Wellness in the Age of Superficiality: Keeping Integrity in Practice
This month, I was sick, and in the haze of being under the weather, I found myself mindlessly watching the Apple Cider Vinegar Netflix documentary about wellness grifter Belle Gibson.
To say I’ve been disturbed ever since would be an understatement. As someone who has deep reverence for wellbeing practices, it’s hard for me to comprehend how someone could lie, scam, and ultimately cause more harm and suffering—just to make money.
It’s difficult, too, because I’m part of this wellness industry. This very industry that claims to offer healing, peace, and betterment. And yet, when I look around, I see so much harm: bad actors, exploitative marketing tactics, and a constant parade of feel-good “solutions” that don’t really solve anything. I’m left grappling with the tension between the ideals of wellness and the reality of the business driving it.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately—about how so much of what’s marketed as wellness is, in fact, the opposite. It’s not about healing or growth or self-discovery. It’s about consumption.
It’s about selling easy answers to difficult questions. It’s about telling people they’re not enough, so they’ll spend their money, time, and energy trying to fix themselves with products, services, or influencers who don’t actually care about their wellbeing.
Or expensive ‘solutions’ to what is really a symptom band-aid, not a solution for the root issue. A dampening of pain without ever sealing the wound.
And then there’s the marketing—the endless, glossy ads that push the narrative that we can be happy, healthy, and perfect if we just buy the right thing. It’s overwhelming. It’s unending. It’s harmful.
I’m deeply uncomfortable with this reality, especially as someone who believes wholeheartedly in the transformative power of wellness practices. I know firsthand the healing potential of meditation, mindfulness, self-reflection, and slowing down– not only for the sake of being well within ourselves, but what that means for cultivating healing and wellbeing out in the world.
But it’s also impossible to ignore the fact that wellness has become another commodity, another industry designed to make people feel inadequate so they’ll buy into yet another "quick fix."
For those of us trying to do the real work—practicing with integrity, offering tools for healing that actually help—it can feel isolating, like we’re swimming against the tide.
We know the difference between real, sustainable wellbeing practices and the superficial gimmicks that are so often promoted. But when everything is packaged with a shiny bow, it’s hard to distinguish between what’s truly meaningful and what’s just noise.
Take, for example, the toxic positivity that runs rampant in wellness circles. The idea that we must constantly project joy, gratitude, and good vibes only. This creates an unrealistic standard of what it means to be "well." What gets lost is the truth that wellbeing is complicated. It’s messy. It’s not always about feeling good. Sometimes, wellbeing is about sitting with discomfort, sitting with uncertainty, and giving ourselves space to process the full range of the human experience.
For me, Technically Spiritual has never been about selling an ideal. It’s about helping people access their own inner wisdom, giving them the tools to heal in a way that feels authentic, and helping them embrace the messiness of life. It’s not a product—it’s a process. It’s not something you buy and check off and store; it’s something you live. It’s a practice (*cough, just like yoga philosophy and other technically spiritual practices).
So how do we as a community preserve integrity while living with an industry that seems to prioritize everything but true healing? How do we stay grounded in the real personal and interpersonal work when everything around us is designed to distract, to sell, to individualize, and to capitalize?
First, we resist the urge to follow trends for the sake of trends.
Wellness should never be about chasing the next shiny thing or adopting something because everyone else is. It’s about deepening our connection to ourselves and to the practices that nourish us—mindfulness, reflection, movement, and stillness.
Second, we reclaim the definition of wellness.
Wellness isn’t about looking perfect or checking off a list of healthy habits. It’s about being honest with ourselves, acknowledging where we are in our journey, and accepting that healing doesn’t happen overnight. It’s about embracing the full spectrum of human emotions, not just the ones that fit neatly into a picture-perfect image. And, embracing the fact that this isn’t only for ourselves – it’s for becoming drivers of good in the world. Positive, thoughtful, healthy changemakers… change the world.
Third, we hold space for the discomfort.
The wellness industry often tells us that we need to fix ourselves, but sometimes the most healing thing we can do is simply be with ourselves. We can sit with our sadness, our exhaustion, our uncertainty, and still be worthy of love and care. Wellness isn’t about erasing the hard stuff—it’s about living through it with presence and compassion.
Finally, and this one is specifically for me, Prerna, and the team at Technically Spiritual: We practice what we preach. As teachers and practitioners, it’s important that we embody the values we promote.
This means being transparent about what wellness practices can and can’t do.
It means offering real, actionable tools and holding ourselves accountable to our own integrity.
It means showing up for others with authenticity, without the need to sugarcoat or oversell.
The wellness industry may be messy and full of contradictions, but we (my team and you, our community) have the power to change the narrative.
By staying true to our values, honoring the complexity of healing, and rejecting superficiality, we can reclaim wellness as a path to true COLLECTIVE wellbeing—not just a product, ploy, or image.
So, as we face the onslaught of glossy wellness ads and “quick fixes,” I challenge you to pause. Take a moment to reflect on what wellness really means to you. What does it look like when it’s grounded in authenticity? How can you incorporate practices that nourish you—not because they’re trending, but because they support your deeper wellbeing?