Your Girlboss Life Coach Is Leading You Nowhere

I regret to inform you that you’re buying snake oil, my friend!

Photo by Roberto Nickson on Unsplash

A messy blonde mane frames a pale, soft visage with sparkling blue eyes and a big, toothy smile; a barely-there Lululemon bra yields to a prominent display of cleavage, as the remainder of a perfectly skinny, lightly tanned torso is otherwise laid bare. Behold: your life coach, inviting you to join her on a $5,000 winter retreat in Bali (including an hourlong FREE coaching session with her — a $400 value!!!). Are you down?

We have arrived at a psycho-spiritual crisis in late capitalism that has engendered the rise of the life coach, the yoga teacher and the “wellness” guru. These archetypes and all their derivatives have converged under a QAnon umbrella to pretend to solve the numerous existential crises of today through “positivity,” cultural appropriation and repackaged elitism. Have you taken the bait?

I write this article as an Ayurvedic practitioner who has spent many years in countless spiritual programs, classes, groups and sessions. I love yoga! I am a certified yoga teacher. I meditate. I see the benefit of many Eastern practices that have (quite importantly) become more embedded in Western culture. And I am tired of seeing the distorted, whitewashed, predatory versions of these practices further…