Beware of Zentertainment

I always ask my clients what they’d like to get out of a session with me. Often, they reply: “Clarity.”

It sounds nice, but I’ve learned to push them to ask for more. Because settling for clarity can be part of a pattern of gazing at our lives without changing anything. Analyses, interpretations, and theories can become opiates that numb our pain and put off the real work.

Back in college, my friend coined the term “Zentertainment” to mean using spiritual concepts (particularly those from the East) for light fun and conversation. I don’t think he could have foreseen how Zentertainment would take the mainstream by storm.

Nowadays, so much of what calls itself “spirituality” resembles a knickknack shop filled with concepts, lifestyle accessories, and identities that cost little but take up lots of space in our heads.

We “discover” that we’re intuitive anxious-avoidant starseeds with ancestral trauma, but then what? These labels ask nothing of us and change nothing.

This is why the Buddha was so severe about putting aside the question, “Who am I?” To live a life you can be proud of, it doesn’t matter who you are. It matters what you do.

You can be spiritual and take actions that hurt yourself and others. You can know nothing about spirituality and still base your thoughts, words, and deeds on love.

Sometimes, the less you know the better. Labels are old knowledge that can keep us from seeing what we’re actually doing in the present moment.

So be mindful of spiritual clutter, just as you’d be mindful of physical clutter. When someone tells you that you must read this book, listen to this podcast, or take this course, ask yourself: Must I? Do I have room for these thoughts in my life?

At some point, we have to take off our costumes and stand naked in the question: How do we actually want to live?

As always, if you’d like to be held through your process, reach out and we’ll set up a free coaching call.