Episode Details

Barbara Howlin is on the pod, and I completely lost track of time. We cover everything from The NeverEnding Story (which I had somehow never seen) to luck dragons to whether you can Reiki a ghost, with real tears of laughter along the way.

Barbara’s new book, Can It Be That Easy?, is on the way. Sign up at thehowlinghive.org/book for book news and giveaways.

Barbara is an actor, writer, director, producer, Reiki Master, Human Design specialist, and the founder of The Howling Hive. She tells me how she went from Northern Virginia to LA, how chasing a capital P “Purpose” nearly drained the joy out of acting, and how The Artist’s Way opened everything back up. Full disclosure: I took her Artist’s Way class, and I was mad for the first few weeks. Then my life took off. We get into using envy as a compass, why productivity guilt drowns out your intuition, being a screen instead of a sponge, and the lizards, hummingbirds, and one very bold hawk that show up while she writes her morning pages. And yes, the title of her book made me angry the first time I heard it. But I believe it now. My life has gone from creating hardship to an ease and a pace I’m really loving.

In this episode:

• 00:00 Intro
• 02:00 What a luck dragon is, and how I’ve never seen The NeverEnding Story
• 04:20 From Northern Virginia to LA
• 05:45 Capital P Purpose and how The Artist’s Way changed everything
• 10:00 The ant farm theory of your creative path
• 11:53 Artist dates and my toy store era
• 13:10 Play-Doh, flow, and “can it be that easy?”
• 15:00 Envy as a compass (thanks, Brené Brown)
• 17:37 Hot Cakes
• 19:36 Getting weird: tarot, crystals, omnism, and morning pages with the animals
• 22:27 Religious upbringings, Reiki boundaries, and being a screen, not a sponge
• 25:09 How to be a decently happy adult right now
• 28:01 Can It Be That Easy? The book

Find Barbara on Instagram at @thehowlinghive and at thehowlinghive.org. Sign up for her book at thehowlinghive.org/book.

I hope you love this one. Like, subscribe, leave a review, and do all that good stuff. Thank you so much!

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Ilse Will Say is an Intrepida Entertainment podcast, hosted by Ilse Zacharias Rivera. Produced and edited by Jacob Cagle. Music by Eric Backus. Photography by Joel Maisonet.

The views and opinions expressed on Ilse Will Say are entirely those of the host and guests, and do not reflect the views of any employers, sponsors, or innocent bystanders. This podcast is for entertainment purposes only. Nothing said here is professional advice. We're here for the laughs, y'all.