Episode 19

August 05, 2025

00:11:32

Why Self-Care INDUSTRY Is Now a THREAT to Democracy and Your Freedom. Breathe. Meditate. Obey.

Why Self-Care INDUSTRY Is Now a THREAT to Democracy and Your Freedom. Breathe. Meditate. Obey.
Exiled & Rising: Trauma Recovery & Somatic Healing
Why Self-Care INDUSTRY Is Now a THREAT to Democracy and Your Freedom. Breathe. Meditate. Obey.

Aug 05 2025 | 00:11:32

/

Show Notes

Ana Mael’s piece is a fierce, urgent call to consciousness, exposing how the wellness industry, spiritual bypassing, and self-care culture are being co-opted to depoliticize, numb, and pacify people in the face of rising authoritarianism, fascism, and societal collapse.

Self-care without critical thinking is not healing — it’s complicity.


Key Takeaways from Ana’s Teaching:

1. Wellness and Spiritual Bypassing Are Political Tools

  • Ana warns that spiritual practices like meditation, journaling, and breathwork are being weaponized by neoliberal and autocratic systems.

  • These tools, once created for healing and awareness, are now sold as a way to stay silent and disengaged from public life.

“They want you to watch your breath, not your government.”


2. The Wellness Industry Is Creating a Numb Society

  • Ana makes the case that the self-care industry is now one of the greatest threats to collective resistance.

  • Why? Because it sells personal peace without public responsibility.

  • Apathy, obedience, and over-focus on internal regulation are leaving societies defenseless against tyranny.


3. Fascism Doesn’t Start with Violence — It Starts with Disinterest

“Fascism doesn’t begin with guns. It begins with emotional numbness, obedience, and apathy.”

  • This is one of Ana’s most urgent warnings. Disconnection and numbness are the soil in which fascism grows.

  • Thinking citizens are the only real barrier to authoritarian regimes. Silence is permission.


4. False Enlightenment Is Being Sold to the Privileged

  • Ana criticizes retreat centers and “spiritual influencers” who cater to wealthy individuals seeking calm while ignoring genocide, state violence, or human rights abuse.

“You're working on your self-delusion and self-denial, which will kill you and your kids and your country.”


5. Your Nervous System Is Political

  • She reframes trauma healing: you cannot reclaim your nervous system if you abandon your moral compass.

  • True healing is not just about safety and stillness, but also about clarity, action, and resistance.

  • Ana believes that “moral clarity is a somatic capacity” — and spiritual bypassing erases that.


 Pull Quotes for Social Media or Promo Graphics:

  • “Self-care is not liberation if it keeps you obedient.”

  • “They want you calm, not awake.”

  • “You can’t heal your trauma while silencing your moral clarity.”

  • “Meditation without resistance builds obedient societies.”

  • “Silence is not spiritual — it’s complicity.”

  • “Fascism begins with disinterest.”


 Why This Work Matters (and Why It’s Unique)

Ana’s work is not just trauma-informed — it’s historically informed, politically urgent, and spiritually rebellious.

She is offering:

  • A reclamation of spirituality and nervous system healing from the hands of capitalism and compliance culture.

  • A bridge between personal healing and public action.

  • A framework for survivors, empaths, and citizens to resist tyranny somatically, not just intellectually.

 

Stop Obeying. Start Thinking. At a time when professors are being silenced, protests are criminalized, and AI-generated propaganda floods our feeds, Ana gives us the ultimate counterculture message: “If you don’t practice critical thinking, someone else will do your thinking for you. And if you don’t anchor your moral compass, the algorithm will replace it.” In a world rapidly muting moral dissent through burnout, spiritual bypassing, and algorithmic control, Ana Mael dares to remind us that critical thinking is not just intellectual—it’s somatic, moral, and revolutionary.

 

---------------------------------------- Her 60-minute teaching, titled “Critical Thinking”, is not a course. It is not an episode. It is a rescue mission—one that blends lived war survival, trauma healing, somatic therapy, and cultural analysis with the precision of someone who’s lived through systems most North Americans are only beginning to glimpse.

Save $70 — Get Full Access for Only $148 (Regular Price: $218 after launch) https://exiledandrising.mykajabi.com/offers/cp7F8o4J/checkout ----------------------------------------------------- Exiled & Rising – Premium Podcast Membership. JOIN FOR FREE: https://exiledandrising.supercast.com/ ________________________-

Chapters

  • (00:00:00) - Self-Care Industry is the most dangerous thing now
  • (00:09:28) - Silence is not spiritual
View Full Transcript

