Turning Towards Life - a Thirdspace podcast

What remains when someone we love is no longer physically with us? A conversation exploring the tension between doubt and the feeling that something continues beyond what we can see or touch. How we might speak to those who are gone, even when their ears and hearts seem to no longer exist, by voicing our love and sorrow—whether heard or not—a way in which we change both the world and our wounded hearts.  And honouring the mysterious space where truth and our departed loved ones might still exist. Turning away from these deeper dimensions might be why we feel so disconnected, while embracing them offers a way to move through life with an open heart, receiving what remains precious beyond time and distance. You can find out more about the Thirdspace Professional Coaching Course 2025-26 on the Thirdspace website wearethirdspace.org This week’s conversation is hosted, as always, by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace. Episode Overview 00:00 Introduction 03:18 This Week's Source by Nick Cave 09:04 Love, Death, and Paying Attention 16:54 Allowing Ourselves to be Uncertain 22:01 Gratitude and Reflection on the Conversation Here's our source for this week: Red Hand Files #323, May 2025 My dad died suddenly and unexpectedly. We moved and only saw him for two weeks of what turned out to be his last year on earth. Now I feel like I have failed him so terribly. How do you apologize to someone who is gone? How do you say I love you and I’m so sorry when their ears and their heart don’t exist anymore? AMY, LOS ANGELES, USA You can find the rest of the source on Nick Cave's Red Hand Files website here https://www.theredhandfiles.com/sudden-death-apologise-spiritual-intuition/ by Nick Cave Photo by Road Ahead on Unsplash ---- Join Us Live in 2025 On Sunday 8th June 2025 it will be our 400th episode and we are planning a Turning Towards Life live gathering on Zoom. You're all very welcome to join. It will be a wonderful opportunity to meet us and to meet others. If you are at all interested and you would like to join us, please keep watching out and listening out on the podcast or you could head over towards our website turningtowards.life and sign up for our weekly emails there and you will get all of the information directly into your inbox. We also have the launch of our Turning Towards Life live programme which is going to run in six month seasons. 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. If you go to turningtowards.life there is a button you can press to register your interest in this. 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 Join Turning Towards Life Live: www.turningtowards.life/ttl-live-interest Podcast Keywords: spiritual intuition, grief processing, subtle presence, communion practice, emotional reconciliation, love declaration, sacred mystery, physical absence, soul calling, emergent belief, universal declaration, ordinary world, mysterious presence, heartfelt practice, spiritual recognition, cynicism rejection, living relationship, parent-child connection, grief healing, unsettled mystery, love endurance, existential comfort, reconciliation practice, softened receptivity

