Ashley’s Substack Podcast

“Don’t fall into the trap of the own mind. Like, break free. It’s the harshest confinement of all.” — Emmett

What happens when surviving prison requires you to harden yourself, but healing requires you to do the opposite?

At 22, Emmett Tatter was sentenced to ten years in the Florida prison system. He served eight and a half. In this episode of Wannabe Wisdom, we talk about his memoir COUNT TIME, what happened during those years, and how yoga changed his relationship with his own mind.

We talk about an officer who put a contract on his life, the tiny ant that gave him hope during confinement, and discovering books and yoga behind bars. Emmett describes how frightening it was to begin feeling again when becoming desensitized had helped him survive.

He started practicing yoga to get stronger. But the practice began opening up parts of himself he’d kept locked away. Eventually, he brought other incarcerated men into it, including a moment he describes when a room full of men moved into Warrior II together.

We also explore PTSD after prison, accountability, asking for help, and a question I kept coming back to while reading his book: do we actually give people a chance to change? What do we hope happens to someone in prison, and who are we willing to let them become when they come out?

This conversation holds some very difficult things, and a lot of hope. I’m so glad to share it with you.

With love and rebellion, ❤️

Ashley

👉 Find Emmett Tatter Substack and learn more about his prison memoir, COUNT TIME.

👉 Subscribe to Wannabe Wisdom for conversations about creativity, consciousness, and what it means to be human.

Wannabe Wisdom is also on YouTube👇 Please subscribe.

Working on something?

A book? An essay? Some project you keep meaning to get back to?

Twice a month, I’m opening a Co-Work room for paid subscribers.

We’ll say hello, share what we’re working on if we want, and then work for an hour. That’s it.

I’m calling it collective solitude. Because sometimes it’s easier to do the work when other people are doing theirs beside you.

We start Friday, October 30th at 8 a.m. PT / 11 a.m. ET.

Hi %%first_name%%,

It’s a wild time to be alive, isn’t it? I find myself saying that more and more these days.

As an elder millennial, I haven’t completely come to terms with the fact that we’re living in the science-fiction movies I grew up watching. Artificial intelligence was once a fun futuristic idea, and now it’s a tool we use.

My dream as a child was to have an AI ice cream detector that could detect the closest ice cream cone and pull it to me immediately. Peanut butter chocolate, ideally. And it would know that without being asked. 😁

As far as I know, AI can’t do that yet.

What AI can do is potentially make us faster, more productive, and maybe even better at what we do.

But what happens when we start outsourcing the very skills that make our work, and our thinking, our own?

I sat down with Dr Sam Illingworth, professor, poet, scientist, and author of Slow AI: Knowing When to Use AI and When to Leave It Alone, to talk about how writers, creators, and professionals can use AI without surrendering their critical thinking, creativity, or voice.

We get into the skills we may be losing, how Sam uses it as sparring partner instead, and one line Sam left us with:

“AI has no reputation to lose, but you do.”

We also talk about something I think is especially relevant to anyone on the journey toward fuller self-expression: every creator has to take personal responsibility for their own work.

AI will never know what’s true for you. Part of the creative journey is learning how to articulate that truth with your own heart, soul, and mind.

Sam describes this distinction through poetry and creative work: the machine can produce its version of the truth, but the creator has to know when the work actually says what they mean.

Have a listen, and let me know what you think in the comments. I’m especially curious: where do you draw the line between using AI as a tool and outsourcing your own thinking?

👉 You can also find Sam’s book, Slow AI: Knowing When to Use AI and When to Leave It Alone, here and learn more about his work on his website.

With Love and Rebellion,💛

Ashley

Wannabe Wisdom is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Thank you Lynn J. Broderick, Edward Sierpowski, Cory Blumenfeld, Ahmedina and many others for tuning into my live video with Dr Sam Illingworth! Join me for my next live video in the app.

Hi %%first_name%%,

I swear I’m not a Substack how-to expert! But yes, this is my second instructional video in two weeks. Enough of you asked how to change your email on Substack that I went looking. And this is not intuitive at all. 👀

I looked where any rational human being would look: your dashboard, your analytics, settings, settings inside the settings. Nope.

Then I tried the profile. And spoiler alert: it’s not there either.

And then I found it behind the third door…the least intuitive place you could possibly look. 👇

That’s what this video is for. It literally takes nine seconds.

Support Wannabe Wisdom by becoming a free or paid subscriber. And paid subscribers: something exciting is coming next week. 👀

If you’re new here, you might think I’m a Substack tutorial channel. No. It’s only a fraction of what I offer here.

I’m not especially techy, but I’ve accepted that as a creator, a business owner, or a professional trying to build an online presence, I must constantly be learning new technologies. It just comes with the territory. (I also love making videos.)

And part of what I do is put out little videos like this one so you can stay free to create, write, and build without getting derailed by the technical stuff.

