The more I tried to sound like Whitney, the more powerful I imagined I’d become.Now, decades later, I still believe in voice…just not in quite the same way. That reminder came back to me recently at a concert.A few nights ago, I went to see Blue Rodeo. Watching Jim Cuddy and his band take the stage, I felt it again: that reverence for a voice. His isn’t showy or technically flashy, but it’s alive. It fills the room, the air, the space between people. It’s warm, weathered, generous; a melodic cry that rearranges your molecules.When they played “Lost Together,” I felt tears slide down my cheeks as memories flickered like film behind my eyelids.“Strange and beautiful are the stars tonight” —Blue Rodeo, Lost TogetherAs I drifted off in my seat (it was past ten; forgive my grandma hours), I thought: What makes a voice resonate like that? Why does one creative expression go deep while another barely echoes?The question followed me home. I started thinking not just metaphorically but literally: What is resonance made of?The human voice is shaped by breath and anatomy—lungs, vocal cords, lips, and tongue. Sound vibrates in the open chambers of the body: the chest and throat. Those vibrations give a voice its texture and individuality.It’s biology, yes, but also biography. The sound you make carries the life you’ve lived. Even when two people hit the same note, the resonance is different. Voice is deeply personal. It’s shaped by experience, rhythm, and taste. No two voices can ever truly be the same.Think about your favourite actors. For me, Jessica Chastain comes to mind; her beauty, her sadness, that uncanny gift for tears. I once heard her say in a podcast (one I’ve never been able to find again) that she could cry forever. The line stayed with me, especially after I learned about her sister’s death. Diane Keaton’s anxious on-screen presence was central to her charm. She made her awkwardness and neurotic wit relatable. When I read her autobiography and discovered her lifelong battle with an eating disorder, her on-screen energy made perfect sense. Rest in peace, Diane. Thank you for sharing your heart so bravely.Our quirks, histories, and traumas shape how we move through our art. They shape our voices. As writers, actors, and creators of any kind, we’re asked to bare our souls. I keep asking myself: how much of me am I willing to reveal through art?Sometimes the answer depends on the project. Some work simply asks us to show up. But often, creating something truly resonant means confronting who we are. And just like our physical voices, creative resonance can be strained, blocked, or hidden.When the Voice TightensWhen fear grips us, the voice shrinks to fit the space we feel safe in… The channel between the inner and outer world jams. I know this feeling well. I’d wanted to act long before my career ever began, but it wasn’t until university, filming horror shorts, that I finally gave that desire a voice. Apparently, screaming at blood-curdling pitch is one way to free it. As a preteen, I was shy, perfectionistic, and carried a soft lisp. I joked I had a fat tongue. My dad would say, “Enunciate your words, Ashley!” The harder I tried, the worse it got. My voice tightened; my words caught somewhere between effort and embarrassment.Early on, I gravitated toward quieter art forms: dancing and writing (silent but full of feeling). Then, little by little, I stumbled into another kind of voice, one that felt both safe and a little daring: humour. If I made myself the butt of the joke, I could beat others to it and still win approval. Many of us creatives learned that early. I loved Bridget Jones’s Diary because she humiliated herself constantly but was still the hero. I’m drawn to lovable idiots.As a kid who moved several times and had to rebuild friendships, humour became my armour. If I was funny, I was unthreatening. I loved how humour lifted people and diffused awkwardness.One afternoon, joking with new friends in a new town, I shouted at one of them, “I will bear your children!” Chaos and laughter erupted until my mom yelled from the next room, “Ashley! You will certainly not!” Mortified, I realized maybe there were limits to how my voice should sound. It was a small moment, but it marked the start of a lifelong exploration of what I could say…and how.Making Your Own Creative WorkIn 2019, my husband and I made a short film we wrote and produced ourselves. I played the lead and had never felt freer. No one corrected my dialect. I wasn’t trying to “sound right.” I was playing a character I’d helped create, speaking words I’d written. My natural voice—quirks, accent, rhythm and all—finally came through.We filmed in the land of the midnight sun in Canada’s North, my hometown. I was juggling too many hats: lead actor, writer, producer, driver. Rise n’ Shine is a 22-minute film. You can watch it here. I was one horrible cup of Folgers’ coffee away from snapping. But in one quiet take, I thought: oh, this is what it feels like to sound like myself.And guess what? I was still word-perfect. But this time I wasn’t tense. I wasn’t performing precision; I was simply present and open. That’s what resonance requires: openness. I was also too busy to give a single flying f&k about my performance.That experience got me thinking more deeply about what makes certain creative voices truly resonate, staying with you long after you’ve closed the book or left the theatre. Paul Thomas Anderson, Nora Ephron, and James Baldwin don’t sound like anyone else. They sound like themselves turned up loud. They trust their instincts, their flaws, and their perspective… even when it’s messy or inappropriate.I just watched P.T. Anderson’s newest film, One Battle After Another, and left the theatre feeling electrified. There’s always a sly commentary on sexuality in his work. Instead of omitting or toning it down, he finds ways to satirize it. One of the opening scenes is a tense, absurd gun standoff between Colonel Lockjaw (Sean Penn), a grotesque, buzz-cut military caricature and Perfidia Beverly Hills (Teyana Taylor), an activist who kidnaps the colonel. In the middle of the chaos, he becomes smitten with her. She plays into it, teasing him until the scene veers into (almost slapstick) comedy. (I won’t spoil it. It’s hilarious and groundbreaking, all at once.)I remember thinking, what must it feel like to write a scene like that and say, yes, that stays in the movie?It’s making me think that maybe the real work is just to open the channel… to get out of our own way. Resonance happens when we quiet the hum of doubt and fear, letting it fade into background noise instead of DJ-ing the show. The energy we create through art travels on our personal frequency, and if that frequency is judgment, we block our own brilliance before it ever has a chance to emerge. (I made a short video about this on Instagram if you want to check it out.)Resonance isn’t about loudness; it’s about depth. Every creative person has “their thing”…their particular soundtrack in the world.But even when we find that resonance, there’s still one more threat: the quiet, sneaky kind that lives inside our own heads.The Trap of ComparisonIn my last Substack essay, I ran a poll asking, “What’s the first unhelpful thought that shows up when you try to write (or make anything)?”The top two answers were:• “Other people are doing it better”: (41%)• “It won’t be good enough”: (24%)These thoughts shrink confidence and block your voice before it leaves your throat.I’ve lived this. I wanted to act from the moment I saw my first Elvis movie at six, but I didn’t start until university. For years, I believed acting was for other people—louder, flashier, real performers. That belief stole years of creative life from me.Even now, comparison sneaks in. I recently audited a friend’s acting class full of lovely twenty-somethings. When I admitted I’d been acting for sixteen years, I immediately wanted to say I meant sixteen weeks. That’s how sneaky those thoughts are: they peck at your confidence.But I’ve learned that when I compare myself to others, I become my own gatekeeper. I reject myself before the world ever gets the chance to see or hear me. It’s become my mission to stop f&king doing it (and maybe help others too).Someone on Substack recently told me she’d stopped writing because she wasn’t getting views. I get that. Sometimes I think I “should” quit acting, too. It would make sense. But I don’t. Because when you know you have something singular to offer, you keep going.Sometimes we’re just in the quiet stretch of the journey… the desert before the audience arrives. That’s where resonance is born.And if your voice feels tight right now, remember: it’s not broken. It’s just under pressure. Take the pressure off. Get WEIRD again. Laugh TOO loud. Use the wrong word. Tell the story that makes you nervous.If you’re still in the quiet season of your journey, keep going anyway. The audience will come.You’ve made it this far. You’ve already proven you have a voice worth using.A Little Gift for Your VoiceMantra for Attuning My Voice (and calming the overthinker who rattles in my mind)I am open. I am present. My instrument is relaxed. My voice is enough. My kindness, humour, and taste are enough. I can be heard. I can be misunderstood. Either way, I’m guided. Those who need me will find me. The lesson I seek is already seeking me. I trust my writing because it always knows where to take me. Question for the comments:What part of your voice are you ready to free next—on the page or in your life?Coming Soon: The Most Powerful Guided Visualization to Free Your VoiceSince becoming a certified hypnotherapist in 2023, I’ve been exploring ways to help writers and creatives connect with their subconscious voice: the one that knows what to say before we do.I’m creating a pay-what-you-want relaxation and visualization recording designed to help you soften, breathe, and let your true creative voice flow freely.It’s almost ready…stay tuned.If this speaks to you, drop a comment or DM me. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wannabewisdom.substack.com/subscribe

