Ashley’s Substack Podcast

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 Together

As 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 Tightens

When 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 Work

In 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 Comparison

In 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 Voice

Mantra 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 Voice

Since 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 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 Silence

So 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 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 Quit

And 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 <3 if you enjoyed this post :)

Evolving loudly. With love + rebellion.—Ashley

Check 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.

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 Coming

A 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 Knows

My 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 Laziness

On 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 Avoiding

When 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.

Unsplash, 2025

I 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 Everything

I’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 Matters

I 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 Grief

I 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?

Alexander Grey, Unsplash, 2018

Last 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 presence

Lately 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 possibility

So 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 essential

And 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?

Credit: Unsplash

I 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 Guru

Footnotes

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 moment

It’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. <3

Ashley

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.com

Question for the comments: what piece of wisdom did you take away from this conversation?

With heart,Ashley

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, Heartwork

This 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 Schaffer

Ulrich 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.

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 kids

The 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.

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