A rich conversation about the necessity, joys and inevitable difficulties of loving - of loving one another, of loving all we can about this one precious life. About how easy it is to turn away, to distract ourselves, to check out of all that loving takes - as if that would save us from what Lizzie calls ‘the rattling sorrow’ of loss. And  about the responsibilities and ‘moral labour’ that’s called for for us to stay engaged, to keep returning, even though we have such breakable hearts, for the benefit of all those around us, including of course our selves. You can find out more about the Thirdspace Professional Coaching Course 2025-26 on the Thirdspace website wearethirdspace.org This week’s conversation is hosted, as always, by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace. Episode Overview 00:00 Introduction and Celebration of Milestones 02:11 Exploring the Source: Wise Animals by Tom Chatfield 07:25 The Moral Labour of Living 15:24 Navigating Grief and Vulnerability 21:42 The Complexity of Love and Loss 27:19 Tussling with Different Points of View 31:32 Spiritual Perspectives on Living 35:02 Turning Towards Life Live - An Invitation to Engage and Learn Together Here's our source for this week: The Moral Labour of Living To be human is to be born into utter helplessness, in circumstances beyond our choosing. It is to grow and change, constrained by these circumstances and biological inheritance. It is to achieve some measure of independence, for a time, in the context of our planet’s and our societies’ vast networks of exchange and competition. And it is to seek not only survival but also – so long as the body’s basic needs are met – some form of flourishing or contentment. There is no final victory, no guarantee of success, and no infallible guidance. There is only the contingent business of trying, together, to live and to know ourselves a little better.  All of the above entails … moral labour whose difficulty and significance are inextricably linked. As the parent of two young children, one of the hardest lessons I have struggled to master – like most parents – is the fact that my children’s desires are an imperfect guide to their wellbeing. Making their lives easier is not always the best way to prepare them for life. [It’s] more important for me gradually to help them develop a measure of self-control, fairness and ambition – and to show them how trust can be earned – than it is for me constantly to monitor and intervene in everything they do. Also like many parents, a second lesson I’m still trying to learn is that the person who all too often needs to improve their self-control is me.  To love and to nurture other human beings brings pain as well as joy; frustration and exhaustion as well as delight; the prospect of devastating loss alongside the gains of consuming love. And these satisfactions and sacrifices can’t tidily be separated. To withdraw your care from any relationship is to make yourself less vulnerable, for a price: it’s to diminish what you risk and give, but also what you can receive and gain. from Wise Animals: How Technology Has Made Us What We Are by Tom Chatfield Photo by Mario Purisic on Unsplash ---- Join Us Live in 2025 On Sunday 8th June 2025 it will be our 400th episode and we are planning a Turning Towards Life live gathering on Zoom. You're all very welcome to join. It will be a wonderful opportunity to meet us and to meet others. If you are at all interested and you would like to join us, please keep watching out and listening out on the podcast or you could head over towards our website turningtowards.life and sign up for our weekly emails there and you will get all of the information directly into your inbox. We also have the launch of our Turning Towards Life live programme which is going to run in six month seasons. 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. If you go to turningtowards.life there is a button you can press to register your interest in this. 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 Join Turning Towards Life Live: www.turningtowards.life/ttl-live-interest Keywords: moral labour, vulnerability, human helplessness, self-regulation, emotional capacity, parenting wisdom, grief alongside joy, spiritual questions, letting go, loving attachment, life boundaries, personal mastery, technology escape, relationship vulnerability, human connection, personal growth, accepting mortality, biological inheritance, human dependency, embracing uncertainty, contingent living, self-control development, nurturing relationships, emotional complexity, devastating loss, consuming love, risk and reward, withdrawal consequences, heart expansion, denial mechanisms, holding contradictions, thoughtful disagreement, dialogue practice, human finitude, sacred impermanence, interdependence, tender-heartedness, parental challenges, intergenerational wisdom, therapeutic conversation, existential questions, philosophical exploration, emotional literacy, personal development, turning towards, personal responsibility, life meaning, conscious living, Third Space, turningtowards.life

This conversation dives into Wendell Berry's call for genuine aliveness, challenging societal norms that keep us in unconscious cycles. It highlights the tension between familiar comfort and the unknown, urging listeners to embrace eccentricity as a path to deeper truths. Themes of love, resilience, and radical joy emerge as vital for authentic connection with life. The discussion emphasizes the importance of discomfort for growth and the power of honest dialogue in fostering compassion, ultimately inviting a more deliberate engagement with the complexities of existence.