This week, I had an epiphany: failure is worth it.Last week, I was sitting at my laptop on a grey Tuesday morning, staring at my Substack dashboard and wondering if I was delusional. I’d just spent three days writing an essay that got no comments and one pity like from my husband. I remember thinking, Maybe this isn’t going anywhere.Then a few days ago, I shared a note on Substack’s Notes about my two-year odyssey here. Twenty-four months, forty-eight essays, and one hundred thirty-six subscribers. Word by word. Sentence by sentence. One essay at a time, I built something real for myself.To my stunned delight, hundreds of you responded. You said things like, “Wow, I would’ve quit by now,” and “I needed this reminder to keep going.” LOL…thank you, I think.Early that evening, I gained twenty-six new subscribers. I was thrilled, giddily squealing at my husband like a piglet in tap shoes. He squealed back that 10% growth from 136 subscribers is incredible (he has a friendship with numbers that I don’t).The next morning, there were 400 more. Dumbfounded, I kept refreshing my page like one of those research mice tapping a trigger for more cocaine. Between teaching barre classes, I watched the number climb: 600, 800. My thumb was cramping from repetitive strain injury. By the next morning, I had 850 new subscribers, hundreds of comments, and nearly 8,000 likes.I lay in bed, phone in hand, barely moving, typing thank-you after thank-you. I’d love to say I handled it gracefully, but I didn’t move for several hours. When I finally got up to hydrate, my mattress had a perfect body imprint, like a chalk outline at a crime scene. My fingers were sore. My T-shirt had small sweat halos, and I couldn’t believe the kindness pouring in. I wanted to respond to every comment personally. And I think I did.“You should print it out and frame it,” my husband said about the viral post.I just might. One thing I did do: I copied every comment into a Word doc—hundreds of voices chiming the same note of quiet resilience. I wanted to understand what nerve this post had touched.Here are a few comments that stopped me cold: “Sometimes it makes me doubt whether I’m even worth being read. But I keep reminding myself (and us) that algorithms don’t define the depth of our writing.”“I started two months ago and can’t seem to budge past 30 subscribers with only one person commenting on every post (my mom :D)… it’s feeling as if they’re getting lost in an abyss.…I am finding an unexposed, hidden part of me that is slowly coming alive as I write my essays. […] even if my mom is the only one listening.”“I have the similar issue with my writing… sometimes I feel like I’ve done something wrong. But just keep in mind, writing is not a wrong thing, even if I am the only person who wants to read my essay, I will keep writing. If I don’t like mine, who will?”Writers shared stories of unspoken doubts, painfully slow growth, and the “is it worth it?” moments when they almost quit but didn’t. So many of you mentioned feeling like ghosts in your own work, as if you’d been screaming into a canyon with no echo. You wonder if your words even matter. So many of us are quietly pushing forward, convinced no one is listening.That’s when it hit me: my note went viral because I had admitted to the absence of outward success, and it didn’t matter because it was nourishing me. Eight hundred and fifty of you said, “Me too.”Growth Happens In SilenceSo many of you echoed that writing consistently helps you find your voice, gain confidence, and show up authentically. “Keep going” became a chant across the comments—a quiet rebellion against the idea that only viral things matter. Clearly, I’m not the only one ready to flip metaphorical cars and light dumpsters on fire in protest of our success-metric-driven culture.One Substacker commented:“It’s been therapy for me. All those times with family and friends where I’ve had to shut my mouth because it’s the political right thing to do are balanced out with the truth that we are free to express here.”The act of writing for ourselves is enough, I heard us say.I’ve been thinking a lot about that this week. If a writer writes in a forest and no one is around to read their work, did the writer really write? You recognize the question: if a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, did it really fall? It’s something my dad used to ask me (drive me crazy with) when I was a kid.And I finally have an answer. Yes, the tree fell, Dad. The writer wrote. And I did overshare on the internet, even if no one saw it. Our writing matters because the process changes our inner landscape. Each essay is a small seed—unimpressive on its own, but over time, it grows into an entire forest.That’s what this practice has been for me: slow, steady growth that roots deeper than likes or vanity metrics ever could go.We think nothing is changing when the numbers don’t move, but beneath the surface, everything is shifting. Your capacity to hold thoughts and connect ideas is expanding. Your ability to admit hard things aloud is increasing. Your b******t meter is tuning. Your humour is opening up.kitty knorr (one of my favourite internet artists) said in a recent video on her Patreon that: “…failure is a form of heartbreak that cracks open our hearts and the walls we build around ourselves.” I keep thinking about that, how failure breaks down our defences just enough to invite something softer to flow in. Vulnerability, openness, reflection and humour even. When you’ve got nothing to lose, you’re free to be all these things. There are so many unseen gifts when we commit to a consistent creative practice regardless of the size of our audience. If you need help finding consistency, you might enjoy a recent Instagram video I made about why I recently started tracking my writing (for the dopamine effects).I also wrote an essay, Why I Love Logging My Words, Workouts and Rhythms, about how I started tracking my dance practice, my mental health, my workouts, and the books I’m reading alongside my thoughts about them. The newest one is a log of interesting words and phrases I come across. The latest entry: “mythically damned.” Thank you, Cintra Wilson.So How Do We Stay Motivated?On days when my self-esteem dips and the onslaught of negative voices is hard to ignore, I remind myself why I write.What do I love about writing, even if no one sees it?A few quick observations from a stream-of-conscious free-write:I love being alone with my thoughts early in the morning. There’s a cup of coffee beside me, the rhythmic sound of my dog breathing nearby after a morning snuggle, and the soft sounds of my husband starting to stir in the next room.I love the quiet of those hours, when I’m still halfway between dreaming and waking. I love how I can fall into a flow and, for a few minutes, everything in the world feels okay. Writing has been the gentlest, most cathartic part of my life. It’s a kind of self-made studio space for my mind to play and dance on the page.I love how ideas deepen when I stay with them—how they reappear later in podcasts or conversations, as if the world is joining the dialogue. Writing makes my life feel textured and alive. It makes every encounter, even with strangers, part of one long conversation with myself.I love how writing is therapy. It’s where I come to know my own mind, to validate my experience when the external world reflects superficial values. I love how it lets me say the unsayable and edge into risky, raw places.Writer Jeannine Ouellette calls this “hot writing.” She says, “Writing hot is cathartic, yes, but it’s also generative: it gives us access to material that otherwise might remain locked inside us.”Writing isn’t just expression. It’s a conversation between who you are and who you’re becoming. Every sentence says, “Here I am,” and the moment it’s written, you’ve already changed.Meaningful work isn’t always going to be reflected in the numbers; it’s in the quiet act of making something. Maybe the work that shapes us most is the kind no one sees. And if this essay only reaches twelve people and one of them is my husband, that’s fine too.I want to leave you with a few prompts to dig deeper, to perhaps deepen your relationship to your craft. Pull out a pen and journal and stream-of-consciousness write to the three prompts below (My responses above came from them).✨ If you’re feeling like quitting, try journaling on these three prompts:1. What do I love about creating, even if no one sees it?2. What tiny proof have I already given myself that I’m growing?3. How do I want to recommit to my voice right now?A Small Library for the Days You Want to QuitAnd if you want some inspiration, here are a few writers (on and off Substack) who’ve helped me keep going.· Ulrich Schaffer (Sacrifice, The Books of Rights) *Listen to our conversation about heart work here. · Anne Lamott (Bird by Bird)· Julia Cameron (The Artist’s Way)· Steven Pressfield (The War of Art)· Cintra Wilson (Cintra Wilson Feels Your Pain)· Sarah Selecky (Story is a State of Mind)· Jami Attenberg (Craft Talk)· Jeannine Ouellette (Writing in the Dark)· Suleika Jaouad (The Isolation Journals)· Elizabeth Gilbert (Letters from Love, Big Magic)· David Whyte (Constellations)· Emma Gannon (The Hyphen)· kitty knorr (also, check out her brilliant insights on creativity on IG)· Roxane Gay (The Audacity)A Little About Me.Since there are so many new faces here, I thought I’d reintroduce myself—Hi! I’m Ashley Evans, and this is Wannabe Wisdom: Diaries of a Fake Guru.I’m an artist, writer, actress, dancer, barre instructor and full-time human. After waiting too long to share my work, I’m here to help other creatives (and non-creatives) commit to their full expression. I believe our purpose is to bloom, just like a flower. Did you know unopened rosebuds are called bullets? Suppressing your expression is its own quiet annihilation.I write for the deep feelers, the late bloomers, the overthinkers—the ones still learning to trust themselves.Here, you’ll find stories, reflections, and creative pep talks for the days you feel like giving up. Reminders that slow growth is beautiful…and natural. That small progress adds up.Happy Monday! Do hit the Evolving loudly. With love + rebellion.—AshleyCheck out last week’s article: It’s all about how procrastination is a signal pointing to something we don’t want to feel. And when we listen to it, we can find our way back in. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wannabewisdom.substack.com/subscribe

My husband was away. The dog had already been walked, fed, and pooed. I didn’t have any classes to teach. On the calendar: one morning call and a dance class at night. Ten glorious, uninterrupted hours. When does that ever happen?I washed my hair, slipped into a matching black cashmere tracksuit so soft it felt like wearing a long-haired kitten (I wear this at some point every day. Highly recommend). I looked like the poster child for cozy productivity, the kind of woman who should be writing chapters of her memoir while sipping a London Fog (my dream!). This was it. Today, I would write, create content, film b-roll, and finally catch up on everything I’d been putting off.And then I opened Instagram.A Trap You Didn’t See ComingA soulful yogi meditation coach I follow suggested scrolling through photos from every October over the past decade. She claimed October is “the month of creation and newness” and that your October photo archive would prove it.I had plenty of time, so I tried it.And she was right. In October 2024, I started teaching barre officially, finally getting paid as an instructor. In October 2023, my husband and I left for five months across Central America, after the home we’d been living in for seven years sold. In October 2022, I found my wedding dress, and I also began a ten-month hypnotherapy training. October is apparently my month. It’s also my birthday month, which feels like a decent enough cosmic excuse. (If you’re curious, try this exercise. I was surprised.)But soon I was eyeballs-deep in photos and catapulted into the past. Us eating pupusas in El Salvador. My brother visiting with the kids. I started texting old friends their glowing portraits, even pinging my former manager with a picture from ten years ago. And since I was already in my archives, why not start an album of prints for the house? Soon I was swimming in a decade of images and an ocean of memories.By the time I surfaced, I was hungry. So I made myself a peanut-butter-and-banana bowl—literally just those two things in a bowl—and a London Fog. Delicious, but not exactly forward motion.It was 1:30 p.m. I still hadn’t written a word.The Dog KnowsMy eyes met my dog’s eyes. He stared back, wagging his tail. “Not yet, Thor,” I told him, as if bargaining with a toddler. Instead, I unrolled my yoga mat. Maybe a stretch would trigger oxygen, which would trigger inspiration. It didn’t.The hours kept sliding away. By late afternoon, I was rationalizing a nap, telling myself I could listen to a hypnotherapy podcast about procrastination at the same time. Two birds, one subconscious. I woke up groggy with Thor glaring at me like I was ruining his career.“Two birds, one subconscious.”So much for my productive day. Sneakers on, leash in hand. We went for a walk.Procrastination Isn’t LazinessOn that walk, I circled around what procrastination really is. Is it a task I don’t want to do? Or an emotional state I don’t want to feel?A podcast I’d bookmarked, How to End Procrastination Now on The Art of Accomplishment with Joe Hudson and Brett Kitsler, argued that procrastination isn’t laziness; it’s avoidance. Not of the task itself, but of the emotions it stirs: fear, self-judgment, doubt.“Procrastination isn’t laziness; it’s avoidance. Not of the task itself, but of the emotions it stirs.”That made sense. Every week, before I know what I’m creating, I feel it. The pressure of the blank screen. The not-knowing where to begin. Or sometimes, too many beginnings, all competing for attention. When that happens, I ask: what idea excites me most? Once I find it, I make my offer. I write the first sentence, and then the next and the next. It’s a vulnerable moment, splashing that paint onto the canvas.And then the self-doubt sneaks in: This isn’t very good. It’s boring. No one wants to read this. All you write about is how you struggle to write! Talk about irony.As I realized, I wasn’t dodging the work: I was dodging how the work might make me feel.Shifting the Emotion The podcast offered another way: don’t fight procrastination. Change the emotion of the doing. How do you do that? Something I’ve been getting into the habit of is — finding a quiet place to sit or lie down, breathing into the feeling, and trying to locate it. It’s not always obvious. I allow the emotion to wash over me. (The ego will resist. Remind yourself: you will not die. This is just an experiment.)1. Name what you’re avoiding. Maybe it’s feeling like a beginner, like you’re failing, like you’re not good enough, or like an imposter. Spend time with this sensation and get to know its texture.2. Imagine you’re an exquisite instrument. This is a new thought experiment I’m playing with. I imagine that I am a cello from another century with the potential to produce beautiful music. The negative emotion is a signal that I’m out of tune. I simply need to be tuned.3. Make it playful. The tuning process is about finding where I enjoy the thing I’m procrastinating on. So go ahead and start playing around. Pretend it’s bad karaoke, not Carnegie Hall. Imagine smearing finger paint like a toddler, or start writing in a stream-of-consciousness manner with cuss words and bad grammar.4. Bank the good feelings. Journal the tiny wins so your nervous system remembers that creating something is a matter of being “in process” and doesn’t equal humiliation. Your process is private, and it’s where play happens.*I made a video tutorial about how I track my creative endeavour using google sheets. I’ve had feedback from friends, who use it, and love it! It’s been a game changer for me. When you shift the emotion of the task, even a little, the procrastination starts to dissolve. Instead of an enemy, it becomes a signal. A compass. Permission to play and to be ‘in process.’I saw a video this week with Meryl Streep talking about how process in acting isn’t for other people to see because “the process” looks like bad acting. I loved that she said this. The video showed short clips of her and other actors playing and experimenting. Indeed, they did look silly.The Signal: What You’re Actually AvoidingWhen I got back from my walk with Thor, I estimated my husband would be home in an hour or so. I pulled out my computer and wrote a messy, ugly, stream-of-consciousness draft of this essay, merely documenting and describing how I wasted the day. All of the insights, reflections, and polishing came days later.So yes, I wasted my perfect day. But I also walked away with this: procrastination isn’t a sin—it’s a signal. It points to the emotions hiding underneath, the ones worth noticing. And when I look back on that day, I think I needed to meander. Maybe it would serve us better to actually schedule a little procrastination into our lives.I have a monologue to memorize for an upcoming workshop, and I can feel myself procrastinating. But instead of shaming myself, I’m going to try to listen. Because if procrastination is pointing at something true like the fear of not being good enough, or the fact that you don’t actually want to do the thing—the worst thing is to ignore it. The better move is to play your way back in, or admit it’s not for you.Procrastination is a signal. The question is whether you’ll follow where it’s pointing.Question for the comments: When you procrastinate, what emotion are you dodging—fear, self-doubt, boredom, or something else? And what negative thought tends to sneak in?Was this helpful? If so, tell me in the comments. And if you want, I’ll make a short guided meditation you can play the next time procrastination comes knocking. And hey, if this resonated, sharing it helps other “professional procrastinators” find it too. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wannabewisdom.substack.com/subscribe

