Woo-Woo No More
I have seen things like positive affirmations, meditation, breathwork, mindfulness, yoga, and energy healing written off as “ woo-woo” in the corporate space. The irony? The inherent closemindedness in writing off new modalities before getting curious about them will keep corporations drowning in burnout for far longer than necessary.
Flickr WeTravel & Rob Deutscher
Why is this happening? And what can we do about it?
Let’s look at the origin of woo-woo, how far we’ve come, and why writing things off as woo-woo is on the way out.
Where Did Woo-Woo come from?
The term “woo-woo” originated in the 1970s. During the New Age movement, skeptics used this term to describe the pseudoscience that threatened the status quo. They picked “woo-woo,” like the sound of ghosts as they are portrayed in mass media, to denote how far-fetched those New Age practices seemed. “Woo-woo” was later added to the dictionary in 2019, with the definition “dubiously or outlandishly mystical, supernatural, or unscientific.”
Internet searches for “woo woo” peaked again during the pandemic, when our cultural fabric was unraveling. People started to open up to so-called “alternative” medicine and holistic practices.
Although many practices initially dismissed as woo-woo — such as meditation, ayurveda, functional medicine, and reiki — have since been validated by numerous scientific studies, the term continues to thrive.
In some cases, it’s now used by practitioners to describe their own services as alternative to the mainstream. The dictionary should add this secondary definition because self-described “woo-woo” practitioners are essentially reclaiming the word as something to be embraced, not dismissed. And I’ve observed a complicit agreement on this new definition.
My Personal Journey With All Things Woo
During my own 17 years of management, I’ve tried on many personas. In my earliest years I was more of a friend to my direct reports than anything else. Later I tried on “controlling micro-manager” and “judging superior” for size.
Eventually I graduated to becoming a trusting and empathetic leader. This change was driven by my own personal development, not a management course.
I’m no Jedi master, but yoga, meditation, reiki, and therapy led to significant improvements in my:
emotional regulation
ego detachment
sense of self-worth
independence from external validation.
It’s very safe to say all things “woo-woo” have empirically improved everything around me, including my managerial abilities.
Raised by loving, yet relatively rigid Catholic parents, I was initially skeptical of many “alternative” modalities, yet my innate open-mindedness led me to a genuine curiosity in all of these unknowns.
Flickr: Rob Oo & Nickolai Kashirin
Therapy freaked me out so much at first that I almost quit.
I laughed out loud the first time my yoga teacher demonstrated lion’s breath (iykyk), which I now love to do.
During my reiki training, it felt weird and foreign to practice feeling energy.
The first time someone asked me to envision my inner child, I didn’t think I had one.
Yet something told me to suspend disbelief and TRY.
Despite initial discomfort, I stuck with it and benefited greatly.
Why The Derogatory Woo-Woo Is On The Way Out
Corporate environments facing burnout, depression, and suicide cannot afford to dismiss healing modalities as pseudoscience. Proven practices like meditation and affirmations significantly reduce stress and improve mental performance.
For too long, corporate culture has marginalized intuitive, creative, and self-loving aspects, favoring masculine traits like logic and productivity. This imbalance contributes to widespread corporate pain. We must integrate these feminine aspects to create a healthier work environment.
A few examples:
Meditation, an (at least) 3500-year-old practice, scientifically proven to reduce stress, aid attention and memory, and resilience under stress (among other things).
Affirmations, medically proven to “restore self-worth” in individuals as well as prime them for better mental performance, increased well being, and more adaptability to change.
Crystal healing, which uses diamagnetism, cognitive psychology, and color psychology to change our physical state.
Flickr: Ray in Manila and WeTravel
For many decades the world of work has asked us to leave the feeling, intuitive, emotive, collaborative, and interpersonally sensitive aspects of ourselves at home. Anything that breaks the hardened mask of productivity provokes an unconscious fear response.
Given our collective history, the mentality makes sense, yet it’s also outdated.
Evolution of Corporate Culture
Corporate America evolved through several stages that placed a premium on inherently masculine qualities such as logic, structure, productivity, and competition. These systems also — perhaps unconsciously — devalued inherently feminine characteristics such as creativity, intuition, self-love, and collaboration.
Embedded Misogyny of the 1950s
Feminist Movement & Tech Boom of the 1970s
Bro Culture of the 80s and 90s
Post-Recession Hustle Culture
Even the feminist movement of the 70s was inherently patriarchal because, although women were becoming empowered, they were stepping into a masculine template vs. an empowered and embodied feminine one.
