The Light Watkins Show

57: Gary Zukav on Creating Authentic Power and Living a Life of Love Instead of Fear

June 23, 2021 Light Watkins
The Light Watkins Show
57: Gary Zukav on Creating Authentic Power and Living a Life of Love Instead of Fear
Show Notes Transcript

Today’s guest is one of the most prolific spiritual teachers of our time. His name is Gary Zukav, and he is the author of The Seat of the Soul, The Dancing Wu Li Masters, and most recently, Universal Human. 

We usually devote the first part of this show to the backstories of our guests but today we will be deviating slightly from that format. This is because Gary is such a masterful spiritual teacher that I decided to use the space of the full interview to hear him speak more about what it means to be a universal human, and where he sees us going as a human race, which is in the direction of becoming what he calls multi-sensory humans. 

For Gary, all humans can undergo multi-sensory experiences, but not everyone is aware of them when they happen. It is during these experiences that we perceive our connection to the greater universe and they point the way to a new consciousness. 

We spend a large chunk of our conversation talking about the meaning of authentic power and how to live in such away so that we can access it. This process is grounded in the intention to live in love rather than fear and Gary speaks about the knock-on effects that an internal change like this will affect in our greater surroundings. 

Tune in and learn what spiritual growth is all about with Gary today.

[INTRODUCTION]

“GZ: I was engaged at the time, quite a while ago, and the only time I've ever been engaged in fact. And after we were together for a while, she said, “You've got a problem. And the person I was with before had this problem. And I'm not going to have it with you.” She was talking about my attraction to women. Losing power when I see a beautiful woman or one that I thought was beautiful or even inviting to me sexually. And at first I said, “I don't have a problem. I’m just a loving person. That's the way it is. When I'm in a hot tub with a woman who’s loving like I am, we have sex. Isn't that how everyone does it?” And she said, “No. And you're not going to be with me unless you deal with this. And I said, “Okay, I don't think I have a problem. But I'll look at it.” So I started to look at it. And after a while, I thought, well, I told her, “Maybe I have a problem. But it's a little problem. And I'll handle it.” And the more I looked, the more that picture changed. And over time, I realized, “Well, this is something that's in my life. Yeah, this is big. This is an issue.” And then I finally came to the place where, “Oh my God! I can't stop. I'm out of control.”

[00:1:16] LW: Welcome back to At the End of the Tunnel. I'm your host, Light Watkins. And if you're listening to At the End of the Tunnel for the very first time, this is a podcast about hope. And you're in for quite the treat by starting with this episode, because I'm interviewing one of the most prolific spiritual authors of our time. His name is Gary Zukav. Gary wrote one of my personal all-time favorite spiritual books, which is called The Seat of the Soul. And I was fortunate enough to meet Gary a few years ago at a wellness conference in Canada. And I'm now pinching myself that he's actually a guest on my podcast, because at the time my podcast was just a dream. And I remember saying to myself, “If I ever do start this podcast, I really hope I can add Gary Zukav on. And, well, here we are. 

For those of you who are familiar with Gary's work, you may also remember that he is the author of The Dancing Wu Li Masters, which was his very first book that he wrote. It was a layman's guide to quantum physics. And it quickly became a bestseller. Then he wrote three other bestsellers, including the book that he's most known for, which is The Seat of the Soul. And that was a number one New York Times bestseller for 31 weeks. And coincidentally, it was Oprah's favorite spiritual book that she said she kept by her bedside. Oprah actually tells the story about how she first reached out to Gary that same year that Seat of the Soul came out just to learn more about this profound work and his perspective. And he had no idea who she was, because her show was only three years old at the time, and Gary didn't have a television where he was living in Mount Shasta, California. 

In any way, she invited him onto her show not once, not twice, but over 35 times over the life of her show. In fact, Gary holds a record of having more appearances on Oprah show than any other guest. And if you want to do a little YouTube research, you'll find some pretty awesome clips of Gary on Oprah speaking about a lot of the concepts that he's included in his newest book, which is called Universal Human. For my regular listeners, who are used to me going deep into the backstory of someone's life, and getting all the personal details of my guests, I just want you to know that I'm going to be deviating from that format slightly, because honestly, Gary is such a masterful spiritual teacher, that I really wanted to use our time together to hear him speak more about what it means to be a universal human, and where he sees us going as a human race, which is in the direction of becoming what he calls multi- sensory humans. And he'll explain more about what that means in the interview. And don't worry, he does share some personal stories as well. 

My hope is by the end of this interview, you'll be inspired to pick up a copy of Universal Human and do a deeper dive into Gary's fascinating body of work. So without further ado, let's get to the conversation with the incomparable spiritual scholar, and teacher, and guru, Gary Zukav. 

[INTERVIEW] 

[00:04:22] LW: Gary Zukav, it is an honor, it is a pleasure to have you on At the End of the Tunnel. It is a long time coming, and you may have not have known that, but in my mind, before I even had the podcast when I met you and Linda a few years ago, in fact, it'll be three years in August, at Whistler, in Canada, in Vancouver. I thought to myself, “If I ever do a podcast one day, I would love to have you on the podcast.” And now here we are almost three years later, and we're actually having this conversation. So welcome to the podcast.

[00:04:57] GZ: Thank you, Light. I'm delighted to be here, and to see you again.

[00:05:02] LW: Yeah, and I'm sure you hear this all the time. But obviously, your work has changed – Literally, I won't say it changed my life. But it definitely informed my path, because I find that I've always been curious about some of the topics that you have given language to such as the universal human and authentic power. And I want to do that in this conversation. But I never knew what to call it. I knew what resonated and what felt aligned with the things that I was curious about, which was always more introspective. And, obviously, when you're young and you're coming up from a place like Alabama, it makes you feel a little weird. It makes you feel like you don't fit in. But reading more about your story, in preparation for this podcast, I saw a lot of similarities in our paths. And so I would love to start the conversation, just giving the listeners who may not be as familiar with you or your work, a sense of where you come from, and how you sort of developed into the guru. And I mean that in the legitimate sense of the word, which is someone who helps to dispel the darkness and helps others to see the light of who they truly are. My kickoff question –

[00:06:16] GZ: By the way, thank you, Light. What a beautiful thing to say to someone. I appreciate it very much. 

[00:06:22] LW: Well, you've earned it man. You put in the time. I want to start off the conversation just talking about childhood. I know you grew up in Texas. And when you think back to little Gary, growing up in Texas, I believe it was you, your brother, your parents. Did you have a favorite toy or activity? 

[00:06:42] GZ: Oh, yeah. Texas, that goes way back. And it really does. 

