Podcast
Turning Towards Life - a Thirdspace podcast
Hosted by Thirdspace · EN
Join Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise from Thirdspace for weekly conversations that ask how we might bring ourselves to life with as much courage and wisdom as we can. We start each episode with inspiring sources and then dive deep together into the questions and possibilities they open up. Find us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, YouTube and FaceBook, at www.turningtowards.life and at www.wearethirdspace.org
41episodes
Episodes
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409: A Falcon, a Storm, or a Great Song?
Aug 10, 202500:33:08Tap to summarizeWe mistake ourselves for the stories we've been told and the ones we keep telling. But what if those stories are too small to contain who we really are? A conversation about discovering that the more we open our hearts to the world, the less we actually know about anything—and how this not knowing might be exactly where freedom lives. What happens when we stop trying to figure everything out and instead give ourselves fully to the mystery of being human? This week’s conversation is hosted, as always, by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace. Episode Overview 00:00 Introduction and Context Setting 06:26 Exploring Rilke's 'Widening Circles' 12:16 The Journey of Discovery 18:53 Embracing Uncertainty and Complexity 24:10 Faithfulness in the Face of Not Knowing 30:30 Invitation to Community and Practice Here’s our source for this week: Widening Circles I live my life in widening circles that reach out across the world. I may not complete this last one but I give myself to it. I circle around God, around the primordial tower. I’ve been circling for thousands of years and I still don’t know: am I a falcon, a storm, or a great song? Rainer Maria Rilke Translated by Joanna Macy Photo by Alan Mersom on Unsplash ---- Join Us Live in 2025 Turning Towards Life Live Season 1, from September 2025 We also have the launch of our Turning Towards Life live programme which is going to run in six month seasons from September. It's going to be in person on Zoom once a month. We're very excited about it. A chance to expand beyond the bounds of a podcast into forming a community of learning and practice. You can register your interest for Season 1 of Turning Towards Life Live here. ---- About Turning Towards Life Turning Towards Life, a week-by-week conversation inviting us deeply into our lives, is a live 30 minute conversation hosted by Justin Wise and Lizzie Winn of Thirdspace. Find us on FaceBook to watch live and join in the lively conversation on this episode. You can find videos of every episode, and more about the project on the Turning Towards Life website, and you can also watch and listen on Instagram, YouTube, and as a podcast on Apple, Google, Amazon Music and Spotify. Join Our Weekly Mailing: www.turningtowards.life/subscribe Support Us: www.buymeacoffee.com/turningtowardslife Keywords widening circles, spiritual unknowing, faithful presence, identity stories, cultural certainty, mysterious reality, spiritual practice, contemplative conversation, human complexity, sacred listening, deepening awareness, creative response, genuine unknowing, expanding compassion, spiritual freedom, mystical faithfulness, embodied wisdom, relational depth, authentic encounter, philosophical openness, contemplative dialogue, life-giving practice, spiritual attention, transformative conversation, primordial mystery People Mentioned Rainer Maria Rilke (poet who wrote "Widening Circles") Joanna Macy (translator of the Rilke poem) Maya Angelou (poet, mentioned from previous week's episode - "Phenomenal Women") Richard Rorty (philosopher, pragmatism) James Hollis (Jungian writer)
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408: Phenomenal Woman
Aug 8, 202500:33:32Tap to summarizeWhat happens when we choose to actively shape our own identity rather than only accept the stories handed down to us? How might we practice distinguishing between what belongs to us and what we've been told we should be? What becomes possible when we see ourselves as authors of our own ways of being in life? This week’s conversation is hosted, as always, by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace. Episode Overview 00:00 Introduction to the Conversation 03:18 Reading Maya Angelou's 'Phenomenal Woman' 08:01 Exploring Identity 11:07 The Invitation of Authenticity 16:03 Rejecting the Algorithm: Embracing Authorship 21:16 The Inquiry into Who We Might Be 26:25 Finding Belonging in Authenticity 30:01 The Call to Pay Attention to Life Here’s our source for this week: Phenomenal Woman Pretty women wonder where my secret lies. I’m not cute or built to suit a fashion model’s size But when I start to tell them, They think I’m telling lies. I say, It’s in the reach of my arms, The span of my hips, The stride of my step, The curl of my lips. I’m a woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal