I love what I do, as I love reading tarot cards and reading astrology charts. I love providing insight for those who are looking for why they experienced certain hardships or are going through confusing times. Another thing that I will never do is invalidate anything that anyone is experiencing. For instance, if you say to me that you hate your job, I will support you and tell you that I understand how that is and will ask you if you think you can look for another job at some point. You will never hear me say, ‘Be thankful you have a job as not everyone is so lucky.” Or, you will not hear me tell you that instead of thinking about your job that you hate, think about five to ten things that you are grateful for instead.

Listen, there is nothing wrong with expressing gratitude as long as you are in the mind frame for it. And if you are having one of those days to wallow in self-pity because you have made the realization that your life is one big trainwreck and you just made the discovery that you have been abused all of your life – which you do not always see happening at the time – oh hell, you definitely need that time to cuss, to ask ‘why me,’ to express anger, to acknowledge how resentful you are, and how jealous you are of those who did not experience the same level of trauma. However, the issue is that if you end up going to others in the wellness industry, whether they are coaches, so-called healers and readers, yoga teachers, and so on, they can damage you.

The Wellness Industry Practitioners Can Cause Significant Damage To Those Who Struggle

Why am I pointing my finger at many practitioners of the wellness industry? That is because of a good chunk, and I would even say most practitioners are part of the positivity cult. I have met many down-to-earth coaches who are not part of this cult, which I happen to like very much. Sadly, they are the exception and not the rule. I have already talked about how these practitioners have fallen into conspiracy theories regarding the pandemic and talk about the so-called dangers of vaccines. Being the issue, but if you tell them that science works, they are ruthless. Think about that while I list the other reasons that they are dangerous to your mental health. These wellness industry practitioners can damage you in various ways. Let’s find out how they do that.

Toxic Positivity

These woo-woo practitioners inundate you with toxic positivity where they invalidate your struggles and express platitudes such as ‘good vibes only‘ or ‘you need to get over it,’ or ‘others have it worse, so be thankful for what you have.” There is nothing more invalidating than having statements of toxic positivity thrown at you when you are going through a difficult time or struggling with past trauma. You really cannot ‘get over’ any of that, can you? Even if you can heal from it, you will still struggle with it at times.

Attitude Of Gratitude

These wellness practitioners insist that you must create gratitude lists while you are trying to process your trauma or grief, and if you tell them you cannot do that, they will insist that you are ungrateful for the blessings you do have. That is damaging because there are times when you really cannot be grateful when you are struggling. That does not mean you don’t recognize the good things in your life.

However, there are times when writing gratitude lists is really not helpful. As a matter of fact, there was an article in Good Housekeeping that covered the value of creating ingratitude lists. That is right, ingratitude lists! When your life is nothing but full of struggles, write it down to get it out of your system! And maybe, if there is something you can change about it, it may motivate you to change something that is making you unhappy. However, sometimes there are things you cannot change, and you need to vent about it. Writing gratitude lists when you are in bad shape emotionally, mentally, financially, and physically can make you feel even less grateful.

By the way, you can grieve, be mad, and be grateful for the good things you have at the same time. That is something that the woo-woo gurus never want you to know because everything has to be about positivity, right? Wrong! When you feel you are ready to write a gratitude list, by all means. But don’t ignore the big other not-so-nice emotions that are screaming if you do.

Preaching Forgiveness When You Really Cannot Forgive

These woo-woo practitioners preach forgiveness (I admit I really hate that word), as they tell you that you must forgive your abusers or those who hurt you without being apologetic. They also gaslight you into thinking that if you don’t forgive, you will keep ‘drinking the poison’ meant for the one you refuse to forgive.’ And they say if you refuse to forgive, you will never move on. Forcing forgiveness can be extremely damaging because the truth is, some acts are extremely unforgivable. Don’t listen to what they say.

If you force yourself to forgive someone who did a lot of damage to you when you really cannot, you will create more damage to yourself by suppressing your emotions. Forgiveness is fine as long as you are genuinely ready to do it. It should not be forced! I find it interesting to tell the victim to forgive the perpetrator but never say that the perpetrator should be responsible for the harm they cause the victim. Hmm.

However, is it healthy to hold onto grudges? No, it is not. Okay, that means maybe there is a bit of a grain of truth to the ‘drinking the poison’ meant for the one you refuse to forgive’ statement. A tiny grain, that is, if it is preventing you from functioning. I mean, personally, I don’t see anything wrong with holding onto some anger if it is not rendering you non-functional because it protects you from getting hurt again. I admit I am a grudge holder, and I know it is not healthy, which I know I have to work on. But forgiveness? No. My goal is not to even give those who hurt me a second thought. I won’t wish them well, but I won’t wish them ill either. My goal is to get to a point where I don’t care. And that is the very thing I recommend because that is healthy. I don’t see that as forgiveness; that is simply not caring about them.

I do not have compassion for any perpetrator. These woo-woo practitioners tell you that you must feel compassionate towards your bullies and abusers because they hurt you because they were in pain. Well, if that were true, then all abuse victims or those who grieve would purposely cause harm to others, and that is not true. These abusers are responsible for their actions, end of story. They don’t get free passes, so no compassion for them from me.

Mental Illnesses Are A Creation Of Your Mind And An Excuse For You Not To Improve Yourself

Oh, another lovely thing that these so-called wellness practitioners do, and this is my ‘favorite’ one. They gaslight you into believing that mental illnesses are a creation in your mind and result from you not ‘being positive enough.’ Studies show that abnormal structures in your brain and chemical imbalances are real and are the causes of mental illnesses. Genetics plays a role too. Can you change the wiring? Sure you can. That is why stroke victims can heal; however, that is not the same as having a mental illness. Even if you can change your wiring and improve your mental health, that does not change the fact that you have a mental illness.

You can compare it to a person with diabetes. A person with diabetes can be in a wellness phase if they eat well and exercise and take their medication regularly. They can keep their illness under control. Unless diabetes is in the very early pre-diabetic stages, you cannot reverse the illness otherwise. Therefore, you may be well, but you still have diabetes. The same goes for mental illness.

A Lifestyle Change Can Cure Chronic Physical Diseases

Here is another one that annoys me. These woo-woo’s seem to enjoy telling you that doing yoga, an organic diet, or other holistic practices can cure you of incurable diseases. That also goes back to these practitioners denying science. If you have an incurable illness, whether it is a mental illness or a chronic physical condition, you cannot cure it if the illness is not curable—end of story.

They Have The Law Of Attraction All Wrong

Let’s not forget about how they pervert the Law of Attraction! Oh, this goes back to the cultish book, The Secret from 2006. I am sorry, but having negative thoughts will not make you attract negative circumstances. Thinking positive thoughts (while suppressing screaming negative emotions) will certainly not prevent negative circumstances. What will that do? Cause you to explode, figuratively or even literally. Think about it. If you suppress something hard by keeping something so fake under the surface, you will eventually have a volcanic situation. Accept the fact that life can be shitty, and shit happens! Positive thinking or negative thinking won’t change that. Oh, and by the way, if you want something, you have to go after it. Don’t just wish it and expect it to fall into your lap by some miracle.

Now you understand why I am allergic to the positivity cult associated with the wellness industry? Do you see what they are doing after reading the reasons why they are so dangerous? They victim-blame, they victim-shame, they will never acknowledge that life is all about positivity and negativity. That is yin and yang because nothing is all love and light. There is darkness too.  That is not pessimism, as that is realism.