What do you mean these practices are “Technically Spiritual”?
Last week, I had the tremendous honor and privilege of leading a wellbeing talk and meditation for Harvard Law’s Yoga Association.
After the immersive experience, I opened it up to a Q&A session and (of course!) got thoughtful questions from this inspiring group of students.
One that I’d like to dig into more was this [paraphrased]:
“You mentioned earlier that there’s been a separation of these practices from their spiritual roots. Can you talk more about what that means and how you see it playing out?”
Friends, this gets to the name of Technically Spiritual. It’s not simply that I’m introducing spiritually-rooted practices and ancient wisdom to help solve modern digital/tech-related problems. It’s also that much of what people expect from me (yoga, meditation, sound baths, mindfulness, breathwork, and more) is, technically speaking, spiritual. And they don’t know it.
That’s why I get a good laugh when corporate clients are nervous about bringing something “spiritual” into the office. All these practices now happening within teams, like meditation apps for example, are already spiritual at their root because they’re practices that come from a deeply spiritual place and from spiritual teachers and lineages.
Many people aren’t aware of this truth because the practices we have in the West have, over time, been stripped down, commodified, and to put it flatly, white-washed.
Here’s the deal:
Colonialism is an unfortunately systemic piece of our society. Colonialism “discovers” other cultures and their meaningful practices, extract what they like best, what serves them most, or what can make them money, and can go so far as to claim it as their own and erase its origin.
Meanwhile, the source culture and its people are systemically harmed, underestimated, and under-compensated for the very work that was taken from them. Whether fully purposeful/cognizant or not, it’s real harm and it happens (and has been happening).
Let me get this out of the way now: Yogis and yoga teachers, for instance, who are not of source culture are not bad people. Everyone deserves to practice and benefit from yoga’s teachings. But we are all breathers of the same systemically harmful air, and some contribute to it more than others.
So, to answer the question more directly: many wellbeing practices you know and love come from spiritual practices and yet, despite that, are widespread in the West in a way that is completely stripped of that context. In the process, we lose many of the benefits, the nuance, the depth.
How do I see it “playing out”? I believe we are well onto a path of reclamation and reparation, but there’s still a long way to go.
To say it differently:
All people everywhere deserve to learn from, partake in, and benefit from these practices. I am happy that people know about them at all, even if their first exposure was a super white-washed yoga studio or over-simplified meditation. That said, it’s integral to my mission as the founder of Technically Spiritual that I use my opportunities in front of teams and organizations to name all of this:
What the practice is. Why it matters. How to do it. How it helps. AND…
Where it comes from. Who stewarded it, versus who popularized it. Who benefits, who is left out, who is harmed, and how to partake more harmoniously.
At times, I’ve wondered if I should change the name of Technically Spiritual. The word spiritual can scare people off before I get the chance to talk to them. But that’s exactly why I always end up keeping it. I will not strip down these spiritual practices just to appeal more to the masses.
If you read this far, thank you. Thank you for asking great questions. Thank you for trusting me to lead you in new practices.
For more reading, follow me on Instagram and LinkedIn where I’ll be talking about this further, and check out articles on the following connected topics on your own:
Exotification
Tokenization
White supremacy
Colonialism
Cultural appropriation vs appreciation
History of yoga dating back up to 10,000 years to the Indus Valley and Saraswat Valley
History of yoga when brought to the West
Yoga as integral to many religions (such as Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism), but not a religion in and of itself
And, when you partake in your favorite practices, like butterfly tapping, alternate nostril breathing, or mindfulness… get curious. It just may have come from these ancient lineages before being “coined” by Western doctors 20 years ago.