Of course Western culture, run by the military–industrial–congressional complex (MICC) and the business of Western medicine, derides practices and modalities that are outside the system.
Acupuncture, herbal remedies, prayer, intuition, positive thinking, the healing power of nature are - quite simply - bad for business because they reconnect us to our abilities to heal ourselves and derive our power from within.
Loretta Pyles, PhD, RYT-500 says it well:
the term woo-woo is essentially an “extension of the colonialist project to deride, minimalize and marginalize indigenous and feminine ways of healing and knowing. The proliferation of the term elevates scientific materialism while sabotaging human capabilities for healing apart from a commodified and pharmaceutically dominated medical system. It diverts us from our own intuition, as well as from the mysteries and beauty of life.”
Woo Woo Is Part of You
The intuitive, creative, collaborative, and self-loving aspects are just as much a part of every human being as the productive, logical, competitive, and structured aspects. Every human, male or female, needs both to feel whole.
The default degradation of our innately feminine aspects as “woo woo” is the reason for the deep pain that’s endemic to corporate environments. It needs to change.
Shifting Attitudes
Since the dawn of humanity in the caveman era our species has continued to evolve. Sometimes it’s easy to forget that the process continues right now. The AI boom, technology, and higher levels of consciousness are just a few of the forces serving to evolve our species.
While it may have been okay — necessary even — to sideline self-love, collaboration, intuition and deeper self-evaluation in the Industrial Age, times have changed. We need to re-integrate the innate parts of our humanity that we’ve deemed less critical. The planet, our collective, and our individual health depends on it.
Welcome Woo Woo (And Not Calling It Woo Woo)
You’re probably seeing the signs of this all around you:
Corporate managers leading with heart. Just look at the boom in Brene Brown’s Dare to Lead training or the rise in emphasis on “soft skills” .
In-house corporate coaching programs mushrooming. These programs encourage self-reflection, personal growth, self-care and mutual respect.
Large corporations espousing the benefits of meditation, self-care, and mindfulness. Google gives free massages to FTEs. Salesforce has meditation rooms in most of its office spaces (although they don’t get much traffic.)
Therapy, yoga, and acupuncture normalizing. It’s okay to bring these things up at the office.
Reiki healing integrating into hospitals. Its proven ability to “dramatically alter people’s …physical and emotional pain” has landed it in the best hospitals in the world.
The Woo Woo Work We Still Have To Do
I’m calling for you, as a leader, to keep up the great work. There’s a lot we need to do in order to integrate these formerly “woo-woo” ways of being into the actual fabric of daily work, vs. referring to them as “nice to have” side benefits.
Deep in the corporate psyche is a belief that these practices will get in the way of our productivity and advancement. We are afraid to truly embrace them.
Case in point: Ten Percent Happier’s co-founder, Dan Harris, was concerned that “getting zen” via his meditation practice would cause him to lose focus and ambition. However, he found that being able to let go of his inner drill sergeant allowed him to tap into more sustainable sources of motivation.
In 2010 after Arianna Huffington found herself in the hospital due to lack of sleep and burnout, she made waves with her famous campaign and Ted Talk, imploring high performing executives to prioritize sleep as the most basic and intrinsic of productivity hacks. Citing numerous scientific studies, she showed how sleep helps us function at a higher levels, come up with better ideas, find solutions, improve memory, and identify patterns faster.
Arianna Huffington [Flickr: C2 Montreal]
Is sleeping 8 hours a day considered woo woo? No longer.
The New Era: Not Too Woo For Work
We’re making progress. We’re entering a new era of personal responsibility where individuals will slowly but surely take back the reins of control from their employers.
Practices such as affirmations, mediation, yoga, acupuncture, holistic healing, and more self care are going to be a big part of this next wave in corporate spaces. They’re going to be integrated into the way we work every day.
The employers that begin to put a premium on these things are going to be the ones that succeed in the long term. Why? Attrition will go down. Productivity, loyalty, and evangelism will go up.
The term “woo-woo” should be replaced with curiosity and openness. As science evolves, previously mysterious practices become mainstream. Corporate leaders must keep an open mind in order to enable a healthier future. The integration of holistic practices, heart-centered leadership and an equal emphasis on feminine and masculine qualities will define the successful companies of the future.
