[lewispollard]

You're quite right, and it's something that has basically caused me to stop talking about my vipassana practice to people I befriend unless they bring it up first. When mentioning meditation or mindfulness practice, there are 2 types of people: those who say "yeah, that's nice, I should probably try that out some time" and nod along, and those who say "yeah, I did 16 self-affirmations today and visualised a new car, and listen to how it lines up with my horoscope..."

Mindfulness practice at its core is super simple, there's not much to talk about, but it's been completely associated with the self-help movement to the point that most people can't distinguish it from nonsense.