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Parallax Video & Audio Podcast Unique Self 2.0–Year 2 Portal 2: Beyond Shame–Identifying Your Unique Wound of Desire

Watch the YouTube Video Here or Scroll Down to Listen to the Spotify Audio Below

Beyond Shame: Identifying Your Unique Wound of Desire

The Ontology of Touch and Wound (Nega)

In his pre-course podcast with Andrew Sweeny, Dr. Gafni begins by pointing to a core realization in the interior sciences: the original Hebrew word for touch is also the word for wound: Nega.

This is not a coincidence; it is an ontological truth. The wound is where your connection to the real has been broken.

“My wound is, I haven’t been able to touch… I haven’t been touched… The wound is the wound of desire. When my desire has been wounded, when I can’t access and trust my desire, I literally begin to deaden.”

The deepest desire of every particle of existence is to prehend (to touch) all prior experience. Your fundamental desire is to touch that which is real—significance, value, and aliveness. When this unique capacity to touch is rejected or thwarted, a unique wound is created. To heal, you must engage this wound directly.

The Divine Nature of Desire (Nachash/Messiah)

We live in a world where desire is often demonized, shamed, or hijacked by advertising. This course offers a radical re-reading of our most foundational myths.

Dr. Gafni explains that a deeper reading of the Garden of Eden story reveals it as a tantric text—a trickster story where non-rejection is key. The snake (Nachash) is not the voice of evil, but a disguise for the new human (Messiah).

  • Desire is the Name of God: The realization is that desire itself is the animating force of reality. The clarification of your unique desire is, therefore, a divine process.
  • Cosmic Eros: Reality is not a mechanical system but an erotic process unfolding every second. From the precise “rates” of chemistry that lead to life (abiogenesis) to the movement between two beloveds, it is all an unfolding of unique eros. Your life is literally a product of reality’s unique erotic intention.

The course is about engaging this truth. You must clarify your unique desire, which means engaging the fundamental ways in which your desire has been wounded.

Clarification: The Path to Wholeness

Dr. Gafni emphasizes that we must stop mistaking impulsivity for desire. Like the monk who “brackets” mechanical desire to access his deepest heart’s desire, we need the tools to clarify our own unique configuration of longing.

You cannot achieve mental health, fulfillment, or joy without desire. The transformation of your unique wound is what literally births you into reality, turning devastation into a deeper capacity for wonder.

We live in a world that is “always already home” and yet is ripped apart by war and suffering. This course holds that tension—the unbearable joy of Eros and the unbearable intensity of suffering—as the only way to become whole.

A new Parallax course with Dr. Marc Gafni in Collaboration with the Unique Self Institute

Starting Sunday, November 16th, 2025

Course Description: The Essence of the Wound

In this three-week journey, participants confront the wounds that shape their lives—the unique ruptures that call us from despair into wonder, from alienation into intimacy, from devastation into divinity. Each person’s wound is singular, tied to their shadow, their desire, and their unique self. This course guides students to trace the root of their wound, recognize the false core it may have created, and begin the heroic work of transforming pain into power, shame into insight, and contraction into love. We explore personal, familial, and cultural wounding, and the path of the wounded hero, learning to step into authentic presence and the intimate communion between hero and the wounded God.

This 3-week course will guide you to:

  1. Confront the wounds that shape your life.
  2. Trace your wounds back to their root.
  3. Recognize the false core sense of self your wounds have created.
  4. Begin the heroic work of transforming pain into power, shame into insight, and contraction into love.

>Read more about the course here<

The Rapture of the Wounded Hero

“There is no human being who is not wounded. The wound is not an accident. The wound is the intention of Cosmos to be wounded and to transform the wound into wonder—the rupture into rapture, the alienation into allurement, the collapse into covenant, the pathology into power, the devastation into divinity. Evil comes always from the untransformed wound. What is a wound? How do we understand that? What is my unique wound? A wound is not generic. A human being has a unique self—my unique gift, my unique quality of intimacy, my unique perspective, my unique beauty, my unique presence. And a person also has a unique shadow, and a related but not the same unique wound. The path to unique self is through unique shadow and unique wound.

Our focus in this course is your unique wound. You cannot be alive without identifying your unique wound and beginning to walk the path of its transformation. There is nothing more tragic than to die with your wound unrecognized and untransformed. To look away from your wound is to ignore the call of the infinite, the divine calling. If I do not engage the wound in this lifetime, the wound festers and emerges, replaying itself in the next lifetime again and again. To identify my unique wound, I need to trace it back to its root and heal it there. There are ten major approaches to wounding; some address my unique wound, others address different forms of wounding that are not my own. I cannot heal my unique wound without taking my unique risk. My unique risk is essential; really, the only risk is not to take it.

