Echo chambers of introspection
Does everyone always talk about healing and therapy?
When I think about echo chambers, I usually associate it with ignorant boomers yelling into the void about 5G chip implants and space lasers.
But a couple weeks ago, I was having drinks with a friend, catching up, having normal happy hour conversations.
I was telling her about my latest spiral about work/writing/half marathon training/dance classes/preparing for my first keynote/the Eras tour and how I didn’t understand why I couldn’t just relax for a second.
She sips her Moscow Mule and goes, “Well, when in your childhood do you feel like this pattern started?”
Two things happened in that moment:
I answered completely honestly, no hesitation, and detailed the moments in my childhood and teen years that would have imprinted the connection between outward success and worth.
I realized, this is my echo chamber.
I talk about therapy, about healing, about my thought process, emotions, anxiety, meditation, healing modalities all.the.time. My closest friends are coaches, healers, therapists, or people on a journey of self-discovery, spiritual awakening, healing … you’re seeing the pattern, right?
And I love it. I love walking with people on their path, seeing how they’re choosing to show up for it, laugh at it, cry through it, ignore it, or dive deeper into the abyss of love and light and shadow work and whatever the fuck the next level of consciousness is. It’s exhausting and hilarious.
Because who sits at happy hour talking about inner child healing and the patterns that rippled throughout my academic, personal, and professional life?
It’s me. Hi. And all of the people in my echo chamber, apparently.
We talk about our goals; our manifestations; our traumas and healing paths; spiritual modalities that helped and harmed; gurus that turned out to be douche bags; books that shifted our perspective; humans doing really cool shit in the world; how focusing too much on healing and goals and modalities and self-development is exhausting and creates a funky energy if you don’t balance it with actually being present … I can go on.
These conversations and the broad topics of self-development echo throughout my relationships, social media algorithms, the clients that hire me … everywhere.
So my question is: If an echo chamber is filled with people trying to heal and better themselves, does it still carry the same negative connotation and potential impact as other echo chambers?
My journalism training tells me yes. Because even if there are people with the goal of growth and healing working together, at some point, they’re going to overlap in thoughts, resources, or experiences to the point where growth isn’t possible.
But I like my bubble of weirdos doing cool shit, and I don’t want to learn about government chips or space lasers, so I’ll just ignore my journalism training for now.