How Can the People on Lost Resort 'Emotionally Recover' With All Those Cameras Around?
Entertainment

One of the critical elements in any non-medicinal healing work is stripping away the ego, which is what prevents most people from delving into the memories and emotions they are trained to keep locked tight in order to conform to civil society. The manner in which one strips the ego varies based on the background of their spiritual practice, but in some systems removal of the ego coincides with removing material items, which can be seen as the physical manifestation of the ego itself (objects that are not necessary for living are often seen as status symbols, and therefore an extension of a false self). Removing one’s ego from any kind of healing is vital to the work being done because it serves as the removal of the first barrier. When the ego is removed, it becomes easier to ask harder questions of oneself: What did I do to get myself to this place I need to from? What accountability have I not been taking in life?
Detaching from one’s own ego is extremely difficult and can take months, if not years. Such a practice is inherently at odds with the concept of a reality show, where a story needs to have a beginning, middle, and reasonably happy ending in a matter of weeks. Yet that seems to be the situation on TBS’s newest reality series, Lost Resort, where the topic of the ego did not seem to be broached with the show’s contests prior to beginning their healing retreat. Investigating one’s ego on camera is counterproductive to reality TV, where big egos make for big ratings.
Lost Resort follows nine participants who travel to Costa Rica in an attempt to solve their problems using spiritual practices instead of the usual vices, like compulsive exercising or therapy. While the show aims to be bigger and more altruistic than a typical reality show, that’s precisely what it is—but rather than winning a prize or getting a sunset proposal, its stars will merely improve themselves and hopefully carry on their newfound healing tools into their real lives. However, while I hate to question the judgment of the four facilitators who run the retreat, it’s hard to understand how any of the nine participants are supposed to focus on inner healing when there are cameras pointed at them through every exercise.
The healing methods offered to Lost Resort’s participants include a rage ritual, an ecstatic dance ceremony, yoga, meditation, and sound baths. (I am a believer in most of the methodologies used on the show and have done some myself, although ecstatic dancing was new to me.) The women participants arrived in full glam sporting false eyelashes, red bottoms, and 15 layers of lip liner in the middle of the Costa Rican jungle. The only woman who did not do this was Becca, the pastor. The two men on the retreat do not sport camera-ready makeup, but they are doing some peacocking of their own. Greg, a restaurant owner with self-professed anger issues, talks over a woman during the welcome circle even though she had already grabbed the talking stick, asserting a certain degree of dominance with his tone and taking up space as men are trained to do. On the other hand, there is Vairrun, whose ego is tied to his six-pack and bicep muscles the size of small cantaloupes, which he flexes 24/7. Even one of the facilitators keyed in on how much flexing Vairrun was doing just sitting down.