The unique wound can be personal, tribal, collective—the unique wound of the tribe, the family, the couple. Identifying, articulating, and telling the story of the unique wound is the beginning of its transformation. One cannot be a hero without transforming one’s unique wound. There are no heroes who are not wounded heroes. When the hero bypasses the wound, the hero explodes and often becomes the villain. To be a hero is to be a wounded hero; to be a king is to be a wounded king; to be a queen is to be a wounded queen. And the context of all of this is a wounded God. Who is the wounded God? What’s the story of the wounded God? What does it mean to trust the wounded God? What is the encounter between the wounded hero and the wounded God? Who is the hero and who is God? What is the nature of their intimate communion?

The essence of the false core, both individual and collective, is the unrecognized wound. The unrecognized wound becomes the false core. It is only by recognizing the false core that it is brought into the light. The false self built upon the false core can begin to be deconstructed, and the authentic, unique self can emerge, allowing me to play my instrument in the unique self symphony, to take my place, to take the armor off, and for homo armor to become homo amor. This is the path from contraction to love, from pettiness to power, from hate to healing. Every insult is actually a wound of love.

The wound of culture today is the failure of value, and the recognition of that failure was shame—shame itself as a unique wound. Your unique shame is your unique wound, your unique distortion of your unique configuration of desire.”

– Dr. Marc Gafni

>Read more about the course here<

Parallax Video & Audio Podcast Unique Self 2.0–Year 2 Portal 2: Beyond Shame–Identifying Your Unique Wound of Desire2026-01-08T08:33:39-08:00

Parallax Video & Audio Podcast: Unique Self 2.0. with Marc Gafni

Portal 1: Intimacy, Eros, and Evolutionary Love

Unique Self 2.0?

What is Unique?

What is Self?

What is 2.0?

Dr. Marc Gafni argues that the Enlightenment traditions made the big mistake of denying identity and selfhood. He attempts to rectify this mistake and celebrate human uniqueness as the only way to survive the meta-crisis.

Parallax Video & Audio Podcast: Unique Self 2.0. with Marc Gafni2024-12-04T03:16:06-08:00

Kyle Kingsbury Podcast #366 The Fifth Face of Eros with Marc Gafni

Enjoy this podcast with Dr. Marc Gafni featured on Kyle Kingsbury Podcast.

ABOUT: 

Back again with Marc Gafni to delve into the ’12 Faces of Eros,’ specifically focusing on the concept of the ‘unique self.’ Dr. Gaffney explains the intricacies of Eros, which is described as radical aliveness, desiring deeper contact and greater wholeness. The episode addresses how the unique self differs from the separate self and true self, emphasizing its role as an intended, recognized, chosen, and unique expression of reality. The conversation is enriched with philosophical and spiritual discussions, aiming to weave together various streams of wisdom.

Marc’s Books:

NEW BOOK: First Principles and First Values – David J. Temple

A Return to Eros (paperback)

A Return to Eros (audiobook)

The Erotic and the Holy

Your Unique Self

Soul Prints: Your Path to Fulfillment

Self in Integral Evolutionary Mysticism

Breakdown of this episode: 

00:00 Introduction and Overview
01:55 Sponsor Shoutouts and Promotions
12:35 Deep Dive into Eros and Reality
20:33 Exploring the Faces of Eros
24:23 Exploring the Erotic Basis of Uniqueness
25:05 Love as a Unique Self Perception
26:55 The Need for Irreducible Unique Value
28:13 Eight Core Eros Needs
35:21 The Bi-Directional Nature of Needs
39:15 The Difference Between Separateness and Uniqueness
40:21 The Experience of Unique Self
43:54 The Erotic Realization of Uniqueness
45:45 Personal Reflections on Uniqueness

FIRST PRINCIPLES AND FIRST VALUES

Forty-Two Propositions on CosmoErotic Humanism, the Meta-Crisis, and the World to Come

by David J. Temple

AS THE META-CRISIS DEEPENS, THE FATE OF CIVILIZATION AND HUMANITY HANGS IN THE BALANCE.

First Principles and First Values is the tip of the spear in the fight for a humane future. Establishing frameworks for a new school of thought called CosmoErotic Humanism, the book is built around forty-two propositions that provide new source code for the future of planetary culture.