[00:06:47] LW: Well, Texas/Kansas. How about that?

[00:06:51] GZ: Exactly. Kansas is where we move when I was young. But Texas is where I was born and my sister was born. And I didn't have toys. I wasn't a very playful person. If I told you, my childhood was not happy, and I don't understand why, because I had loving parents. But that's what happened. When you said toys, the only thing I could think of was model airplanes. I love to make model airplanes. And I would get these kits and I would construct a frame out of balsa wood, gluing these little pieces together. And then I would stretch. I would put some paper over the balsa wood and I'd spray it with water. And the paper would draw a ton. And this is exactly the original planes were made. And I loved having these models. And I just loved aircraft and always have. And I knew everything about all of them, from the Red Baron’s plane, and the Boeing aircraft of World War 1, to all of the aircraft in World War II and the Korean War. And I've always loved flying and I still do. 

[00:07:54] LW: So I have one question about your childhood fascination with airplanes. What did it represent to you? And obviously, at playing the armchair psychologist, I can look at that and translating freedom or something. But I'm curious, in your experience, why were you fascinated with airplanes?

[00:08:12] GZ: The first thing that comes to mind is that it was probably to make myself feel more important, but flying wasn't that, but sitting behind the instruments did. Science was always an interesting attraction to me. But I've never been a scientist. I never studied it, but having knobs to turn and switches to switch and toggles to make, I grew up feeling, in retrospect, completely out of place, inadequate, and in pain. I had a hard time looking at people when they spoke. I never enjoyed school. I was popular in school. That was an irony to me. In high school jumping ahead, for example, in Kansas, a small town there, Pittsburgh, I was a president of the student council. I was the governor of Boise State. I was state debate champion, although that's a team effort. There're four of us. I mean, you don't win that by yourself. But I didn't feel a connection with my fellow students. That continued for quite a while, decades, in fact. So that's why I'm so happy to share the things that are in The Seat of the Soul, in large part in Universal Human, because the transformation that I've experienced through my own will, and my own awareness, and the grace of the universe has been so dramatic that looking back on it, it jolts even me. 

And the thing that's so validating to me is that I'm not a spiritually adept person. If I can do it, anyone can do it. That's not a throwaway phrase. It's the reality. I've gone from living as someone who's addicted to sex, who's only thinks about himself, who was angry all the time, who was always looking at what he could get from the world, to someone who loves people. I never thought I'd be such a person. And that is the transformation to authentic power is actually the transformation into the new consciousness, and then bringing it to being the potential of the new consciousness.

[00:10:28] LW: We're going to be talking a lot about your life through that lens. And you're going to be using some terms in this interview; authentic power, universal human, multi-sensory, and five sensory people, and even the word personality. I would love to start with just defining some of these terms that you've been so passionate about for years. I mean, in preparation for this interview, I read your most recent book that's coming out later this month, Universal Human. But I've also seen a lot of your interviews. And you've been using these terms for a long time now.

[00:11:03] GZ: I have, since the late 80s. 

[00:11:06] LW: Right? 

[00:11:07] GZ: Well, I'll be glad to define, because definition is always helpful. I talk about multi-sensory perception because it's perception beyond the five senses. The five senses together form a single sensory system, whose object of detection is physical reality. Now we have another sensory system. We are multi-sensory. This is the great transformation in human consciousness that is underway. The old consciousness is dead, but it continues, with its enormous inertia and momentum. But it has no future. All the world we see around us was created by five sensory humans evolving by surviving and surviving by pursuing external power. Everything about it reflects that. It finds it, teaches it, preaches it, demands. The new consciousness allows our perceptions of ourselves and others and the world to become different. It's not an instantaneous thing. Light and music don't descend from the heavens. It's easier and more interesting than that. 

For example, I'll give you some multi-sensory perceptions. And you and our listeners can see if any of these applies. Have you ever had the sense that you're more than a mind and a body? That you're more than muscles, and neurons, neurotransmitters and hormones? Now, have you? 

[00:12:47] LW: Yes, I have.

[00:12:49] GZ: Hundreds of millions of us have, like hundreds of millions are experiencing the new consciousness. And it comes to each of us in different ways, to me, gently, just noticing these things. Have you ever thought that maybe there's a part of you that existed before you were born and that will exist after you die? Now I'm asking that not only to you, but to all the people who are listening, because if you have, that's a multi-sensory perception. Have you ever looked at the world, the things that happened around you and thought to yourself even for a moment, “There's more to this than I thought.” Of course, everyone, or a lot of people have experienced synchronistic events. When suddenly there's meaning that startling and it's jolting. Have you ever had the thought maybe it's always like that? But we've just seen bits and snatches of it. Maybe the world is always meaningful, always connected. Maybe it's not random. Maybe it's not a matter of trying to avoid bad luck and praying for good luck. Maybe it teaches us not about the external world. We've learned that through the five senses. We've learned that mountains are high. We've learned that the speed of light in a vacuum is 186,122 miles per second. But now looking at the world, we can learn about ourselves. We begin to see it as symbolic, as a reflection that we can learn about ourselves from. If you've ever had any experience or a hunch, or a glimpse of that, that's a multi-sensory experience.

[00:14:38] LW: Just to make it even more concrete than that, can you talk about the story of your grandmother and the funeral? Because I think other people may have had similar types of experiences that could be sort of a gateway into this more sensual understanding of what you're talking about.

[00:14:53] GZ: Yes, multi-sensory. Yes. I was multi-sensory long before I knew it. Many people are. But multi-sensory perception isn't really multi-sensory perception until you recognize it and you use it. What you're talking about is an example of my encountering it, not recognizing it, and therefore not using it. My grandmother was my favorite. And I think I was her favorite too. And she lived in Kansas City. I lived in a little town in Kansas. And I would go there. And whenever I did, I'd always stop on the way to college, Harvard. I took a train to Kansas City, and then a group of us would take a Volkswagen from Kansas City to Cambridge, Massachusetts. And while I was in Kansas City, I visit her. She didn't have the big house, and the caretakers, and the maid, and the driver that she had. When her husband was alive and he was pioneering what now are grocery stores, supermarkets. So she lived modestly in an apartment in a large building. And she had twin beds that would fold out from the couch. And we lie on the twin beds at night. She on hers and I on mine, holding hands in the space between the foldout twin beds, and we'd gossip about our family, and who was doing what, and who should have done what, and what was probably going to happen. And I just loved being with her. 

