Podcast Summary: From Exile to the Heart of Belonging with Toko-pa Turner
Podcast: New Thinking Allowed Audio Podcast
Host: Leeann Whitney
Guest: Toko-pa Turner
Date: November 19, 2025
Duration: ~1 hour
Episode Overview
This episode features Toko-pa Turner, acclaimed Canadian author and dream worker, exploring the journey from exile and unbelonging to reclaiming inner authority and finding authentic belonging. Blending mystical Sufism, Jungian dreamwork, and her lived experience as an orphan and outsider, Toko-pa offers personal stories, practical dreamwork insights, and reflections on grief, shadow, and the collective call to reclaim our imaginal power. The conversation is deeply soulful, poetic, and grounded in the wisdom of personal and ancestral experience.
1. Toko-pa Turner’s Background and the Genesis of Her Work
- Roots of Unbelonging: Toko-pa traces the origins of her inquiry into belonging to her childhood as a Jewish granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, raised in a Sufi commune with significant family and community dysfunction.
- "I was born Jewish...I am the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors. I was raised as a Sufi...and then I eventually found my way into the Jungian world of dream work." (07:54, Toko-pa)
- Dreams as Guiding Light: During a turbulent adolescence, Toko-pa found solace and guidance through dream journaling, seeing dreams as a kind of parenting through exile.
- "I can see how very important my own dreams were to me. I often think of them as having parented me through that dark period." (08:48, Toko-pa)
- Catalyst for Writing: Her questions and conversations about belonging evolved into her book and body of work, discovering many who appeared to "belong" also harbored feelings of exile.
- “To my amazement, every conversation I had with those others...were themselves struggling with a sense of exile or outsidership or feeling like a black sheep.” (11:44, Toko-pa)
2. The Dynamic Essence of Belonging
- Dream Symbolism: Toko-pa shares an important dream of a porch built with an opening for a tree, illustrating the difference between fitting in and truly belonging.
- "You can't find a pre-designed space that you can fit into for any length of time because eventually you're going to outgrow it...the nature of belonging is actually dynamic..." (15:01, Toko-pa)
- Belonging vs. Exile: Belonging and exile are seen as twins—periods of outsidership are initiatory, calling us into the next phase of becoming.
- "One of the big pieces I share in the book is about what I call the dark sisters of exile and belonging. That actually they need each other." (15:49, Toko-pa)
3. The Role of Grief Along the Path
- Grief as Fertilizer: Grief is natural, necessary, and often unsanctioned in modern society. Toko-pa frames it as a movement that, when embraced, allows for new life.
- “Grief...serves a very important function which is to loosen our attachments to things that have been important to us. ...the moisture from that grief becomes a fertilizing agent" (18:50, Toko-pa)
- Communal Holding: True movement through grief often requires support and holding from community or even one precious other; inner work is often insufficient alone.
- “I have always needed support on the outside from really precious few others. ...And community, of course, is very, very important, especially people who can relate to your particular form of grief.” (21:50, Toko-pa)
4. Archetype of the Outcast & Shadow Work
- The Black Sheep: Every family or culture has its outcasts who bear the communal shadow yet are also essential as agents of necessary change.
- “That person is responsible...for carrying the shadow projection of the whole family...However, them being different is essential.” (25:33, Toko-pa)
- Paradoxical Belonging: Over time, embracing one's difference can make an individual a beacon for others, transforming exile into shelter for the similarly exiled.
- “...your unbelonging becomes a place of shelter for others to take refuge.” (27:53, Toko-pa)
- Dreamwork as Practice: Engaging with one’s dreams (especially unsettling or shadowy figures) is a practice of internal belonging, fostering compassion and courage.
- “When we're doing dream work, we are meeting these many different aspects of the self and the larger self. ...This process ...is a form of practicing at belonging internally.” (31:00, Toko-pa)
5. Shadow Work, Boundaries, and Spiritual Bypass
- Facing Inner Predators: Shadow can manifest as frightening dream figures or internalized critical voices. Initial steps are curiosity and boundary-setting, not premature embrace.
- “I'm not advising that people should embrace their...demons or predators in their dreams, because that's not what shadow work is. ...the first stage is really just being curious about it enough to hold that curiosity...” (38:07, Toko-pa)
- Practical Example: Toko-pa shares how identifying the source of a critical internal voice (e.g., the cousin archetype intruder) can empower the dreamer to set boundaries and protect creative space.