Like Europe in the early Renaissance, humanity is in a time between worlds, at a time between stories. First Principles and First Values contains blueprints for the bridge needed to cross from this world to the next.

“The position argued for in this book is of vital importance . . . it needs urgently to be read.”
IAIN McGILCHRIST, author of The Master and His Emissary

Order Here

Kyle Kingsbury Podcast #366 The Fifth Face of Eros with Marc Gafni2025-03-16T09:21:34-07:00

Exploring the Self with Dr. Marc Gafni and Paul Chek

The state of our world is in such a fragile place right now, which means it’s up to all of us to step up to the plate and do our part to make it better. You can’t be that agent of change, however, if you don’t know your self…

Explore the concept of self and be prepared to tackle the three most important questions any human being has to answer as Dr. Marc Gafni returns for another deep dive into cosmo-erotic humanism in this Living 4D conversation with Paul Chek. 

Paul Chek is a world-renowned expert in the fields of corrective and high-performance exercise kinesiology, stress management and holistic wellness.

In this conversation Paul Chek and Marc Gafni explore what Self really means. Discover the three most important questions a human being has to answer and the one thing we need to get right to not go extinct!

SHOW NOTES
  • The most important questions a human being has to answer. (4:14)
  • “If we don’t get this right, we’re going to go extinct.” (10:15)
  • The second simplicity. (18:41)
  • The separate self is a puzzle piece. (32:18)
  • Your unique self. (40:23)
  • Uniqueness: The currency of connection. (52:57)
  • “God is an ultimate wholeness…” (59:09)
  • Evolutionary unique self. (1:11:33)
  • “My unique self is my unique eros.” (1:33:11)
  • The self as an archetype. (1:53:26)
  • Your storyline. (2:10:44)
  • One of the mysteries of reality. (2:20:37)
  • Certainty and uncertainty: Values of the cosmos. (2:27:59)
  • The other door in the self. (2:35:28)
RESOURCES & FURTHER READING

Paul Chek on Marc Gafni: “His work is absolutely friggin’ phenomenal!”

Note: On this website link below, right underneath the one hour video version, you’ll find the longer audio-version: 

Listen to the full podcast here
Exploring the Self with Dr. Marc Gafni and Paul Chek2025-03-11T03:47:27-07:00

Discovering Your Unique Self Is the Key for New Conscious Business Leadership — with Dr. Marc Gafni and Studio Stijn

In this episode Marc Gafni shares his ideas about Conscious Business, Conscious Leadership, purpose and the importance of developing yourself as a conscious leader, manager and, in fact for any human being,  in order to serve others. He elaborates on the idea of ‘The Unique Self for leaders and their business in todays world’.

Marc is a visionary thinker, spiritual teacher,  social activist, passionate philosopher, and author of ten books, including the award-winning Your Unique Self: The Radical Path to Personal Enlightenment. He holds his doctorate in philosophy from Oxford University, is a rabbi and had a talk show on Israelin television.

Together with John Mackey , CEO of Whole Foods Market and entrepreneur Kate Maloney he brings revolutionary ideas on how business should and can be meaningfull far beyond the individual benefit but serving for the better of society and the world.

Marc is known for his rare combination of brilliant mind and overflowing heart. He is a leading public intellectual and has been called a trail-blazing visionary in opening up new possibilities for love, Eros and relationship.

In that regard he is the co-founder and president of The Centre of Integral Wisdom and at the end of August he will be in Belgium leading a retreat called the ‘Eros mystery School’. If after listening you feel like you want to participate to this great event, you can use the link below.

Listen to this podcast here
Discovering Your Unique Self Is the Key for New Conscious Business Leadership — with Dr. Marc Gafni and Studio Stijn2023-12-11T07:35:43-08:00

Dialogue on Self with Barbara Marx Hubbard, Andrew Cohen, Sally Kempton, and Marc Gafni

In this beautiful conversation between Andrew Cohen, Barbara Marx Hubbard, Sally Kempton and Marc Gafni, they are talking in depth about their respective views of the nature of Self.

Dialogue on Self with Barbara Marx Hubbard, Andrew Cohen, Sally Kempton, and Marc Gafni2023-09-12T09:51:38-07:00

Richard Schwartz & Marc Gafni: Unique Self and the Internal Family Systems Model

In this exciting dialogue from 2013, Dr. Gafni and Dr. Schwartz discuss the exciting potential integration of the Unique Self teaching and Internal Family Systems.

