In Praise of Depth

We live in a culture addicted to speed and novelty. In the endless scroll of IG Reels and TikToks and the race to try the next big thing, it's easy to become a spiritual and intellectual dilettante - sampling everything but mastering nothing. We dabble in one philosophy today and another tomorrow, hoping something will click. Yet for all our flitting about, we rarely find the freedom or fulfillment we seek. Perhaps this is because, as Richard Rohr says, “before the truth sets you free, it tends to make you miserable.”

In other words, real truth and transformation often require discomfort and depth - exactly what our TikTok culture avoids.

Consider a few symptoms of our surface-level society:

• TikTok spirituality – Spiritual wisdom distilled into <1min reels, offering quick inspiration with little context or contemplation. Complex traditions are reduced to catchy soundbites.
• Rapid-fire coach certifications – Coaches collecting credentials like merit badges in a matter of days. There are so many programs that promise a certificate and a fool-proof process to change a client's life, but often only scratch the surface of true coaching mastery.
• “Just trust your intuition” – A well-meaning mantra that can become an oversimplified escape hatch. A side effect of this is that many bypass study, discipline, or the uncomfortable work of self-reflection. (Intuition is vital, but wisdom teaches that true intuition is honed by deep knowledge, experience and reflection, not only impulse.)

All these trends share a seductive promise of quick clarity or quick results. But they often leave people intellectually and spiritually malnourished. It's the difference between a Big Mac and a nutritious home-cooked meal.

The Freedom of Depth

I learned the value of depth the hard way. For years, I went deep into Christianity – immersing myself in the Bible, countless books and podcasts, community, and prayer. I wrestled with theology (both mainstream and marginalised) and tried to live out the teachings in messy real life. The result over a lifetime is real spiritual discernment.

It didn’t come easy. At various points of my faith journey, I became so disillusioned with Christianity, its teachers, its people, and its dogma that I stepped away from church entirely. It was a long journey to finding my way back in a new way. But by sticking with one faith tradition long enough to move beyond its outer shell, I developed the ability to see the wisdom beneath the dogma.

My deep exploration of my faith allows me to appreciate truths in other faiths too, without getting caught up in their "externals". Depth in one path gave me the discernment to recognise universal wisdom, and the discipline not to chase every shiny new idea that comes along. Breadth is important in that we don't get stuck in our limited perspectives and dogma, but we cannot enjoy breadth if we do not first have depth.

This is why I have little patience for those who claim “All religions point to the same truth. I just wish religious people could see that.” It sounds enlightened. But it’s often spoken by people who’ve never lived inside a tradition - never really studied it, submitted to its discomfort, wrestled with its contradictions, or stayed long enough to let it work on them.

There’s a kind of arrogance in it. As if scrolling past a few reels or reading a pop spirituality book gives you a panoramic view that “religious people” just don’t have. Yes, mystics across faiths often do speak of the same truth, but they’ve earned the right to say it. They’ve stayed. Practiced. Prayed. They’ve confronted the dogma, absorbed the wisdom, and discovered what lies beneath the surface. The deeper truths often sound simple, but only when they’re lived. Not just half-understood pseudo-intellectually.

I also am grateful for my years in science studying Biochemistry at Imperial College London, which sharpened my BS radar in ways I didn’t expect. Experiments and reading countless research papers with a critical eye teach patience, skepticism, and intellectual rigor. I learned to value evidence over hype. When I later entered the coaching and personal development world, I could quickly sense when something was fluff or woo-woo. This, along with the wisdom of my faith, helped me to remember that real growth isn’t about grand claims or instant fixes; it’s often slow, iterative, and requires honest observation. In coaching sessions now, this means I don’t get swayed by every new miracle technique. My focus is on what truly helps someone transform over the long haul, not what sounds sparkly in the moment.

Perhaps most importantly, depth has taught me about the importance and value of staying put. I’ve watched so many people hop between religions, "spiritual" paths, tools, and life philosophies like they’re scrolling through Tiktok. One month it’s meditation, next month it’s shamanic breathwork; one week they’re talking about Star Seeds, the next it’s all about law of attraction.