What would it be to learn to help other people turn deeply towards their own lives? We’ve been asking this question in many ways over the past more than seven years, and this week we turn towards a great love of ours, the Thirdspace Professional Coaching Course, which is designed around this very question.  This year’s course begins in June and applications are coming in. In this rich conversation we talk together about what it is to be an attentive, compassionate and wise support for the development of others, and what it might be like to learn with us over the course of a year. You can find out more about the programme on the Thirdspace website wearethirdspace.org This week’s conversation is hosted, as always, by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace. Episode Overview 00:00 Introduction to the Thirdspace Professional Coaching Course 03:03 The Heart of Integral Development Coaching 05:59 Navigating Life's Interruptions with Creativity and Compassion 08:47 The Role of Community in Learning to Coach 12:03 Coaching is Learning to Turn Towards Life 14:58 The Importance of Belonging and Contribution 17:51 Embracing Creativity and Courage in Difficult Times 21:06 The Journey of Self-Discovery 23:55 Practical Skills for Life and Coaching 27:00 Conclusion and Invitation to Join 30:38 Taking Up Our "Right Size" in the World Here's our source for this week: Coaching and Learning to Coach Every so often in life we pause and make note of the person we have become and the one we are becoming. Sometimes this reflection is prompted by professional circumstances, like a promotion, performance review, job change, or firing. Just as often it emerges from the “rest of life” – as through an illness, death, or the beginning or ending of a relationship. Whatever the origin, these experiences can feel like an opportunity or a burden, a chance to develop or a painful lesson…and often both. How we make sense of these experiences often determines what actions we take, and this, of course, influences our competence and fulfilment in life. Wouldn’t it be wonderful, in these moments, to have someone by our side to ask skilful questions, listen deeply, be fully present with who we are and what we say, point out our blind spots, and custom-design practices to help us move forward? And wouldn’t it be marvellous, too, to be this person for others? The Professional Coaching Course (PCC) exists in large part due to the primacy of these questions for ourselves and the people we serve.  Integral Development Coaching is what happens when two people develop a professional relationship that is grounded in mutual trust and respect, directed toward a set of clear outcomes, guided by presence, and informed by broad models about what it means to be a human being. It is a methodology. It is an integration project. It is a moment when you feel deeply connected to yourself and others, with a deep acceptance of everything, and you take practical steps to move forward in life. It is both simpler and more complex than it sounds. James Flaherty and Amiel Handelsmann From ‘Integrating Rigour, Compassion, and Creative Design - an Introduction to Integral Development Coaching and the PCC’ Join Us Live in 2025 On Sunday 8th June 2025 it will be our 400th episode and we are planning a Turning Towards Life live gathering on Zoom. You're all very welcome to join. It will be a wonderful opportunity to meet us and to meet others. If you are at all interested and you would like to join us, please keep watching out and listening out on the podcast or you could head over towards our website turningtowards.life and sign up for our weekly emails there and you will get all of the information directly into your inbox. We also have the launch of our Turning Towards Life live programme which is going to run in six month seasons. 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. If you go to turningtowards.life there is a button you can press to register your interest in this. 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 Join Turning Towards Life Live: www.turningtowards.life/ttl-live-interest

If 'power' is the extent to which we each are able to bring about our intentions in the world, then our power matters. But there are many different ways to exercise power - as a parent, colleague, friend - in any role where our actions influence others. What does it take to recognise how we're exercising the power we have? Are we acting from our fearful parts or from that which is solid, genuine and faithful to life? Perhaps the deeper invitation is to centre our power around love itself - whether fierce or gentle - rather than around our attempts to dominate and control. This week’s conversation is hosted, as always, by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace. Join Us Live in 2025 On Sunday 8th June 2025 it will be our 400th episode and we are planning a Turning Towards Life live gathering on Zoom. You're all very welcome to join. It will be a wonderful opportunity to meet us and to meet others. If you are at all interested and you would like to join us, please keep watching out and listening out on the podcast or you could head over towards our website turningtowards.life and sign up for our weekly emails there and you will get all of the information directly into your inbox. We also have the launch of our Turning Towards Life live programme which is going to run in six month seasons. 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. If you go to turningtowards.life there is a button you can press to register your interest in this. 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 Join Turning Towards Life Live: www.turningtowards.life/ttl-live-interest Episode Overview 00:00 Introduction and Upcoming Events 02:19 Marion Woodman’s Source 05:07 Personal Authenticity 08:31 Distinctions in Love and Power 12:05 The Nature of Power and Love 16:38 Truth, Power, and Realness 20:08 The Necessity of Power Dynamics 24:45 Faith and Possibility Here's our source for this week: The Real Power To me, real power is about presence. It’s the energy of knowing that you are who you are, and therefore speaking and acting from your authentic self. It doesn’t matter what your work is—if you’re a teacher or a nurse or whatever; it is your presence that’s the power. It’s not power over anybody else. It’s just the expression of who you are. Power in the sense of controlling somebody else is different from personal presence. Love is the real power. It’s the energy that cherishes. The more you work with that energy, the more you will see how people respond naturally to it, and the more you’ll want to use it. It brings out your creativity, and helps everyone around you flower. Your children, the people you work with - everyone blooms. Marion Woodman  Photo by Jessica Alves on Unsplash

