When Sacred Becomes a Sales Pitch
Compassion, with a price tag?
This piece has been brewing for months. I attended an event earlier this year with a woman who has a successful business & brand. I originally discovered her a few years earlier after her work was introduced to me by a friend. That same friend even joined her one-year training programme. The work offered is deep and powerful. Not only can I see the shifts in my friend, but I too have received several sessions from her where I personally experienced the depth of this work. So when her mentor — the creator of this modality — came to London for a one-day event, I immediately signed up. I went. I listened. During the main talk and some audience participation, I saw so much of myself in others. At one point it was like a family constellation session for me. Four individuals bravely stood up to tell their story and with each, I found myself nodding in full understanding — not by logic but by experience. Later we moved to breath work. Nothing I haven’t done before. I went deep. I travelled back to being a baby. My body rolled into a ball, protecting itself. The body semi-froze but my mind — my mind was crystal clear. I was taken back to an event at 1.5 years old. In that moment — what has caused me a lifetime of physical, mental, energetic and spiritual torment I made a decision about myself and what that situation meant about me. I have spent my entire existence living from that decision. One of the team members helped me with energy work, grounding me by my feet as I cried and screamed the pain through and out of me. Feeling the feelings I’d buried for so long. Buried isn’t even the right word. It makes it sound like I knew it was there, but I didn’t. It was hidden in plain sight, running the show. I had a bit of an advantage. I understand this work. I have a great friend & mentor who trained with the creator of this offering. Perhaps that’s why I’m in a “better” position to share what I’m about to share… This is where it gets a little fucked up. The event ended and I left. Feeling equal parts WTF and HUH? I went back to touch base with the team member who had supported me. Still vulnerable, lost, out of body. I shared what had come up. Her advice? Sign up for the £2,000 programme. This will help me get through what I’d just experienced. It will help me through life. I get it. Some of you may read this and think: of course they’ll try to sell to you, it’s obvious. No. The point here isn’t about selling a programme. It’s the energy behind it. Using someone’s most vulnerable moment as a sales tactic isn’t love. It isn’t compassion. It isn’t care. It’s the opposite of what you’d hope — dare I say expect — from the coaching and personal development industry. I didn’t purchase. But I did ponder. When my friend asked me how it went, I spilled. To my surprise, she agreed. She saw it. She experienced it. We spoke for days about the ickiness, the money-making, the manipulation the industry has become. Meanwhile another team member was leaving me voice notes about where my decision not to join was “really coming from”. I told her: “my decision feels very grounded & peaceful” She sent back a ❤️ emoji. No further contact. This leads me to my latest experience. A women’s event. A promise of activations. What I left with was the realisation of just how surface-level this spectrum can be. How impressionable and naive the industry really is. Yes, some of the attendees are making the numbers I dream of. But there was zero depth. No raw understanding of what people have had to go through to even be in that room. It was plaster over cracks instead of digging into the mud. Integrity on display. Marketing tactics on max. It’s rare I let myself accept the clarity of a realisation like this — but wow, I saw straight through it. As did the 3 women I knew there. It was as clear as the slap in the face Iboga gave me one time (if you know, you know). Maybe this is the industry now — depth packaged into sales funnels, surface dressed up as activations. Maybe that’s why so many leave these rooms buzzing but still hungry, cracked open but not held. Maybe the real work isn’t in the room at all. Maybe it’s in learning to see through the rose-tinted wine glasses. Standing in your own grounded place, even when everyone else is selling the cure. Energy doesn’t lie. Intuition doesn’t lie.