Personal growth rhetoric -- False advertising?

Predictably, Yes and No

It’s true -- The more we understand of the mechanics of our psyche the better quipped we’re going to be to deal with the challenges of being alive, making a buck and moving forward.

It’s false -- The more aware we become, the more complexity and pain (including our own) we encounter.

Like any ecological, cultural or planetary systems, we inadvertently create more problems than we solve by tinkering with parts or sub-systems, without knowing or acknowledging the connectedness and interdependence of the sub-systems to the system as a whole.

Or, without knowing how things fit together and affect each other, in trying to fix one thing we inadvertently break others.

Or, we invest precious resources (our time and money) in trying to fix the wrong things.

You know the guy whose all ‘Gung Ho’ to assemble the product, and it’s only when he’s made a mess of it or gotten completely stuck, that he reluctantly reads the instructions.

Well that’s us ...

And I believe all personal growth programs which do not carefully and deliberately place their offering [slice of the pie] within the context of total psychological [mental, emotional and spiritual] growth on the one hand, and cultural development on the other, to be such an endeavour.

... all ‘Gung Ho’

PS
Many years ago when I was in India, I decided to do an intense yoga retreat. Ten hours of yoga per day for three months. The body did good, but the resultant depression nearly killed me, literally. It was a friend who dragged me away. The yoga teacher did not understand the impact of an intense practice, and I’m intense. He did not adequately prepare, frame my experiences or support me.

Many years ago when in Thailand I decided to do an intense thirty day meditation program. It started with ten hours of mediation per day and ended with five days of twenty-four hour meditation. That’s right, non-stop meditation and no sleep for five days. However, though-out the process I was supported by a qualified psychologist / meditation master, who both framed and supported the overwhelming reactions I experienced.

One 'Gung Ho', the other systemitised and integral.