woman, That’s me. I walk into a room Just as cool as you please, And to a man, The fellows stand or Fall down on their knees. Then they swarm around me, A hive of honey bees. I say, It’s the fire in my eyes, And the flash of my teeth, The swing in my waist, And the joy in my feet. I’m a woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal woman, That’s me. Men themselves have wondered What they see in me. They try so much But they can’t touch My inner mystery. When I try to show them, They say they still can’t see. I say, It’s in the arch of my back, The sun of my smile, The ride of my breasts, The grace of my style. I’m a woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal woman, That’s me. Now you understand Just why my head’s not bowed. I don’t shout or jump about Or have to talk real loud. When you see me passing, It ought to make you proud. I say, It’s in the click of my heels, The bend of my hair, the palm of my hand, The need for my care. ’Cause I’m a woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal woman, That’s me. Maya Angelou Photo by Chris on Unsplash ---- Join Us Live in 2025 Turning Towards Life Live Season 1, from September 2025 We also have the launch of our Turning Towards Life live programme which is going to run in six month seasons from September. It's going to be in person on Zoom once a month. We're very excited about it. A chance to expand beyond the bounds of a podcast into forming a community of learning and practice. You can register your interest for Season 1 of Turning Towards Life Live here. ---- About Turning Towards Life Turning Towards Life, a week-by-week conversation inviting us deeply into our lives, is a live 30 minute conversation hosted by Justin Wise and Lizzie Winn of Thirdspace. Find us on FaceBook to watch live and join in the lively conversation on this episode. You can find videos of every episode, and more about the project on the Turning Towards Life website, and you can also watch and listen on Instagram, YouTube, and as a podcast on Apple, Google, Amazon Music and Spotify. Join Our Weekly Mailing: www.turningtowards.life/subscribe Support Us: www.buymeacoffee.com/turningtowardslife Keywords phenomenal woman, inner mystery, self-making beings, authentic choices, conditioned narratives, cultural expectations, embodied identity, ancestral patterns, algorithmic conformity, gender stereotypes, truthful living, belonging to life, mysterious aliveness, elder wisdom, fierce invitation, active authorship, realness inquiry, powerful presence, liberation permission, identity deviation, life-giving stories, genuine aliveness, source of power, community belonging, truthful emergence
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407: Being the Soil for One Another
Jul 27, 202500:37:04Tap to summarizeWe are much more powerful than we often imagine, and in surprising ways. For most of us, our power is not in being remembered long beyond our lifetimes, or in being able to change the world that is far from us. It is rather in that we are each made by one another, and we make one another, by how we live, what we say, how we listen, and how we act. When we start to see that we are literally making a world for others to live in right here and now, in our every way of conducting ourselves it can open great possibilities both for gratitude and wonder, and great responsibilities for us as parents, friends, colleagues and neighbours in our everyday lives. In this conversation we remember Joanna Macy, whose writing we have featured a number of times, who died on July 19. And we talk together about what it is to be ‘good soil’ for one another, so that we get to make a world together that we want to live in.This week’s conversation is hosted, as always, by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace. Episode Overview 00:00 Introduction and Context Setting 02:59 Nature as a Narrative for Human Life 05:59 Reflections on Mortality and Legacy 08:50 The Interconnectedness of Human Experience 11:54 Being Soil for One Another 14:49 Relationships and Community 18:07 Parenting and World Making 21:06 Cultural Narratives that Limit and Bring to Life 23:49 Conclusion Here’s our source for this week: In Honor of Joanna Macy, 1929-2025 I write while staying in one of the great forests of British Columbia, a forest in which the inextricability of life from death is gorgeously evident… Magnificent fallen trees turn back into soil as younger trees reach downward to twine around their ancestors' trunks and upward toward the sky. The roots growing around and gripping these decaying logs look like veins and tentacles and fingers clutching and reaching toward an anchor in the soil. Some of the mature cedars and conifers stand on mounds that must be fully decayed trees or rather once were trees and are further along in the process of becoming soil. Often a great tree that's fallen over still has at its base a tall shield that is its roots still clinging to rounded stones