Wannabe Wisdom explores the unfiltered creative life: writing, learning, healing, spiraling, rebuilding, and trying-again-anyway. It’s part diary and part creative studio, made to help sensitive, ambitious creatives find their voice, trust their work, and keep going long enough to accidentally impress themselves. <br/><br/><a href="https://wannabewisdom.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast">wannabewisdom.substack.com</a>
Ashley’s Substack Podcast
Claim This Podcastby Ashley Evans
34 episodes
Updated Daily
Accepts GuestsHas Sponsors
Podcast Overview
Wannabe Wisdom explores the unfiltered creative life: writing, learning, healing, spiraling, rebuilding, and trying-again-anyway. It’s part diary and part creative studio, made to help sensitive, ambitious creatives find their voice, trust their work, and keep going long enough to accidentally impress themselves. <br/><br/><a href="https://wannabewisdom.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast">wannabewisdom.substack.com</a>
Language
🇺🇲
Publishing Since
11/17/2024
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Recent Episodes
July 3, 2026
He Faced Death and Wrote a Book on His Phone
<p>Hi friends,</p><p>You already got Tuesday’s letter, so you know the James story. This is the podcast version. I’m putting it here so you can just press play and listen, dishes-in-the-sink style, if that’s more your speed.</p><p>For now, here’s <a target="_blank" href="https://substack.com/profile/498272056-james-hvr">James (HVR)</a>. The plane, the three phones, the carbon, the billion years. His debut memoir is <a target="_blank" href="https://amzn.to/3SzoyUC">Too Soon et pero Too Late: French Grace. American Collapse. Colombian Care.</a> (You can grab a copy with the link 👆).</p><p><strong>He’d never written anything for himself before last July. Then, inside a single year: a memoir, a Substack, a spot on the Rising in Literature bestseller list more than once.</strong></p><p>The video is me retelling a slice of James’s story and threading it through one of mine from my twenties (you’ve heard parts of it before). It’s the investment-grade diamond company I wrote copy for, and what I learned there about carbon and pressure and what survives.</p><p>Some pressure breaks you. This kind shows you what was already there.</p><p>With love & rebellion,Ashley aka Fake Guru</p><p><strong>Recent reads</strong></p><p>If you missed any of these, grab a tea:</p> <br/><br/>This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://wannabewisdom.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2">wannabewisdom.substack.com/subscribe</a>
June 12, 2026
Why Some Stories Refuse to Stay Quiet
<p>Some stories don’t knock politely. They kick the door open, hijack your phone, and force you to thumb-type a memoir at 30,000 feet while your body battles a virus.</p><p>In this conversation, I sit down with <a target="_blank" href="https://substack.com/profile/498272056-james-hvr">James (HVR)</a> , who writes as Hawtorn V. Rabot, to talk about his debut memoir T<a target="_blank" href="https://amzn.to/3QfXOaU">oo Soon et pero Too Late: French Grace. American Collapse. Colombian Care</a>, a raw, funny, uncomfortable, cinematic book about illness, memory, travel, marriage, fatherhood, longing, and the strangers who sometimes care for us better than the people closest to us.</p><p>We talk about writing before you forget, why labels can become tiny identity prisons, and what happens when the most honest version of your story is also the one you have to keep quiet.</p><p>We also get into Substack, community, masks, authenticity, American collapse (personal and maybe political) and finding connection in unexpected places.</p><p>This one is for writers, memoir-lovers, Substack people, deep-feeling creatives, and anyone who has ever tried to make sense of their life by putting words in order.</p><p>👉 Watch, leave a comment if something lands, and subscribe for more conversations on creativity, writing, self-expression, and the beautifully ridiculous project of becoming a person.</p><p>👉 Buy James’ debut memoir, <a target="_blank" href="https://amzn.to/3QfXOaU"><strong>Too Soon et pero Too Late: French Grace. American Collapse. Colombian Care.</strong></a>With Love & Rebellion, </p><p>Ashley aka Fake Guru ❤️</p><p>Thank you <a target="_blank" href="https://substack.com/profile/76056053-the-in-between">The In Between</a>, <a target="_blank" href="https://substack.com/profile/25550121-becky-hayward">Becky Hayward</a>, <a target="_blank" href="https://substack.com/profile/116644987-lynn-j-broderick">Lynn J. Broderick</a>, <a target="_blank" href="https://substack.com/profile/180488664-kimmy-win-sheher">Kimmy Win she/her 🩷💛💙🏳️🌈</a>, <a target="_blank" href="https://substack.com/profile/440659715-caner-sen">Caner Şen</a>, and many others for tuning into my live video with <a target="_blank" href="https://substack.com/profile/498272056-james-hvr">James (HVR)</a>! Join me for my next live video in the app.</p> <br/><br/>This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://wannabewisdom.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2">wannabewisdom.substack.com/subscribe</a>
May 19, 2026
Before You Build the Big Thing, Regulate the Instrument
