What happens when the wellness industry becomes the very thing we need to detox from? Why are some people more comfortable buying crystals than confronting capitalism? What if your yoga practice, your organic groceries, and your mindfulness apps aren’t actually making the world more just?
In this unflinching, gloves-off episode, host Hawah Kasat sits down with movement artist, community organizer, and wellness activist Kerri Kelly, author of
American Detox: The Myth of Wellness and How We Can Truly Heal. Together, they dive headfirst into the uncomfortable—but wildly necessary—conversation about how Western wellness has been built on the same inequities it claims to fix.
Kerri shares her deeply personal awakening: from losing her stepfather on 9/11, to falling into the wellness industry, to realizing she was replicating harmful systems she thought she was escaping. She breaks down how myths like separation, supremacy, and scarcity seep into our bodies, our spirituality, and our “self-care,” and how real healing requires confronting the systems making us sick—capitalism, white supremacy, patriarchy, and colonialism.
Hawah and Kerri also explore collective care, the collapse of old changemaking strategies, the limits of personal wellness, the rise of mutual aid, the politics of abundance vs. scarcity, and the cultural importance of boycotting extractive corporations in favor of community-based economies.
This episode is a masterclass in expanding our definition of wellness from personal optimization to collective liberation.
What We’ll Explore:
- Why Western wellness often reinforces the same inequities it claims to heal
- The myths of separation, supremacy, and scarcity — and how they shape our bodies
- What “detoxing from America” really means (hint: it’s not just juice cleanses)
- The story of Kerri’s stepfather, a 9/11 firefighter whose legacy shaped her activism
- Why the spiritual abundance mindset can actually feed capitalism
- How personal healing is inseparable from collective healing
- Why self-care without structural change is insufficient
- Where we still hold entitlement in our bodies—even when our minds “know better”
- How consumerism, corporate wellness, and political apathy keep us unwell
- The ways to direct our spending and purchasing power to support smaller economies and businesses
- How to build new systems of wellbeing in a collapsing world
- Why discomfort, conflict, and messiness are essential to transformation
Notable Quotes:(12:35) “We don’t need more juice fasts and yoga fads. We need to detox from white supremacy, patriarchy, capitalism, and colonialism.” — Kerri Kelly
(14:55) “America has exported wellness culture across the planet — and in doing so, has damaged traditions, indigeneity, and ancient ways of being.” — Hawah Kasat
(18:48) “Abundance culture is often just capitalism in spiritual drag.” — Hawah Kasat
(22:42) “My body has been trained to believe it is innocent, superior, entitled — even if my mind knows that’s not true.” — Kerri Kelly
(27:35) “Mindfulness is not going to end racism. Eating organic won’t feed hungry people.” — Kerri Kelly
(29:30) “If I’m only focused on my Ayahuasca retreat and not on the community I return to… I’m missing the mark.” — Hawah Kasat
(33:50) “We’ve been told to reach for the power ‘out there’ instead of cultivating the power in here.” — Kerri Kelly
(39:50) “How do we take care of us? Because the government is not coming to save us.” — Kerri Kelly
(54:05) “None of us can be well when so many people are suffering.” — Kerri Kelly
(56:35) “The work is building the capacity to hold messiness, discomfort, contradiction — because that is the reality of this moment.” — Kerri Kelly
Social Links for Kerri KellyWebsite - https://www.americandetox.co/
Book -
https://www.americandetox.co/book CTZNWELL - https://www.ctznwell.org/
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/kkellyyoga/
Social Links for Hawah Kasat:- Linktree - https://linktr.ee/everlutionary
- Website - https://hawahkasat.com/
- Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/everlutionary
- Substack - https://everlutionary.substack.com
- YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@everlutionary
- Everlutionary Merch: https://everlutionary.creator-spring.com/
Episode Music Credit:
Wu-tang Clan, “C.R.E.A.M. (Cash Rules Everything Around Me)”
https://youtu.be/4yNQ7_7I5aE?si=Opcyq31js4ckwHuK
Previous guests include: Edgar Villanueva, author of "Decolonizing Wealth"; Kute Blackson, national bestselling author of "The Magic of Surrender"; Kerry Docherty, co-founder of the "Faherty Brand"; Prince Haru, the recognized leader of the Kuntanawa Nation; and Noor Tagouri, award-winning journalist and storyteller.
Check out the most downloaded episodes:
- E5 - Radical Love with Sonya Renee Taylor
- E21 - Honoring Women and Healing Men with Hawah Kasat
- E22 - Fashion Waste and Conscious Capitalism with Kerry Docherty co-founder of Faherty Brand
Check out the new Everlutionary Podcast Merch