During almost all of those occasions, she’d take me out to dinner in a lovely restaurant, inside this large building. And then afterwards, we'd walk through the lobby, and it was an ocean of gray hair. And she'd introduced me to all the people in it, or as many. She couldn't introduce me at all. But she would say, “Gary, you remember Mr. Bernstein, don't you?” And I'd say, “Mm-hmm.” And she’d say, “Well, now you remember Gladys, don’t you?” “Mm-hmm.” And if I didn't say mm-hmm and acknowledge, she would jerk down on my hand when she was holding and she’d say, “Shh”, to bring me into line, and say, “That's impolite. Now, just be in line.”

Well, now fast forward probably 15 years, 14 years, she's died, and I'm home at her funeral. And it's devastating for my parents. Everybody loved her. And I'm in the funeral home in a little alcove looking at the rabbi in profile, and he's speaking to an audience in front of him. And I'm also looking up at a closed circuit monitor. Now in those days, like closed circuit television was so novel, so rare. I'd never seen it before. And it made me laugh. And as soon as I left, Grandma Libby jerked down on my hand, and she said, “Shh.” She shushed me. She didn't want me disrupting her funeral. She wanted to enjoy it. I didn't tell my folks, because I knew they would think that I was hallucinating or that this was a wish fulfillment I was having in my grief. But it wasn't. It was grandma. So I couldn't really grieve her parting, because she didn't go anywhere. 

Now, I didn't recognize that as multi-sensory perception. I didn't know that term. So I never used it. I couldn't. Now, we're becoming multi-sensory. And when we have experiences like that, we can use it. And using it is important, because in this new consciousness, our evolution requires different things. It's a different modality. It requires spiritual growth. And spiritual growth requires creating authentic power, aligning your personality with your soul, with the intentions of harmony, and cooperation, and sharing, and reverence for our life. That's power, if you can do that. And you can. You can. Question is, how do you do it? I say you can do it. But can you do it now?

[00:19:01] LW: You said you didn't know it at the time. You didn't know that's what that was at the time. And I know we're going to talk about emotional awareness and responsible choice and all of that. What was the moment where you started to become aware, in your personal life, of your multi-sensory experience?

[00:19:22] GZ: I was living in San Francisco and it was in the mid-70s. I was on Telegraph Hill. I really loved living there. I was addicted to sex. I was experimenting with drugs, a lot of drugs. Motorcycles were a part of my life, or at least a part of my image. And I actually wrote them a lot. That's how I got around. It was in that period around the mid-70s that I got invited to a meeting of physicists at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory. It was a weekly meeting on Friday. And I went, asked if I could go, and they said I could. My roommate was as a physicist at the time. And when I got there, I was appalled at the discussion that I heard, because that day they weren't speaking quantitatively. They weren't discussing mathematical formalisms. They were talking qualitatively, conceptually. And the question they were discussing was, “Are we creating the reality that we are experimenting with?” I was so taken, because that's the question that I and my friends discussed in coffee shops in North Beach where I was living, except that was North Beach. We weren't physicist. And this was the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory. And the 10 or 12 people at this meeting were some of the most renowned theoretical physicist. Henry Stapp, who was a senior theoretical physicist at LBL, was there, and became a very special person to me, and still is, although I haven't seen him in a long time. 

Jeff Chu, who was Chair of the Department down the hill at UC Berkeley, was there. And the woman who put it together was just a wonderful woman. Her name was Elizabeth Rauscher. And she called this meeting the Fundamental Fysics Group, and she spelled it F-Y-S-I-C-S. She still makes me laugh. When I got home from that meeting, I felt as though I had drunk two or three cups of cappuccino. The energy was sparking off my fingertips. But I couldn't articulate. I couldn't explain to anyone why I was so excited, or what was so exciting to me. So I asked if I could go back to the meeting. And they said, “Yes,” and I did, Friday, after Friday. And I started to learn. I went down to the used bookstores in Berkeley. And I would always find just the book I needed, used. And I was reading. And I was studying. 

And at one point, I realized, “I want to write a book about this.” I'm not going to be involved in physics indefinitely. But before I leave it, I want to give all that I'm learning about quantum mechanics, particle physics, the startling nature of it, the fascinating adventure of it to everyone like me, a liberal arts major, who doesn't like science, who doesn't know anything about mathematics. And I wanted to give it on a silver platter. And I did.

Now, it was in that process, I asked the physicist at the Fundamental Fysics Group if they would help me write in my book. And all except one said yes. And they all ask me the same things of me. They said, “Get it right. Get it conceptually, historically, and factually right.” So I would write, and I would send them double space typed pages of a chapter. And they would send me back or copy stuff that I had send. They would send me back more, some of them, like Henry, more than I sent him on the back page. And slowly I began to actually write this book. And it was quite an adventure, because I would write for five or seven days, and then my interest would leave. And I was back to looking for sex and the monthly miracle of the rent, and riding my motorcycle. And then my interest would return. And I would wake up thinking about the book, and go to bed thinking about the book. 

After a while, my friends noticed this difference in me, and they knew I was writing a book and they said, “Gary, take a break. Every time we see you, you're working.” And if I could describe it to them, I would have said something like this, “Imagine that you found an island. It's beautiful. And there's someone on it that you can hardly wait to see. It's not romantic. It's just this is a friend, a real friend. And you can hardly wait to get back out there and see her.” And then after several months of this, your friends tell you, “Gary, you're working too hard. Every time we see you, you're rowing out to that island. Why don't you relax and enjoy yourself?” Well, that was how I found meaning and purpose, and joy, and connection was going out to the island. 

Now that I'm thinking about it, it foreshadowed a lot of experiences in my life. Now I get to your question, Light. When was the first time that I recognized a multi-sensory perception? Well, it was long before I had that term, but it was clear to me. When I started writing this book, I made an outline of it. And I made an outline of each of the chapters in it. And I started writing. Almost at once, the energy went in a different direction. It departed from the outline. And so did. I throw it away. And I went where the energy went, into new territory. I kept following meaning, following the excitement, following the energy. And I was writing about a chapter a month. Every 30 days, I would finish one. And that was in this six or seven days on, six or seven days off. And after a half a year, I noticed that these chapters fit together, like they were planned to fit together. But I didn't do that. I threw the outlines away. So how did that happen? That's when I realized that I wasn't writing this book alone. That's when I realized it's not possible to be alone. That's when I realized that every creation is a co-creation. And I love that experience. I already knew I loved it. I just hadn't stepped back from it enough to realize what was happening. All I knew is that – And I’d start to write the book, I would fill it with meaning, and I loved it. I still do. I still do. That's the criteria for every book that I write. If I read it and it doesn't make me cry, if it doesn't make me want to read the chapter again and again, I throw it away, because it's only coming from my eyebrows upward. 

