19/02/2026
So well expressed . I don’t take it personally what he’s done, but
many will and they’ll be processing their own belief systems and who to trust . Discernment and following your own inner guidance and truth and your own spiritual support is absolutely key right now.
Author Lissa Rankin on Deepak Chopra/Epstein: "Come On, Deepak, You Can Do Better Than The Avoidant Email You Just Sent Out
A colleague just forwarded me the email Deepak Chopra sent to his email list. This could have been such a potent moment to model accountability, to show us how it's done when we make mistakes, to own up to our humanity, without distraction, displacement, spiritual bypassing, or avoidance. To sit with the discomfort of having done something hurtful- and getting caught and publicly outed.
To walk us through it, maybe even using parts language to speak for his humiliated, ashamed parts or his parts that feel so much remorse for being part of a system that enabled the perpetration of sexual abuse on young girls. Or to at least admit the firefighters that like young girls and liked having proximity to them.
But no. Here's what he wrote:
"Dear Friends,
I want to take a moment to speak to you directly. I know this has been a difficult and unsettling time for some in our community.
As long as I’m able to, it remains my intention to continue sharing practices and perspectives on Body, Mind, and Spirit, and to be present with this community as we move through this moment together. This is a process that continues to support me personally, and it is my hope that what is meaningful for me may also be supportive for you.
A Reflection: Integrating the Shadow
In times of change, many of us find ourselves reflecting more deeply on our inner world and emotional patterns. One of the most important aspects of personal growth is learning to recognize and integrate the parts of ourselves we may have previously overlooked or pushed aside.
In this short reflection, I explore the idea of the “shadow” in a universal and practical way, and how bringing awareness to these hidden aspects of ourselves can support greater clarity, wholeness, and healing. (LINKS TO A VIDEO)
Healing Fear and Anxiety
In our troubled times, a prevailing mood of angst needs to be healed, and the first step is to learn how to deal with anxiety rather than succumb to it or engage in a fruitless struggle that never seems to resolve itself. To begin, fear and anxiety normally don’t announce themselves with trumpets and drums. They slip quietly into everyday life, disguised as “being realistic,” “staying informed,” or “just preparing for the worst.” Before you know it, you are rehearsing disasters that never arrive and reliving hurts that no longer exist except in memory. In a world addicted to threat, we have mistaken tension for wisdom and constant worry as a sign of love. Yet beneath this collective spell lies a simple but radical truth: Fear is not your nature, and it is not your destiny."
That's it? Really, Deepak? Not a word naming the elephant in the room?
I don't want to scapegoat any one person. It took a village to enable Jeffrey Epstein, to help him commit his crimes and then cover them up. I'd rather talk about the systems of power- and the hierarchical structures of male supremacy, white supremacy, able-bodied supremacy, heterosexual supremacy, and all the other supremacies that hold these hierarchical structures in place.
But for now, we need a public reckoning. We need to feel our feelings- our outrage, our confusion, our disillusionment, our fear, and ultimately, our grief.
I'm not surprised, but that's what could have been helpful- if Deepak had actually given us even a tiny bit of space to process the impact of reading all those emails between him and Epstein- and imagining what those girls went through and are likely still experiencing.
My heart goes out to all of you, as we wrestle with this as practitioners of healing modalities, spirituality, wellness, trauma healing, coaching, yoga, and many other dimensions of the mind-body-spirit space.
I'm in conversation with the folks at Science & Non-Duality, with Dr. Gabor Mate, with Dr. Shamini Jain, with Dr. Scott Mills, and many others about where we go from here. So stay tuned for an invitation to a collective response.
I'm a bit overwhelmed from the firestorm response to my last few posts on Facebook and Substack, so I'm going to take my dog for a walk, to take a nervous system break. I hope you will too, if you can. We have to put our own oxygen masks on first. I'll see you on the other side.
