Mindfulness Winter: A Season of Reckoning and Renewal

By Mo Edjlali, Founder and CEO, Mindful Leader; Author, Open MBSR: Reimagining the Future of Mindfulness

There is a chill in the air.
Not the kind that wakes you gently, but the kind that creeps in through cracks, quiet, subtle, undeniable.

We are in what I call a Mindfulness Winter. Not for everyone, to be precise.

The celebrity gurus and mega-spirituality influencers are still selling enlightenment by the download. The spiritual capitalism machine continues to hum. Instagram enlightenment and luxury retreats where the price tag has become the new symbol of status continue to thrive.

For those of us working in community-based, live, human-centered mindfulness… the world of MBSR programs, teacher-led circles, peer practice groups, and quiet teachers holding space without brand deals or big stages—the air has changed. The warmth has faded.

The Signs of Winter

The numbers tell the story. Enrollments are down. Retreats struggle to fill, and teachers whisper about half-empty classes.

The movement that once filled boardrooms, news headlines, and conference halls now feels quieter and more tentative. What was once a cultural awakening now feels like fatigue.

But winter is not death.
It is a season of truth.
It reveals what remains alive beneath the snow.

Cold Winds from Outside

This winter did not arrive without warning. The cultural climate has shifted in subtle but powerful ways.

The DEI movement, once a courageous call for belonging and inclusion, has been recast as divisive. Many organizations that once championed mindfulness as a path toward compassion and empathy now fear being labeled “woke.” Compassion has become political, and efficiency has taken priority over humanity.  

At the same time, growing economic strain and social division have left many people stretched thin. We move faster but connect less. In this atmosphere, it is no wonder mindfulness feels colder and harder to sustain.

The Gartner Hype Cycle and the Mindfulness Plateau

To see where we are, it helps to borrow a concept from tech: the Gartner Hype Cycle—the path every innovation follows.

• Inflated Expectations: A surge of excitement when promise outpaces reality.
  
• Trough of Disillusionment: Enthusiasm fades as limits and flaws emerge.
  
• Climb Toward Maturity: The idea regains strength if it holds real value.
  

Mindfulness has followed this curve perfectly. It exploded into popular culture with bold promises of transformation and resilience—then came overexposure, backlash, and fatigue. Apps multiplied, teachers professionalized, and the marketplace overflowed. The miracle wore off.

We now sit in the trough, where mindfulness feels stale or commodified. Yet this is also where renewal begins. True revival will not come from marketing or new apps but from facing the cracks in the foundation—restoring honesty, depth, and integrity to the practice.

The Collapse from Within

Let us name those cracks plainly. We promised secular mindfulness but often delivered stealth Buddhism. Not through malice, but through hesitation. We borrowed Buddhist practices rather than deriving from them, transplanting sacred techniques while changing only the vocabulary.

The result has been programs built on unspoken rules, hidden hierarchies, and opaque teacher-to-disciple dynamics dressed up as secular training. This lack of transparency did not protect mindfulness. It weakened trust.

We spoke of inclusivity but practiced elitism. We turned meditation into content, teachers into influencers, and guidance into dependency.

We built systems that appeared compassionate but reinforced fragility and hierarchy. And in doing so, we lost trust, the lifeblood of any movement grounded in awareness.

These truths are not accusations. They are invitations. We cannot warm ourselves with denial. We must name the cold before we can thaw it.

A Crisis of Connection

Our outer and inner winters have converged. The same forces that fragment our attention also fragment our communities. Loneliness, distrust, and polarization are not side effects. They are symptoms of a deeper fracture in how we relate to ourselves and to one another.

Mindfulness was meant to be an antidote to disconnection. Yet it has often been swept into individualism and consumerism. The next chapter will depend on whether we can shift from personal self-improvement to collective care.

The Coming Mental Health Tsunami

We are standing on the edge of what may be the greatest mental health crisis in human history. Anxiety, loneliness, and despair are rising across generations. Technology moves faster than our emotional development. Communities are fraying, attention is dissolving, and purpose feels optional.

We may see fewer external wars, but far more internal ones. And this is where mindfulness should matter most.

We must evolve quickly. When the storm hits, people will not need another expensive retreat or elite certification. They will not need celebrity teachers or branded apps.

They will need each other. They will need to practice together in living rooms, schools, and workplaces. They will need mindfulness that is transparent in its methods, free from religious or corporate capture, and governed by communities rather than by oligarchical hidden control.

The Path Forward: From Consumption to Community

In the harshest winters, penguins survive not by fleeing the cold but by huddling together.

They take turns at the edge of the circle, shielding one another from the wind, conserving warmth through shared presence.

Perhaps that is our lesson, too.

We cannot out-market or out-app our way through this winter. We must huddle — in community, in silence, in honesty — until the warmth returns.

The solution is not another guru, or app, or shiny new program promising enlightenment in two minutes. The solution is peer practice, shared silence, and transparent governance.

Open MBSR offers a different path. It treats mindfulness as community stewardship, not as a product owned by a few. There are no hidden hierarchies and no secret transmissions. Every element, from principles to practices, is open for examination, discussion, and evolution.

Like the best open-source projects, this model balances structure with freedom. It provides clear frameworks that preserve integrity while allowing for genuine innovation. This is not mindfulness diluted into "anything goes." It is mindfulness liberated from control and secrecy.

We must reclaim mindfulness as a community practice, not as a commodity.
We must return to silence as shared courage, not as guided content.
We must rebuild trust through transparency and shared responsibility.

Professor Nancy J. Adler, S. Bronfman Chair in Management at McGill University, writes:

Artists and leaders face similar challenges: to see reality as it is, without succumbing to despair, while imagining possibilities that go far beyond current reality; to have the courage to collude against illusion while articulating possible futures previously unimaginable; and to inspire people to surpass themselves, individually and collectively, for the benefit of all.

Her words could be our compass. Seeing clearly. Naming reality. Imagining anew.

The Spring Ahead

Every winter ends.
The ground thaws. Seeds stir. New voices rise.

The next Mindful Spring will not be led by celebrity teachers, elite universities, or billion-dollar apps. It will be led by communities of imperfect people practicing together and redefining mindfulness for a new age.

But first, we must face the cold. We cannot think our way out of disillusionment, nor can we outsource integrity to institutions. We must see reality as it is and find the courage to build again.

That is the promise and the challenge of Open MBSR. It is a framework derived from contemplative wisdom yet free from religious or organizational capture. It is governed by communities and built on transparency, peer learning, and accessibility for all.

Mindfulness Winter is not the end of an era. It’s the start of a new age for our field.  

Are you feeling the effects of the mindfulness winter? What do you think this new spring should look like?

This is part of our Wackfulness Series: a thoughtful critique of the mindfulness field.