This is a movement deep inside. It's not dramatic. It's as though your life is black and white. And suddenly you turn in a certain direction and it becomes full of color. It's not just monotone anymore. It's got all the chromatic spectrum. It's not mono in sound. It's not just stereo. It's surround sound. It's everywhere. I'd like to clarify now for our listeners, that I don't expect you to believe anything that I'm saying just because I say it. In fact, I suggest that you don't believe anything that anybody says just because they say it, and especially if they have a television show, or they've written a book, or they have a pulpit, or they're online. Take it inside. See if you resonate with anything that you hear. And if you do, experiment with it. If you do experiment with it and it produces good things in your life, then experiment some more. And if you don't resonate with it, then just throw it away. Don't try to wear a shoe that pinches. 

So all of what I'm sharing with you outside of my personal history, which by the way is something else you see very differently when you look through multi-sensory lens. Everything, except that where I was born in Texas, where I grew up, Kansas, where I went to school, Harvard, the army, where I was, that’s my personal history. But I can see it all. And you'll see your personal history in a different way. In a larger context, put it that way, as you become multi-sensory. And as I suggested, hundreds of millions of us are becoming multi-sensory. There are still more people that are five sensory. The fact that we are multi-sensory does not make us superior or better in any way. It's just a temporary ebb and flow of evolution. And creating authentic power, as well as becoming multi-sensory, do not have to do with the intellect.

[00:28:44] LW: Is multi-sensory perception a prerequisite of that universal power?

[00:28:50] GZ: Authentic power, absolutely. If I told my parents, or you told your parents, I'm guessing. Maybe there are exceptional people everywhere in the earth school. But, in general, people 40 or 50 years ago, I wouldn't find a sentence like many that I've been saying with power, authentic power is alignment of your personality with your soul. It wouldn't be a meaningful thing to them. At best, if they were very forgiving, let’s say I'm a poet, but they wouldn't have any experience to hook on to, to attach to that sentence, to give it meaning. But for your listeners, my listeners, our fellow students in the earth school, this is a meaningful discussion. 

And when I say there's a difference between your personality and your soul, and the new awareness, the new consciousness allows us to be aware of both at the same time. You might say that as you become multi-sensory, you become aware of a bigger you. Imagine it as the You with a capital Y. That you existed before you were born, and will exist after you die. The big You is your soul. And there's a little you with a lowercase y. That's the you that was born on a certain day and will die on a certain day. That's your personality. 

When we were five sensory, all that we were, and all that we thought we could be, was the little you, the personality. Yes, I know, Christianity tells us that we're going to heaven, provided we meet certain conditions. And it's bigger. It will be something, if not bigger, better. Somehow it's a good thing. And I know that the Buddhist all tell us that our deeper reality has to do with incarnation, and reincarnation. And I know that the billions of Hindus all believe the same thing with a slightly different twist, incarnation and reincarnation. But of these billions of people, in my very limited experience, very few of them actually live as though these were realities. 

I've only met a handful of Christians that I believe love others, love me, more than themselves. When my dear friend, our dear friend, Maya Angelou, was alive, she would say, “When someone tells me I'm a Christian. I say,” she said, “Really? I'm in my 80s. And I'm still trying.” That's the way I feel. What would the world be like if every Buddhist in it realized that consciousness and responsibility does not end to death? And never blamed anyone or anything for his or her experiences? What would that world be like? We're headed there. And there is not a royal we. There's you. You are headed there if you choose to change your life. 

Now, what happens if you don't choose to change your life? What happens if you ignore all of this, even though you resonate with it and you decide not to apply it? You don't change. That's all that happens. The universe doesn't reward or punish you for actions. The universe doesn't look in terms of good or bad, negative or positive, success or failure. The universe looks in terms of causes and effects. If you participate in a cause, you will participate in the effects also. The two actually come into being at the same time. So it's a matter of recognizing the causes in your life. And only choosing to act on those causes that are going to create constructive, positive consequences in your life, only acting on those causes that open your heart, that show you pathways of love, and connection, and caring, and patience, and appreciation. That's how you create authentic power. That didn't tell you anything. It gave you some beautiful words. The actual doing of it requires a practice. And that's what I want to talk about on this podcast also, if we have time.

[00:33:22] LW: Yeah. I mean, first of all, I love everything you're saying. And I just want to connect a dot here. You said that you have to essentially take action. You have to be emotionally aware.  You have to have responsible choice, which I want to talk about what that means in a real world scenario. But then you also say that within three generations, we'll all be multi-sensory humans. So I'm wondering how that kind of fits in with one another. Because if some people don't choose responsibly, they don't act, how does that lead to everyone being multi – I mean, it seems like everyone would have to be a part of this movement. 

[00:34:02] GZ: All of this that I’m describing is a description of you. The world doesn't change until you change. Now, that's something that a five sensory human would dismiss or ridicule, because there's nothing in five sensory experience that would indicate it's ever possible for internal transformation to bring about or to even be related to external transformation. But you won't have to be convinced of that as you begin to exercise multi-sensory perception.  You'll begin to see it in yourself. And for me, this is unfolded over a matter of decades. And in those decades, I have caused myself to become different than I was, say, in my 20s, when all I was looking for was sex. That's all women were to me, were genitals. And I thought it was pretty cool. Until at one time in my life I realized that for all the women that I had sex with – By the way, not all sexual addicts force themselves on other people. I never forced myself on anyone. In fact, all the women that were with me wanted exactly what I wanted. And by that, I mean, after a while, I began to realize that I knew that these women never meant anything to me. Then I began to realize that I never meant anything to these women. We both got what we were looking for. And I thought it was the most intimate life possible. But it wasn't. It was one of the most disconnected lives possible. There was no real caring. There was no understanding. There was not even a desire to care and understand. There was just a desire to score again. There was just a desire for relief from this terrible pain that expressed itself in my anger that was everywhere in my life. And because that pain, which all, by the way, every fearful, frightened experience, originates and express in pain and expresses pain. And because this pain was unrelenting, and the respite I got from it was temporary. I was always looking for more, needing more, wanting more, craving more. That lies beneath every addiction, by the way. Mine happened to be sex, and that happens to be the most common addiction in the human experience.

[00:36:40] LW: And so how does responsible choice play a role in that? If someone is feeling like I could potentially be a sex addict, and they're listening to this, and they want to be more multisensory, what is the tangible way for them to move in that direction?

