A few years ago, I was invited to teach mindfulness meditation to a group of software engineers at a multinational tech company. The company hoped mindfulness would reduce their coders’ stress levels, and it sounded like it could be of some benefit. But when I met with their employees, I learned how they faced punishing deadlines, frequent overtime demands, constant pressure to quickly fix bugs, intense scrutiny during code reviews, and pervasive job insecurity. No wonder they were stressed!
Instead of giving my planned talk on mindfulness, I shifted focus to address their work–life imbalance and lack of interpersonal connection. I encouraged them to band together to create workplace changes that would address the root causes of their stress and fatigue. While the employees seemed to appreciate the talk, management was less enthusiastic. I was not invited back.
This situation brings to mind some other all-too-common scenarios.
A remote tech worker is diagnosed with ADHD after struggling with days filled with Zoom calls and constant digital interruptions.
A young queer person who faces daily workplace discrimination is told they have “imposter syndrome.”
A Black woman is sent to anger-management classes despite the fact that her anger is due to experiencing constant microaggressions.
A single parent is prescribed anxiety medication while barely making rent.
In each case there’s a pattern: Legitimate responses to difficult circumstances are framed as individual failures—personal problems requiring personal solutions. The burden of healing falls entirely on the individual, while the systems causing their pain remain unquestioned.
We live in a society that teaches us to turn inward with our pain. When we struggle, we’re told to seek therapy, take meds, or meditate—all valuable tools, but incomplete on their own when we’re in an environment that’s causing us to suffer. When someone can’t sleep because they’re worried about keeping their job or paying rent, it’s treated as a mental health issue—not a sign that something’s wrong with the way we live and work.
Meanwhile, policies that cut social programs, privatize public resources, and deregulate industries have created a world where most people face increasing pressure with decreasing support. The result? Widespread mental distress that we’re taught to manage alone.
In our hyper-individualized culture, we’re expected to constantly improve, market ourselves, and perform. We’ve become our own taskmasters, pushing ourselves to exhaustion while blaming ourselves for not keeping up.
“As the Buddha taught long ago, true healing comes not from perfecting ourselves to fit into broken systems, but from seeing clearly.”
Our digitized lives compound this problem. The constant barrage of emails, notifications, updates, and virtual meetings fragments our attention and keeps our nervous system on high alert. Our minds weren’t designed for this level of stimulation. What if our struggle is telling us something important about our lives—that we’re trapped in meaningless work, disconnected from purpose and community?
Consider “imposter syndrome,” a mindset wherein someone wrestles with self-doubt, fearing they’ll be exposed as a fraud, even though they have plenty of proof that they’re actually capable. Therapists often use the term with clients to describe a baseless insecurity that individuals must overcome. But for many people—especially those from marginalized groups—these feelings aren’t irrational. They reflect real experiences of being held to higher standards, receiving less recognition, and navigating unwelcoming environments.
Labeling these feelings as a “syndrome” is a form of gaslighting. It implies the problem exists only in our heads, not in the biased systems we navigate daily. Today’s world of unstable jobs, shrinking social services, and catastrophizing news cycles creates a feeling that we’re stuck. When we can’t imagine anything different than the system we have, we end up blaming ourselves for our struggles instead of questioning the world around us. We turn our discontent inward. Hopelessness sets in. If change seems impossible, all we can do is blame ourselves and try to adapt to conditions that may be fundamentally unhealthy.
Yet this disconnect between personal suffering and social conditions isn’t new. Two and a half millennia ago, the Buddha recognized that suffering doesn’t arise in isolation—it emerges from conditions, and those conditions are shaped by society.
The Buddha directly confronted the caste system of his time, an unjust structure that determined people’s worth even before they were born. He understood that no system based on inequality could address suffering at its root.
In the Kutadanta Sutta, when a wealthy man asked the Buddha about performing rituals to address societal unrest, the Buddha offered surprising advice. Instead of religious ceremonies, he suggested giving land to the landless, distributing food to the hungry, and ensuring equitable access to livelihood. Only after addressing these material conditions, he explained, could peace return.
The Buddha understood that many personal mental health challenges stemmed from social inequality and a lack of supportive social networks. He didn’t teach isolation as a path to freedom. He emphasized the importance of sangha—spiritual community—as essential to awakening. The Buddha understood that we need others to see clearly, to reflect our worth, and to validate our experiences.
The concept of kalyanamitta—wise spiritual friends—points to how supportive, compassionate relationships help us discern what struggles are truly “ours” and what suffering comes from unjust systems. The Buddha’s focus wasn’t on fixing individual pathology but on recognizing transpersonal truths: that craving leads to suffering, that we suffer because of ignorance about reality’s nature, and that liberation comes through insight, not self-improvement.
When spiritual practice is paired with awareness of systemic problems, it becomes truly liberating. Rather than helping us adapt to harmful conditions, it can give us strength to resist them.
Even meditation training can become problematic when taught without acknowledging broader social conditions. If stress is explained solely as a result of not being present, a lack of acceptance, or symptoms of a need to meditate for longer durations, we reinforce the idea that suffering stems only from our internal response, not from exploitation or disconnection. Moreover, the modern adaptation of mindfulness, stripped from its original context within the eightfold path—where it was inseparable from ethical living, right livelihood, and pro-social, harmless actions—risks becoming little more than a tool for maintaining the status quo.
What might change if we stopped blaming ourselves for reasonable responses to unreasonable conditions? The tech worker with “ADHD” might recognize their attention struggles stem from an unsustainable digital environment. The young queer person and the Black woman might challenge workplace culture rather than internalize imposter feelings or attend anger-management classes. The single parent might find solidarity with others fighting for affordable childcare instead of seeing anxiety as their personal battle.
This doesn’t mean abandoning therapy or medication when they help. It means expanding our understanding of healing to include the communities and systems we live within. Rather than blaming ourselves, we can turn to each other, share experiences, and unburden the distress we mistakenly believe belongs to us alone.
As the Buddha taught long ago, true healing comes not from perfecting ourselves to fit into broken systems, but from seeing clearly, connecting compassionately, and creating conditions where all beings can thrive.
Try this meditation: Breathe into the possibility that your suffering is a response to toxic systems, not personal failure. Gently affirm: “This pain is not my fault. I am not broken; I am responding to a broken world. My worth is not defined by my productivity or perfection.”
