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Unhealed ego, power, charisma, and unchecked narcissism can quietly hijack even the most beautiful modalities and healing journeys.
And right now, it is happening everywhere.
I did not come into this work because spirituality was trendy. I came into this work because suffering brought me here.
Because at one point in my life, my nervous system was so overwhelmed by grief, trauma, hypervigilance, uncertainty, emotional pain, and survival mode that I could no longer think my way through it.
Talking wasn’t enough anymore.
I needed something deeper.
Something that could reach the places language could not.
That is what brought me to yoga, Buddhism, somatics. To meditation. To breath. To nervous system work. To spirituality itself. To God.
Not aesthetics.
Not performance.
Not identity.
Relief.
And perhaps, that is why what happened recently affected me so deeply.
A friend and I attended a large breath work event hosted by a well-known touring facilitator. As people who hold somatic and sound spaces ourselves, we were genuinely excited to receive. We both needed rest, release. A soft place to land.
The marketing was beautiful: cinematic videos, emotional testimonials, headphones, slow-motion catharsis, and beautiful people crying in dimly lit rooms.
It looked like healing.
And maybe that is the first thing we need to talk about:
How incredibly easy it has become to market the appearance of safety.
There were around 80 people in the room that evening, each paying £69 to attend. Over £5,500 generated from one night built around emotional vulnerability and altered states.
Yet almost immediately, something felt off.
We later learned that the assistants had been invited through Instagram less than 24 hours earlier. Little to no trauma-informed training. No deep understanding of somatics. No experience holding large-scale cathartic release. Some having never even tried breath work themselves. He called them his “Angels,” which in hindsight, and given the context, is a pretty derogatory term.
The thing is, once someone enters intense breath work, they are not simply “relaxing.” Their nervous system opens.
Trauma can surface. Panic can emerge. Emotional regression can happen. Dissociation, grief, fear, freeze responses, overwhelm— these are all possible outcomes when working directly with the body and subconscious.
This is not entertainment. This is sacred territory.
And sacred things require responsibility.
As the evening unfolded, the atmosphere began to feel less like grounded facilitation and more like performance disguised as spirituality.
There was touching without clear verbal consent. Women physically repositioned whilst vulnerable. Bodies handled under the vague umbrella of “somatic touch.” Participants subtly shamed for not fully engaging. A photographer weaving through intimate emotional moments capturing faces mid-vulnerability.
At one point, as he stood high on the Bar, proudly flashing his stomach to the room, I remember thinking:
Who is this actually for?
The healing of the people? Or the image of the facilitator?
And that is where this conversation becomes bigger than one event. Because somewhere along the way, modern spirituality developed a branding problem.
Or perhaps, more accurately, an ego problem.
At some point on almost every spiritual journey, the ego quietly attempts to hijack the awakening. And honestly? From a psychological perspective, that makes perfect sense.
The ego is not inherently evil. It is a survival structure. A protective identity formed through conditioning, attachment, validation, fear, pain, and social reinforcement. Neuroscience tells us the brain is constantly scanning for safety, significance, status, belonging, and certainty. The ego wants stability. Recognition. Control. Importance.
So when somebody suddenly becomes “the healer,” “the guru,” “the awakened one,” the nervous system often experiences that attention as rewarding.
People admire you.
Listen to you.
Project wisdom onto you.
Seek your approval.
Trust your guidance.
And unless somebody is deeply committed to shadow work, humility, accountability, and self-awareness, spirituality can become the perfect hiding place for unresolved wounds.
Because spirituality gives people language sophisticated enough to disguise their ego.
Control becomes “leadership.”
Attention-seeking becomes “visibility.”
Poor boundaries become “divine connection.”
Emotional dependency becomes “community.”
Inflated self-importance becomes “being in your power.”
And invasive behaviour becomes “healing.”
The clothes look softer. The language sounds conscious. But underneath it, the same old ego remains untouched.
And this is precisely why so many people feel unsafe in spiritual communities. Not because spirituality itself is dangerous. But because unhealed people are often drawn toward positions of spiritual authority before they have developed the emotional maturity to safely hold power—especially in spaces where charisma is rewarded faster than integrity.
Social media accelerates this problem dramatically, because online, nervous systems respond to aesthetics before discernment has time to catch up. I know mine did.
Beautiful branding feels safe.
Confidence feels credible.
Intensity feels transformational.
And wounded people, particularly those desperate for relief, are naturally drawn toward certainty, confidence, answers, and belonging. This makes facilitators profoundly responsible for the power they hold.
And yet increasingly, the wellness industry rewards visibility over regulation.
