On Healing, the Wellness Industry, and Gender

In this episode, Samara and Lali discuss our perspectives on whether the wellness industry depends on the gender binary, on why many wellness offerings are so gendered, and our personal journeys with healing and wellness as nonbinary practitioners. We both had been wanting to do an episode where we could share our opinions rather than inviting a guest speaker, so we decided to share more about how gender has been intersecting with our personal and professional wellness journeys. Samara discusses how in the spiritual wellness world, even divine energies are gendered, as are elements, planets, clients and services for no good reason. Lali talks about how, as a child, physical wellness appeared to be the only relevant wellness because of the social expectations on people AFAB to meet physical beauty standards. We both dive further into how this commodified version of healing for a specific physical outcome feels like the reason everything is so unnecessarily gendered and counterproductive for the kind of wellness we are trying to achieve for our physical, spiritual, and emotional wellbeing. As always, we hope you enjoy! Please write to us if you wanted to share any experiences with gender in the wellness industry at [email protected] Transcript: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UBniHQ149575ajA10QuCV83NDm0By-2sv-zgMMeNuxc/edit?usp=sharing