What Toxic Spirituality Sounds Like
By ‘manifesting’ your dreams, are you completely ignoring privilege?
Before I left my corporate career to study psychotherapy, I was a self-help devotee. I devoured every book, took every course, and attended every conference I could find on how to “manifest my dreams.” And each time, I walked away with a new rush of optimism, confident that I was now closer than ever to attaining the life I wanted.
Eventually, though, it became harder for me to ignore my own discomfort with a corner of this world, one that was becoming more and more prevalent: the conflation of self-improvement with a toxic brand of spirituality.
We seem to be in a new age of spirituality, with an explosion of influencers, celebrity life coaches, authors, athletes, and even psychologists offering up neatly packaged tools from their own “awakenings.” This Instagram-friendly version of spirituality frames it as something to tap into with an assortment of affirmations, meditation, yoga, and introspection. It’s always positioned as a solo endeavor — with the implication, never explicitly stated but baked right into the premise — that anyone who fails just isn’t trying hard enough.
I’m calling bullshit.