and soil, and from this the trunk stretches across the earth. These trees from which trees grow are known as nurse logs… When I was younger, I was taught what an artist or writer was supposed to aspire to was immortality, the kind that Dante and Li Po and Shakespeare have, so that in centuries to come memory of your name and attention to your creations continue. Later in life, I realized that there was an entirely different thing to aspire to, an entirely different kind of creative success: to be so much part of your own time, of the present that is making the future, that rather than remaining what people think about, you become in some way how people think, how they value, what they prioritize. You stop being what's in front of their eyes and become part of what is behind their eyes, how they see the world, how they live, act, what they aspire to, what they hold close, what they resist. You become a nurse log on which new life can grow as you compost into the soil we call culture. And maybe this is the mindset of moist places, of an ecology of vivid decay and regeneration rather than of the arid places, where death dessicates and the mummies, skeletons, ruins, Dead Sea Scrolls, last for centuries or millennia. Rebecca Solnit, writing in memory of Joanna Macy 1929-2025 From ‘Meditations in an Emergency’, Rebecca’s ongoing public writing for these times Photo by Tomas Martinez on Unsplash ---- Join Us Live in 2025 Turning Towards Life Live Season 1, from September 2025 We also have the launch of our Turning Towards Life live programme which is going to run in six month seasons from September. It's going to be in person on Zoom once a month. We're very excited about it. A chance to expand beyond the bounds of a podcast into forming a community of learning and practice. You can register your interest for Season 1 of Turning Towards Life Live here. ---- About Turning Towards Life Turning Towards Life, a week-by-week conversation inviting us deeply into our lives, is a live 30 minute conversation hosted by Justin Wise and Lizzie Winn of Thirdspace. Find us on FaceBook to watch live and join in the lively conversation on this episode. You can find videos of every episode, and more about the project on the Turning Towards Life website, and you can also watch and listen on Instagram, YouTube, and as a podcast on Apple, Google, Amazon Music and Spotify. Join Our Weekly Mailing: www.turningtowards.life/subscribe Support Us: www.buymeacoffee.com/turningtowardslife Keywords nurse logs, creative success, soil culture, interpenetrating lives, mortality meaning, forest metaphor, humility humus, world making, parenting soil, cultural foundation, death regeneration, collective memory, individual legacy, spiritual ecology, creative immortality, ancestral roots, living decay, fertile ground, cultural inheritance, generational impact, everyday power, relationship making, invisible influence, natural cycles, human connection
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406: The Enneagram Guide to Waking Up
Jul 20, 202500:37:10Tap to summarizeWe are patterned beings, and the patterns we live get started very early in our lives. They bring both blessings and blind-spots. One of the great opportunities of a well-lived life is to come to see the patterns, inquire into them, and find ways to open more spaciousness in us than the patterns have allowed so far. This is what we might call ‘growth’ or ‘development’. In this conversation we talk about what it takes to do this, and about the Enneagram, a wise, kind and deep body of language and invitation that we have both found incredibly helpful in walking this path. This week’s conversation is hosted, as always, by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace. Episode Overview 00:00 Introduction to Turning Towards Life 02:50 The Enneagram: A Personal Journey 08:55 Understanding the Enneagram 11:51 Blind Spots and Self-Awareness 17:41 Patterns and Growth 26:04 Gifts Beneath the Surface 34:50 Conclusion and Recommendations Here’s our source for this week: The Enneagram Guide to Waking Up At one level the personality types are based on a very simple thing - where we focus our attention as we move through the world. But what we see also defines what we don’t see - as well as the fact we don’t see it. These are our blindspots. When we remain unaware of these key aspects of our experience, we stay blind to the impact they have on how we think, feel and act. And this explains why we can be said to be ‘asleep’ - going through life like zombies. To wake up from this state, we must confront the ego - as well as the Shadow cast by the ego. We need to become aware of the automatic habits that structure our defensive egoist persona, as well as all that remains unconscious in us connected to our ego’s need to protect itself. This self-protective persona keeps us focused on its needs and prevents us from feeling pain - or joy - condemning us to a kind of waking sleep in which we don’t know who we are