[00:36:54] GZ: The first step is to look at the possibility that you are addicted. For example, I was engaged at the time, quite a while ago, the only time I've ever been engaged in fact. And after we were together for a while, she said, “You've got a problem. And the person I was with before had this problem, and I'm not going to have it with you.” She was talking about my attraction to women. Losing power when I see a beautiful woman, or one that I thought was beautiful or even inviting to me sexually. And at first, I said, “I don't have a problem. I’m just a loving person. That's the way it is. When I'm in a hot tub with a woman who’s loving like I am, we have sex? Isn't that how everyone does it?” And she said, “No. You're not going to be with me unless you deal with this.” And I said, “Okay, I don't think I have a problem. But I'll look at it.” So I started to look at it. And after a while, I thought, “Well,” I told her, “maybe I have a problem, but it's a little problem. And I'll handle it.” And the more I looked, the more that picture changed. And over time, I realized, “Well, this is something that's in my life. Yeah, this is big, this is an issue.” And then I finally came to the place where I thought, “Oh my God! I can't stop. I'm out of control.” That's when the work begins. That is when you can’t do something about an addiction. 

By the way, there's a chapter on addiction in The Seat of the Soul that spells a lot of this out. But whether you're an alcoholic, or you gamble, or you can't stop masturbating, or shopping, or drinking, that chapter will show you how to address it in order to create authentic power and in order to change your life, really change it on the vertical axis, put it that way. You can change it horizontally. You can change shops. You can change partners.  You can change cars. You can change jobs. You can even change your sex if you want to. You can change anything, but it doesn't change you. You stay the same. Physical circumstances change. That takes you nowhere. I'm talking about change, vertical change, you change. You are not the same person. Your values change. If you're uncaring, you'll become caring. If you're entitled and superior, you begin to see the meaning and the value of other people. If you're inferior and need to please, you begin to see that about yourself and see that you really can contribute to others and contribute to life. These are changes. These are the changes you were born to make. And if you don't make them, if you don't change in order to become someone who is aligned with the intentions of your soul, which by the way, means becoming aligned with love, that's where you're going. That's the destination. We started to talk about that. Everyone knows that. That’s in the new age. That’s read in a nice book. 

Everyone has read Harry Potter, that wonderful series, knows that every book ends with something wise, and it has to do with love. Everyone knows this. Now, who's waking up? But how do you do it? How do you love when you're jealous? How do you love when you're angry? How do you love when you're vengeful? When you're going to get even, you're going to get him. How do you love when you can't get out of bed in the morning because you don't care? How do you love when you want to kill someone? How do you love when you want to kill yourself? These are the questions. 

And here's the answer. First, develop awareness of your emotions. Five sensory humans don't put any importance on emotions. They're nuisances, if anything, like appendicitis. They get in the way of your pursuing external power. Multisensory humans value emotions. They're important. They are messages from your soul. And by the way, I can say to our listeners, I'm watching Light on a conference call as we're recording this. And when I said, “And here's the answer,” I saw you laugh. I can say that without reservation. Because what I'm going to share with you, I'm not going to say to you, “I have the solution to your sexual craving. I have the solution to your anger. I have the solution to your jealousy. I have the solution to your greed,” Because the solution to every one of your problems is the same. And that's what I'm describing now. Become aware in your life. The bare bones structure of self-transformation is this. You cannot transform. You cannot change in yourself anything that you're not aware of that exists in yourself. It'll just happen to you, unconsciously, automatically, robotically, repetitively, until you die. That's how most people live. 

Now, we're multi-sensory. There’s an option. There’s always been the option. But as we become multi-sensory, we become more aware of it. You become aware of your emotions, because they're important. They're important because they tell you when fear is present in you and when love is active in you. Your body tells you, and it never lies. When you put your attention into seven specific areas in your body, and I'll give you three of them right now, the easiest ones to use for me, your throat area, your chest area, and your solar plexus area. If you feel painful physical sensations in those areas, fear is active in you. And if you feel blissful or good feeling physical sensations, physical sensations that you want more of, love is active in you. And I'm not talking about just the physical sensations of having had a good meal and you feel satisfied and you want to lean back and have a little coffee. No. Not that kind of pleasing physical sensation. The kind that draws you like the sun draws a plant. 

And when I say physical sensations, I mean that. When a painful physical sensation is active in you, it's not enough to describe it by saying, “I feel good.” “I feel bad.” “I feel bubbly.” “I feel happy.” “I feel heavy.” “I'm discontent.” “Man, am I down.” “This is a bummer.” “This hurts.” That's not emotional awareness. Those are all labels that you're throwing around. Emotional awareness is an awareness of and the ability to articulate specific physical sensations in these areas of your body, your throat, your chest, your solar plexus, physical sensations, steam, stab, burn, churn, throb, ache. A heart ache is not a poetic description, “It hurts.” A painful emotional experience hurts as much as getting your finger caught in a car door or accidentally hitting with it a hammer when you miss the nail and hit your thumb instead. They hurt. I really hurt. 

At first, some people aren't aware of physical sensations. Most people are, but some people aren't. And often I've discovered they’re intellectual males. But everyone eventually will come to if they are looking and look long enough and are patient. They'll begin to experience physical sensations in their body. And if they're one of the tough nuts to crack, it will be exciting. One lawyer came to one of our events once after coming to a series and said, “I felt it. I felt it. I felt it in my chest. I felt it. I felt it.” It was exhilarating to him. Why is it important to know if fear is active in you, or if love is active in you? Because when you act from fear, when you act on that impulse, when you act, when your energy processing sensors are telling you that fear is present, you will create consequences that are painful for you to experience. You will encounter them. You're creating your experiences. 

Now, you asked me what are responsible choice is. A responsible choice is always the choice to grow spiritually. And that translates into this. The responsible choice is always the choice to love. But most people don't know what love is. There's a great confusion between love and need. People think, “Oh, my love has left me. She's gone. I don't think I can stand it anymore.” That's okay. I've got bourbon for a friend.” That's not love. That's need. Need hurts. Love doesn't. It's blissful. Unrequited need is painful. There's no such thing as unrequited love, because love doesn't demand. 

Creating authentic power is developing the ability to distinguish within yourself the difference between love and fear and choosing love no matter what's going on inside you, like raging anger, or what's going on outside of you, like another 9/11 event. That's an ability that you need to create if you're going to change your life into one that is satisfying, meaningful and fulfilling, and put it another way, in an equally accurate way. This is the power that you're going to have to create if you intend to give the gifts that you were born to give. 

