There are a number of philosophies presented in yoga spaces as "universal truths" that turn out to be little more than directives in an echo chamber. And there are protocols presented as therapeutic in wellness spaces that blur the line between spiritual rhetoric and pseudoscience — and some are quite dangerous.
Derek looks at his experiences as a student at Jivamukti Yoga as well as the recent "ozone enema" podcast between Gwyneth Paltrow and Will Cole to discuss spiritual rhetoric and pseudoscience. He opens with his experiences as an international music journalist to provide a framework for thinking outside of your box, be it a local yoga studio or the websites you treat as gospel.
Show Notes
Gwyneth Paltrow Admits to Getting Ozone in Her Rectum
-- -- --
Support us on Patreon
Pre-order Conspirituality: How New Age Conspiracy Theories Became a Health Threat: America | Canada
Follow us on Instagram | Twitter: Derek | Matthew | Julian
Original music by EarthRise SoundSystem
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
If you'd like to support our research, recording, and production time, you can support us for $5 a month on Patreon, or choose a higher tier to access our live streams and bonus videos.
All of this is available at patreon.com slash conspirituality.
You can also access our Monday bonus episodes on Apple Podcasts for $5 a month as well.
Thank you for your support.
It's about 75 seconds long, this second one, and it's a response to Will Cole's question, which is, what is your daily wellness routine?
Now, I could have just clipped what's on Instagram and TikTok, but oh, I'd be depriving you of the fact that her answer is actually closer to three and a half minutes long.
And yes, since I had to endure it, so do you.
you strap in.
Early in the evening, I try to eat at six or 6.30.
So I'm really done eating by seven.
Okay.
The question was daily wellness routine.
I don't know how we're starting in the evening, but well, let's keep going.
And then I do a nice intermittent fast until I usually eat something about 12 in the morning.
I'll have some things that won't spike my blood sugar, right?
So I have coffee.
I'll have a celery juice with lemon, lemon water, but I just really use the morning.
And for me, it's important because as you know, I have trouble with methylation.
So I'm not, my body is not a natural detoxer.
I'm not good at it.
Okay.
One guess at the type of doctor who sells methylation and methylation detox kits.
A lot of people, it's absolutely a part of their biology and process.
I'm not one of those people.
So I get impacted by things more heavily.
And then I exercise in the morning.
I take my binders in the morning.
Oh, the binders are back.
We talked about the binders a few weeks ago.
This is another amazing grift that's been happening in this space where Having one course of supplements isn't enough.
You have to have supplements to bind to other supplements.
I take binders for, again, like poor methylation.
I'm still dealing probably with some mold, even though it's probably pretty good by now, I would think.
It's in the past.
Okay.
I want to point out mold toxicity is a real thing.
It is again one of those in vogue terms in the wellness spaces.
You're usually going to deal with mold if you're living in subpar housing that's really old.
I don't think that's going to the situation now.
Not diagnosing.
Who knows, definitely possible.
But I also know that a lot of people are blaming not feeling totally up to snuff on some ambiguous mold toxicity that they never actually were tested for.
So just gonna raise that red flag on that one.
I think it's in the past and I do try to do one hour of movement.
So I'll either take a walk or I'll do Pilates or I'll do my Tracy Anderson.
My Tracy Anderson, okay.
I don't want to hate on everything, and honestly, because that's a good prescription.
An hour of movement a day, if you can afford the time, I think is wonderful.
And something low-impact like walking is actually great advice.
So being able to do anything that gets you moving, especially if you have some sort of job where you are at a computer all day, my morning every day starts with an hour of movement as well, at least six days a week.
So I can really appreciate that aspect.
And then I get in the sauna, I dry brush and I get in the sauna.
So I do my infrared sauna for 30 minutes.
Not every day, some days I can't, I don't have time.
Or sometimes I'll do the higher dose infrared blanket if I'm not home.
But for me, it's really important for me to support my detox because I have the fucked up MTHFR.
Okay, I have to flag that.
Because if you're suffering for something and you forget what it is, and you notice this litany of practices and it's going to keep going of what she does, that's pretty problematic.
Already, it's been brought up, mold toxicity, methylation, and now one that she forgets.
So what is going on with your body that all this is happening?
And then for lunch, I have I really like having a soup for lunch.
In fact, we have one, a new soup at Goop Kitchen, which is like this green soup that I warm up.
It comes cold, so it kind of retains all its vibrancy.
But I really like soup for lunch.
I have bone broth for lunch a lot of the days.
And then for dinner, I have, oh, I forgot that part of my wellness practice is I, Brad and I, my husband do TM meditation for 20 minutes every morning before the coffee.
Now we're two hours into movement, sauna, meditation.
Just gonna flag that, remember, this is all in the context of what can the everyman do?
I mean, this is how the products are sold, right?
Whether you're on Will Kohl's downline or whether you're on Goop's website and you're buying products, it's always sold as things to enhance your life.
I do admit, as I said, I get up at 5.15 every morning to make sure I get my hour in before work.
Two hours is stretching it quite a bit.
And to think that that's a daily routine.
And again, we're not done.
We've just reached lunch.
But the dissonance between what most of us who work multiple jobs or have children or running around to do a million things to be able to do this type of practice, it's It's that distance between what the people at the top of these wellness periods are able to afford and then presenting it as it reminds me of the, why aren't you rich?
just get rich mentality, but extrapolated from that and then pushed into this wellness world
that we're dealing with.
And it's just, it's absurd that anyone who is struggling to make ends meet,
or even who lives a somewhat comfortable middle-class existence, could ever dedicate this much
thought, let alone time, to taking care of their bodies.
And then for dinner, I try to eat, you know, according to paleo.
Lots of vegetables.
We live in California, so there are farmer's markets all over, which is such a blessing, like all the vegetables, things that are in season and from local farms.
And then any kind of, you know, fish or birds.
And then we try to get a little bit clever with carbohydrates.
So like, you know, sweet potato noodles, or we make tacos with the Siete grain-free tacos, the cassava.
Oh boy, now we're in the anti-gluten segment of the day.
I find that the more that I get into the habit of not trying to, you know, it was hard at first when I thought, oh, I'm going to have to eliminate all the joys and all the pleasure and it's not true.
When I first met my wife, I was vegan at that time and I've not only changed my diet and I've talked about that in the past in my own history with eating disorder, with orthorexia, but also with just understanding How important food is as a ritual among people and the vast diversity of diets that exist around the world.
My wife is half Thai.
Her Thai part of the family lives in the Northeastern region.
They eat a lot of insects, right?
There's this whole big conspiracy theories around, oh, they're going to make you eat if Democrats are going to make you eat insects and all of that.
Two billion people around the world eat insects.
So.
One term she once said to me early on that has really stuck with me is that when you're dealing with these wellness spaces, so many people's diets are joyless.
And when I'm listening to this, all I can think about is the lack of joy that must be happening in food preparation and then consumption.
And it also Some people had commented on Instagram that these segments that were published sound like an eating disorder.
And I will fully agree with that because that's what orthorexia is.
It's this constant neurosis around the elimination of certain foods that are unpure.
And everything I'm hearing points to that mentality.
Like there's so many ingredients that are packed with flavor, chilies and herbs and lemon.
And you know, you can really, Especially with foods like Mexican food or with Asian flavors.
Like you wouldn't, I think if you ate dinner at our house, like most people, when our friends come over, they have no idea that they're eating like healthy food or that it's paleo.
It's just good, nutritious, yummy food.
Yes.
Exactly.
As we're recording this right now, you have a little IV.