Unsplash, 2025I woke up yesterday with low, depressed energy. It was Sunday, and I hadn’t written anything to post on Monday. Maybe Saturday’s wine stole Sunday’s energy. Two glasses can send me to sluggish city. I’m trying to stick to my commitment to share something once a week on Substack. But I didn’t have a draft for this week. According to my “Writer Tracker” Google Sheet, I wrote five times this week. I just hadn’t written anything I wanted to share.About a month ago, I started tracking my freewrites, and it’s been the single most motivating thing I’ve done. If you haven’t tried tracking your creative time yet, I highly recommend it. My system is simple: I jot down the date, start and end time, and any notes, like the theme or if I hit blocks. If a full essay comes out of it, I log that too.From Freewrites to Tracking EverythingI’ve become a chronic tracker. I also track other things:* Content I post on social (it’s so easy to burn out here, I need to see progress)* My menstrual cycle (new, but I’m curious how it affects motivation and mood)* Calories and exercise (helpful, but I fall off and on)* Auditions (I lost track this year because they felt so few and far between)Lately, I’ve been thinking I should start tracking how much I dance each week and what I’m learning. In our first class, my dance instructor said to always ‘be in conversation’ with yourself about the process. How does this move feel in my body? Why am I struggling with this? Or why is it easy? How could I approach it differently now?Clocking this information and being curious about it is a form of tracking. And this kind of tracking is where we see growth.I’ll share a Harvard study I love to tell my barre and Pilates students. Researchers studied hotel maids doing their daily work, making beds, vacuuming, scrubbing bathrooms. One group was told it was just work, the other was told to think of it as exercise. After four weeks, the “exercise” group (the ones who ‘merely’ imagined they were working out!) showed measurable improvements in fitness: lower weight, blood pressure, and BMI. If you’re curious, you can read the study in detail here.It just goes to show you that conscious connection between the mind and what we’re doing in our lives is crucial to faster growth. Things I don’t track: my golf handicap. After four years, I’m still very much a beginner (lol). For now, I just want to enjoy the game, practice my swing, and think more strategically about the course. There will be a time to keep score, but not yet. And guess what? My fun meter for golf is off the charts. Tracking can wait…So, why bother tracking at all?Because tracking shows me I’m making progress, even when I don’t feel it. On low-energy days like today, when my brain insists I haven’t accomplished much, looking at my tracker gives me a small but real hit of dopamine. It also helps me counteract perfectionism. I’m not tracking for quality or even quantity—just that I showed up. Five minutes is enough. As long as I got my hands moving, it counts.Why Tracking MattersI read a book called The Gap and the Gain by Dan Sullivan, which argues that unless we track what we’re doing, we’re always measuring “the gap”—the distance between where we are and where we want to go. How much money we don’t have. How far away the dream still feels. We rarely measure “the gain” — the ground we’ve already covered. Visibility of our gains is essential, but in creative fields, it’s not always obvious. That’s why building your own tracking system is key.And here’s the fun part: when I look at my tracker, I can see that the one to two days before I publish an essay is when the most writing happens. Which proves something: those wandering freewrites really do lead to published essays.(You can see I’m not perfectly consistent, but even jotting a few things down really helps. The green highlights where a Substack essay was written).It’s a lot like running. Most runners will tell you the hardest part isn’t the run itself. It’s lacing up your shoes and stepping outside. Once you do that, momentum takes over. Tracking my writing works the same way. Even if I only “lace up” for five minutes, it often turns into something more. And even when it doesn’t, I can look back and see that I showed up.And today I need that reminder.The Weight of Politics and GriefI usually like to bring humor into these newsletters, but right now my sense of humor is face-down on the couch. (That last sentence was my best attempt.) Part of it is the heaviness of politics right now. i.e. What is happening with free speech? I want to jump on a social media soapbox and let it rip, but I know that cycle rarely helps me feel lighter. (I wrote about this last week in “Outrage is Contagious. Here’s How to Protect Yourself.”) On weeks like this, having something measurable to look at helps me not drown in that heaviness.And on the other hand, part of my low energy feels like grief bubbling under the surface. The kind that’s always there and you can never outrun. I keep wanting to turn those feelings into something meaningful, to make loss somehow worth it. But the truth is, no accomplishment will erase trauma. Some days, that reality makes me feel very sad, and I don’t quite know how to sit with that.But on other days, I look at what I’ve tracked and see: despite how I felt, I’ve kept moving. Tracking shows me that grief and growth can coexist. That I can feel motionless and still be moving. My instinct is to go silent and to process internally. There’s almost an unspoken rule of grief: don’t speak, just carry it quietly. I’ve chosen to share some of it. Here's part of a poem I wrote about grief a couple months ago (If you’d like to read the full essay “I’m Afraid to Share This.”) : “The hardest thingis holding two worlds:breath in the lungs,loss in the bones.”Here I am, writing anyway. Tracking doesn’t erase grief, but it gives me something concrete to hold onto on the days when sadness feels shapeless.So I’ll leave you with this: track it.I wrote today. It might not be my best, but it exists. And that counts. Maybe next week will be more interesting. For now, thank you for being here. And now I’ll turn this to you…Question for the comments: Do you track anything in your life, creative, personal, or otherwise? And what do you choose not to track? This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wannabewisdom.substack.com/subscribe

Alexander Grey, Unsplash, 2018Last week I completely fell off my usual routines. Barely a social post, no Substack draft ready to publish Monday, and a recycled barre routine (with Mr. Jones by Counting Crows as my warm-up. I’d just seen them live and was transported straight back to the 90s).Instead, life handed me an audition. There’s something beautiful in that disruption: when the neat structure of your week gets shoved aside for something unexpected. Though to be fair, it doesn’t feel beautiful at first. Your heart’s pounding, coffee in hand, firing off texts to cancel plans, scrambling to line up a reader.It was the middle of the night when I saw the email from my agent. I couldn’t sleep, checked my inbox, and there it was: new sides waiting. The character immediately excited me. Let’s just say she feels closer to my Yukon roots: small town, dark edges, a little rough, and full of mystery.The next morning, I got to work. For me, preparing an audition is part race-against-the-clock, part excavation. Reading lines until they stop sounding like lines and start sprouting from somewhere inside my body, mind, and heart. I ask myself: What do I want? What’s in my way? Where do I overlap with this character, and where do we split apart? And why this role, right now? I like to believe there’s always something magical at play — that a part shows up to teach me what I didn’t know I needed.I taped the audition twice. First, trying to hit the beats the writer planted. Then again with a little more letting go, trusting muscle memory to carry me. I’ve learned this from dance and writing too. The first round is always clunky, the second smoother. If I’d had more time, I would have tried another action, different blocking. (Blocking being the physical movement in a scene: folding a towel, looking out the window, muttering to yourself under your breath.) But regardless, the essence of me was there.And that’s the question I keep circling: is essence enough? Screenshot from my audition. The competition is fierce in my category. So many talented actresses with tapes that are tight, sharp, flawless. Sometimes being an actress feels like being a racehorse: sweating in the gate, waiting for the bell, trying to explode at just the right second. You’ve got to be fast, exact, perfect. And you don’t always hit it.Maybe that’s why I keep asking myself: am I chasing the stopwatch, or am I letting myself be carried?Losing things, finding presenceLately I’ve been thinking about this outside of acting too, because I’ve lost a few valuable personal items. First, my earbuds, which I was convinced I couldn’t live without. Turns out I can. Then came the real gut punch: my diary (insert many cry-face emojis). That one stung. (I’m still searching for it…I may end up doing a full deep clean of the house after I post this.) At first I stressed, blamed myself, spiraled a little. But then I wondered: what if this is a blessing in disguise?Without earbuds, I can’t drown myself in the endless onslaught of podcasts, audiobooks, or videos. I actually have to be selective, sometimes even sit in silence, which, it turns out, is probably good for me. And with the diary…well, the idea that my private writing might be in someone else’s hands makes me half-tempted to file a police report for a missing person. But maybe that’s the reminder: nothing we love is ever truly ours to keep. It’s not the loss itself that stings. It’s the illusion we could have prevented it. That if we had just held tighter, we’d still have it. If even my diary and earbuds can vanish, maybe clinging to control in art and life is just as fragile.Maybe what matters isn’t possession at all. Maybe it’s presence.But how do we get comfortable with presence, with just being, when everything in this culture shouts: push harder, faster, better. And then there’s biology, the animal brain whispering: do more or you won’t survive. Being mortal, knowing I’m going to perish one day, makes me feel like I need to push in every corner of my life. Earn more money. Build a body that resists time. Create something so permanent it tricks me into believing I won’t vanish.And yet, there’s a strange comfort in losing. In letting go. In realizing maybe what matters isn’t the curated outcome, but the process itself.Maybe essence is enough.Chasing formulas vs. flirting with possibilitySo many pursuits in life feel like chasing formulas, whether in acting or online. Social media is its own casino — tweak every hook until the algorithm smiles. And yes, I’m getting better at this avocation, but I’m starting to question my process. I catch myself refreshing stats, hungry for proof that what I make matters. But the truth is, I’ve never felt more alive than when I’m lost in process and when I forget the numbers altogether. Maybe the real metric is simpler: did I laugh? Did I get curious? Did I flirt with possibility, or at least surprise myself once?Because when we create art only for outcomes like algorithms, timelines, and bookings, we lose the pleasure in the process and even our patience for it. Our culture is so addicted to metrics we’ve forgotten how to honour process. And process is everything. Yet in this culture, so is pushing.After the audition whirlwind (and teaching two barre classes), I headed to Gibsons with two girlfriends to visit our friend’s dad, Ulrich Schaeffer, author and poet I interviewed earlier this summer. Check out our rich conversation about writing, poetry and heart work here. Gibsons is a small coastal town in B.C., with mountains and ocean wrapped around its little streets. We wandered the shoreline, cut through the bush, singing a song about a woman named Susan we couldn’t get out of our heads. Later, back at the house, we sat for hours talking about life and art. Ulrich has written over 200 works—so many he can’t even list them all. I told him about the book I’m working on, and he really listened. He asked about my themes, offered a couple of piercing observations I’m grateful for, and in answering him I realized that what underpins all my work is love.Love is what we keep reaching for when the ground keeps shifting.Letting go of everything but the essentialAnd when the ground is constantly shifting, it feels impossible to keep my bearings. But what if that’s the process of letting go? Letting go of everything except the essentials: love, curiosity, humour, the willingness to flirt with life.Or as poet, DJ, and content creator kitty knorr said in her course Lovergirl (which I’m currently taking), “this is about tapping into a much more embodied version of yourself, a much more fully expressed version of yourself. All of this work is about tapping into your capacity to give and receive love because it feels so good to give and receive love […] generously, freely, without expectation.”So maybe missing my tidy schedule, and even losing my earbuds and my diary, wasn’t really a loss. Maybe it was just the week doing what weeks do: throwing my life in a blender to make room for new stories. Even as I write this, my dog is staring at me like, lady, process means walkies, reminding me that sometimes it’s just pause here, leash up, go outside. And maybe knowing this, I can stop acting like misplaced earbuds are a national security emergency.Maybe the point isn’t to anchor at all, but to drift. To trust that essence, love, and curiosity will carry me. To believe that flirting with life will always beat gripping it to death.Question for the comments: Can you feel how much of our culture is addicted to outcomes? What might shift if you opted out? And what’s one small way you flirted with life instead of gripping it too tightly this week? This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wannabewisdom.substack.com/subscribe