and what’s possible for us. We suppress these shadow elements because they create pain or challenge our self image. By making these elements more conscious, however, we become more self aware and whole. Without facing them, we can never know ourselves as we actually are. When we don’t see and own the unconscious tendencies connected to the personality, we stay focused on (and limited by) we are held hostage to who we think we are or who we fear we are or who we would like to be. When we move beyond the ego and actively engage in the process of growth that the enneagram maps out for us, we begin to awaken to our full potential. Beatrice Chestnut and Uraneo Paes From ‘The Enneagram Guide to Waking Up’, Simon and Schuster, 2021 Photo by Tomas Martinez on Unsplash ---- Join Us Live in 2025 Turning Towards Life Live Season 1, from September 2025 We also have the launch of our Turning Towards Life live programme which is going to run in six month seasons from September. It's going to be in person on Zoom once a month. We're very excited about it. A chance to expand beyond the bounds of a podcast into forming a community of learning and practice. You can register your interest for Season 1 of Turning Towards Life Live here. ---- About Turning Towards Life Turning Towards Life, a week-by-week conversation inviting us deeply into our lives, is a live 30 minute conversation hosted by Justin Wise and Lizzie Winn of Thirdspace. Find us on FaceBook to watch live and join in the lively conversation on this episode. You can find videos of every episode, and more about the project on the Turning Towards Life website, and you can also watch and listen on Instagram, YouTube, and as a podcast on Apple, Google, Amazon Music and Spotify. Join Our Weekly Mailing: www.turningtowards.life/subscribe Support Us: www.buymeacoffee.com/turningtowardslife Keywords blind spots, defensive patterns, shadow work, personality types, protective mechanisms, essential goodness, waking up, automatic habits, self-protective persona, unconscious tendencies, growth journey, authentic connection, gift liberation, inner world mapping, community learning, pattern recognition, ego confrontation, sacred qualities, birthright gifts, castle metaphor, boarded rooms, turning towards life, sincerity practice, integrity development, anger recognition, happiness demand, frightening presence, Soho realisation, protective strategies, truthfulness emergence, inclusion practice People mentioned Beatrice Chestnut (co-author of "The Enneagram Guide to Waking Up") Uranio Paés (co-author of "The Enneagram Guide to Waking Up")
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405: Facing our Fear and Becoming Ordinary
Jul 13, 202500:38:18Tap to summarizeWhat happens when we allow ourselves to truly feel the reality that we will grow old, become ill, and die? How might we practice treating our deepest fears not as enemies but as intimate companions? The recognition that these experiences unite us with every other human being who has ever lived offers a pathway from aloneness into a more genuine and heartfelt connection with others. And when we stop running from what we cannot escape, we might get in contact with a very strong feeling of the realness and aliveness of being alive. This week’s conversation is hosted, as always, by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace. Episode Overview 00:00 Introduction, Welcome, and Turning Towards Life Live 04:55 The Importance of Finding One's Voice 08:17 Engaging with Deep Questions 10:51 Confronting Fear and Acceptance 19:00 Self-Remembrance and Aliveness 25:08 The Shared Human Experience 35:07 Conclusion and Invitation to Community Here’s our source for this week: Facing Fear I am of the nature to grow old. I cannot escape growing old. I am of the nature to have ill health. I cannot escape having ill health. I am of the nature to die. I cannot escape death. All that is dear to me, and everyone I love, are of the nature to change. There is no way to escape being separated from them… Looking deeply at each remembrance and breathing in and out with our awareness of each one, we engage our fear in an empowered way… Most of us don’t want to acknowledge it, so we live more or less in denial. Yet down deep in the recesses of our minds, we know it’s true. When we suppress our fearful thoughts, they continue to fester there in the dark. We are driven to consume in an attempt to forget and keep those thoughts from surfacing in our conscious mind. Running away from our fear ultimately makes us suffer and makes others suffer, and our fear only grows stronger… Invite your fear into consciousness, and smile through it; every time you smile through your fear, it will lose some of its strength. If you try to run away from your pain, there is no way out... We must invite these things up into our mind consciousness every day and tell them, “My dear, I’m not afraid of you. I’m not afraid of my fear. It is my nature to grow old; I cannot escape old