Mind the Gap: When Language Sounds Deep

From time to time, I come across workshops, retreats, or practices that sound promising at first glance, but leave me with a vague sense that something doesn’t quite add up.

It’s rarely anything dramatic. No obvious red flags. Just a subtle mismatch between what is being said and what is actually clear, grounded, or testable.

This is not a dismissal of symbolic work, altered states, ritual, or body-based practice. All of those can be useful in the right context. My concern is with language that sounds meaningful while making it harder to understand what is actually being offered.

You might recognise some of the language:

• “three shifts that will transform your life”
• “moving from dysregulation into flow”
• “doing the work”
• “inner work”
• “non-ordinary states of consciousness”
• “connecting with your tribe”
• “protecting your energy”

None of these phrases are necessarily wrong. Some may point toward something real. But they are often used in ways that are broad enough to mean almost anything, and that makes them difficult to question, evaluate, or apply.

Take the phrase “doing the work”. What work, exactly? Noticing patterns? Feeling emotion without avoidance? Changing behaviour? Reflecting honestly? Setting limits? Any of these might be part of it. But when the phrase is left undefined, it can create the impression of depth without saying very much at all.

Similarly, I’m cautious of the phrase “non-ordinary states of consciousness”. Human consciousness is variable by nature, and we move through many shifting states each day; attention, distraction, absorption, anxiety, reverie, sleep, and everything in between. The important question is not whether a state is &ldquo'ordinary” or “non-ordinary,” but what kind of state it is, how it arises, and what effect it has.

The same applies to statements that sound insightful but do not quite hold together. For example: “We have a limited tolerance for overwhelming experiences.” If an experience is overwhelming, it has already exceeded tolerance. A more accurate way to say it would be that we have a limited tolerance for intense experience, and that when experience exceeds what we can manage, we may fall back on familiar ways of coping.

That may seem like a small distinction, but it matters. Clear language often reflects clear thinking. Foggy language can make ordinary ideas sound deeper than they are.

In another context, I noticed a newly built stone circle. It looked the part; it had bedded in. But something felt off. No clear sight lines. No evident alignment. Nothing anchoring it to anything beyond its own appearance.

The older sites tend to have a function. They point somewhere. They mark something. They relate to the world beyond themselves.

That difference is subtle, but important.

The same applies to therapeutic work. A practice does not need to be cold, mechanical, or stripped of imagination. But it does need to be anchored.

Good work can usually be described in plain terms:

• what is happening
• how it works
• what changes

Not everything needs to be reduced to a formula, but it should at least be possible to say something real about it.

For example, rather than “transformation”, we might be looking for things like:

• being able to stay with a difficult feeling a little longer
• noticing a pattern earlier and having more choice in how to respond
• sleep improving, or anxiety reducing in specific situations

Small, observable shifts. Not grand promises.

This doesn’t mean the work is mechanical or cold. It simply means it is anchored.

In my own work, I try to keep things as clear and grounded as possible. I do not always get that perfectly right, because apparently being human remains annoyingly mandatory. But the aim is to avoid inflated claims, be honest about limits, and focus on what can actually be noticed and built on over time.

If you’ve ever had the sense that something sounded right but didn’t quite hold up on closer inspection, that instinct is usually worth paying attention to.

Please don’t read this as a claim to possess the truth. I mean it as a direction of travel: away from fog, performance, and inflated language, and toward what can be noticed, tested, and lived.

It’s often the beginning of something more solid.

There is a line in the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad (1.3.28) that puts it well:

asato mā sad gamaya
From the unreal, lead me to what is real.