[00:47:05] LW: You did a really great job of breaking all this down in your book. You did a whole chapter on love. And you also talked about something that I thought was really interesting. You did a chapter on meditation and the differences in mindfulness and heartfelt meditation. And I'm wondering, since you were referring to the solar plexus in the chest, and all of that, is that a way to cultivate that feeling tone of knowing when you're moving into direction of love versus when you're moving in the direction of fear? Practicing more of a heartfelt sort of meditative experience?

[00:47:37] GZ: Yes. However, it's not a matter of moving in a direction of. If you feel painful physical sensations, you're not moving in the direction of fear. You're in it. It's active in you now. Now, what are you going to do? If you're angry, you're going to shout, and you're going to tell somebody exactly why you're angry. Frightened parts of your personality, that's a short hand, for a fear-based aspect of your personality are righteous. You're going to tell the person why you're angry and why you should be angry and why they should change. If you do, well, fire away. But it's a frightened part of your personality that's firing away. But be aware, it's creating consequences for you. A responsible choice is a choice that creates consequences for which you are willing to assume responsibility. And until you can do that and know what the choice is about, you can't create authentic power. When you feel angry, you will lash out in anger. When you feel the need for food, you'll go to the refrigerator. If you feel completely inadequate, you'll decide to be stronger, bigger, meaner, richer, more educated than someone else, than everyone else. That's the pursuit of external power, all of it.

[00:48:57] LW: Can you talk about that in relationship to your choice after recognizing your sexual addiction? You became a bit of a recluse and you became a bit of a monk? And then you met your spiritual life partner. And you mentioned something in one of your writings where you said that she called you out on looking at a woman, and you were honest with her about that.

[00:49:21] GZ: Let's talk about intention for a moment. And intention is a quality of consciousness that you bring to a deed or a word. It's not the word or the action that creates consequences. It's the intention, the intention behind it. As you become aware in the earth school, you begin to see more and more clearly that there's only two. Bedrock foundation can't get any deeper intentions, love or fear. Now, it seems as though there's unlimited intentions available to everyone. They moved to a new city. I think I'll buy a blue shirt instead of a red shirt. I think I'll get married or not. That's a big one. I think I'll go to school or not. I think I'll change jobs. Well, those are all, you might say out-tensions. For each of those out-tensions, you can ask yourself, “Why?” You say, “But why do I want to change jobs?” And maybe the answer is, “I want to make more money?” “Well, why do you want to make more money?” You say, “Well, I want to buy a Mercedes.” Then you ask yourself, “Why do you want that car?” And the answer is, “Well, I want to impress people,” if you're being honest with yourself. You say, “Well, why do you want to impress people?” “Because I'm not an important person in the world, and I want to impress important people.” And you keep asking why, and applying your integrity. And eventually you'll come down to it is either an intention of love, or an intention of fear. If it's an intention of fear, you're doing it for yourself. You're the recipient. You're the beneficiary. If it's love, you're doing it from your heart. There's no second agenda. 

So, a responsible choice is a choice of the intention of love. That is the creation of authentic power. When you make the choice to challenge a frightened part of your personality, and in this case that wants to shut out, or the wants to take advantage of someone, and while you're experiencing the painful physical sensations of that part of your personality, you reach for the most loving, sane, grounded, wholesome part of your personality that you can. A part that's grateful, or caring, or patient, or content, or in all of the universe, and act from that as well as you can. That's the stretch. That's the movement. That's detraction. That's the moment of changing your life. And when you do that, again, and again, and again, and again, that part of you begins to lose its control over you. 

Now, let's go back to your question about meditation. Creating authentic power is a lifelong heartfulness meditation. It's a heartfulness meditation, because the heart is at the center of everything. It's a heartfulness meditation, because you choose consciously love. I'm not saying that other types of meditation aren't helpful. They can be quite helpful. If you use them as a way to challenge a frightened part of your personality, when you feel the magnetic powerful attraction of jealousy, or anger, or sex, or a fix, and in that moment, you turn your attention inward into these energy processing centers in your body. There’s one of the top of your head, your crown, one between your eyebrows, the three that I mentioned, throat, chest, solar plexus. There's one in your genital area and one at the bottom of your torso. And the east these are called chakras. It's a Sanskrit word. We’re English speakers. So we call them energy-processing centers. You can X-Ray them and find them. The CAT scan won't find them. But you can find them. Just put your intention inside yourself in those areas and you'll find physical sensations there. 

So, when you are doing that, scanning yourself to find your emotions, are you in fear? Or are you in love? What are the physical sensations you're feeling? What are the thoughts that you're thinking? If you're in fear, they'll be comparative and judgmental. Like, “Oh, he's so stupid.” Or, “I'm so stupid.” Or, “She's beautiful.” Or, “I'm ugly.” These are all thoughts of fear. And when you're in a loving part of your personality, the physical sensations, our physical sensations you want more of. Like when you look at the sky on a dark night when it's black and the stars are white and everywhere, countless galaxies. That's an experience that everyone wants more off, because for a moment, you're gone. And there's only the beauty and the power that you're seeing. 

I lived in Mount Shasta for 13 years. I lived at Mount Shasta. And I never got tired of looking at it. And especially at sunset, because this great mountain, 14,162 feet high, which start to turn pink. And then the pink would deepen and it will start to glow. And then it would become luminescent. This is a mountain. Tell me the geologists that can explain that. A meteorologist might have his explanations, but I've got mine. It’s the universe showing me something that's beyond my comprehension. And then the mountain turns lavender. And then it slowly turns purple, then dark purple, and then dark. 

Or some time when you've been standing at the ocean and the waves are raging, and they're pounding, and there's nothing there but the ocean and the roar, and you're gone, again, because you're in awe. You're not thinking about it. You're not analyzing it. You're not weighing it. You're not judging it. You're not even standing back and looking at it. There's something more happening. That's the way your life is, Light, when you create authentic power. That requires commitment, courage, compassion, conscious communication and actions. Not for one hour in the morning, or two weeks at a time at a retreat, but every day, all the time. That is a heartfulness meditation. It's not a distraction from what you're doing. It is what you're doing. I do my best to do that every moment. 

I met an acquaintance once and she had this experience she loves. She was working with two men, older and younger, who were in conflict resolution. And they were in some very difficult places on the earth, like Palestine, like the Balkans, where the hatred runs deep. And they would listen and listen. And they get abused and attacked verbally often in that process. And afterward, she asked the older one once, she said, “How do you take that without saying anything? How do you listen?” And he looked at her and said, “I work on it every minute of every day. He's creating authentic power.”