The narratives about time and growing older that our culture hands us often fail to name and invite the kind of luminous gathering of life that we can become with age. What if we found a way to fully grieve the losses of aging, rather than fight against them, and in doing so we deepen into a kind of translucent generosity of heart and spirit in which we allow ourselves to give ourselves away to those around us and to life itself? And what if we could do that together, rather than alone? This week’s conversation is hosted, as always, by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace. Join Our Weekly Mailing: www.turningtowards.life/subscribe Support Us: www.buymeacoffee.com/turningtowardslife Join Turning Towards Life Live: www.turningtowards.life/ttl-live-interest 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. Episode Overview 00:00 Introduction and Gratitude 03:11 Exploring Wendell Berry's Work 06:00 The Nature of Time and Aging 12:01 Grief and Acceptance 18:12 Generosity in the Face of Loss 23:57 Community and Intergenerational Wisdom Here's our source for this week: Sabbaths 1993 I No, no, there is no going back. Less and less you are that possibility you were. More and more you have become those lives and deaths that have belonged to you. You have become a sort of grave containing much that was and is no more in time, beloved then, now, and always. And so you have become a sort of tree standing over a grave. Now more than ever you can be generous toward each day that comes, young, to disappear forever, and yet remain unaging in the mind. Every day you have less reason not to give yourself away. by Wendell Berry Photo by Maria Krasnova on Unsplash

Chasing after what we want so badly - from our friends and other relationships - can make it infuriatingly difficult to have and be what we most need. Can we find a way to move towards our longings also find out that although there is much that we might legimately want and long for, the act of receiving and giving right here, in the midst of where we already are, can so often bring us much that we really need. In the process of cultivating a steady reciprocity of receiving and giving we can become a person who meets the truer needs of those around us. The metaphor of the water wheel, in its steady turn of giving and receiving, has much to stir our imagination in this regard, as Rumi teaches us in this week's luminous source. This week’s conversation is hosted, as always, by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace. Join Our Weekly Mailing: www.turningtowards.life/subscribe Support Us: www.buymeacoffee.com/turningtowardslife Join Turning Towards Life Live: www.turningtowards.life/ttl-live-interest 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. Episode Overview 00:00 Introduction and Welcoming the Audience 02:53 Exploring Rumi's 'The Water Wheel' 05:55 Curiosity and Aliveness in Relationships 08:55 The Nature of Friendship and Reciprocity 11:53 Receiving and Giving in Life 15:10 The Balance of Stillness and Movement 17:53 Desires and the Journey of Staying Present 21:08 The Invitation to Stay Together 24:00 Conclusion and Reflection on the Conversation Here's our source for this week: The Waterwheel Stay together, friends. Don’t scatter and sleep. Our friendship is made of being awake. The waterwheel accepts water and turns and gives it away, weeping. That way it stays in the garden, whereas another roundness rolls through a dry riverbed looking for what it thinks it wants. Stay here, quivering with each moment like a drop of mercury. Rumi Photo by Jonathan Wheeler on Unsplash

The conversation explores our struggle between longing for presence and the distractions of modern life. It highlights the importance of community and connection while navigating the complexities of intimacy. Through poetry, especially Marie Howe's 'Prayer,' themes of distraction and connection emerge. Personal anecdotes reveal how engaging with life's moments can be both healing and challenging, advocating for kindness and acceptance amid the chaos of joy and sorrow. The importance of breath as a reminder of our presence is emphasized throughout.