age.” When fear manifests, we want to have the seed of mindfulness also manifest to embrace it. So we have two energies present—the first is the energy of fear, and the second is the energy of mindfulness. The fear receives a bath of mindfulness and becomes a little bit weaker before it drops back down to the depths of our consciousness in the form of a seed. Thich Nhat Hanh, from ‘Fear: Essential Wisdom for Getting Through the Storm’ Photo by razi pouri on Unsplash ---- Join Us Live in 2025 Turning Towards Life Live Season 1, from September 2025 We also have the launch of our Turning Towards Life live programme which is going to run in six month seasons from September. It's going to be in person on Zoom once a month. We're very excited about it. A chance to expand beyond the bounds of a podcast into forming a community of learning and practice. You can register your interest for Season 1 of Turning Towards Life Live here. ---- About Turning Towards Life Turning Towards Life, a week-by-week conversation inviting us deeply into our lives, is a live 30 minute conversation hosted by Justin Wise and Lizzie Winn of Thirdspace. Find us on FaceBook to watch live and join in the lively conversation on this episode. You can find videos of every episode, and more about the project on the Turning Towards Life website, and you can also watch and listen on Instagram, YouTube, and as a podcast on Apple, Google, Amazon Music and Spotify. Join Our Weekly Mailing: www.turningtowards.life/subscribe Support Us: www.buymeacoffee.com/turningtowardslife Keywords: growing old acceptance, death awareness, mindfulness practice, fear embracing, mortality contemplation, Buddhist remembrances, Thich Nhat Hanh wisdom, existential tenderness, human vulnerability, self-remembrance, control illusion, avoidance strategies, everyday mindfulness, shared humanity, ordinary sacredness, life force recognition, conscious ageing, intimate fears, tender ordinariness, universal mortality, presence practice, busyness distraction, consumption patterns, denial mechanisms, awakening practice People Mentioned: Thich Nhat Hanh - Vietnamese Buddhist teacher and author of "On Fear," whose text on the five remembrances forms the central source material Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel - Referenced for his teaching about being alive as a blessing Joanna Macy - Mentioned as author of a previous source discussed in an earlier episode
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404: The Feeling Beneath the Feeling
Jul 6, 202500:32:07Tap to summarizeOur immediate emotions about an event or happening usually sit on top of deeper currents of meaning, story, longing and commitments that may at first be obscured from view. If we want to become ever more active and intentional participants in our lives and relationships, there's much to be said then for first coming to know the emotion and then beginning to notice the commitments which lie underneath. This way we give ourselves an opportunity to cultivate something over time - a purposeful way of knowing ourselves and using that knowledge for the very practical purpose of being the person we each want to be. How might we begin to approach this inquiry and the new kinds of action that come from it? This week’s conversation is hosted, as always, by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace. Episode Overview 00:00 Introduction to Turning Towards Life 02:51 Exploring Emotions vs. Feelings 05:58 The Complexity of Human Experience 08:50 The Role of Reflection in Understanding 11:56 Parenting and Emotional Awareness 15:08 The Importance of Feeling in Relationships 18:02 Navigating Emotions and Feelings 20:45 The Journey of Self-Discovery 24:04 Honoring Influential Voices 30:05 Conclusion and Reflections Here’s our source for this week: The Feeling Beneath the Feeling "What was my feeling in that situation — not my emotions, my feeling? My emotions may support my feeling, but emotions are affective responses determined by complexes, momentary reactions to an immediate situation. Feeling, on the other hand, evaluates what something is worth to me." Marion Woodman Photo by Ismael Paramo on Unsplash ---- Join Us Live in 2025 Turning Towards Life Live Season 1, from September 2025 We also have the launch of our Turning Towards Life live programme which is going to run in six month seasons from September. It's going to be in person on Zoom once a month. We're very excited about it. A chance to expand beyond the bounds of a podcast into forming a community of learning and practice. You can register your interest for Season 1 of Turning Towards Life Live here. ---- About Turning Towards Life Turning Towards Life, a week-by-week conversation inviting us deeply into our lives, is a live 30 minute conversation hosted by Justin Wise and Lizzie Winn of Thirdspace. Find us on FaceBook to watch live and join in the lively conversation on this episode. You can find videos of every episode, and more about the project