Anyone Else Tired of New Age Self-Help Wisdom That Doesn’t Help?
Is anyone else quietly screaming into their chai over the state of self-help on Instagram? The five-word mantras floating on pastel backgrounds, the “3 Ways to Heal Your Nervous System” lists, the lowercase wisdom paired with a sunrise. The soft, soothing voices assuring you that everything you need is already inside you?
I’m allergic to the whole culture of shortcut wisdom and tea bag spirituality. You know the type. Those tiny quotes printed on Yogi tea tags. (Maybe that’s where New Age shallowness really began — those little slips of “wisdom,” read by well-meaning white people in Kundalini circles and redistributed as profound insight. Just a thought.)
I’m tired of the endless parade of “helpful” content. Whether it's meant to inspire, market, or "heal". There’s obviously a five-word self-help mantra for every crisis. And there are plenty of crises, which makes for excellent content.
This, of course, brings us to the bizarre reality we find ourselves in. A time when someone in a 6-month relationship calls themselves a “tantra sex and relationship coach", when someone fresh out of a yoga teacher training offers “trauma-informed somatic therapy,” and when everyone suddenly has a podcast, analyzing their own life like it’s the sacred text everyone’s been waiting for. Apparently, telling someone to “breathe deeply” and “let it go” in a weekend course now qualifies you to rebrand as a “breathwork coach” who’ll lead others through life-altering transformations. And the collective answer to any mental health struggle — from mild anxiety to full-blown existential crises — always seems to be: “Have you tried yoga?”
Let me reflect on something…
No one raised in a system that teaches you, from the moment you're conscious, that you're not enough — unless you’re white, male, straight, able-bodied, thin, and wealthy — suddenly reprograms that belief because of a pastel Canva quote whispering “You are enough.” No one who’s been told their body is a problem, their skin tone is “ugly,” their hair is “bad hair,” their name is “hard to pronounce,” or their love is “not natural,” wakes up healed because a reel said “You are worthy.” No refugee escaping war has been comforted by “raise your vibration.” No Black woman navigating racism and sexism in the workplace reclaims her dignity because someone on Instagram told her to “clear your throat chakra.” No teenager crushed under the weight of homophobic bullying has found safety through a softly lit video about “manifesting love.” No abused woman hiding her bruises under makeup finds safety, justice, or a way out because a caption told her to “choose light.” No one spiraling into darkness at 3 a.m. is pulled back from the edge by a barefoot woman in Bali whispering about “goddess energy.”
These things don’t dismantle oppression. They don’t heal trauma. They don’t rewrite inherited shame, systemic violence, or generational grief. They don’t hold you when the silence is deafening. They don’t feed you when you’re choosing between rent and groceries. They don’t sit next to you in the unbearable loneliness. What they do is decorate the wound. They cover it in learned “spiritual” jargon and hashtags. They are aesthetic band-aids on open wounds. And most of the time, they bleed right through.
What’s worse: we’ve started to mistake these breadcrumbs for the whole loaf.
The shallow language of New Age spirituality is a fascinating mirror of the shallow language of populist politics. Both rely on oversimplification. Both hijack complicated, painful realities and wrap them in emotionally charged soundbites designed for easy consumption — and easy minds. It’s the same manipulative strategy: reduce complexity to a three-word headline, with nothing behind it. It remains an empty shell. One crowd promises salvation through nationalism — and these days, fascism. The other through quick-fix spirituality — and these days, breath work. Different aesthetics. Same mass appeal. Both appeal to emotion, not to an understanding of the complexity of being human in this world. Both assume you won’t read or think beyond the first line — because, frankly, most people don’t.
We live in a time where genuine wisdom and careful study are replaced by unverified nonsense that goes viral, boosted by people who believe “research” means watching a TikTok video and trusting their gut. And in this digital carnival, spirituality — or better yet, spiritual shallowness — booms.
Back when I taught yoga, I lost count of how many people came expecting quick-fix wellness. They wanted healing in two sessions. Or at least for their lower back pain to disappear in 20 minutes. And then there were those who read a few books on yoga philosophy and talked about it as if they’d downloaded the secret codes of the universe.
The same applies to the work of decolonization. People think that reading a book or two is all it takes — and suddenly they’ve unlocked the master key to dismantling patriarchy, neocolonialism, white supremacy, capitalism, and every other system of oppression holding us hostage. Or, even better, they expect the solution to be packaged as a checklist. A to-do list.
We’re drowning in a culture of instant gratification, where quick-fix solutions are marketed as healing and spiritual transformation. Everything is optimized for short-term consumption and branded for performance. Even your pain.
It’s not just the New Age spiritual content that bores me — it’s the people. The endless loop of self as product. The relentless show. The urge to monetize and brand every experience, every thought, and every cloud that vaguely resembled a “message from the universe.” There’s an underlying current of desperation humming through it all. Not to say something true, but to be seen saying something. And it shows.
Everyone's broadcasting, few are listening. Everyone’s performing insight, but rarely sitting in the discomfort it demands. We’ve mistaken vulnerability for a marketing strategy and reflection for content. And we’ve started to believe that documenting a moment is the same as having lived it.
Social media isn’t boring in itself. We (the spiritual crowd) are boring. Our collective flattening — into content creators, brand ambassadors of our own personalities and lives — and our boring attempt to present ourselves in perfection, or even imperfection, through a perfect lens, has turned every scroll into a museum of mediocrity. Our collective shallowness craves quick fixes, easy solutions, and the fast lane to happiness — without ever touching the roots of our collective unhappiness.
We need a revolution. A big one. Not just of the algorithm, but of the culture itself. A reckoning with the shallowness of the performance and the values beneath it. A recognition that we can’t build real community through clickbait spirituality or optimize our way to meaning. We need to stop treating social media like a spiritual platform when it’s built, fundamentally, as a marketplace. And one that makes rich white men in tech richer and certain kind of people hypervisible.
We need to reimagine the world of social media. Reimagine how we connect, share, and show up from a more conscious place. It’s time to outgrow the baby shoes and spiritual kindergarten vibes. Time to act like grown adults — not treating these platforms as stages for self-obsession and validation of worthiness, but as tools where the seeds of real change and transformation might actually take root.
If this resonated with you, moved you, or made you pause and reflect – consider this your cue. I’ve set up a virtual tip jar via Buy Me a Coffee. No monthly commitments, no strings, no memberships required.
Your sweet kindness helps keep the thoughts flowing, the energy exchange intact, and the glow of my inner goddess alive. It won’t fix capitalism, but it might buy me five minutes of joy (or at least a cortado).
Gracias. Thank you. Jërëjëf. Merci. Obrigada. Danke. Arigatō. Medaase. Grazie. Hvala. Tack. Asante. Shukran. Teşekkürler. Dziękuję.