Credit: UnsplashI keep wanting to write this as an essay but honestly it feels more like a rant, like I just need to spit it out first. I’ve been tempted to write about genocide. Or maybe not genocide itself but disruption. And how disruptive it is to simply… have a voice. To open your mouth at all. Because we’ve all been trained to censor ourselves. Somewhere along the way we learned that disruption is bad. That if you tell the truth you’ll get in trouble. That silence keeps you safe.But disruption isn’t about yelling to be heard. It’s about naming the things we’re all pretending not to see. The things that should be obvious but somehow aren’t. Like genocide is not okay. Or artists shouldn’t be exploited. Entire systems rely on us swallowing those truths. And when you let them out instead of swallowing them—you’re not just speaking, you’re jamming the machine. You’re also strengthening the collective voice of reason, sanity, and empathy.Take the profession of acting. It should be obvious that actors should get paid for auditioning. But they don’t. You can give decades of your life, go to hundreds of auditions, train, hustle, invest thousands of dollars, and never see a dime for that labor. Casting calls go out, hundreds of broke desperate actors show up, knowing it’s unsustainable, but still doing it. And if one of them dares to say, “Hey, this feels exploitative”—suddenly they’re the problem.Covid, ironically, was a disruptor. It gave us self-tapes. Before that I used to sneak into the staff bathroom at my day job, balancing my curling iron on the paper towel dispenser, full hair and makeup at 9am while coworkers came in and out to pee. Then I’d rush to a casting office for a two-minute audition that was sometimes delayed.I was so frazzled coming back from one of those auditions once that I scraped both sides of my Ranger truck trying to get it into the too-small company garage and knocked the rearview mirror clean off. I just accepted those white racing stripes as a new aesthetic. I remember sitting there in the driver’s seat thinking: I just destroyed my truck for a role I won’t get and an audition I wasn’t paid for.I had coffee (actually lemonade) last week with this lovely actor who also illustrates for a living, and somewhere between sips they admitted they’d hit such a wall of burnout from constantly being underpaid for their labor (both in publishing and entertainment) that the thought started creeping in: I wouldn’t mind not being alive. And my whole chest ached, like I could feel their weight in my own body. Then came the rush of anger at the system, at how we’ve built this world where someone talented and hardworking could be pushed that far down.And I said, maybe what you’re feeling isn’t proof that you’re broken at all. Maybe it’s the most natural response to being relentlessly undervalued. Of course your brain goes dark when you’re asked to give and give and give and never get compensated in return. Of course you start to wonder what the point is. That’s not you. That’s the sickness of the system showing up in your body.You could see the shift in them, like something cracked open just a little, because no one had ever said that to them before. They left that lemonade meetup with some relief. Like—oh, wait, I’m not crazy or defective. The culture is what’s toxic. My despair is just a human reaction to living inside it.Genocide is another example. Even the word itself is treated like it’s radioactive. You post something sympathetic to Palestinians who are watching the annihilation of their people in real time, and you’re instantly labeled anti-Semitic. And yes, I know it’s complicated. History, trauma, religion, indoctrination: all of it shapes how entire nations can be brainwashed into hating or dehumanizing each other. But still, genocide is bad for people. That should be the baseline. Why is it “too disruptive” to just say that out loud?I find myself cringing as I write this, like I need to duck behind the couch for cover, waiting for the retaliation for saying these forbidden words. And listen, I’ve given people the benefit of the doubt. I’ve had conversations with others who felt strongly opposed. I listened intently with openness to see it another way, but I couldn’t contort my brain into another backflip, somersault, dismount to justify the unjustifiable. “The more we justify what should never be justified, the sicker we become. Humans can hold complexity and empathy at once, but when we lose that grounding truth, that all human life matters, we collapse into savagery.”The more we justify what should never be justified, the sicker we become. Humans can hold complexity and empathy at once, but when we lose that grounding truth, that all human life matters, we collapse into savagery. Just ask Piggy in Lord of the Flies.We keep contorting our little human brains, trying to make palatable what should never be palatable. And it’s warping us. Good people with good intentions start to feel unrecognizable. It’s like we’re all under hypnosis, stumbling through the trance together.And, yes, I do worry how my words and self-expression can be used against me. I’ve heard of Substack writers detained at the U.S. border because they wrote about the protests at Columbia University. But I look at my friends who are unapologetically vocal online and I feel proud. Inspired. And then I look at myself, and others like me: quiet, scared, avoiding. I empathize with us too. Because having a voice feels dangerous. Being disruptive feels like risking exile from your group. And if you’re already wired as a people-pleaser? Forget it. And if you’re benefiting from the system in some way? Even harder.That’s why Hollywood’s abuses thrived for decades before #MeToo. Everyone was terrified to speak. Speaking meant exile, career suicide, total disruption. That’s why our political systems are broken. Politicians don’t actually serve us. They serve whoever funds them. Corporate money, foreign governments, special interests. The people are an afterthought. Disruption, in that context, means biting the hand that feeds them. And they won’t.So I keep circling the same question: how do we get more comfortable with disruption in our own lives, especially where we actually have free speech?Just last week Afghanistan passed new laws against women. On top of being banned from education beyond elementary school, forced to cover every inch of skin, and forbidden to leave the house without a male escort—it is now illegal for an Afghan woman to use her voice in public.Think about that. Here, we choke back our truths out of fear of judgment or backlash. Afghan women are literally forbidden to speak in public. We swallow our words by choice; they have theirs stolen from them by law.This isn’t just about art or politics. It’s about freedom of speech, of spirit, and to be a whole f*****g human. And maybe we start by remembering what our bodies already know. I teach barre and hot Pilates, and here’s what I’ve learned: muscles literally need tiny ruptures to grow stronger. No disruption, no adaptation. No resilience. No strength. The body gets it: disruption isn’t the enemy, it’s the way forward.So tell me: what obvious truth do you feel scared to say out loud? Put it in the comments. We need to hear it.Yours truly,Ashley aka Fake GuruFootnotes This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wannabewisdom.substack.com/subscribe

The Yukon Theatre rewired my brain in the ’80s and ’90s with films like Edward Scissorhands, Alive, My Girl, Forrest Gump, Romeo + Juliet, and Seven (just to name a few).Photo credit: Ken Wuschke, Aug 2025 A couple weeks ago I mentioned that I started a course called Lovergirl, led by poet and creative catalyst kitty knorr. The idea is to stop chasing romantic love, and start seducing our creative lives instead. I thought I was flirting with a short film idea, a weird reimagining of Flashdance. (You can read that essay here). But then another idea showed up quietly: a coming-of-age story—mine.Set in the 90s. In the Yukon. And it’s asking to be more than just a project. It’s something deeper. A book, maybe. A collection of essays. Possibly a film. Possibly both. But first, words, on a page. Set inside a girl who is trying to understand who she was while everything around her kept shifting.This idea has been tapping me on the shoulder for a long time. But recently, while journaling, it came into sharper focus. It’s rooted in memory, and rich with northern texture: teenagers sneaking out their bedroom windows at midnight, biking down to a creek under the northern sun to drink warm Bacardi; heartbreak and awkward firsts; Romeo and Juliet and Dazed and Confused soundtracks on repeat; losing friends far too young; being eleven and moving to a Tlingit town of 450 people; being a white girl suddenly immersed in a First Nations community, trying to make sense of privilege and pain and guilt and grief.It’s the kind of project that makes me feel vulnerable, yet pulls me in.We don’t always choose our creative projects. Sometimes they choose us. Not with a shout, but a whisper: flickers, images, memories we’d forgotten.These thoughts had been flickering for a while, but they began to open more fully after I went home for a friend’s funeral. A month has passed, and his death has left a weight in my body that will never lift. Since then, I’ve found myself in quiet conversations with friends who left this world far too soon. Grief has a way of hitching itself to other grief; traveling and echoing, connecting across time like invisible threads.My friends have become my guides; offering direction, courage, and support as I navigate terrains I’ve never entered. They never had the chance to make this journey, and I want to honour their lives by taking it.For a long time, I didn’t just struggle with writer’s block. I struggled with being able to locate my own experience. I felt like I was living inside something I couldn’t fully describe. I couldn’t pin it to the page. Now, I’m starting to see that some stories are too big to force. They come when they’re ready. And maybe our job isn’t to write them perfectly. Our job is just to say: I’m here. I’m listening.That’s what this feels like. A slow but deliberate conversation with something beyond me. The Great Mystery of the Universe. Or what I sometimes imagine as a creative intelligence, some benevolent force that sends ideas like sacred telegrams.But like I said, they don’t shout. They whisper. And when you respond, you honour them, and as a reaction – the line stays open. It’s a relationship. And the more you show up for it, the more it shows up for you.I made a video about the Muse using the metaphor of my dog chasing a ball.Every creative endeavour carries obstacles that feel impossible to overcome—each one custom-built for the exact growth the artist needs to evolve beyond their current self.This project— whatever it becomes—is already leading me somewhere unknown, into a part of myself that isn’t quite formed yet. It’s showing me parts of myself I must strengthen. Each step forward feels like a step into blackness. My foot stretches out feeling for its footing. It makes contact. I see an image coming into focus ahead. That image is attached to a story.I will start there. Write what I see and feel.The heartbeat that pulses beneath every momentIt’s premature to know what the story is, but if I could see into the future of this narrative, it would be this: the longing to belong and connect deeply with others, while needing to find total independent expression of myself. That’s the tension I’ve lived with for as long as I can remember. And the deeper message, the one that keeps rising like mist from this work, is about having the courage to open myself up to deep presence, daily—before I vanish into the unknown.Our lives are a brief northern sun. We’re here, and then gone. And I’ve already wasted so many years being afraid to live fully expressed. I don’t have it all figured out. But I’m trying to pay attention to the little clues, the breadcrumbs. I’m trying to write the story that wants to be written. Some of it I’ll save for therapy. Some of it I’ll share. But all of it, I hope, will be in service to help liberate others to share theirs.I’ll ask my friends for courage. And then I’ll get to it. Sit my butt down and write a first, horrible, cliché, messy draft.Beginning this week…(I made another video this week. A little creative pep talk. Check it out).And now I want to invite you into this process with me. Below is a writing prompt I created while working on this project. If you're exploring a creative path of your own (or even just reflecting on your life) maybe it will stir something in you:Writing Prompts * If you knew you only had one year to live, what story is still inside you waiting to be told? And who would it be for?* Extra: if your life were a feature film (yes, you are the main character), what’s one dominant challenge your story would explore? What message would you want to leave behind for others?Question for the Comments: If you want to share any of your prompt responses in the comments, I’d love to hear. Thank you for spending this time with me, and for letting these words spark reflections on your own life. Ashley This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wannabewisdom.substack.com/subscribe