[00:56:59] LW: I love that. So in the book, you leave no stone unturned. You talk about authentic power as it relates to military, education, health care system, racism. You pretty much cover every aspect of humanity. And I'm curious, like if there was one thing that you wanted people who read this book to come away, so something very tangible, something very practical, something perhaps that they could share with their family, if they're the leader of their family, that could help make the world a better place? What would that one concept or principle be from the work?

[00:57:36] GZ: It's not a matter of saying, “What can we do to make the world a better place?” You can change yourself. For those of you who are listening and also those of you who are hearing, you can change yourself. Now, does that sound like poof in the sky? Like new Age woowoo? It's not. It's more grounded than concrete. Concrete is not grounded. It's a form of life. 

Let me explain. The world that we have inherited is based on external power, manipulation and control. When you do something to make the world better, you're trying to change the world so you'll feel better about yourself. That's the pursuit of external power. We can't change the world that's based on external power by adding more to it of what is already built on. You have to contribute something different. That's authentic power. That's love. 

Well, people say, “That's my life. I'm a hospice worker. I'm a clergyman, That's my job, is love. And I'm working on it. I pray all the time to be a loving person.” Here we come to the fundamental of everything again, intention. What is your intention? Because that's what creates the consequences in your life. If your intention is to change others so you'll feel better about yourself, that's pursuing external power, fear. If your intention is to change the world so that it’ll be a better place for your children to grow up in and that'll make you feel better, that's an intention of fear. If your intention is to become an individual who moves to the earth school with an empowered heart without attachment to the outcome, that's an intention that comes from love. 

When you make changes in yourself, these are not just self-changes. They are world changes. This is where five sensory perception in the intellect step off the train with a great deal of objection.” Foolishness. Nonsense. Nonsense, my man. What are you smoking? What are you drinking?” on and on. But when you look at your life, even from a five century perception, you know that when you change your life, you will affect every collective in which you participate, your family, your neighborhood, your community, your town, your city, your state, your country, your religion, your ethnic group, your gender. All change starts with you. To change the macro requires changing the micro. The world is the macro. You are the micro. 

But here, again, don't confuse that with the idea that, “Well, if I can just get 4 billion of us thinking the way I'm thinking now, the world has all but changed. We've got it done.” That's the pursuit of external power. That still is a perception that sees you and the world as different. That is five sensory perception, and it comes with it a pain that is unrelenting. The difference between I. And as Martin Bubers called it, thou, the difference between me and you, the separation between me and you. That is always there and always will be there until we die. That is the five sensory experience of others. Multi-sensory perception takes us beyond that. 

But as you become multi-sensory, as you become spiritual, you're waking up to your multi-sensory perception. In a world of discord, competition, hoarding, and exploitation, a world in which life is a cheap commodity, what do you do? It's not easy to become a spiritual person in a world that doesn't yet recognize spirit. But that's not actually the case anymore it used to be. You recognize spirit, and you're a part of the world. Lakota have a saying, “The center of the universe is everywhere.” I agree with it. That's my experience too. If it's everywhere, it's in you. If it's everywhere, it’s in your neighbor. If it's everywhere, it's in your mother. If it's everywhere, it's in the brutal fellow student in the earth school that put his knee on another fellow student in the earth school and killed him in front of other students in the earth school. If you want to change that world, don't blame anybody. Change yourself. Whenever you read about an avaricious banker, he or she is a proxy actor for us. They're acting out what we do. Every moment, every choice that we choose, self-benefit over the benefit of another, self-gain over the benefit of another. 

So look at yourself. Change the world where you can change it, where you have the ability to change it. That's where the spiritual rubber meets the road. And if you say to yourself, “I can't do that.” You disempower yourself. If you say to yourself, “Yeah, but no one else is doing it.” You're disempowering yourself. If you say, “Yeah, but we need a majority to do that.” You disempower yourself. Our discussion today is about authentic power, power that is not. We're talking about a personality that is not anchored, that is not bound by the earth school, and authentically powerful. 

Put it this way, an externally powerful personality can only hope for happiness at the most. And it's always ephemeral. It's temporary. Like the charioteer would always whisper in Caesar’s zero, “Glory is fleeting. Glory is fleeting,” except that you're not after glory. You're after much more than that. Glory is something that people in pursuit of external power long for. You're after fulfillment, meaning, purpose, vitality, creativity, connection. You're after that thing that you're seeing when you look at the universe and you realize or experience for a moment, “Oh my God! That’s where five multi-sensory we begin to have a thought. Five sensory humans think, “I could never be that.” Multi-sensory humans have a flash, a thought, or an impulse now and then, “I am that,” and it's real. But it's fleeting. How do you make that love, that boundless expansion that incorporates all? That excludes none? That contributes because that is its nature, like the sun? How do you do that? You create authentic power. And that is now our evolutionary requirement. 

Again, as a reminder to everyone, it's not as though this is something you have to do. It is not. The consequences of doing it are great. You begin to enter your life consciously. As you challenge fear, you move beyond the control of it, and love into your awareness more and more and more. And through many dynamics that we won't discuss on one podcast, but the many dynamics, your life begins to change. The consequences for not doing it are large also. You don't change. The same fears create the same consequences. And when you encounter those consequences, you again react in fear instead of respond with love. And you create those consequences again. That's what Buddhists call the wheel of samsara. You choose how you're going to hold your experiences, in love, or in fear. 

Now, the challenge comes when you're in fear, and a frightened part of your personality thinks this is all nonsense. And it gets about doing what it wants to do and needs to do. And it creates the same consequences it always has for you. But the spiritual road begins when you decide to change your life from unconscious; from an experience, to an experiment; from robotic, to aware; from destructive, to constructive; from separate, to one; from pain, to joy. These are all different ways of saying the same thing that we've been talking about since we started. This is the new territory. This is the new lay of the land.

[01:06:50] LW: Well, I'm excited for your book to be in the world. And for those people who are listening to this and who feel inspired by what you're saying to be able to get that and go deeper into this way of being. And I think it's going to leave people feeling very changed in the way that they see themselves, and the way they see their environment, and the way that they engage with their environment. 

[01:07:16] GZ: That’s my intention. That's my intention, Light. And I've also discovered, slowly, painfully, not to be attached to my intentions of love to offer them. In the Bhagavad Gita, which is the crown jewel of Hinduism, at the center of this epic poem called the Mahabharata, Krishna tells Arjuna many things, and one of them is, “You are entitled to work.  You must work that's where your fulfillment comes from, but you are not entitled to the fruits of your work.” So all of this can be found in scriptures in Aboriginal wisdom. What is new is the fact that our species itself is in transformation. The entire human species is shifting. The consciousness of humanity itself is changing. There's not a change in the consciousness of humanity. It's a change to the consciousness of humanity. And it's all happening in you, right here, right now. It's not a change in what you experience. It's a change in what you can experience. And now you are experiencing these things. What are you going to do with them? What are you going to do with your life?