Episode Transcript

[00:00:00] And also what led to this? I mentioned this before. [00:00:05] It's a, um, wellness and spiritual bypassing. [00:00:11] I will repeat myself over and over again because we have people in the prime years who are not showing up. [00:00:22] They're not showing up. [00:00:24] Look at the United States. Oh my God. It's not fair. I don't know. [00:00:30] Because you can meditate every day and you can ignore genocide. You can journal and still stay silent about injustice. You know, self help is billion dollar industry that teaches personal peace without public responsibility. [00:00:48] People, it's both for you who are so invested now in human rights, please do the personal care. [00:01:01] I have so many people who are activists, they're so burned out, they're not doing any self care. [00:01:09] Both. We need to do both. Okay? So when you're too busy with self care to practice collective care, too busy managing our nervous system to ask who is being disappeared. [00:01:25] We are building that soil for tyranny where you will lose your freedom. Not you will you lost the freedom if you're in United States. [00:01:37] So we need to do both. [00:01:40] And what's missing here is critical thinking. [00:01:43] Uh, why? Because autocracy, fascism, um, right, Tyranny. [00:01:52] Those systems, they need you to stay numb. [00:02:00] So let me say this again clearly and with care. [00:02:05] Let that land. [00:02:06] Okay. Let that land in you. [00:02:10] Autocracy does not need you. [00:02:15] Autocracy doesn't need you to agree. [00:02:22] It only needs you to obey. [00:02:26] Self care industry is the most dangerous thing now for the critical thinking and for building more clarity. So let me repeat this. [00:02:37] So right now, this is me using my critical thinking by saying self care industry is the most dangerous right now because it's developing society of people who are not practicing critical thinking. [00:03:06] They're staying numb. [00:03:10] They want you to confuse neutrality with morality. [00:03:17] Okay? M, they want you to watch your breath and not the news. [00:03:26] It's a multi billion dollar industry, right? [00:03:31] They want you to think you're doing something nice. [00:03:35] But as a citizen, as a human, you're failing because you're turning your eye on what's happening to your neighbor, what's happening everywhere. [00:03:55] You cannot do this. [00:03:57] Okay, so yes to the self care and seeing what's happening, what's around, questioning things, acting on it, not sitting on a meditation cushion is only valuable spiritual thing you are doing in your life. [00:04:22] No, both. [00:04:26] Both. [00:04:27] That end is missing. [00:04:30] We need to stitch both. [00:04:35] Okay, so basically, okay, so why autocracy needs you to stop thinking autocracy. Uh, and fascism cannot rise in a thinking culture. [00:04:59] And fascism, tyranny, they don't begin with guns. [00:05:06] They begin with emotional numbness, obedience and disinterest, apathy. [00:05:16] And you want more people to be in a state of resigning. [00:05:21] And on this hand, right, the hand of who is feeding who is that behind tyranny and autocracy, we know those names and countries, right? [00:05:40] They're feeding also small group of people with hatred and false authority and supremacy. But this is very small group of people. But guess what? [00:05:52] They're on it. They're on it. They're using their thinking brain. They're not numb, they're not in meditation cushions. [00:06:03] They're clearly not. [00:06:06] Okay, so think about who is feeding that self care industry. Who is feeding those retreat centers of mainly M1 percenters? Because there is nothing spiritual about those centers. Now everyone who is a true spiritual person and leader will tell you now they are facing true spiritual leaders. Now spiritual people, they're facing their own trauma because what they believed, believed in is now turning. Oh my God. [00:06:50] It's like a stock exchange. Awful. There is nothing spiritual about this. [00:06:56] They feel robbed. [00:07:03] Robbed by many and robbed, uh, um, by values, by legacy they built for centuries. [00:07:15] Okay, so who is feeding those people? [00:07:22] Why do you need to go to silent retreat or stay in namb? [00:07:33] Why? [00:07:36] Because they don't want you on the street. [00:07:39] They don't want you to protest. [00:07:42] They don't want you to question anything. They really want you numb while they give you something. So you feel you're working on your spiritual enlightenment. [00:07:53] You're working on your self delusion and self denial which will kill you by end of the day and your kids and your country. [00:08:04] Okay, so they literally want you to watch your, to watch your breath, to notice your breath instead of noticing and watching your government. [00:08:22] Okay, check my episode. [00:08:27] You need justice, not breath. Work and share this More people need to know about this. I'm not on social media except on podcast, YouTube and podcast. Okay, please share because you cannot reclaim your nervous system, your spirituality if you're abandoning your neighbor. And you cannot heal your trauma while silencing your moral clarity and your moral duty. [00:08:57] Because look, in the United States now I live in Canada. [00:09:04] In United States, anti immigration laws. [00:09:08] There is a razor of critical thinking, uh, and voices. [00:09:13] Look, they're raising their standup comedians. [00:09:18] Oh my God, Professor. [00:09:22] They're criminalizing protests. So now you cannot even go to the protests. [00:09:28] They're silencing therapists, coaches, influencers, probably. They will silence me. [00:09:36] So sign up to exile and rising community membership. It's free. Link is below. Of course there will silence. [00:09:45] God forbid you are, uh, using your own head. [00:09:53] But let me tell you this. [00:09:55] Silence is not spiritual if you're spiritual enough, and every spiritual leader will tell you that silence is not spiritual and not acting on it is not spiritual. [00:10:09] Spiritual is. I'm witnessing. I'm expanding my capacities for pleasant unpleasant from the space of neutral capacities. [00:10:23] And third one, third one is to act on it. [00:10:29] Every spiritual person will confirm that you're not spiritual if you're, uh, witnessing, but you're not acting on it, period. [00:10:41] And also, silence is not neutral. Absolutely not. Because when injustice is happening, basically you're on the side of abuser or a Nazi culture. [00:10:56] Okay, that's not spiritual. [00:11:00] Okay? So you need to. [00:11:03] You need to question, who is that? Who is feeding this land of apathy, spiritual bypassing and numbness, and why? So go five steps above. Use that big landscape, Okay.

Other Episodes