I understand the curiosity - we’re hungry for clear-cut answers and silver bullets. But I also see a pattern: when we constantly switch lanes, we never travel far enough in any one direction to find the treasure at the end. We remain novices, forever searching, never grounded. As the poet Rainer Maria Rilke advised a young seeker, we have to learn patience with the unresolved and “try to love the questions themselves”, to “live the questions now” rather than demand immediate answers (see my blog post on https://www.joeyra.com/blog/the-three-questions-at-the-heart-of-every-coaching-journey). Wisdom and true insight bear fruit in their own time; they can’t be summoned on a whim or squeezed into a IG Reel.

Poet David Whyte offers a bold challenge to our pick-and-choose culture. He suggests that freedom isn’t found in having endless options, but in committing deeply to one path.

It’s a call to devotion that sounds radical in an age of FOMO and Tinder swiping, but it carries an everlasting truth: only by pouring ourselves into one practice, one tradition, or one burning question, can we tap into the kind of freedom that superficial sampling never delivers. By narrowing our focus, we deepen our impact. Our ground of being grows roots, and we can stand firm and strong.

Depth in Coaching (and Life)

These days, I carry this hard-won conviction into my work as a coach. My approach is something I call Connection-Centred Transformative Coaching, and it’s all about going deep rather than wide. This means prioritising presence, process, and patience over any '5 Steps to Success'. In practical terms, it looks like slowing down in sessions and truly listening. Our coaching conversations aren’t about picking from a list of techniques or powerful questions; they’re about sitting with the depths of a person, whatever arises, however uncomfortable, and exploring it fully. There are moments of clarity, but also periods of confusion or challenge where the temptation is to escape to something easier, more concrete, more surface-level. Yet it’s exactly in those moments that staying present matters most.

Transformation comes from honoring the long haul. I encourage my clients to trust the process and stick with the journey, even (and especially) when it gets tough.

In other words, don’t pray for a lighter load; pray for stronger shoulders. In coaching, this translates to a willingness to stay with pain, uncertainty, or tension long enough to let it transform you, rather than always looking for a way out. I won’t sugar-coat it. This is challenging work. It asks for courage and strength from both coach and client. But I’ve seen the difference it makes. By not bypassing the hard stuff, real breakthroughs happen. Clients move from mere insight (“Oh, I see my pattern”) to true change (“I’m living differently now”).

This depth-centric approach is a deliberate antidote to the surface-level trends we talked about earlier. It stands in contrast to the TikTok guru who promises enlightenment in a minute, or the weekend coaching course that guarantees you’re a master by Monday. Instead of quick fixes, we practice devotion and perseverance. Instead of “just trust your gut and move on,” we say: trust that inner voice, yes, and give it the time and testing it deserves. Instead of bouncing to the next novelty, we double down on what’s here and real, even if it’s uncomfortable. Paradoxically, by slowing down and going deeper, my clients accelerate in their growth. They build a foundation that doesn’t wash away with the next tide of life’s challenges.

At the heart of all this is an old-fashioned word: devotion. Devotion isn’t trendy (when's the last time you said that word?) but it is powerful. Whether it’s devotion to a spiritual path, to mastering a craft, or to one’s own healing journey, the act of continually returning and committing has power. It creates a container strong enough to hold transformation. My role as coach is often to help people develop that container and to remind them, when doubt or distraction creeps in, why they started in the first place. We create a space of trust where they can stay with their process for as long as it takes.

This where the gold is. This is where freedom is - not in never feeling constrained, but in finally moving beyond the constraining patterns that shallow habit and quick fixes could never resolve.

In Praise of Depth is more than a pretty phrase to me; it’s a lived reality. I have felt the difference between my life when I was skimming the surface vs when I committed to diving deep below the surface. Depth gives me discernment, purpose, and liberation. The truth has set me free, but only after I was willing to endure the uncomfortable process of learning, unlearning and relearning that truth in my bones.

So here is my invitation: take a moment to examine where in your life you're skimming the surface. Is there a question you’ve been afraid to dwell on, a practice you’ve only half-explored, a relationship you haven’t fully shown up for? What might happen if you devoted yourself to it with renewed depth and patience?

You may discover, a richer inner life and a truer kind of success - one that isn’t defined by quick wins, but by lasting transformation. In a world that prizes speed, overnight successes and unicorns, dare to go slow. In a culture obsessed with breadth, dare to go deep.

You just might find the freedom and fulfillment that skimming the surface could never deliver.