Hi friends,My conversation with poet, author, photographer, and philosopher of the heart, Ulrich Schaffer, was one of those rare, quietly electric hours that I know I’ll return to again and again. We talked about the kind of writing that comes not from the head, but from the heart. The kind of writing that surprises you, heals you, and stretches you into who you're becoming.Ulrich shared insights on vulnerability in poetry, how he writes across languages, and why writing isn’t always about being understood, but about being present. Here are a few gems from our talk:“Writing is not just thinking. It’s choosing to stay with the thought long enough to see what it really wants to become.”“Even our gentleness can become maudlin if it doesn’t have wildness to balance it.”“I’ve learned to write things I don’t fully understand—and let them lead me.”“We are all connected. Maybe what someone else in the world cannot carry, I can. And that is enough.”💫 The replay is now available!Whether you’re a writer, a reader, or just someone trying to stay awake in a noisy, chaotic world, I think you’ll find something in this conversation that stirs your own creative life. 🔗 Learn more: ulrichschaffer.net /and ulrich-schaffer.comQuestion for the comments: what piece of wisdom did you take away from this conversation?With heart,Ashley This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wannabewisdom.substack.com/subscribe

There are writers who tell stories. And then there are those rare humans who hold space for truth, for ache, for the quiet beauty of being alive.Ulrich Schaffer is one of those.A novelist, poet, photographer, and philosopher of the heart, he has spent his lifetime writing into the silence most people avoid. I’ve had the privilege to read, Heartwork, a deeply personal and quietly universal book of poems that calls you inward.Here’s one poem that has especially stayed with me—an invocation of what it means to simply be:“It will be enough to have been here,to have moved through the spaces,to have touched and been touched,to have been a part of the puzzle.”– Ulrich Schaffer, HeartworkThis is just one offering from a vast body of work. His bilingual collections—written in both English and German —bridge inner and outer worlds, from his early emigration to Canada to his quiet life by the sea in Gibsons, BC.Now, Ulrich is re-releasing several of his most meaningful works in English. These include:✨ Sacrifice (fiction)📘 Book of Rights (non-fiction)🕊️ And multiple volumes of poetry and prose, each grounded in love, nature, relationship, and the pursuit of a conscious life.If you’ve ever felt cracked open by the words of Walt Whitman, David Whyte, or Eckhart Tolle, you’ll find yourself at home in Ulrich’s world (even if he’d humbly resist the comparison).So this Thursday, June 12 at 10am PST / 1pm EST, I’ll be sitting down with Ulrich for a Substack Live conversation. We’ll explore:* ✍🏼 Writing as a lifelong spiritual practice* 💞 Love as a guiding force* 🌿 Living consciously in a noisy world* 👩‍👧 His collaborative re-release with his daughter (and my dear friend) Zilya Schaffer, through their imprint Life Giving Books📅 Add to your calendar🔗 Join the conversation🫶 Don’t miss this rare, heart-opening conversation.About Ulrich SchafferUlrich Schaffer was born in Germany, emigrated to Canada with his parents and siblings at the age of ten and grew up in the north of the country, surrounded by wilderness. He studied German and English literature in Vancouver and Hamburg and then taught European literature in translation at a college near Vancouver for ten years.He has been writing since he was 15. His first book was published when he was 21. This was followed by over 200 titles in ten languages and over five million copies in print. His particular love is poetry – the poems he has written throughout his life. It is his way of orienting himself in life and processing what he experiences. But he has written many non-fiction books and novels as well.A number of years ago he published eight books with Harper&Row before the publisher became HarperCollins. Because of a greater interest in his ideas in Europe he started writing more in German. Presently he is making a foray into the English-speaking market again and hopes to find many readers in North America.Ulrich lived with his wife Traudi in Gibsons, on the coast of British Columbia, just outside of Vancouver, until Traudi’s death in November 2021 from dementia, about which he wrote the book WITH YOU, WITHOUT YOU. He took care of his wife at home for five years. He now lives there alone. Gibsons can only be reached by ferry or seaplane.The author and photographer went to Europe every year for over 1600 readings, lectures and seminars for 40 years without interruption. He had to take 2020 and 2021 off due to the pandemic. He has been giving online seminars via the Eckstein Spiritual Center in Nürnberg since the autumn of 2020.The major themes of his writing are: the pursuit of a more conscious life, love and how it expresses itself in committed relationships and friendships, nature and our attitude towards it, and questions of faith and hope. He is always looking for new expressions for what concerns us all in the broadest sense.🔗 Learn more: ulrichschaffer.net /and ulrich-schaffer.com Ulrich Schaffer & Zilya Schaffer, Life Giving Books. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wannabewisdom.substack.com/subscribe

There’s a version of me that’s still thirteen years old, living in a basement dorm room, whispering jokes through a yellow barrette. She’s unfiltered, ridiculous, and free. I was reminded of her again last week at a dinner party with strangers.The event was called Dine Wilder, a pop-up dinner for women I didn’t know, hosted by a brilliant woman named Emily Shimwell—in a butcher shop, of all places (Two Rivers Meats). I was instantly intrigued when a friend tagged me in a Facebook post: a candlelit long table tucked into an obscure location, with a dress code described as wild elegance. Clearly, they know I’m a romantic.I knew exactly what to wear—a safari-chic wrap dress handed down from my sister-in-law. And I surprised myself by not feeling the usual anxiety I get before solo events. Sure, I had a few judgy thoughts: my hair wasn’t doing me any favors, and my winter boots didn’t quite match the summer season. I also wondered if the women would be kind—that old school-days fear was bubbling up. But the thoughts passed without much grip. I got dressed and hopped in my Prius.Emily greeted me at the door like an old friend and handed me a glass of wine. I accepted, even though I knew better. Alcohol and I have been on rocky terms for a while. One glass and I’m guaranteed a bad sleep and a worse morning. But alas—live, learn, regret, repeat.The room was something out of a dream. A massive mural of bison stretched across one wall, watching over three beautifully set long tables. It felt like a warm nod to my Yukon roots. I thought of my stepdad, who once took my husband bison hunting in minus 30°C weather, sleeping in a wall tent.Emily seated me with three women I’d never met. None of us knew, in that moment, that we were all fitness instructors of some kind. Me, hot pilates and barre. That wouldn’t come up until hours later, as we were walking out the door. What we did for a living didn’t matter. We were more interested in how we felt—about life, about ourselves, about the evening’s theme: the untamed self.(FYI: one of the women grew up in the Yukon, and we lit up. There’s a strong northern bias that kicks in when two northerners meet elsewhere. She could’ve been a serial killer and I still would’ve said, “OMG YOU’RE FROM THE YUKON? ME TOO!”)The guest speaker, Robyn Savage, opened the evening with a guided reflection. She invited us to close our eyes and remember a time we felt fully ourselves. A time we felt untamed, unfiltered, authentic.Robyn Savage, Dine Wilder. Photo credit: Gabriela Le Photography, 2025.My mind didn’t go to adulthood or any shiny achievement. It shot straight to a basement dorm window in Grade 9. My best friend and I had tied housecoat belts to a laundry basket and lowered it out a second-story window to retrieve a pizza from a very confused delivery guy, flicking the light on and off like a ship-to-shore signal.Later that night, we sat in her room eating that pizza. I picked up a yellow barrette and started doing a ridiculous puppet voice, talking through it like a tiny plastic ventriloquist. We lost it. Pee-your-pants laughter. That kind of full-bodied, throat-knotting, stomach-shaking laugh that transforms you.“…there was a new voicewhich you slowlyrecognized as your own,that kept you companyas you strode deeper and deeperinto the world...” -Mary Oliver, The Journey.I remember being so free in that moment and feeling: this is me. It wasn’t the performative me –just the raw, silly me, totally connected, present, un-self-conscious and in communion with a dear friend.After the reflection, Robyn spoke about the natural self versus the perceived self. The natural self is the raw essence; the version that makes people laugh with hair clips. The perceived self is the good daughter, wife, mother, teacher, and the one we curate to earn love, safety, belonging.I was compelled to make a video about it. In it, I explain how I once believed that being a “go-with-the-flow” kind of person made me admirable. I praised myself for my adaptability and my easy-going nature. Little did I know that what I thought was self-less-ness was self-abandonment in disguise. Our opinions, our preferences, our edges is the thing that defines us. That’s our unique imprint on the world.If you're curious, check it out the video:That night, Robyn gave us permission to walk away from any conversation that didn’t feel good. No explanation needed. Just leave.I didn’t walk away from any conversation that night. Instead, I walked toward something.At our table, we started with small talk. The kind that fades fast. I asked where everyone was from. We all gave polite answers. Mild smiles.Then I shifted the question:“What image came to mind during the reflection?”Silence. And then I offered mine. The yellow barrette.The moment I said “boarding school,” something changed. Eyes lit up with curiosity. “What was that like?” someone asked.I told them: It felt like going to university at thirteen. Co-ed: so yes, boys! And adventure! We snuck out our windows and walked miles to Smitty’s, a 24 hour open restaurant with unlimited thermos’s of coffee that they didn’t seem to mind serving to teenagers. It was wild. It was fun. And it was lonely.A kind of loneliness I didn’t fully recognize until much later. We didn’t have our parents but only Deans who took care of us. Now, realizing those Deans were only in their 20s—kids trying to raise kidsThe word – lonely – cracked something open at the table. One woman shared about her parent’s divorce and growing up in a big empty house, with a dad who was always out with his girlfriends. We both knew that quiet.I mentioned I’d done therapy around loneliness. That didn’t open a floodgate—it opened a gentle stream. Another woman shared her own teenage trauma. She, too, was doing the work.We talked about Complex PTSD. Triggers. Nervous system regulation. One woman asked how I deal with disassociation. I shared a technique to separate the past from the present. She recognized it. “You must have a good therapist,” she said.Two women had children with autism. They connected instantly, talking about how learning to regulate their kids had taught them to regulate themselves. I was witnessing human connection at its most simple, and its most profound.I didn’t feel that icky overshare hangover I sometimes get when I’ve said too much. This wasn’t a trauma dump. It was four strangers meeting each other in the middle of something raw and human. It was quite lovely.At some point, garlic-butter candles arrived. Yes, literal burning candles made of garlic butter. You dip your knife into the flame and spread the softened butter-wax on bread. Ours went out twice, but the idea was brilliant.We talked. We laughed. We shared things we don’t usually say to people we just met. And that’s often what happens when you show up from your heart. When you let the barrette-puppet part of you take a seat at the table.Sometimes, a little garlic butter and a weird memory are all it takes to bring her back.That night, I remembered what Mary Oliver once wrote in The Journey:“…there was a new voicewhich you slowlyrecognized as your own,that kept you companyas you strode deeper and deeperinto the world...”I think I heard that voice at the table. I’ll keep following it.Question for the comments: When was the last time you felt fully you—goofy, unfiltered, untamed? What moment or memory brings that version of you back?If this story stirred something in you, share this with someone who needs to remember their yellow barrette moment. Or tag a friend who brings out your wild, unfiltered self.✨Coming Soon: A Soulful Substack Live✨Join me on Thursday, June 12 at 10am PST / 1pm EST for a live conversation with German-Canadian author & poet Ulrich Schaffer, whose work has touched millions. We’ll talk about writing as a lifelong practice, his reflections on love and conscious living, and the re-release of his most beloved books—now published with his daughter, and my dear friend, Zilya Schaffer, through their imprint Life Giving Books. Don’t miss this heart-opening dialogue!Subscribe now — so you’ll be there when we talk about love, life, and why words still matter. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wannabewisdom.substack.com/subscribe