You can find an earlier dialogue between them here from 2012 where they explore the contribution of Unique Self to family therapy and other aspects of psychology. This is what Marc Gafni wrote after this wonderful dialogue:

In a long discussion with my friend and colleague Richard Schwartz, founder of Internal Family Systems Theory, I shared with him my perspective on the relation of Ego and Unique Self and the larger set of core distinctions that comprise Unique Self teaching. Dick excitedly concurred and added important empirical validation from his clinical perspective and sent me this written communication after our conversation:

Many spiritual traditions make the mistake of viewing ‘the ego’ as the problem. At worst it vilified as greedy, anxious, clinging, needy, focused on wounds from the past or fear in the future, full of limiting or false beliefs about you, the source of all suffering, and something one must evolve beyond in order to taste enlightenment. At best it is seen as a confused and childish — to be treated with patience and acceptance but not to be taken seriously or listened to. My 30 years of experience exploring internal worlds has led to very different conclusions regarding the ego. What is called the ego or false self in these spiritualities is a collection of sub-personalities I call ‘parts.’ When you first become aware of them, these parts manifest all the negative qualities described above, so I understand why this mistake is so widespread.

As you get to know them from a place of curiosity and compassion, however, you learn that they are not what they seem. Instead, they are spiritual beings themselves who, because of being hurt by events in your life, are forced into roles that are far from their natures, and carry extreme beliefs and emotions that drive their limiting or suffering perspectives. Once they are able to release those beliefs and emotions (what I call burdens) they immediately transform into their natural, enlightened states and can join your evolution toward increasing embodiment of your true nature, what Marc Gafni importantly refers to as correctly, your Unique Self.

Thus, if instead of trying to ignore or transcend an annoying ego, you relate to even the apparent worst of your parts with love and open curiosity you will find that, just like you, they long for the liberating realization of their connection with the divine and provide delightful and sage company on your journey toward enlightenment. In this way you will be relating to these inner entities in the same way that Jesus and Buddha taught us to relate to suffering, exiled people.

The dialogue here is about a possible integration of Unique Self into psychotherapy and especially the IFS Model.

Richard Schwartz is a leading expert in the field of psychotherapy and recognized as the founding developer of Internal Family Systems Theory, an influential therapeutical model which combines systems thinking with an integrative view of the mind and its discrete qualities.

Stream the audio here:

Richard Schwartz & Marc Gafni: Unique Self and the Internal Family Systems Model2023-09-12T09:58:10-07:00

Standing Ovations at Exeter Assembly 2012

Kathy Brownback, Board Member of CIW and academic teacher in the religion and philosophy department at Phillips Exeter Academy:

Dr. Marc Gafni flew into Boston on his way back from Holland in early June 2012, and came up to Exeter an hour north to meet with us (Phillips Exeter is an independent boarding school for students with strong academic promise from around the United States and the world). Students in the mysticism class in the religion department, who were nearly all seniors just about to graduate, had read and really liked Marc’s unique self teaching and were thrilled to hear that he was coming. When eros is named and separated from the solely sex-shop connotation of “erotic,” they all know what it is and they understand why it is important to expand and reclaim the word.

Marc linked it directly to the electrical thread of uniqueness in their own lives and to their obligation to find and follow it. It means a lot to them not to have this framed as a “head vs. heart” or “mind vs. body” conundrum—in his teaching the two are inseparable and give access to each other. Marc’s work speaks to students in a remarkable way—they often seem to have an almost instinctive feel for and response to what he is saying, which does give the sense of an evolutionary process unfolding. I have written about his impact in this class before and will do so again.

Read more…

Listen to Marc Gafni’s Keynote Address to Exeter students and faculty.

Stream the audio here:

Standing Ovations at Exeter Assembly 20122023-09-12T09:59:49-07:00

Standing Ovations at Exeter Assembly 2014

This was Marc’s fifth visit to the campus and was deeply received by students and faculty alike. We are delighted that a new course was recently approved at Exeter which will directly draw on Unique Self theory. We are confident this will be part of larger movement to evolve secondary school education with the principles of Unique Self theory. It was simply outstanding to witness the great teaching work and the depth of conversation with the Exeter faculty and students. Take a moment and enjoy the recording of the Assembly (some 1300 students and faculty were present).

Stream the audio here:

Standing Ovations at Exeter Assembly 20142023-09-12T09:59:49-07:00
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