But mostly, I write essays about creativity, ambition, and the strange work of becoming (on the page).✨

Whether you’re building a writing practice, a public-facing business, or simply trying to share your work without letting your inner saboteurs (hello impostor syndrome, procrastination, perfectionism, paralysis 👋) run the show, I’m interested in helping you come into fuller expression on the page.

So, tell me in the comments: what are you currently pulling your hair out over on Substack?

With Love & Rebellion, 💛 Ashley

✨ Announcements & Reminders

Dr Sam Illingworth describes his whole practice in one sentence: knowing when to use AI, and when to leave it the hell alone.

He was an atmospheric physicist. He’s a poet. He’s now Professor of Critical AI Literacy and he teaches it every week on Substack.

His book Slow AI doesn’t pick a side. It shows you where these tools are genuinely brilliant, where they cost you more than they save, and how to tell the difference while it’s happening.

Join us Friday, September 11th at 2pm Pacific (10pm UK) to talk about his bestselling book, Slow AI: Knowing When to Use AI and When to Leave It Alone. Link to the Live here. ✨

Meet Sam before our live conversation on Friday.

👉 October’s stacking up too. Emmett Tatter and Jenny Bartoy are both joining me next. Read about them and get the dates here 👇

✨ Wannabe Wisdom Diaries on YouTube

If you liked today’s video, check out my YouTube channel, Wannabe Wisdom Diaries. This little channel is growing.

✨ Want to go a little deeper?

You can also find Drift & Deepen, my meditation and hypnotherapy YouTube channel, (yes, I have two YouTube channels! 😆), where I share guided visualizations for stress, anxiety, and working through your creative and personal blocks like imposter syndrome, procrastination and perfectionism.

If you want somewhere to start, check out this guided meditation for anxiety and stress relief.

💌 Work with me

I’m currently working with clients one-on-one. If that interests you, DM me to learn more. Paid subscribers receive special pricing.

Other reads you might like:

Hi %%first_name%%,

I have 5,500 followers on Substack.

Nearly half of them have never received an email from me.

Half of you are thinking, “Duh!” And the other half of you are thinking, “What? Why?”

Understanding the nuances of Substack’s audiences can feel annoyingly confusing when you’re starting out. But even if you’ve been here for eons, you might not be thinking about non-followers, followers, and subscribers in a way that helps you see your newsletter’s larger Universe.

Substack is basically two platforms wearing one trench coat.

For the noobs: a follower follows you on Notes. A subscriber has given you their email address and they receive your newsletter in their email inbox.

These are different communities. Yes, they overlap. But if you’re trying to nurture your newsletter, it helps to know how to think about these groups before you spend three hours writing a Note.

5,500 followers ≠ 5,500 people on your email list.

People who follow you see the notes and links that you post in the Substack feed. People who subscribe to you receive your email newsletter in their email inboxes, and can ALSO see your content in the feed.

BUT that’s only if the algorithm is feeling generous (and puts your content in front of them). You can’t control that. 🙅‍♀️

In this video, I teach you:

* the difference between the two groups and ‘platforms’

* how followers and subscribers each play a role in your growth

* where to find both of your numbers (frustratingly, it’s not where your analytics are 👀)

* how to see whether a Note reached non-followers, followers, or subscribers (also, not where your analytics are 👀)

Substack is really two platforms in one: an email newsletter and a social feed where people post Notes.

The better you understand who you’re speaking to in each place, the easier it gets to plan your content and decide what to publish where.

With love & rebellion, 💛✨

Ashley

👉 P.S. I have something new coming for paid subscribers. I’ll announce it in the next newsletter!

If you upgrade before then, you’ll also get my How to Get Started on Substack (Without Losing Your Mind) guide, my hypnotherapy recordings ad-free (fall asleep without being sold car insurance), and resources that help you discover Your Why and How to Use AI to Audit Your Substack.

Plus the new thing. Mysterious! ✨✨

I’m not a Substack guru. I call myself a fake guru because I’m suspicious of anyone who appears to have solved the internet. I write about creativity, ambition, and the strange work of ‘becoming’ (on the page). I also help creators and businesses get started on Substack and get more comfortable being seen. 👀’

✨ Congrats Dr Sam Illingworth on being featured in Wired! 👏🔥

Perfect timing, because I’m going live with Sam on Friday, September 11th at 2pm Pacific (10pm UK) to talk about his bestselling book, Slow AI: Knowing When to Use AI and When to Leave It Alone. Link here. ✨

Meet Sam before our live conversation on Friday.

✨ Wannabe Wisdom Diaries on YouTube

If you liked today’s video, check out my YouTube channel, Wannabe Wisdom Diaries. This little channel is growing.

✨ Want to go a little deeper?

You can also find Drift & Deepen, my meditation and hypnotherapy YouTube channel, (yes, I have two YouTube channels! 😆), where I share guided visualizations for stress, anxiety, and working through your creative and personal blocks like imposter syndrome, procrastination and perfectionism.

If you want somewhere to start, check out this guided meditation for anxiety and stress relief.

