This Is Us
The Self-Help World Needs to Stop Ignoring Its Privilege
Personal growth is not an excuse to ignore systemic injustice in our communities
In the early stages of my career as a life coach and personal growth content creator, I felt like I had so much to prove. But as I began to grow in the industry, I realized how many of my beliefs and values I had watered down to fit into the mold of what a “proper personal-growth coach” should look like.
As an immigrant, a fourth-culture kid, a first-generation college student, and a South Asian woman who grew up in the conservative Bible Belt of Texas, there are plenty of injustices I’ve faced on both a personal and systemic level. I’ve been through enough to know that systemic oppression exists, that privilege comes in a million different packages, and that manifesting isn’t the only answer to a more equitable world.
But despite my experience, I constantly felt like my political views would be dismissed as “negativity,” that my “cynical” ideas had no place in the world of personal growth. I was confronted time and time again with the idea that “if everything is okay with you, everything is okay with the world.”
In addition to this laissez-faire attitude about the world’s problems — and the…
