Are Spiritual Leaders and Life Coaches Gimmicks or Genuine Guides?

I might be wrong, but here’s what I’ve observed.

When a person is in deep depression, consumed by trauma, or caught in a life-threatening or identity-threatening crisis, their ability to think clearly shrinks. By “life-threatening,” I mean an existential crisis. By “identity-threatening,” I mean the collapse of something you built your self-worth on, a relationship, a career, a financial status.

In these moments, even when the way out is simple and obvious to an outsider, the person living the crisis can’t act on it. They might consciously understand what needs to be done, they might even understand why, but the action part is missing. They can’t think pragmatically or logically, even if the solution is sitting right in front of them.

That’s where coaches, mentors, spiritual leaders, and guides come in.

When you approach them, they’re not entangled in your emotions. They can see the big picture, and often, they can see the path out, because anyone outside the problem usually can.

Why Relatives and Friends Often Can’t Fill This Role

The difference is, friends and relatives, even if they see the solution, rarely give it to you plainly.

• Friends will filter advice based on what they think you can handle. They won’t push you toward your highest potential if it means making you uncomfortable. For example, if you’re struggling in your career, no friend will say, “Stop hanging out with me and use this hour to study,” even if that’s what’s best for you. They’ll soften it: “Let’s hang out, then you can study.”
• Relatives will give advice that also benefits them—or at least doesn’t threaten their own position. If they have a great business idea, they might keep it for themselves and give you a safer, smaller suggestion.

That’s why outsiders, gurus, mentors, coaches, can be valuable. They’re not personally invested in your family politics or your comfort zone.

The Problem: Greed and Dependency

But here’s where it gets messy. Greed creeps in.

A new coach or spiritual leader might give you strong, honest guidance at the start. But over time, if they have an organisation to run, staff to pay, and bills to cover, the purity of their advice can dilute. They may start giving you half-solutions, not enough to make you independent, just enough to keep you coming back.

This is the biggest danger: when someone in pain becomes emotionally dependent on their guide. Life will always give you new challenges. The point is not to keep running to the same person for every problem, it’s to learn how to navigate challenges yourself. But dependency is profitable.

In my observation, spiritual gurus often aim for lifelong follower-ship. Life coaches, on the other hand, tend to be more transactional—providing a service for a fee—but some also prefer keeping the same clients on retainers. Either way, if the model keeps you dependent, it robs you of something vital: your ability to think and act independently in moments of crisis.

What About Psychologists?

Psychologists and therapy sessions can be incredibly helpful, especially because talk therapy can bring buried truths into the light. Sometimes, mid-session, you have that aha! moment that cracks something open.

But here’s the catch: the more you talk, the easier it is to get addicted to talking about your mess rather than acting on solutions. You can understand the “why” all day long, but if the trauma is still living in your body, in your cells, your nervous system. It will keep pulling you back into old cycles.

That’s why victims often return to abusers they know are harmful. It’s not ignorance, it’s the addictive familiarity of the pattern. The body remembers the comfort of the known, even if the “known” is toxic.

Session after session, talking without integration is not enough. The trauma that fuels procrastination, fear, anxiety, and self-sabotage is physical as much as it is mental. To truly heal, you must combine psychological insight with ancient wisdom, the wisdom of your soul, your inner being, and your true human self.

You Already Have the Capacity

The truth is, the person taking the action is always you. The guide is just providing perspective you couldn’t access in the fog of trauma. That doesn’t make them more intelligent than you or gifted with special powers. It just means you were temporarily disconnected from your own clarity.

The real disservice happens when these leaders position themselves as the only source of wisdom. Ego takes over. Suddenly they’re dictating how you live, what you eat, how you dress, what’s “right” and “wrong.” Before you know it, spirituality or coaching has morphed into a cult.

Take Back Your Inner Compass

If you’re in a crisis, by all means, seek guidance. But don’t outsource your problem-solving ability forever.

The goal should be to heal, psychologically, emotionally, ancestrally, so you can think clearly again.

Every wisdom tradition I’ve studied- shamanic healing, yogic culture, ancient spiritual practices, has given us tools to heal trauma and reclaim this clarity. Modern psychology and neuroscience are only now catching up, sometimes integrating what these traditions have known for centuries.

When you truly heal, you become the kind of human who can:

• See a problem without fear
• Step back and detach from it
• Search for the solution that already exists

That is the real power. Not sitting in the same mess and outsourcing your journey to someone else, but walking it yourself. Because the journey itself, the mistakes, the insights, the self-discovery, is what makes you wise.