on the Turning Towards Life website, and you can also watch and listen on Instagram, YouTube, and as a podcast on Apple, Google, Amazon Music and Spotify. Join Our Weekly Mailing: www.turningtowards.life/subscribe Support Us: www.buymeacoffee.com/turningtowardslife Keywords feeling versus emotion, emotional complexity, beneath the beneath, reflective living, what matters deeply, belonging longing, momentary reactions, personal complexes, evaluating worth, emotional flooding, parenting emotions, feeling towards, working with feelings, emotional skillfulness, writing practice, conversation practice, underneath layers, fear and anger, grief processing, lifelong inquiry, emotional courage, welcoming feelings, feeling fully, emotional determination, reactive responses, deep currents
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403: On Gratitude
Jun 30, 202500:29:44Tap to summarizeCan we practice a fierce, truthful loving form of gratitude for life itself that calls us until our care for the world in practical, tangible ways? How is this different from shallow or 'pop-culture' versions of gratitude that might have us tune out from our pain and the difficulties around us? How might the deepest kind of gratitude connect us to the source from which all life comes, and the incredible unlikeliness of our being here, and so fuel our own aliveness? And how might attending to small things - the computer screen in front of us, a cup of tea, the cat - be a pathway in? This week’s conversation is hosted, as always, by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace. Episode Overview 00:00 Introduction to Turning Towards Life Live 03:05 Exploring Gratitude as a Mood 05:44 The Depth of Gratitude and Taking Action 09:04 The Interconnectedness of Life and Gratitude 12:00 The Power of Small Things in Building Gratitude 14:44 The Role of Community in Changing Things 18:00 Gratitude Beyond Circumstances 20:55 The Miracle of Existence 23:58 Finding Wholeness in Small Moments 26:48 Conclusion and Reflection Here’s our source for this week: On Gratitude Just to live is holy To be is a blessing -- Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel We have received an inestimable gift. To be alive in this beautiful, self-organising universe - to participate in the dance of life with senses to perceive it, lungs that breathe it, organs that draw nourishment from it - is a wonder beyond words. Gratitude quiets the frantic mind and brings us back to source. It reconnects us with basic goodness and our personal power. It helps us to be more fully present to our world. That grounded present provides the psychic space for acknowledging the pain we carry for our world... We begin to know the immensity of our heart-mind, and how it helps us move beyond fear... The truth of our inter-existence, made real to us by our pain for the world, helps us see with new eyes. It brings fresh understandings of who we are and how we are related to each other and the universe. We begin to comprehend our own power to change and heal. We strengthen by growing living connections with past and future generations, and our brother and sister species. Then, ever again, we go forth into the action that calls us... Even when we don’t succeed in a given venture, we can be grateful for the chance we took and the lessons we learned. And the spiral begins again. Joanna Macy, from ‘World as Lover, World As Self’ Photo by Balazs Busznyak on Unsplash ---- Join Us Live in 2025 Turning Towards Life Live Season 1, from September 2025 We also have the launch of our Turning Towards Life live programme which is going to run in six month seasons from September. It's going to be in person on Zoom once a month. We're very excited about it. A chance to expand beyond the bounds of a podcast into forming a community of learning and practice. You can register your interest for Season 1 of Turning Towards Life Live here. ---- About Turning Towards Life Turning Towards Life, a week-by-week conversation inviting us deeply into our lives, is a live 30 minute conversation hosted by Justin Wise and Lizzie Winn of Thirdspace. Find us on FaceBook to watch live and join in the lively conversation on this episode. You can find videos of every episode, and more about the project on the Turning Towards Life website, and you can also watch and listen on Instagram, YouTube, and as a podcast on Apple, Google, Amazon Music and Spotify. Join Our Weekly Mailing: www.turningtowards.life/subscribe Support Us: www.buymeacoffee.com/turningtowardslife
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402: What If I Told You
