“Many people in the West pay thousands of dollars to attend fancy retreats that focus only on their own healing. The multi-billion dollar ‘wellness’ industry, which touts the benefits of meditation, yoga, vegan and raw, macrobiotic, whatever diets puts the emphasis on the individual. The message is: if you meditate enough, exercise, and eat a healthy diet, you will be healthy and happy. An analysis of broader, systemic factors at the root of disease and depression is notably absent. This industry does not challenge the status quo; the wellness industry and all its pseudo-spiritual apps and self-help retreats are part of the status quo.

This cannot be where we stop. Healing and spiritual practices aren’t individual practices. They’re relational, collective experiences. If spiritual practice is about understanding we are part of something bigger, it’s impossible to practice solely at the individual level….Practices used to decompress from the stresses of living in a capitalist economy so you can go back into it and continue to earn wealth from a system that causes so much harm aren’t liberators, for you or anyone else.”

” ~Kazu Haga, Fierce Vulnerability (Parallax Press 2025) p.60-61.