Especially among a particular archetype emerging within modern spirituality that many women instantly recognise in their nervous systems: the hyper-charismatic spiritual man.
The man who speaks the language of healing whilst subtly centering himself in every room. The man whose spirituality inflates his ego instead of softening it. The man who mistakes emotional intensity for safety. The man who learns therapeutic language before learning true accountability.
We’ve all met him—he’s the one giving every woman a big bear hug, playing the role of the “Safe Masculine” when the reality is, he’s there to boost his own ego and receive validation that he’s “fully healed” already.
And I say this carefully, because I believe deeply in conscious masculinity. I know extraordinary men doing beautiful healing work in the world. And I also want to say clearly that this is not exclusive to men. I have encountered women in spiritual spaces carrying the very same wounds. Women using spirituality to bypass accountability. Women building identities around being “healers” whilst unconsciously recreating harm, hierarchy, dependency, or emotional manipulation.
Because ego itself is not gendered.
The desire to feel important, admired, powerful, needed, chosen, worshipped, these are profoundly human vulnerabilities. But we cannot ignore the reality that patriarchy conditions these dynamics differently within masculinity and femininity.
Men are often socially rewarded for dominance, certainty, charisma, control, and taking up space. So when spirituality becomes entangled with an unexamined ego, those traits can become amplified and disguised as leadership, embodiment, or masculine power.
And women, particularly women conditioned through generations to people-please, fawn, self-abandon, and seek safety through approval, are often taught to override their instincts in the presence of confident men.
That combination can become dangerous.
Not because masculinity itself is dangerous. But because wounded power without accountability always is.
Perhaps true spirituality is not about becoming “more powerful” at all. Perhaps it is about becoming safe enough within ourselves that we no longer need power over anybody else.
There is a difference between embodied safety and performative spirituality.
A difference between leadership and seduction.
A difference between being witnessed and being worshipped.
Too many facilitators are building identities around being “safe” rather than doing the lifelong work required to actually be safe. Too many spaces prioritise catharsis over regulation.
Performance over ethics.
Intensity over integration.
Charisma over competence.
A fancy website is not trauma training.
A sold-out event is not proof of integrity.
A spiritual persona is not evidence of emotional maturity.
The truth is, truly safe practitioners are often the least performative people in the room.
They are not trying to appear god-like. They are not creating dependency. They are not centering themselves inside the healing. They understand that the work is not about being worshipped. It is about helping people reconnect to themselves.
That is why discernment matters now more than ever.
Real healing—the kind that changed my life—takes time, and is often much quieter than what social media sells us.
It looks like regulation.
Boundaries.
Consent.
Humility.
Slowness.
Choice.
It looks like facilitators who are more interested in your autonomy than your admiration. People who understand that holding space is not about becoming elevated above others. It is about helping people reconnect to themselves.
And perhaps, the most healing thing my friend and I did that evening was collect our things and leave.
Not dramatically. Not angrily.
Just honestly.
We listened to the discomfort in our bodies instead of overriding it to appear open-minded or spiritually evolved.
And, upon reflection, as someone with over 15 years experience in this community, maybe this is the deepest sorrow and irony of all:
The very people who come to these spaces searching for healing are often the people most vulnerable to abandoning themselves inside them.
Because trauma survivors are already conditioned to override discomfort.
To second-guess intuition.
To stay when something feels wrong.
To confuse intensity with love.
To mistake charisma for safety.
Which means an unsafe spiritual space does not just fail to heal wounds, it can unknowingly recreate them.
And that is why this conversation matters so deeply. Because spirituality should not teach people to surrender their instincts in the name of enlightenment.
It should teach them to trust themselves again. To notice the tightening in the chest. The freeze in the body. The quiet inner “no” beneath the pressure to appear open, evolved, healed, awakened.
Real healing is not learning how to disconnect from your humanity so you can transcend it. It is finally becoming safe enough to fully return to it.
And perhaps the most spiritual thing any facilitator can ever say is not: “Trust me.” But: “Trust yourself.”
And that is the lesson I keep returning to now.
Real spirituality should bring you closer to yourself, not further away.
Closer to your intuition.
Closer to your boundaries.
Closer to your humanity.
Not into deeper performance.
Not into blind surrender.
Not into abandoning your instincts in the presence of charisma.
The spiritual community does not need more performers. It needs safer humans.
Humans willing to do the lifelong, uncomfortable work of meeting their own ego before attempting to lead others through healing. Over and over again.
Because if spirituality is not making us more humble, more ethical, more accountable, and more human…then what exactly is it awakening within us?
~
author: Lorna Walker
Image: Author's own
Editor: Nicole Cameron
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