Jun 22, 202500:33:55Tap to summarizeThis week we explore the tension between bringing our wholeness to the world and the social pressure to maintain polished appearances. How might we practise opening our hearts to the whole of ourselves—including the uncomfortable, needy, and difficult parts? Moving from performing acceptability to becoming spaces where others can feel genuinely welcomed means cultivating the capacity to ask "what else is here?" with genuine curiosity. And this becomes the foundation for encountering our own and others' grief, rage, and vulnerability without turning away. It’s our sense that this is an ethical imperative—the gift we offer those who come after us and those we meet along the way. This week’s conversation is hosted, as always, by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace. Episode Overview 00:00 Introduction and Context of the Conversation 01:56 The Power of Authenticity in Relationships 07:04 Exploring the Poem: 'What If I Told You' 08:52 Embracing Messiness as Generosity 12:56 The Importance of Self-Reflection 20:42 Navigating Relationships with Authenticity 28:55 The Ethical Imperative of Being Real 31:48 Conclusion and Future Directions Here’s our source for this week: What if I told you What if I told you That showing up In this messy world Just as you are Is the ultimate act of love. That befriending your doubts, Opening your heart to The whole of you, Is the greatest act of generosity. That loving yourself In the places that are the hardest to love Is the most profound gift You can give To those who come after you, To those who meet you, To those who rest in your eyes for a moment, As you move through the world As an invitation And a welcome for Everyone's messy beauty. What if I told you, We need you Just As You Are. Hollie Holden Photo by Talia Cohen on Unsplash ---- Join Us Live in 2025 Turning Towards Life Live Season 1, from September 2025 We also have the launch of our Turning Towards Life live programme which is going to run in six month seasons from September. It's going to be in person on Zoom once a month. We're very excited about it. A chance to expand beyond the bounds of a podcast into forming a community of learning and practice. You can register your interest for Season 1 of Turning Towards Life Live here. ---- About Turning Towards Life Turning Towards Life, a week-by-week conversation inviting us deeply into our lives, is a live 30 minute conversation hosted by Justin Wise and Lizzie Winn of Thirdspace. Find us on FaceBook to watch live and join in the lively conversation on this episode. You can find videos of every episode, and more about the project on the Turning Towards Life website, and you can also watch and listen on Instagram, YouTube, and as a podcast on Apple, Google, Amazon Music and Spotify. Join Our Weekly Mailing: www.turningtowards.life/subscribe Support Us: www.buymeacoffee.com/turningtowardslife
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401: Fresh Answers from the Inside
Jun 15, 202500:32:33Tap to summarizeWhen we’re caught up with our harsh inner voices we can easily smother out a kind of solid, deep wisdom and aliveness that we could be bringing to our lives and our relationships. It’s this depth in us from which can come the kind of responsiveness and resourcedness which is called for in the complexity of our human living and relating. In a wider culture which rarely values such depth, what is it to learn to drop down beneath our shallow, reactiveness to the life which pulses beneath in all of us, and respond from there? This week’s conversation is hosted, as always, by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace. Episode Overview 00:00 Celebrating Community and Connection 04:40 Exploring Eugene Gendlin's Insights 09:37 The Inner Dialogue: Harshness vs. Compassion 15:10 Understanding the Inner Self and Relationships 21:58 Strength in Vulnerability and Connection 30:25 The Invitation to Depth and Wholeness Here’s our source for this week: Fresh Answers from the Inside If you are like almost everybody else, you undoubtedly know a good deal about what is wrong in your life. You may often lecture yourself, perhaps basing your lectures on sound inferences and assumptions… Or, at other times, you skip the sophisticated lecture and insult yourself roundly and simply instead. A kick is what you think you need… Not only do these lectures and self-castigations feel unpleasant, but they produce no useful change. You become something like two people, one in prison and the other outside. The outside person lectures or insults the one inside, cruelly listing all the alleged (but usually unproven) faults of character that have supposedly led to the prisoner's sorry plight. None of this helps the prisoner escape. When the lecture is over, the inner person is, as always, stuck… Instead of talking at yourself from the outside in, you [could] listen to what comes from you, inside. You ask in a quiet, friendly, and sympathetic way, "What's wrong?" You may never before have been quite this friendly to yourself. Most people treat themselves very badly, much worse than they would ever think of treating another human being. Most people deal with their inside feeling person as a sadistic prison guard would. Now, having asked your body this question-"What's really wrong?" —you deliberately refrain from answering it. When you