Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] How healing slowly turned into hustle culture.
[00:00:06] Healing culture didn't start this way.
[00:00:09] It began as a response to trauma, to pain, to neglect.
[00:00:15] Offering language, offering tools, offering practices, offering compassion where there had been silence.
[00:00:25] But over time, it drifted, not accidentally, but structurally.
[00:00:32] And healing culture was not supposed to feel like this.
[00:00:35] It was meant to offer relief, pause, repair and reconnection with self and reconnection with people around.
[00:00:46] It was meant to help people come home to themselves.
[00:00:52] And yet, what many of us therapists can see, what I can see in my office working with clients, many people now feel tired from healing, exhausted by insights, overwhelmed by self work, confused about why so much awareness has not translated into healing and rest.
[00:01:20] So this episode is examination of how healing culture shifted from a place of care into a place of pressure, from repair into performance, and from tending life into chasing transformation.
[00:01:41] The big buzzword here is that you will be transformed. M And this is not critique of healing itself. It is a critique of what healing has begun to mirror and what many of us who are holding the space of healing can see with our clients and can see in the healing spaces. I am Anna Mael. This is exiled and rising.
[00:02:10] Let's begin. So how come a healing became, uh, another project, another thing to achieve? Healing culture didn't become exhausting overnight. It absorbed the logic of the culture it lives inside.
[00:02:27] And we live in a world shaped by productivity optimization, AI, social media, visibility.
[00:02:37] And over time, healing began to follow the same rules.
[00:02:43] And to be more precise, healing is a multi billion dollar industry.
[00:02:49] And it's uh, just another field where many venture capitalists enter into and use productivity optimization, visibility, the same patterns they were using in other industries.
[00:03:04] And now healing became something you do, not something you inhabit.
[00:03:10] And that's the main problem we are seeing now.
[00:03:14] Because healing gained milestones, stages, certifications, rewards, where you need to level up as you are in the game, progress markers, visible breakthroughs.
[00:03:33] And those breakthroughs, they need to be recorded, they need to be filmed, they need to be as you are performing in some Hollywood movie.
[00:03:44] And suddenly with healing, we start with first awakenings, first somatic releases, first realizations, first healed identities.
[00:03:58] And we became, uh, a culture in the healing spaces of chasing the firsts. And healing became very measurable, it almost turned into finance world.
[00:04:13] And when something becomes measurable, it becomes comparable.
[00:04:18] And that's not healing anymore. And that's why many people are exhausted by healing.
[00:04:28] And I really hope that this episode, all of us who are in a, uh, healing industry, who are holding the space for clients, become more and more Aware and to start to advocate that healing culture, what we see nowadays is not a healing culture. It is not another chase.
[00:04:50] Because healing for your clients will not happen.
[00:04:54] And we are not doing the justice for our clients if you're not bringing awareness into the space.
[00:05:01] And one of the most telling trends in healing culture is the obsession with first.
[00:05:08] As I said, first breakthrough, first trauma release, first time feeling regulated, first time setting a boundary, first time being myself.
[00:05:22] First feels alive and it's needed.
[00:05:26] And clients, they start to feel meaningful and they feel like movement.
[00:05:32] And when healing becomes a constant chase of thirst, something very important gets lost.
[00:05:42] There is no space for staying.
[00:05:45] There is no space for digesting.
[00:05:49] There is no space for integrating, for honoring what already happened.
[00:05:55] And your nervous system is not able to develop regulated new neural pathways.
[00:06:05] And life becomes a sequence of beginnings with no middle and no end.
[00:06:13] And your nervous system never gets to arrive.
[00:06:17] So it's okay to have a first, but what's missing is to allow your soma, your nervous system to integrate that first.
[00:06:30] So time is missing because of this new healing culture of chase.
[00:06:37] And what happens then? Healing starts to feel like failure.
[00:06:42] People start to feel like they're failing their own healing after thousands and thousands of dollars spent.
[00:06:50] So subtle messages take hold.
[00:06:53] If you're still tired, you have not healed enough.
[00:06:58] If you're still unsure you missed something.
[00:07:03] If you're not transformed after a promised weekend, you need another modality.
[00:07:11] And how is this okay for people who are healing?
[00:07:15] What kind of messages are sent through the platforms because this became just another business.
[00:07:24] But there is a moral care about people who need healing and who are desperate to heal.
[00:07:33] So healing becomes never enough.
[00:07:37] Rest feels suspicious.
[00:07:39] Rest, uh, feels for clients as they are resigning.
[00:07:44] And then shame comes over.
[00:07:48] Completion of something feels like stagnation.
[00:07:52] And now we can see so many people are running through one workshop, through another workshop, from one course to another course, to one retreat to another retreat.
[00:08:04] And this is a big business now.
[00:08:07] So please ask yourself, who is feeding that chase?
[00:08:12] Who is that? You will be transformed after this big breakthrough.
[00:08:19] Because if slowing down feels like avoidance and you're something missing, that's not healing. And this is not care.
[00:08:29] This is optimization.
[00:08:31] Another business transferred into healing space disguised as healing and the somatic cost. As you know, I'm somatic experiencing therapist for PTSD and trauma recovery. I run Somatic trauma recovery center.