[01:08:47] LW: Well, I want to thank the personality that is Gary's Zukav for putting all this together in such an exhaustive way, because like I said, you left no stone unturned in that book.

[01:09:01] GZ: I must say, Light, exhaustion is not part of this. Sometimes Linda and I get overwhelmed. And by the way, spiritual partnership is not a partnership for couples. I just want to make sure I say that. Linda and I are in one, have been in one. But spiritual partnership is partnership between equals for the purpose of spiritual growth. I began to experience that with you when we first connected. We experience it with our granddaughters. It's really sweet, wonderful, rich, far beyond sweet when you develop a spiritual partnership with your biological family. It can also be hard. But it can be at work, it can be at class, it can be with your neighbors, it can be on a sports team. So, thank you, and I appreciate it. And all of the things I've been talking about, there's a lot of metaphysics in it. There's some metaphysics in it, but I'm not a metaphysical person. I'm a practical person. And I am tired of – Actually I'm not tired anymore, but I was tired quite a bit of living the life I was living. And I didn't even know how frightened I was. 

I joined the army, I was a green beret. I was a green beret officer. And if someone then had told me, “You  know, Gary, you're doing everything you're doing because you're so frightened.” Oh! That would have caused an explosion. That would have been trouble. Because I was so frightened, I could not even tolerate the thought that I'm frightened. But don't misunderstand. I knew I was frightened to parachute. I knew I was frightened to go on combat missions. I knew all of that stuff. But I couldn't admit that I was frightened to fail my expectations, to fail the expectations of my parents, to not be loved to not be admired. That was frightening. And there's a street name for this experience, macho. You are in for a wonderful experience of a new humanity being born in you. And it's no piece of cake, so to speak. Because as you become aware, you cannot just become aware of joy and love in yourself. You become aware of everything in yourself. And as you begin this process, most of what you will find in yourself is fear. And all of it is painful. You can't reach for the altitude of your aspirations. You can't reach to give the gifts you were born to give when you're imprisoned by your resentful, angry, homicidal genocidal, racist, classes, cast seeking parts of yourself. You've got to become aware of them to really aware of them, real emotional awareness. Getting down there in your body where it's happening. That's the room where it happens, your chest area, your solar plexus, your throat. 

Light, thank you so much. I just love talking about these things. And if I can support you or support anyone, please let me know. Oh, by the way, we're getting a brand new website. It still got the same address, seatofthesoul.com. But we're changing it from an old brochure. Informational website, put it that way, to a supportive website that's everything we want to do now.

[01:12:21] LW: Beautiful.

[01:12:23] GZ: Plus, new social media, new online courses. 

[01:12:26] LW: And a new podcast maybe? 

[01:12:29] GZ: A new podcast. Yes. And you've been helping me with that to know about podcast. It’s going to be The Universal Human Podcast. I'm going to start every podcast with some music that I like. And on top of that music, I'm going to say, “A universal human is authentically powerful beyond culture, beyond religion, nation, ethnic group, and gender. A human whose allegiance is to life first and all else second, emerging universal humans are appearing everywhere. You may be one of them. Welcome on Gary Zukav.” That, I'm looking forward to playing at the beginning of every podcast, and then seeing where that takes us, 10 of co-creators.

[01:13:18] LW: We're looking forward to hearing it. And I just want to acknowledge you for all of your body of work that you put out there to help us evolve our human race. And I look forward to crossing paths with you again, hopefully soon. Maybe I'll get up to Oregon one of these days. 

[01:13:34] GZ: I feel the same thing, Light. And thanks, Light, for At the End of the Tunnel. 

[01:13:42] LW: Thank you, man. I really appreciate your time. 

[OUTRO]

[01:13:45] LW: Thank you for tuning into my interview with Gary Zukav. His book, Universal Human: Creating Authentic Power and the New Consciousness, is available everywhere books are sold. And in the show notes of this episode, which you can find on lightwatkins.com/tunnel, you'll see links to Gary's online presence and social media, along with a transcript of my interview with Gary. And if you want to hear more of these stories about people who are dedicating their lives and their work to making the world a better place, you can now search my podcast episodes by topic. If you go to lightwatkins.com/slash tunnel, you'll see photos of all of my previous podcast guests. And at the top of that page, you'll see a drop down menu of subjects like Leap of Faith, and Perseverance, and Financial Difficulties. So if you want to hear a specific kind of conversation about that certain topic, it'll show you all of the podcast episodes that are related to that specific topic. 

And while you're on my site, you may also see that my newest book, Knowing Where to Look: 108 Daily Doses of Inspiration, is currently out. That is a book that is full of my own personal stories as well as classic story worries that are meant to provide you with a dose of inspiration. And one of the things that's unique about this book is that it's not meant to be read from cover to cover. Instead, you just flip it open to any page, you find a dose of inspiration that catches your eye. It'll only take you 30 seconds to read, maybe admitted at the most, but not longer than that. 

You'll also see that I have started a community called the Happiness Insiders, which, if you have a copy of Knowing Where to Look, you can get complimentary access to this community for a limited time only. And/or if you have left a review for my book, Knowing Where to Look, you can get complimentary access. So definitely check that out. And if you're interested in learning more about inner practices and getting accountability and support and being a part of a larger community, then that community was built for you. 

So there's a lot on the website. Make sure you give yourself a few minutes to poke around and see what kind of experiences you'd like to curate for yourself from my list of offerings. And my final ask for you is to leave reviews. Leave a review of the book, if you have that. Leave review of the podcast if you haven't already done so. It's super easy to do. You just look at the podcast screen on your phone, click on the name of the podcast, and then that'll take you to all the previous episodes. Scroll down past the previous episodes. And at the bottom, you'll see a section that says rating and reviews. And all you do is tap the star all the way on the right and you’ve left a rating. 

Now, the next person is going to have a bit of an easier time finding and enjoying these conversations because you took a few seconds to do that for us. So big shout out to those of you who've already left the review or rating. And I look forward to hopefully seeing all of you back here next week with another story from the end of the tunnel. Until then, keep trusting your intuition. Keep following your heart. And keep taking those leaps of faith. And if no one's told you that they believe in you lately, I believe in you. Thank you and have a great day.

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