I want to share a brain nugget I’ve been rolling around this week—though honestly, it feels more like batting around one of those Oopee balls from Kentucky Fried Chicken family meals in the 90s. Do you remember those? Those water-weighted plastic beach balls that flailed through the air and made that ridiculous boing sound. My brother and I used to chase one around Rotary Park in Whitehorse with absolute abandon. It was thrilling, hilarious and unpredictable. Kind of like the way I’m thinking about identity these days.Here’s the quote that set me in motion:(Also, I posted this as a video on Instagram and Tiktok—follow me there if you want daily inspo in this vibe!)“You’re always you, and that doesn’t change, and you’re always changing, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”— Maggie Nelson, The ArgonautsI’m not familiar with Maggie Nelson’s work (yet), but this line alone made me grab The Argonauts from the library. It now sits on my shelf beside the other “to-be-read beauties” I’ve collected. Side note: Anyone else have un-read book guilt? The perpetual guilt of all the books I want to read and will not ever read. It’s real.What I love about this line is how it captures the paradox of being human. There’s a you-ness that never shifts: something essential and core, but also a constant evolution unfolding at the same time.And it turns out, this paradox isn’t merely poetic. It’s also biological.The Science of Our Ever-Changing BodiesOur bodies are in a state of perpetual change. And I don’t mean metaphorically: I mean at a cellular level.Every day, we replace about 330 billion cells, which amounts to roughly 1% of our body’s total cell count. Over the course of 80 to 100 days, that means we've essentially regenerated our entire cellular makeup. In other words, you’re not just emotionally evolving: you are physically a different person every few months.Different cells turn over at different rates:* Red blood cells: every 120 days* Skin cells: every 2 to 3 weeks* Colon cells: every 3 to 5 days* Skeletal muscle cells: can take up to 15 years* Neurons in the cerebral cortex: some last a lifetimeSo yes, we are always changing. Whether we feel it or not.Reflecting on ChangeKnowing how much we change physically makes me think even more about the changes we can’t see. The emotional shifts. The mental rewiring. The ways our identities reshape over time. We are living, breathing, regenerating beings with a core essence that somehow still feels stable amidst all the incredible changes we experience.When I shared this quote with a friend this weekend, they told me, “I don’t like to dwell on the past.” And I get that. For some, looking back feels like a trap. But I’ve always been the opposite.I’ve kept a journal since 1993, when my parents first told us they were separating. I was just a kid then. My brother and I were trying to make sense of a world that suddenly didn’t feel stable. That journal became my lifeline. I wrote down everything: first crushes, first kisses, poetry, cigarettes, dreams, breakups, strange cravings, late-night questions about God and purpose. My journal has become a lifelong excavation project. Substack is an extension of that.“Like an archaeologist of my own life, I’ve spent years wandering through a private museum of artifacts.” Like an archaeologist of my own life, I’ve spent years wandering through a private museum of artifacts. Trying to answer:Who was I?What was I trying to say?And how did I become this version of me?To me, this kind of self-reflection isn’t indulgent or dramatic. It’s necessary. It’s how I’ve learned.Just like traveling to another country can give you perspective on your own culture, self-reflection gives you perspective on your own story. It’s internal travel. Soul mapping.I moved to a town with a pre-dominant Tlingit First Nations culture when I was 11, and it shaped so much of how I see the world. In that culture, connection to the land and ancestry isn’t symbolic—it’s sacred. That upbringing taught me to pay attention to the natural rhythms, both around me and within me. It became the backbone against which I’ve compared every culture I’ve lived in since, including the one I live in now in West Vancouver. Reflection, is listening to where you come from and where you went. Think about what happens when you travel: You might witness a slower, more communal way of life. You might see joy in simplicity or discover that your pursuit of more has left you disconnected. Or maybe, you return home and realize it has more to offer than you gave it credit for. I experienced both of these sensations when I traveled through Central America in 2023. I wrote about it in the essay “The Year I Slept in 38 Beds.”However, the point I’m trying to make here is: that kind of perspective shift doesn’t happen just happen through physical travel. It can also come from traveling inward, through time. Lately, I’ve been thinking about my ancestors. This might be a slight side tangent, but it’s been sitting with me: in order for you to be born, 4,096 of your ancestors had to survive- just 12 generations back. If even one of them hadn’t made it, you wouldn’t be here reading this. That kind of math is profound. It makes you pause and reminds you that you’re not just one person—you’re a continuation of thousands.“To me, this kind of self-reflection isn’t indulgent or dramatic. It’s necessary. It’s how I’ve learned.”Self-reflection is like that. We use memory to collect insights. We revisit old conversations, journal entries, and yes, even our cringey teenage selves: not to judge, but to learn. Perspective gives us wisdom. And wisdom changes everything: our relationships, our work, our creativity, our ability to love and be loved.A Writing Prompt for YouIf this speaks to you, try this:* Write about a version of yourself that no longer exists but left an fingerprint* Then write about the part of you that never changed* Imagine those two selves meeting on a benchWhat would they talk about?What would they forgive?What would they thank each other for?Tag me if you write something. I’d love to read it.Wrapping it up…That Maggie Nelson line messes with me in the best way.Because it’s true, isn’t it?There’s a part of you that stays the same. That core self. That stubborn and tender spirit. Yet, there are also versions of you who’ve moved on. Disappeared. Evolved.I did this prompt, myself, and was surprised at the self (?) and selves I’ve outgrown…some lovingly, some by necessity. And yet... they all left a mark.I’ve kept this picture of myself as a kid as a screensaver on my phone for the last six months or so. It reminds me of the part that hasn’t changed. The goofy, kind child who saw the good in all people. The one with a lightness in her being. I don’t want to forget her.Recently, someone caught a glimpse of the photo on my phone, and asked how old my daughter was. LOL. I just smiled. Because I am my own child. And I’m still taking care of her.Question for the comments: What imprint has your past self left on who you are today? Where do you still feel their fingerprints?With love and evolution,Ashley This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wannabewisdom.substack.com/subscribe

