Two days ago, I turned a page in the Sunday Times Magazine and came across this banger of a headline:

The hot new trend in wellness?  ‘Restorative rocking’ – which promises to reduce stress and help you sleep better

The article goes on to explain how restorative rocking – described as “gently rocking your body back and forth” – is sweeping through the world of wellness.

To which I say:

When will this madness ever end?

As if practising yoga with a goat on your back wasn’t ridiculous enough (Google "goat yoga" if this is news to you), now this gimmick shows up.

What’s next?

Rolling in piles of soft & fluffy marshmallows to become more emotionally resilient?

Putting on a beekeeper suit and meditating in an apiary while swarms of honeybees buzz around your head?

Or cracking open a can of alphabet soup, tipping the contents into a crystal singing bowl and chanting the gobbledegook phrases you see floating around in the tomato sauce?

It wouldn’t surprise me if one of these actually DID become the next big trend (you heard it here first).

After all, there’s always a gap in the market for another fleeting wellness fad. 

Especially if that fad promises people less stress & anxiety, and more peace, calm & happiness.

Goat yoga and restorative rocking are really just the tip of the iceberg.  Entire industries have been built this way.

All this reminds me of a quote from Steven Pressfield’s book The War of Art:

We live in a consumer culture that’s acutely aware of this unhappiness and has massed all its profit-seeking artillery to exploit it.  By selling us a product, a drug, or a distraction.

A product, drug or distraction which says, in so many words, that “there’s something wrong with you”, “there’s something missing from you” or “you’re not good enough”.

And promises to fix us, plug our missing gap, or distract us from the fact that we’re not up to scratch.

But if these are the so-called “problems” that consumers are looking to solve, there’s bad news coming down the pipe:

None of these products, drugs or distractions will ever work.

The reason?

There’s nothing wrong with anyone…

No-one has anything missing…

And everyone is - at their very core - whole, complete and perfect.

So while joining a £3,500, 12-week restorative rocking programme might be a good way to meet some fellow free spirits, it’s never going to solve a problem that doesn’t exist.

The only thing which blocks anyone’s innate wellbeing is the bucketload of unhelpful thoughts (and habits of thought) they’ve innocently picked up over the years.

This is the place to look if a more pleasant experience of life is what you’re after.

And despite the elaborate and convoluted tropes pumped out by the experts trying to sell you on the latest craze, it really is this simple.

That’s it for today.

- Tom