We look out at the world and see horizons everywhere, lines on the ‘edge of the world’ that we know are markers of the beyond. When we move and shift our position, what is beyond the horizon reveals itself in new ways.  And we are like this too - what is within us and what is between us is marked by horizons that are not fixed lines but invitations for movement and discovery. What would become possible if we committed ourselves to standing in new places inside ourselves, and taking one another by the hand to meet on new horizons between us than the habitual, familiar ones we have grown used to? This week’s conversation is hosted, as always, by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace. Join Our Weekly Mailing: www.turningtowards.life/subscribe Support Us: www.buymeacoffee.com/turningtowardslife 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. Episode Overview 00:00 Introduction to Turning Towards Life 02:02 Exploring the Concept of Horizons 10:15 The Nature of Limitations and Possibilities 16:35 Shared Horizons in Relationships 22:01 Imagination and New Horizons 28:38 The Power of Connection and Support Here's our source for this week: HORIZONS are everywhere: both inside and outside of what only feels like our sense of self. The edge between what I think is me and what I think is you is as much a horizon as any line of mountains or that far dark line on the distant ocean. Horizon is the line between what we think we know and what we do not know, between what we think we see and do not see: horizons mark the threshold between the world that I inhabit and the one that seems to wait for me, between a world I can almost understand and what lies beyond the imagination of my present life. Horizons are creative, disturbing, invitational edges just by the fact that they exist. David Whyte from ‘Consolations II: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words’ Photo by Sam Williams on Unsplash

There is action to be taken in the world, for sure. Urgent action to take care of our lives, our communities, and the wider world in which we all live. But there is a also a deep well of presence, patience, intimacy, and connection right in the centre of each of us. When our action is fearful, rushed and out of touch with this still centre, it easily spills over into polarisation, panic and disconnection. And when the source of our action is this centre, the essential aliveness and goodness that we all are at the heart of things, much more that is sustaining and care-filled becomes possible. What is it to find our way back to the vastness that is our origins, and to let our lives and relationships be infused by that at each moment, especially now? This week's Turning Towards Life is hosted, as always, by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace. Join Our Weekly Mailing: www.turningtowards.life/subscribe Support Us: www.buymeacoffee.com/turningtowardslife 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. Episode Overview 00:00 Welcome and Introduction to Silence 04:03 The Importance of Silence in Our Lives 08:00 Silence as a Political Act 12:04 Finding Our Center in Silence 15:58 The Role of Silence in Action 20:08 Cultivating Silence for Deeper Connection 23:46 Reflection and Observation in Leadership 28:10 Gratitude for Silence and Connection 31:51 Conclusion and Invitation to Return Here's our source for this week: Within Each of Us There is a Silence  Within each of us there is a silence —a silence as vast as a universe. We are afraid of it…and we long for it. When we experience that silence, we remember who we are: creatures of the stars, created from the cooling of this planet, created from dust and gas, created from the elements, created from time and space…created from silence. In our present culture, silence is something like an endangered species… an endangered fundamental. The experience of silence is now so rare that we must cultivate it and treasure it. This is especially true for shared silence. Sharing silence is, in fact, a political act. When we can stand aside from the usual and perceive the fundamental, change begins to happen. Our lives align with deeper values and the lives of others are touched and influenced. Silence brings us back to basics, to our senses, to our selves. It locates us. Without that return we can go so far away from our true natures that we end up, quite literally, beside ourselves. We live blindly and act thoughtlessly. We endanger the delicate balance which sustains our lives, our communities, and our planet. Each of us can make a difference. Politicians and visionaries will not return us to the sacredness of life. That will be done by ordinary men and women who together or alone can say, "Remember to breathe, remember to feel, remember to care, let us do this for our children and ourselves and our children's children. Let us practice for life's sake." by Gunilla Norris Photo by Janke Laskowski on Unsplash