[00:08:49] So from a nervous system perspective, achievement based healing keeps the body in a state of anticipation, self monitoring, comparing vigilance, performance, how is that different from the place or the Relationship, what caused you a burnout, trauma, anxiety, um, and panic attacks. There is no difference.
[00:09:25] There is no difference.
[00:09:28] We basically build another setup where you will fail.
[00:09:35] And this is the same setup you want to heal from.
[00:09:40] Because this quote of quote healing space now will keep your trauma at the same place and you will not be healed if you again need to compare, need to be vigilant, you need to perform, you need to override your biology and time to pause, rest and integrate where your trauma will be more embodied and not transformed.
[00:10:10] Because your body is constantly orienting to what's next.
[00:10:14] What am I missing? What should I work on now?
[00:10:18] And these are no signals for your nervous system to rest, to complete. And without completion, there is no safety.
[00:10:29] And without safety, healing cannot be gone.
[00:10:34] And this is why so many people feel dysregulated despite years of work.
[00:10:41] And what healing culture now often misses is the difference between movement and integration.
[00:10:51] And movement looks like movement is very good, but not only movement.
[00:10:57] Movement looks like insight, change, action, expansion, integration looks like digesting, staying, repetition, anchoring, depth, embodiment.
[00:11:19] Integration is slower, it's quieter, it's less visible.
[00:11:26] And it's a place of healing.
[00:11:30] And because it doesn't look impressive, there is nothing to share with this. Um, on social media it is undervalued because it's not visible from the outside, but from the inside.
[00:11:47] The deepest work is done on your cellular level where healing begins and integration is where healing becomes real movement only movement without integration for your nervous system looks like pretense.
[00:12:10] Movement with integration is presence and without integration, movement is not healing.
[00:12:22] And healing then remains conceptual. And if you're a person who already is conditioned to override yourself to keep going. If you're a high achiever personality, if you're someone who is always over responsible, proof, progress, data oriented, fact oriented healing culture often reinforces that the same pattern, but under a kinder name.
[00:12:58] And healing will not happen under these circumstances.
[00:13:05] So what a different orientation to healing could look like and needs to look like.
[00:13:14] A different orientation to healing would ask different questions, not what's the next thing to fix?
[00:13:24] How many episodes of podcasts I can listen on a high speed on my 25 minutes walk?
[00:13:32] What stage am I in?
[00:13:35] What another retreat or workshop? I can again spend my money and again feel as something is off or how do I become better and self inquiry is what has already happened that needs standing.
[00:13:54] I will be fine if I stay with this and my body will know when to move to next, what wants to stay, not change.
[00:14:10] Where am I already Complete.
[00:14:13] Can I honor what I just absorbed? Can I integrate my own insight?
[00:14:21] So healing would include your last times, all what already happened, all what you already learned, all the therapy hours you already had, not just first and next times.
[00:14:38] Your healing would include your endings, not just new beginnings.
[00:14:43] Your healing would include depth, not just growth, which becomes only on the surface level. That's how I am slowing down.
[00:14:53] This is now the space of healing.
[00:14:56] It has a depth, it doesn't have a chase.
[00:15:00] And this is not a rejection of healing, this is not anti healing, it is a critique of what healing culture they are living in now.
[00:15:16] And as a therapist I can say we are not doing the justice for people who are in pain.
[00:15:23] And we need to move from achievements to presence in a healing spaces. We need to teach our clients audience, we need to move from accumulating therapy sessions, podcast episodes, courses, workshops, retreats, to integration.
[00:15:44] And we need to walk our talks, we need to become to being.
[00:15:51] And healing doesn't have to exhaust the nervous system to be real and cause any shame and sense that we are now failing our own healing or that we need to compare ourselves with others with their enlightenment, with their achievements, with their breakthroughs. And this is very important in spiritual communities where there is so much spiritual bypassing now and performance based culture and so much shame is building in people who turn their healing into spiritual spaces where now they feel as they are not enlightened enough, not spiritual enough after all this effort and hours on meditations and so many plant medicine retreats.
[00:16:49] So this is not anti healing, it is a rejection of healing as another performance, as another chase and invite and reminder.
[00:17:03] True spiritual leaders and healers, they know healing is quiet, it's slow and it's sufficient and need safety.
[00:17:17] And we need in a healing to go slow, to heal fast.
[00:17:26] And if we are chasing uh, our healing, we will never heal.
[00:17:33] And as I close this today, if you're tired of healing, it doesn't mean you have failed.
[00:17:46] It may mean you have reached saturation and you have become a part of nowadays healing culture which is not healthy.
[00:17:58] It may mean your body is asking to stay with what has already been lived, what has already been listened, what has already been experienced, rather than chase another version of yourself.
[00:18:20] More therapy sessions, more workshops.
[00:18:25] Healing is not meant to feel endless.
[00:18:32] And the most honest healing question for you is not what's next but can I let this be enough for my body in this moment?
[00:18:54] Can I let this be enough for my soul in this moment?
[00:19:05] Can I let this be enough for my mind in this moment.
[00:19:23] I am Anna Mael.
[00:19:25] This is excellent Rising.
[00:19:30] Please Share Support Donate this podcast runs without any ads and background music so we can have a clean holding space.
[00:19:44] Please check all the links in the show notes and until next time, be gentle with yourself. Uh, and take your listening slowly.
[00:20:00] Much care.
[00:20:02] Much care.
