Katie Rubin’s history, at its most basic, is a lot of numbers: 20 years in therapy, completion of a five-year energy-healing school, going through the 12-step program, and 14 years sober. Add it all up and you get a woman who channels her experiences into the comedy that she loves, finding a way to relay her wisdom to her audience along the way.

 On Friday at 8 p.m. at The Dairy Center, Katie Rubin will bring her comedy show “Something Different” to Boulder to spread laughter and share the knowledge she’s garnered from her own spiritual journey.

Rubin’s gravitation toward spiritual healing began when she was a kid and escalated as life challenged her.

“I’ve always been cosmologically aware and curious,” she said. “I’ve always been on a personal growth path. I was a weird kid. I was reading self-help books when I was nine. Literally.”

When she graduated college and got sober, things changed.

“That’s when the pain I was in, both emotionally and physically, was so acute and I had nothing to numb my pain with anymore. And it became apparent that I was gonna need to take this spiritual path seriously. It was always an interest of mine but it became a requirement.”

Thus began Rubin’s journey through the 12-step program, therapy, and studies at the University of Spiritual Healing and Sufism. Her current studies revolve around “Access Consciousness,” a program aiming to teach people how to be aware of who they are.

With her increasing spiritual awareness in mind, Rubin began her stage-centered career touring original solo theater pieces featuring ten to fifteen characters, all played by her. After four such shows, Rubin changed her path.

“I sort of backed my way into stand-up comedy and over the last five years have been touring as a stand up comedian,” she said.

Her history in the theater business fast-tracked her to comedy success. “Usually people start by doing a few minutes here at one club and a few minutes there. And eventually you’re a regular at a club and you get more time and you can headline places. It takes a long time.  My first stand-up show was an hour instead of three minutes and I just started doing it in the places I had done theater.”

During her shows, Rubin presents what she calls a “tool” to the audience, geared toward helping them grow, and then the humor makes up the bulk of the show.

“I’ll say, for example, you can ask the universe, ‘What’s right about me that I’m not getting?’ And it’ll help you get away from judgment. And then I’ll tell five jokes to make that point.”

All of her comedy shows have incorporated elements of spiritual teaching alongside humor, but “Something Different” tackles the idea of teaching tools more head-on.

“This show is a little more overtly teaching tools,” she said. “I’m literally saying, “Here’s a thing you can use in your life.”

These things she teaches evolve with her experiences and before every show, she changes the material based on where she is in her life.

“I sit down with the material and I tweak it based on A, the town I’m gonna be in, B, what I’ve been learning or focusing on that week, and C, what I feel like talking about. I’ll teach different tools at different shows based on what my life is teaching me at that moment.”

In terms of what people should expect from “Something Different,” Rubin said, “They’ll do a lot of laughing and they will possibly come away feeling more empowered, awake and alive than they did before they went in.”

See Rubin’s show at The Dairy Center on Friday, March 6 at 8 p.m. Student tickets are $15.

Contact CU Independent Staff Writer Maggie Wagner at magdalen.wagner@colorado.edu