💌 Work with me

I’m currently working with clients one-on-one. If that interests you, DM me to learn more. Paid subscribers receive special pricing.

Other reads you might like:

✨ This is a special post for Paid subscribers. Your subscription includes full access to all hypnotherapy and guided visualizations, ad-free, in both downloadable video and audio format.

👉 Access the archive in ✦ Member Library

This is a special post for my Paid subscribers. Huge thank you to for supporting my work. 🙏 Part of your subscription includes full access to all my hypnotherapy and guided visualizations. On Substack, you get them ad-free, in both downloadable video and audio format.

Access ✦ Member Library

👉 Scroll down to “Listen: Theta Work (Audio)”

Hi friends,

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.

For now, here’s James (HVR). The plane, the three phones, the carbon, the billion years. His debut memoir is Too Soon et pero Too Late: French Grace. American Collapse. Colombian Care. (You can grab a copy with the link 👆).

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.

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.

Some pressure breaks you. This kind shows you what was already there.

With love & rebellion,Ashley aka Fake Guru

Recent reads

If you missed any of these, grab a tea:

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.

In this conversation, I sit down with James (HVR) , who writes as Hawtorn V. Rabot, to talk about his debut memoir Too Soon et pero Too Late: French Grace. American Collapse. Colombian Care, 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.

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.

We also get into Substack, community, masks, authenticity, American collapse (personal and maybe political) and finding connection in unexpected places.

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.

👉 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.

👉 Buy James’ debut memoir, Too Soon et pero Too Late: French Grace. American Collapse. Colombian Care.With Love & Rebellion,

Ashley aka Fake Guru ❤️

Thank you The In Between, Becky Hayward, Lynn J. Broderick, Kimmy Win she/her 🩷💛💙🏳️‍🌈, Caner Şen, and many others for tuning into my live video with James (HVR)! Join me for my next live video in the app.

Hello loves.

How are you?

No, really.

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?

For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been thinking about heart coherence.

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.

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.

Your heart has its own intrinsic nervous system (sometimes called the heart’s “little brain”) and research in neurocardiology 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.

Your breath deepens, and your body stops bracing against life. Your heart becomes a doorway instead of a locked vault.

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.

When we work with the breath and heart rhythm, we’re giving the whole system a clearer signal. I am safe to expand. I can bring this thing into the world joyfully.

Recently, I read about a HeartMath Institute study involving a string quartet. Before performing, the musicians practiced heart-focused breathing together and chose emotional intentions for the pieces they were about to play.

For Pachelbel, they breathed in beauty and peace.

For Mozart, joy.

Afterward, their heart rate variability improved. They felt more focused and connected. And the audience experienced the performance as more engaging, more alive.

That really hit me.

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.

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 —

you may need to regulate the instrument.

And the instrument is you.

This matters because so many of us are trying to create, speak, lead, write, perform, love, and live from a contracted state.

We are trying to do these incredible things while our bodies are asking:

Am I safe? Will I be judged? Is this any good? Am I too much? Will anyone care? What if I fail in public?

Expression asks us to open for real, which is hard to do when your nervous system is gripping the steering wheel.

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.

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.

The part that remembers we are not just here to produce.

We are here to transmit something true.

Evolving loudly.

With love and rebellion,

Ashley, Wannabe Wisdom ❤️

About this meditation

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.

The Spin Technique was developed by Richard Bandler, co-creator of NLP.

The original music in this meditation was composed by Matt Rivers whose work lives at the intersection of sound and soul. You can find his music at mattriversmusic.bandcamp.com and his Substack, Soul Craft Studio — both worth your time.

Post-production by my husband, Silver Kim, who helps regulate my heart everyday, along with our dog, Thor. ❤️

🎧 Best listened to somewhere safe, quiet, and comfortable. Please do not listen while driving or doing anything that requires your full attention.

⚠️ This recording supports rest, relaxation, and mental wellbeing — it is not a replacement for professional medical or mental health care.

Listen to this week’s heart coherence meditation

✨ Free subscribers can listen to the meditation on my YouTube channel Drift & Deepen. Please note: because this is a new channel under 1,000 subscribers, there may be ads I can’t control yet.

✨ Paid subscribers can listen to the full downloadable, ad-free version here on Substack — a quieter, uninterrupted experience you can return to anytime.

Paid subscribers also receive access to the full Theta Therapy archive, including previous guided sessions for creativity, stress, abundance, flight anxiety, and feeling enough. And my beginner’s guide, How To Get Started On Substack (Without Losing Your Mind).

Also in the Theta Therapy archive:

* Theta Therapy #1: From Invisible to Invincible (Freedom + Stillness)

* Theta Therapy #2: Journey to Your Creative Depths (Trusting the Darkness)

* Theta Therapy #3: Guided Visualization for Creative Expression

* Theta Therapy #4 Calm Flight Anxiety

* Theta Therapy #5 Release The Stress

* Theta Therapy #6 Guided Hypnosis for Abundance & Feeling Enough

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