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit <a href="https://wannabewisdom.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_7">wannabewisdom.substack.com</a><br/><br/><p>Hello loves.</p><p>How are you?</p><p>No, really.</p><p>How is your heart today? Where is your breath? And what does your mind-body need before you walk back into the big thing you’re trying to bring into the world?</p><p>For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been thinking about heart coherence.</p><p>Which sounds, I know, like something a yoga teacher in flowing linen would say right before offering you tea made from bark. But underneath the wellness language is something helpful for ambitious, creative people trying to bring big things into the world.</p><p><strong>Heart coherence is the state we enter when our breath, heart rhythm, and nervous system begin working together. It’s the practice of helping your heart and brain communicate more clearly.</strong></p><p>Your heart has its own intrinsic nervous system (sometimes called the heart’s “little brain”) and <a target="_blank" href="https://www.heartmath.org/research/science-of-the-heart/heart-brain-communication/">research in neurocardiology</a> shows that the heart and brain are constantly sending signals back and forth. I like to think of the heart like an orchestra conductor, and your muscles, your blood, and your breath are all musicians taking cues.</p><p>Your breath deepens, and your body stops bracing against life. Your heart becomes a doorway instead of a locked vault.</p><p>And if you’re a science nerd, there’s actual physiology underneath this. The heart doesn’t just sit there being poetic and decorative. It releases hormones, sends signals through the nervous system, and communicates constantly with the brain. One of those hormones, atrial natriuretic peptide, or ANP, has been studied for its role in stress and anxiety regulation.</p><p><strong>When we work with the breath and heart rhythm, we’re giving the whole system a clearer signal. </strong><strong>I am safe to expand. I can bring this thing into the world joyfully.</strong></p><p>Recently, I read about a <a target="_blank" href="https://www.heartmath.org/research/research-library/basic/exploring-the-effects-of-shared-heart-focused-intention-in-music-performance/">HeartMath Institute study involving a string quartet. </a>Before performing, the musicians practiced heart-focused breathing together and chose emotional intentions for the pieces they were about to play.</p><p>For Pachelbel, they breathed in beauty and peace.</p><p>For Mozart, joy. </p><p>Afterward, their heart rate variability improved. They felt more focused and connected. And the audience experienced the performance as more engaging, more alive.</p><p>That really hit me.</p><p>Before the music became more connected, the musicians became more connected. They had to practice feeling it in themselves first before they could transmit beauty through their instruments.</p><p><strong>Before you give the presentation, write the post, pitch the idea, launch the project, do the audition, start the Substack, record the podcast, make the recipe, find your voice, or say the scary true thing out loud —</strong></p><p><strong>you may need to regulate the instrument.</strong></p><p><strong>And the instrument is you.</strong></p><p>This matters because so many of us are trying to create, speak, lead, write, perform, love, and live from a contracted state.</p><p>We are trying to do these incredible things while our bodies are asking:</p><p><strong>Am I safe? Will I be judged? Is this any good? Am I too much? Will anyone care? What if I fail in public?</strong></p><p>Expression asks us to open for real, which is hard to do when your nervous system is gripping the steering wheel.</p><p>This is why heart coherence feels so practical to me. It gives the body a way back — not through white-knuckling it, and not through telling yourself to “just calm down,” but through breath, attention, and feeling.</p><p>This week, I made you a 20-minute heart coherence meditation for anxiety. Not because anxiety is something to banish, but because sometimes we need a way back to the part of us that can create, connect, and move forward.</p><p>The part that remembers we are not just here to produce.</p><p>We are here to transmit something true.</p><p>Evolving loudly. </p><p>With love and rebellion, </p><p>Ashley, Wannabe Wisdom ❤️</p><p><strong>About this meditation</strong></p><p>A guided session for moments when anxiety or stress is sitting heavily in the body. You’ll be led through the Spin Technique, progressive relaxation, heart breathing, and an elevator deepening visualization — gently inviting your nervous system into a deeper, more regulated state.</p><p>The Spin Technique was developed by Richard Bandler, co-creator of NLP.</p><p>The original music in this meditation was composed by <a target="_blank" href="https://substack.com/profile/204877585-matt-rivers">Matt Rivers</a> whose work lives at the intersection of sound and soul. You can find his music at <a target="_blank" href="https://mattriversmusic.bandcamp.com/">mattriversmusic.bandcamp.com</a> and his Substack,<a target="_blank" href="https://soulcraftwriting.substack.com/?utm_source=global-search"><strong> Soul Craft Studio</strong></a> — both worth your time.</p><p>Post-production by my husband, <strong>Silver Kim</strong>, who helps regulate my heart everyday, along with our dog, Thor. ❤️</p><p>🎧 Best listened to somewhere safe, quiet, and comfortable. Please do not listen while driving or doing anything that requires your full attention.</p><p>⚠️ This recording supports rest, relaxation, and mental wellbeing — it is not a replacement for professional medical or mental health care.</p><p>Listen to this week’s heart coherence meditation</p><p>✨ <strong>Free subscribers</strong> can listen to the meditation on my YouTube channel <a target="_blank" href="https://youtu.be/PFNzMOvtjJA?si=9saiNWl3F9C8d-iW">Drift & Deepen.</a> Please note: because this is a new channel under 1,000 subscribers, there may be ads I can’t control yet.</p><p>✨ <strong>Paid subscribers</strong> can listen to the <strong>full downloadable, ad-free version</strong> here on Substack — a quieter, uninterrupted experience you can return to anytime.</p><p>Paid subscribers also receive access to the full <strong>Theta Therapy archive</strong>, including previous guided sessions for creativity, stress, abundance, flight anxiety, and feeling enough. And my beginner’s guide, <a target="_blank" href="https://wannabewisdom.substack.com/p/getting-started-on-substack-without?r=i9b97"><strong>How To Get Started On Substack (Without Losing Your Mind).</strong></a></p>
34 total episodes available
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