Episode Details
Back to EpisodesGary Zukav In The Wild
Description
In this Deepcast episode, Gary Zukav explores a question that sounds simple but runs deep: what does it really mean to be wild? He makes clear that wildness has nothing to do with recklessness or lawlessness. It means living beyond the control of fear. Wild and control, he explains, are mutually exclusive, just like love and fear.
Gary shares how, for most of his life, frightened parts of his personality quietly ran the show, including the need to impress, to gain, and to appear a certain way, from his years as a paratrooper and Green Beret officer to the self-imposed decorum he later adopted as a spiritual teacher. Drawing on the discovery of the unconscious by early psychotherapy, he explains that whatever we don't know about ourselves doesn't disappear; it controls us anyway, often surfacing as projection onto the people around us.
The way through, Gary explains, is to identify these frightened parts, create distance from them through conscious awareness, and choose from that space of choice, because beyond the control of fear is love, and love is authentic power.
What You’ll Discover in This Episode
(00:02) — What "wild" actually means: not lawlessness or chaos, but freedom from the control of fear, and why wild and control are mutually exclusive, just like love and fear.
(03:07) — How frightened parts of personality — the need to please, to gain, to control — quietly run the show, and why what stays unconscious in us ends up controlling us instead.
(06:59) — Projection as a mirror: how strong reactions to what we dislike in others reveal the very parts of ourselves we haven't yet acknowledged.
(10:16) — The pain of powerlessness, and the shift from five-sensory humans reaching outward to control the world, to multisensory humans learning to look inward instead.
(13:55) — Naming the frightened parts — fear, anger, judgment, entitlement — and creating the "arm's length" distance needed to choose consciously rather than react.
(17:44) — Why fear is control, and why love — not sentimental, but authentic power — is what remains once that control dissolves.
Embrace the Soul Step Challenge
This week, notice a moment when you feel yourself trying to control something outside of you: a person, an outcome, or how you're perceived. Pause and ask yourself: what frightened part of my personality is driving this need for control? Is this coming from fear, or from love? Keep a soul notebook of what you notice, and at the end of the week, look back to see where you found the courage to walk on the wild side, beyond fear's control and into love.
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