Two years ago, I was drowning in creative resistance. I started this Substack—in a momentary high-vibe state—as an act of rebellion against my very low-vibe state.Today, I’m so excited to share that Wannabe Wisdom has hit 100 subscribers! Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Your support means everything.To celebrate, I bought myself a Dairy Queen ice cream log (as one does). The man who sold it had just immigrated from India and told me he has a YouTube channel with 70 subscribers. We gave each other invisible high-fives and some mutual encouragement to keep going.When I started Wannabe Wisdom in June 2023, I was clawing my way out of creative paralysis. Don’t get me wrong, I did manage to create some things the decade earlier: audition self-tapes, a music video, a short film, journal entries, paintings. But I was seeking a deeper vulnerability. I had so much passion inside me, but it felt stuck.I wanted to write consistently, and share it.But first, I had to face something big:Fear.In the thick of 2021, when the world was still half-closed and half-holding its breath, I turned (once again) to The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. I’d done it so many times over the years. Each time, something new was offered: a short film idea, a nudge to take piano lessons, a business idea, a creative project started (and sometimes even finished).“Confidence isn’t the starting point. It’s the result.”But no matter how many times I worked through the self-doubt, it always came back. Here I was again. Full of fear. And resentment toward myself for letting it get this far.Cameron writes:“In order to work freely on a project, an artist must be at least functionally free of resentment (anger) and resistance (fear). Any buried barriers must be aired before the work can proceed.”“[…] a radical and timeless expression of human fear.”Edvard Munch, The Scream, 1893.It was through the daily Morning Pages (those raw, stream-of-consciousness journal entries) that I began to clear space. Eventually, I felt the nudge to take a writing workshop. I followed it. I met other lovely creatives. A few of us formed a small group and met weekly. We shared our writing. We shared our self-doubt. And I slowly began to share my voice. I felt out of my depth, but I kept showing up to this group.“There’s value in my voice now—not in some future, more evolved, more healed, more polished version of me.”David Bowie once said it’s the artist’s job to always be a little out of their depth—that when we’re in unfamiliar territory, when the work feels uncertain or uncomfortable, that’s exactly where we’re meant to be.I try to remind myself of this:"Always go a little further into the water than you feel you're capable of being in. Go a little out of your depth, and when you don't feel that your feet are quite touching the bottom, you're just about in the right place to do something exciting."Eventually, I launched a WordPress blog. My friend Jay helped me brainstorm names, asking: Who are you writing for? What do you want your readers to feel?I remember saying, I want to help people work through imposter syndrome, heavy moods, blocks… because that’s what I’m working through.I landed on Wannabe Wisdom because it gave me permission to write badly, awkwardly, imperfectly. I wasn’t claiming to be wise, literary, or funny—the title made that clear. These were the Diaries of a Fake Guru. If someone found something useful or beautiful in it, that was up to them. I wasn’t spoon-feeding anyone.But I did, in fact, have a secret mission: I wanted to leave readers with both a giggle and an insight. I wanted to make people laugh and soul-search at the same time. The difference was, I took all the pressure off myself to have to.One particular piece was gut-churning to write. It felt like a risk. But in the privacy of our group, my friend’s comments reflected my own heartbreak and healing right back at me. It taught me that I could be vulnerable on my own terms. I could share openly, yet be in control of what I shared.For two years, our writing group met weekly. We wrote about family, stories of trauma, stories of transformation, poetry, food, food poetry, crime noir, fiction, and memoir. We talked about politics, creativity, our goals, and self-doubt. We got honest about that gnawing feeling of not being “good enough” and wrote through it all. Slowly, my voice on the page started to grow stronger—so did my peers’.One of the members, Grace Quantock, published her book in 2024: Living Well with Chronic Illness. She helps marginalized people live well with pain, illness, and trauma—without burning out. I light up when I think about her incredible journey, and I feel lucky to have shared in even a small slice of it. She gives me hope that maybe, one day, I too could publish a novel. She even gave a special shoutout to our group in her book!A Substack Commitment BeginsThat brings me to 2023, when my husband and I learned the home we’d been living in for seven years had sold, and we’d have to move out in two months.We’d always talked about traveling through Central America, and since we had no idea where the heck we’d live next, we figured: why not now? I quit my in-between job—the one I took after leaving a stable, seven-year corporate career. We put everything in storage; my mom and step-dad agreed to look after our dog; and we planned a five-month adventure through Panama, Costa Rica, and El Salvador.You can read that first post here: "Unveiling the Path."So, I started this Substack. And I showed up. Not weekly. Not even biweekly. Sometimes, months would pass without a post. Behind the scenes, I killed drafts that didn’t feel “good enough.” But I kept showing up.Like I said, I didn’t write as prolifically as I’d imagined—and yes, I berated myself for not doing more. Sometimes, I’d finally get a piece to feel just right, send it to my dad for proofreading, and still wake up the next day with a vulnerability hangover.This is part of the gig.But now, looking back, that was two years ago.100 subscribers later.33 essays later.I still have a lot of creative resistance (and resistance in general).In fact, many of my posts are about that exact thing:* "Caught in a Mood"* "The Bravery to Be Ourselves"* “Understanding Anxiety”* Gently, Slowly, Softly: How to Travel in Uncertain Times* A New Year’s Epiphany in El SalvadorWorking Through Creative ResistanceLately, I’ve been reflecting on how I work through resistance. And weirdly, it reminds me of a principle my husband is obsessed with: Bernoulli’s Principle of flight.He’s been teaching himself to hydrofoil for the last couple years (a relatively new, niche sport). It’s a surfboard that—with enough momentum and energy—rises up and hovers above the water, balanced on a submerged mast. It looks like something from the future. Here’s a video of him flat-water pumping. You don’t need waves. Just thighs made of steel. As he recently described how Bernoulli’s Principle works, it hit me: this is exactly how I’ve worked through creative blocks to find flow.In hydrofoiling, the speed of the water above the wing creates low pressure, and the slower water below creates high pressure. This imbalance of the two pressure systems creates lift, allowing the board to rise.My writing process feels like that.If I can create “low pressure” by challenging my inner critic daily (and acknowledging it…oh, hello there) while also building “high pressure” under my feet by simply showing up—publishing posts, sharing ideas, creating connection (even when it feels like no one’s reading)—then I’ll create lift. Guaranteed. It’s physics.That lift is the confidence that comes from building trust in the process, and ultimately, in yourself, over time. It’s not flashy. It’s not instant. It’s like an absentee parent slowly earning back a child’s trust: not with grand gestures, but with quiet consistency.It’s hard f*****g work (excuse my language).And then, suddenly, one day…you lift.We love to think confidence comes from believing in ourselves. But the truth is: Confidence is the result, not the starting point.(I made a video: “Confidence is a Scam” on IG and TikTok.)When Lift HappensOnce that lift happens, there’s space for more…for new energy.I hosted my first Substack Live conversation, Writing Life: Finding Your Voice and Moving Through Creative Blocks, with author and literary agent A. J. Van Belle. It was a kind of lift I hadn’t felt in a long time: real-time dialogue about creativity, voice, and showing up on the page.A.J. shared something I keep coming back to:“Even if what you write isn’t polished, your voice right now matters. Who you are today will never exist in this exact form again.”I’ve been letting that echo. echo. echo. echo...I won’t exist in this exact form again. There’s value in my voice now—not in some future, more evolved, more healed, more polished version of me.But just like hydrofoiling, that lift isn’t a permanent state. If my husband stops pumping, the board sinks. If I stop writing, synthesizing, perceiving and seeing, I sink too. But we also need rest. Sometimes, we have to put it away, let things settle (let our thighs heal), and return when we’re ready. Other times, we need to push through.Every small adjustment, every wave of persistence, every quiet decision to nurture your creative voice all adds up.And still, I find myself circling the question again:Why do I write?Not just what I write. Not even who I write for. But why I keep showing up, especially when it’s hard.I write personal essays to help others feel less alone—and in the process, I feel less alone too. I write for the deep feelers and the overthinkers. For the ones who whisper, Is it normal to feel this much? For those learning to trust themselves again.But if we’re being totally transparent here, that’s not the deepest reason.I write because I’m a seeker. A sense-maker.Writing is how I authorize my life. For so much of my life, I numbed myself. I gaslit my experiences more than anyone else ever could. I erased whole chapters—not because they didn’t happen, but because I didn’t know how to hold them. Writing is how I stop disappearing. It’s how I tell myself: Yes, that mattered. You were there. You felt that. And it’s real, even if no one saw it. Even if no one cried…or clapped.I write to return to myself.To say: I was here.To whisper to you: You are too.My mom recently sent me a video of a family friend doing something remarkable: he’s reclaiming his native language and refusing to speak English. An act of resistance.It reminded me that language isn’t just how we communicate. It’s how we claim who we are. That’s why I write.And if all I ever offer is wannabe wisdom from a fake guru trying her best, then I’ve done my job.With love + rebellion,Ashley aka Fake GuruQuestion for the comments: Is there a part of you you're trying to reclaim through your creative work, or just through being more honest with yourself? This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wannabewisdom.substack.com/subscribe

Hi friends,Yesterday, I had the joy of hosting a live conversation with the brilliant A. J. Van Belle writer, agent, and lovely human being who shared so much wisdom. We talked about writing, creativity, Substack, and showing up authentically on the page.A.J. spoke about the evolution of their voice through fiction, the healing nature of storytelling, and a golden piece of advice from their mother — one I’m replaying like a mantra. I also reflected on my own writing journey—how Substack (Wannabe Wisdom) became a permission slip to write, despite being afraid to share myself, and to publish when I didn’t feel “good enough.”Here’s the heart of it:“Even if what you write isn't polished, your voice right now matters. Who you are today will never exist in this exact form again.” — A.J. Van BelleWe explored a lot in just over an hour. * The power of writing from what excites you! * Honoring your current voice, not waiting for mastery.* Fiction as a place to safely rewrite the past.* Substack as a web of meaningful, slow connections not vanity metrics.And some of my favorite takeaways:"Fiction lets us heal like children heal through play. It's a form of adult play where we can re-narrate the past and see ourselves more clearly." — A.J."I don’t want to be a trauma story with a ring light… but I do want to share myself." — Me"Write your stories. Tell the truth. Don’t be silenced." — A.J.’s Substack mission“Hard times are coming […] We’ll need writers who can remember freedom – poets, visionaries – realists of a larger reality.”—Ursula LeGuinWe closed with this reminder:✨ You don’t need to be anyone else. Your weird little garden of thoughts is enough.More to come soon. In the meantime: Question: What’s your weird little garden growing these days?Reply in the comments or message me directly. I’d love to hear from you!Thank you Mary Crayston, Discover with Dina, Hal Gill, Katie Moran, Alexander Oakley and others for tuning into my live video with A. J. Van Belle! Join me for my next live video in the app.With love + rebellion,Ashley This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wannabewisdom.substack.com/subscribe

