June 07, 2025

You Want Success, But You’re Terrified of Who You’ll Become – The Deeper Thinking Podcast

15 minutes

The Deeper Thinking Podcast

An intimate exploration of Carl Jung’s concept of the shadow revolt, the emotional contracts that bind us to past selves, and the courage needed to step into who we are truly meant to become.

What if the resistance you feel isn’t fear of failure, but grief for the identity you might have to leave behind? Drawing deeply from Carl Jung’s work on the shadow and individuation, this episode unpacks how our nervous systems are wired to preserve emotional loyalty to past versions of ourselves, even when growth demands transformation. We engage with philosophical perspectives from Karen Barad on entanglement and Hannah Arendt on political appearance, exploring the tensions between self-preservation, public action, and authentic emergence.

This is not a self-help guide. It’s a layered meditation on the psychological, relational, and ontological struggles that shape why we often sabotage our own success. It considers the invisible contracts—between self and family, self and culture—that whisper “stay small,” even when the soul calls to expand. And it offers a gentle invitation to listen to the silent space between who you were, who you are, and who you are becoming.

Reflections

Resistance often masks grief for lost identity, not mere fear of failure.

Success can feel like betrayal to emotional contracts rooted in childhood.

True transformation requires navigating loneliness and shifting relational fields.

The shadow is not a villain but a guardian of the status quo within us.

Authenticity is a dynamic diffraction, not a fixed state.

Becoming yourself can disrupt social ecosystems, requiring radical presence.

Why Listen?

Gain nuanced insight into the psychological roots of self-sabotage.

Explore the interplay between personal transformation and social belonging.

Engage with cutting-edge philosophical ideas on identity, change, and action.

Reflect on how growth can feel both like loss and liberation.

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Bibliography

Jung, Carl Gustav. The Archetypes and The Collective Unconscious. Princeton University Press, 1981.

Barad, Karen. Meeting the Universe Halfway. Duke University Press, 2007.

Arendt, Hannah. The Human Condition. University of Chicago Press, 1958.

Butler, Judith. Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence. Verso, 2004.

Han, Byung-Chul. The Burnout Society. Stanford University Press, 2015.

Massumi, Brian. Parables for the Virtual. Duke University Press, 2002.

Gooding, Paul. Refusing Closure: Aesthetics of the Unresolved in Contemporary Literature. Textual Practice, 2020.

Gordon, Avery F. Ghostly Matters. University of Minnesota Press, 1997.

Berlant, Lauren. Cruel Optimism. Duke University Press, 2011.

Fuchs, Thomas. “Presence in Absence. The Ambiguity of Lived Space in Mourning.” Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 2018.

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