- “You stand up to it and you say, I don't want to hear from you right now. ...This is my creative space. I have a right to speak. And suddenly it disappears. Intruder, gone. That's the healing of dream work.” (44:28, Toko-pa)
6. Vulnerability, Empowerment, and Power with/in Community
- Reframing Power: Rather than conventional empowerment, Toko-pa values vulnerability, uncertainty, and compassion as strengths—citing Rumi: “Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment.”
- “I would personally like to see more people being not knowing and being openly confused and being bewildered... that's just my jam.” (47:08, Toko-pa)
- Authenticity vs. False Belonging: Growth requires discernment and the courage to stand outside group norms if they compromise one’s soul.
- “If we go too far ...now we're sort of...the separation distress call is one way I like to think of unbelonging. It's like a separation distress.” (23:44, Leeann; echoed in Toko-pa's responses)
7. The Long Arc of Exile and the Trust Required
- Length of Exile: Transformation can take years—Toko-pa notes Carl Jung’s 13-year “creative illness” as an example. The aloneness is necessary for wisdom to ripen.
- “Very rare do people talk about how long sometimes exile can be...sometimes it can take decades.” (50:18, Toko-pa)
- Reassurance for Listeners: Listeners in long periods of exile are urged to trust the process; their inner work is both necessary for themselves and the collective.
- "If anyone is listening and they are beleaguered by what has felt like a very painful and difficult path, I guess I just want to send some reassurance out to say that...it's necessary not only for you to make these separations and to come into relationship with your true values, but it's necessary to all of us." (52:45, Toko-pa)
8. Reclaiming the Imagination and Belonging to the Living World
- Dangers of Outsourcing Imagination: The episode closes with Toko-pa’s passionate warning about the numbing effects of social media and the urgent need to reclaim our imaginal space.
- “I think of social media a little bit like outsourcing the imagination. ...the imaginal muscle is getting very flabby...what we need right now is your creative voice, the voice that is different from what everybody else is saying.” (57:28, Toko-pa)
- Call to Beauty, Originality, Peace: Only by engaging our unique imaginal gifts and refusing the corporate feed can we contribute to healing, beauty, and new forms of community belonging.
Notable Quotes and Timestamps
-
On the dynamic nature of belonging:
“You can't find a pre-designed space...because eventually you're going to outgrow it...the nature of belonging is actually dynamic.” (15:01, Toko-pa) -
On grief as the compost of transformation:
“If we can do that for one another...then there is a chance then that the moisture from that grief becomes a fertilizing agent so that the arid soil where we have been standing in loss begins to grow new life.” (19:10, Toko-pa) -
On the paradox of the outcast:
“If you are able to find joyful self-regard and profound compassion for the ways in which you are particularly different...your unbelonging becomes a place of shelter for others to take refuge.” (27:21, Toko-pa) -
On befriending the shadow (with caution):
“I'm not advising that people should embrace their...demons or predators...the first stage is really just being curious...that’s just the beginning of shadow work.” (38:07, Toko-pa) -
On the vulnerability of power:
“This work, in a way, I would say it makes us powerful in the sense of being more vulnerable.” (46:52, Toko-pa) -
On trust in the path of exile:
“That it's necessary not only for you to make these separations and to come into relationship with your true values, but it's necessary to all of us.” (52:45, Toko-pa) -
On reclaiming the imagination:
“What we need right now is your creative voice, the voice that is different from what everybody else is saying.” (59:10, Toko-pa)
Key Timestamps
- 03:36 – Introduction to Toko-pa Turner
- 07:02 – 13:26 – Toko-pa shares her personal journey of exile, Sufism, and dreams
- 13:54 – The porch-and-tree dream: Belonging as dynamic, not about fitting in
- 17:58 – Discussion of grief, loss, and the role of community
- 24:21 – Archetype of the Outcast and value of the black sheep
- 30:20 – Heart work, integration, and dreamwork as internal belonging
- 37:55 – Shadow work, intergenerational exile, and trauma
- 42:29 – Boundaries, differentiation, and dreamwork example
- 47:08 – Rumi, bewilderment, and power as vulnerability
- 50:11 – Endurance and trust during long periods of exile and transformation
- 57:14 – Reclaiming imaginal space from social media; creativity as collective healing
Conclusion
This intimate, wide-ranging interview is a resonant exploration of the journey from exile to belonging—personally, ancestrally, and collectively. Toko-pa Turner guides listeners to value the wisdom in grief, the paradoxical gifts of outsidership, the necessity of boundaries and community, and the vital reclamation of our imaginations and creative voices. Her invocation: Belonging starts on the inside, travels through grief and shadow, and ultimately seeks expression in community and the living world.