ask another person a question, you don't go right on and answer the question yourself. Treat your own inside feeling person at least as well as you would someone else. Your inside feeling person, too, can answer, and doesn't need you to do all the answering. Try to pass up all the glib, familiar answers that come very fast. They are the same old answers you've heard in thousands of self-lectures down through the years. Firmly reject them. Wait quietly for fresh answers to come from the inside, from the bodily felt sense of whatever situation is troubling you. From ‘Focusing’ by Eugene Gendlin Photo by Dominic Kurniawan Suryaputra on Unsplash ---- Join Us Live in 2025 Turning Towards Life Live Season 1, from September 2025 We also have the launch of our Turning Towards Life live programme which is going to run in six month seasons from September. It's going to be in person on Zoom once a month. We're very excited about it. A chance to expand beyond the bounds of a podcast into forming a community of learning and practice. You can register your interest for Season 1 of Turning Towards Life Live here. ---- About Turning Towards Life Turning Towards Life, a week-by-week conversation inviting us deeply into our lives, is a live 30 minute conversation hosted by Justin Wise and Lizzie Winn of Thirdspace. Find us on FaceBook to watch live and join in the lively conversation on this episode. You can find videos of every episode, and more about the project on the Turning Towards Life website, and you can also watch and listen on Instagram, YouTube, and as a podcast on Apple, Google, Amazon Music and Spotify. Join Our Weekly Mailing: www.turningtowards.life/subscribe Support Us: www.buymeacoffee.com/turningtowardslife
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400: Numbered, Revisited - our 400th episode
Jun 8, 202500:28:55Tap to summarizeIt's our 400th episode, and in a special celebration for which we were joined by a live audience of listeners to Turning Towards Life, we return to the theme of episode 1, revisiting a source about living as fully as we can in the light of a life that is limited in time, and in which everything ends. Can we find a way not to turn away from the truth of this and, indeed, to use its truth as a path into living our lives contactfully, attentively and with joy, care, delight, sorrow, grief and truthfulness? This week’s conversation is hosted, as always, by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace. Here’s our source for this week: Numbered Sometimes I remember that my days are numbered. My days for working are numbered. My days for seeing a cloudless sky are numbered. My days are numbered for sitting beneath tall trees. And my days are numbered for learning. My days for holding the ones I love are numbered, As are my days of kisses. My days of anguish, fear, and longing – they too are numbered. And my days of walking the crests of high hills. My days of deep conversation with friends and colleagues are numbered And the days on which I can make a dent on the world. My days for inventing, creating, demolishing, undoing, subverting, contributing. My days for mending and tearing apart. My days of confusion. My days of spreadsheets, keyboards, pens, paperclips. My days for travelling by train, bus, boat, plane. My days for reading, music, turning my face towards the stars, and washing the dishes. My days of getting to know myself. My days for understanding what life is. My days for loving. My days for knowing. All of these, too. I don’t think I can remember this all the time. I am too forgetful for that. Too easily absorbed in the work of the day. But when I do remember, life shines with new depth and wonder. And I find it much more straightforward To do what I am here to do. Justin Wise From Justin’s blog ‘On Living and Working’ Photo by Maksym Kaharlytskyi on Unsplash ---- Join Us Live in 2025 Turning Towards Life Live Season 1, from September 2025 We also have the launch of our Turning Towards Life live programme which is going to run in six month seasons from September. It's going to be in person on Zoom once a month. We're very excited about it. A chance to expand beyond the bounds of a podcast into forming a community of learning and practice. You can register your interest for Season 1 of Turning Towards Life Live here. ---- About Turning Towards Life Turning Towards Life, a week-by-week conversation inviting us deeply into our lives, is a live 30 minute conversation hosted by Justin Wise and Lizzie Winn of Thirdspace. Find us on FaceBook to watch live and join in the lively conversation on this episode. You can find videos of every episode, and more about the project on the Turning Towards Life website, and you can also watch and listen on Instagram, YouTube, and as a podcast on Apple, Google, Amazon Music and Spotify. Join Our Weekly Mailing: www.turningtowards.life/subscribe Support Us: www.buymeacoffee.com/turningtowardslife
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