I’ve been experiencing writer’s block for the last couple of weeks. When this happens, I try to stay in motion. So, I journal daily. I circle around moments, sketch out half-ideas. I even wrote a 1,500-word, satirical essay on imposter syndrome. I scrapped it—it was too meta, clever, not quite real.On Good Friday, my husband and I went to the beach to people-watch. It’s one of my favorite things to do, especially when I’m not distracted. We found an empty bench. I silenced my phone and pulled my notebook onto my lap like a signal to the Muse: I’m ready. The sun was hot against my black sweater, but the spring air still carried a chill. I pushed off my sweater and let the cold air brush my bare shoulders. Clouds streaked across the sky like soap suds. I wrote that down.“Writing is more than expression—it’s a quiet understanding between who you are and who you’re still becoming. Each sentence says: Here I am. A moment, captured. And the instant I write it down, I’m already changing.”A little girl, maybe two, wandered over—Asian, unsteady on her feet, followed by two men: her father, and who I assumed was her grandfather. She hesitated at the sight of my dog, Thor. We gently encouraged her to pet him, a ritual we’ve developed with kids. After a few tentative strokes, she lost interest. Her father thanked us and led her away.But the older man stayed.He wasn’t her grandfather. Just a stranger looking for someone to talk to. Elderly, eccentric. Glasses. A bucket hat. A black hip-slung purse. I noticed his faded linen shirt—pink, blue, red stripes—thanks to the grounding exercises my therapist has me doing. (I wrote about that in my last piece: How Grounding Exercises Made Me (Slightly) Less Delusional.)Thanks for reading Wannabe Wisdom, Diaries of a Fake Guru! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.“What are you reading?” he asked, pointing to my notebook.“I’m writing,” I said.His face lit up like an arcade machine. “I’m looking for an editor!”He pulled a bright blue book from his bag and handed it to me. The title stretched across two dozen words—something about a spiritual guide. I kept a straight face. My “this might get interesting” alert quietly buzzed. My mother’s voice echoed in my head: ‘You never know when you’re entertaining an angel.’His face struck me—uncannily like my father’s. I glanced at my husband, wondering if he saw it too. He did. Later, he’d say it before I could.“I’m looking for someone who cares about the subject,” he said, “more than the money.” He searched my face, trying to read my reaction.The book was bristling with colored sticky tabs—over a hundred of them. It looked like it was wearing a shredded rainbow skirt. Inside were chapters, quotes, reflections. A personal spiritual journey.I handed the book back and gently shifted the conversation. “Have you ever thought about using AI to help you edit?” I asked.His eyebrows lifted. “How would I even do that?”“You’d need to open a tool like ChatGPT—or Deepseek. Then paste in your writing and ask it to copyedit.”He handed the book back to me, then fished around for a pen.“Can you write that down? —-right in there? My brain doesn’t work the same way it used to.”I opened the front cover and scribbled a few instructions—just enough to get him started. He watched closely, nodding, like each word was a lifeline.“That’s what writing is. It’s reliving. Re-narrating. A way to authorize your own story.”His name was Ray. He said he had dementia. He smiled often, lips curved like a rainbow, teeth slightly yellowed. His warmth reminded me of my dad. That stirred something in me—a sadness, maybe. My dad and I are from different worlds—he, conservative, frugal, grounded in evangelical faith; me, more liberal, spiritually untethered, comfortable with abundance. Still, Ray’s presence made me remember the deep conversations my dad and I used to have about literature and faith.Ray told me he never meant to write. But twenty years ago, something shifted. He became obsessed, writing fourteen hours a day. It poured out. My dad’s the same—always scribbling, always digging into something.Ray talked about anxiety. How he grew up on a farm in Stony Plain, Alberta. One of nine kids. Little affection. He didn’t think his mother wanted children.“If I kissed her, she’d wipe her face,” he said, showing me the motion of wiping a kiss of his face.Then came the story about the well.“The pump was broken. My father wanted me to fix it. I was nine.”I pictured my nephew, who recently turned nine, being lowered into a well.“They strapped me in with a rope and lowered me down. I found the pump. Water was spraying everywhere. I reached for the switch. Suddenly, electricity shot through me. My uncle pulled me up. I must’ve passed out. I don’t remember it.”His voice softened. “I never realized how traumatized I was.”His story brought something back. I was thirteen, at a sleepover in a country house in the Yukon. Three girls. Parents away in Arizona. Too many coolers. One friend stayed up and got confused in the dark. She wandered into the basement and fell into a hidden well. We didn’t hear her screams. We found her the next morning—covered in sawdust and mud, pants soaked and discarded, eyes feral. We laughed about it for years. But later, we both wrote about it. Because beneath the comedy, it was terrifying.“Of course that would’ve been terrifying for a nine-year-old,” Ray said, as if hearing my thoughts.He found a therapist and began to understand how deep it went. He believed he had to relive the trauma to heal. That made me think of ‘Age Regression’—a technique in hypnotherapy I was trained in. Clients return to their earliest trauma to re-narrate the event.That’s what writing is. It’s reliving. Re-narrating. A way to authorize your own story.Verlyn Klinkenborg, author of “Several Short Sentences About Writing” wrote:“Being a writer is a continual process of self-authorization. No one else can authorize you. No one. This doesn’t happen overnight.”Those words stay with me.Writing is more than expression—it’s a quiet understanding between who you are and who you’re still becoming. Each sentence says: Here I am. A moment, captured. And the instant I write it down, I’m already changing. It’s not about being understood. It’s about witnessing myself—then letting it go.Can I drop the mask and be seen?How close can I get to that raw center?Ray said he’d gone to the Philippines, hoping to make peace with his past. I meant to ask why there, but I forgot.He found a well. Sat beside it. Imagined himself—a boy, terrified, at the edge. He grieved: for the fear, and for the feeling of not being wanted by his parents.That night, back in his room, he wrote everything down. As he did, he felt a surge—like electricity, like lightning. It knocked him to the floor. He came to with a ripping sensation in his skull. It scared him. An aneurysm, maybe? He couldn’t be sure. But something shifted. His sleep apnea eased. His anxiety quieted.He believed it was Kundalini—an ancient concept from Indian spiritual traditions. Dormant energy at the base of the spine is said to awaken and rise, leading to intense spiritual or physical transformation.“Have you heard of Kundalini?” he asked.Funny enough, I had.“I’ve experienced it,” I told him. “Years ago, a Kundalini yoga teacher on Granville Island guided me through breathwork. She made me comfortable, lying down. Placed her hands beneath my head and told me to breathe. At first—nothing. Then a pulse, head to toe. I ugly cried. Something left my body.”He slid closer on the bench.And told me again: he never chose writing. It chose him. And now it won’t stop.Me too.I keep asking: Am I delusional to think this writing matters? To put words on a page and share them? Who cares? Who am I to write with so much 'I'? But I can’t stop. I’ve kept a journal since 1993.So if I’m going to write, I might as well keep getting better. How does someone become a better writer?“Start by learning to recognize what interests you. Most people have been taught that what they notice doesn’t matter.” - KlinkenborgRay interested me. So I noticed.Before we left, he handed me a business card.It read: Soul Man.“You can email me,” he said, “but you probably won’t.”I wondered if I would.Question for the comments: How do you authorize yourself to be who you are? What small steps do you take every day to claim your voice? What’s a story you’ve avoided telling? Why? What might happen if you finally told it?Thanks for reading friends,Ashley aka Fake GuruIf you’d like to share this article with a friend, subscribe to Wannabe Wisdom, Diaries of a Fake Guru, or leave a comment, you can do all that here:💬 Let’s Talk (Live!): Exciting announcement: On Thursday, May 1 at 1PM PST, I’m hosting my first-ever Substack Live conversation with my brilliant friend A. J. Van Belle author, new Substacker, and recently turned literary agent.We’ll be talking about writing, creativity, voice, rejection, reinvention, and why it’s so hard to say what we really mean sometimes. (Whether you’re a writer or not—you’ve probably felt that.) We’re also going to talk about writing for Substack and strategy!🌀 Come for the insight, stay for the honesty. It’s free, it’s live, and it might just leave you feeling a little more clear, brave, or seen.Subscribe to my Substack to ensure your spot! Or just show up right here on Substack May 1 at 1PM PST. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wannabewisdom.substack.com/subscribe

You know that feeling when someone asks how your week’s been—and you genuinely can’t remember what you did yesterday? Same.In this video version of my latest Wannabe Wisdom essay, I share how a grounding practice involving alarms, bullet points, and the occasional whiff of my hair - has somehow made me feel less anxious, more present, and a tiny bit more creatively open.Also featuring: my dog Thor (emotional support lab with zero respect for personal space), some thoughts on Rick Rubin’s book on Creativity.Watch the video—and let me know: what’s your version of staying grounded?What do you think of this video essay format? I’m starting to bring my words to life—giving them a voice, a rhythm, a face. If you prefer to read or listen, you’ve got options: the original written essay lives here—How Grounding Exercises Made Me (Slightly) Less Delusional—and the podcast version is just a click away on the right.Have a great day!Ashley aka Fake GuruIf you’d like to share this with a friend, leave a comment or subscribe to Wannabe Wisdom, Diaries of a Fake Guru, you can do all that here: This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wannabewisdom.substack.com/subscribe

I’ve been experimenting with video essays—and today’s the first one I’m sharing with you. It’s based on my written piece, The Philosophy Hidden in a Workout Class, where I explore how connection, movement, and Matrixial Theory all collide in the most unexpected places: the fitness studio.If you’ve got feedback—thoughts, reactions, constructive criticism—I’m all ears. This is new for me, and I want to keep growing in this format.And here’s a question I asked in the essay, but I’ll ask again here:Think back to a time when a stranger’s kindness lifted you up—or when you became that lifeline for someone else. What did it feel like?Did you feel it in the moment, or only recognize it later? Let me know in the comments—I’d genuinely love to hear your story.xo,Ashley (aka Fake Guru)If you’d like to share this video with a friend, subscribe to Wannabe Wisdom, Diaries of a Fake Guru, or leave a comment, you can do all that here: This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wannabewisdom.substack.com/subscribe

Episode Description:What if a workout class was more than just exercise? What if it was a mirror for how we connect, support, and shape each other—not just physically, but emotionally and politically?In this episode, I explore the unexpected philosophy hidden in movement, weaving together insights from Matrixial Theory, Ubuntu, and collective energy. From the subtle power of suggestion in a fitness class to the deeper ways we are shaped by the people around us, this conversation asks:🔥 Are we truly independent, or are we formed through connection?🔥 How do our smallest interactions ripple into something bigger—both in our personal lives and in the world?🔥 Can embracing interdependence be a radical act in today’s hyper-individualistic culture?With humor, personal reflection, and a touch of feminist psychoanalysis, this episode is about more than just fitness—it’s about the invisible threads that connect us all.💬 Join the Conversation:Have you ever had a moment where a stranger’s kindness shifted something inside you? Or a time when you unknowingly lifted someone else? Share your thoughts in the comments or on social media—I’d love to hear your story.📖 Read the full essay on my Substack: Wannabe Wisdom, Diaries of a Fake Guru → 🎧 Listen now and explore the philosophy hidden in everyday moments. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wannabewisdom.substack.com/subscribe

Hi friends!I spent years thinking I was an introvert... turns out, I was just afraid of judgment. 😳 If you’ve ever questioned your personality type, this one’s for you. Are you a real introvert or just afraid to show a truer side of yourself? Let’s talk.👇Let me know your thoughts on this video format! My plan is to write a long form essay every few weeks, and post couple 2-5 minute videos like this every week. Also, if you want to see a transcript OR if you want to listen to this on Apple podcasts, just click the button below (to the right)! If you enjoy this content, please consider sharing it with a friend and/or liking and commenting.Have a beautiful day!Ashley aka Fake Guru This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wannabewisdom.substack.com/subscribe

Happy Sunday! Today is January 26, 2025, I am on my way out to walk my dog, who is making his presence known to me by grumbling by my feet. But before I go, I want to share a thought I’ve been holding onto this week. Check out this 5-minute video. After you’ve listened to it, let me know what comes to mind when you hear the ideas behind this video. I truly would love to know! I’m going to be writing on this topic and would love to consider you’re perspective. Also, let me know your thoughts on this format! AND if you enjoy this content, please consider sharing it with a friend or liking and commenting.If you want to see a transcript, just click the transcript button and you should be able to read what I say in the video.Happy Sunday!Ashley aka Fake Guru This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wannabewisdom.substack.com/subscribe

Hi friends!I hope you’re well. I want to share a video I recently made about anxiety. I’ll be posting more video content in the future, so make sure to let me know what you think! If you liked this video, you’ll love my long-form essay “Understanding Anxiety: Why It’s Not All in Your Head” coming out tomorrow, Monday, November 18th, 2024. Ever feel like your anxiety isn’t just in your head? 🙋‍♀️ Reading Anxiety RX by Dr. Russell Kennedy has been eye-opening; he explains how anxiety often starts in our bodies, and how traditional therapy sometimes misses this crucial piece. Have you experienced this too? Let me know in the comments—I'd love to hear your thoughts! Like, comment, screenshot, and share! Forward it to a friend! You are reading Wannabe Wisdom, Diaries of a Fake Guru by Ashley Evans. I’m on Instagram and Tik Tok.xoAshley aka your Fake Guru! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wannabewisdom.substack.com/subscribe