Turning Towards Life - a Thirdspace podcast

The kind of attention we bring to the world can enslave, reduce or destroy us and others, or support us, and them, in flourishing. It particularly matters when we have any kind of power or influence - for example when we’re a parent, or a leader, a coach, in a partnership of any kind. But we're rarely taught anything about this, because it's not largely in the interest of the systems around us to have us cultivate the broad open attention that brings out meaning and richness from others and the world. So what can we do to start to pay attention to the kind of attention we're bringing life? And how can we cultivate the very attention that evokes the depth and possibility of what and how is around us? This week's Turning Towards Life is hosted, as always, by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace. 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. Here's our source for this week: A Kind of Attention Everything that exists is made up of the same set of particles – what makes the difference between you, a tree, and a boiled egg is just the relationship of the particles to one another. The meaning comes not from the particles, the bits, which are in themselves undifferentiated, meaningless, but from the relationship between them. The most moving piece of music you ever heard is just a collection of meaningless notes from one point of view: from the other the meaning arises from the relationship, which makes the melody, the harmony and so on. And so it is with everything in life we value: its meaning comes from relationship – with your loved ones, the place where you belong, your friends, the natural world itself, a work of art, a poem or a symphony. It all lies in relationships, not in things themselves. When we see the world with targeted, narrow beam attention it is just a meaningless heap of things to be grabbed. When we see the world as a whole with broad open attention its meaning and richness come to meet us ... When Hamlet said: ‘There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so’, he didn’t mean that we can make up our own ethics as we go along. I believe what he meant was that how you choose to think of, to regard, attend to, anything in this world is a moral act, because it changes what it is you find there – and it changes you yourself. A certain attitude, a kind of attention to others and the world at large, can make you, and them, and the world flourish; another kind can enslave, reduce and destroy everything around us, all the good we live for. Iain McGilchrist Photo by Patrick Hendry on Unsplash

How do we find our way back to remembering who and what we really are, in the midst of lives that so easily call us into busyness, distraction, fear and the gnawing sense that something is always missing? How might we speak with one another, and write, in a way that evokes one another's depth? And why it is that, in these days of an new explosion of machine-writing software tools such as ChatGPT, we need the honesty and generosity of writing and speaking to one another that can come only from our humanity - from the inside of this one, mysterious and infinitely precious experience of being alive. This week's Turning Towards Life is hosted, as always, by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace. 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. Here's our source for this week: One Stubborn Layer at a Time Peace finds me today, meets me  in the clear waters of poets' words, in the distant call of mourning dove,  in the bursting buds of the old mossy oak. Even  the black fly is an almost-welcome visitor,  its relentless buzz challenging me to meet it again and again. It flies up close to my open eyes and asks—even this?  The young men painting the house next door  play their festive music and sing and sing,  they sing as if not a thing in the world hurts,  as if this singing moment is guaranteed. Or maybe they sing because  there is so much hurt  in the world and none  of it is guaranteed. I love how, for once, I feel no need to justify this not-doing, afternoon spent cradled  in hammock's kind lap, pen and notebook close  for when words decide to come— and when they do, I catch one  at a time, like a child catching snowflakes  on her tongue. I say thank you  for each one— for what else but words point me back, show me how to, one stubborn layer  at a time, undress myself—how to dive naked  into the clear waters of what is here. Julia Fehrenbacher www.juliafehrenbacher.com  May 16th, 2023 Photo by Radek Grzybowski on Unsplash

How do we face life as it is, with all its inevitable difficulty and with all the meaning and love we might be able to bring to it? And how do we find that in ourselves that is life itself, and live more often from there so that we can meet life with life? This week's Turning Towards Life is hosted, as always, by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace. 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. The Facts of Life That you were born and you will die. That you will sometimes love enough and sometimes not. That you will lie if only to yourself. That you will get tired. That you will learn most from the situations you did not choose. That there will be some things that move you more than you can say. That you will live that you must be loved. That you will avoid questions most urgently in need of your attention. That you began as the fusion of a sperm and an egg of two people who once were strangers and may well still be. That life isn’t fair. That life is sometimes good and sometimes better than good. That life is often not so good. That life is real and if you can survive it, well, survive it well with love and art and meaning given where meaning’s scarce. That you will learn to live with regret. That you will learn to live with respect. That the structures that constrict you may not be permanently constraining. That you will probably be okay. That you must accept change before you die but you will die anyway. So you might as well live and you might as well love. You might as well love. You might as well love. Pádraig Ó Tuama www.padraigotuama.com Photo by Chris Lawton on Unsplash

How much of each us gets excluded when we constantly compare ourselves to one another, and to the expectations we're handed by our culture. And how much we exclude the gifts of others by the very same process. Is there a way we could give up inappropriate comparison and in so doing learn to include so much more everyone's talents and gifts, and the supportive ground of life itself? In this conversation we talk about different kinds of learning, mischief, the attitudes we take that portray us as 'better than' or 'worse than' others, and what it is to deeply and gladly welcome the many kinds of difference and intelligence that are available in the world. This week's Turning Towards Life is hosted, as always, by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace. 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. Here’s our source for this week: People ask me why I am happy. What can I say ? I stopped trying to be the sharpest tool in the shed. Once I gave that up, I could rest in all this love. Relaxed, I opened the door, stepped out and discovered the whole bliss garden I'd been missing. Ingrid Goff-Maidoff ingridgoffmaidoff.com Photo Credit: Lizzie - Picture of a House that Vesper built.

When we stop walling ourselves off from the suffering of the world - our own, other people's - we give ourselves a chance to meet one another's moonlight beauty in the midst of the inevitable undoing that is part of every human life. In this week's conversation we wonder together about what it is that makes this possible, and the relationships with one another that can grow as a consequence. This week's Turning Towards Life is hosted, as always, by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace. 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. Here’s our source for this week: This Ruined House  Last year, the poet Jane Hirschfield shared with me that her life broke open when she first read a haiku by Izumi Shikibu. Izumi was a tenth century Japanese poet of the Heian period. This beautiful haiku is about risk, suffering, permeability, tenderness, and courage, the inner integuments of altruism. Izumi’s haiku: Although the wind blows terribly here the moonlight also leaks between the roof planks of this ruined house. Jane later wrote, “Wall up your well, and you will stay dry, but also stay moonless.” I believe that we have to let life into our lives, let others into our lives, let the world into our lives, let love into our lives, and also let the night into our lives, and not let the roof over our head, our knowing, our fear, keep out the moonlight. Altruism is exactly this permeability, this wall-less wilderness of the world, this broken roof that lets the moonlight flood our ruined house, our suffering world. Roshi Joan Halifax Photo by Jonny Gios on Unsplash

What happens when we stop demanding of one another that we change, and instead generously come alongside one another with a measure of faithfulness in what John O'Donohue calls the 'hesitant light' which is still present in us even in our greatest difficulties? This week's Turning Towards Life is hosted, as always, by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace.  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. Here’s our source for this week: This is the time to be slow This is the time to be slow, Lie low to the wall Until the bitter weather passes. Try, as best you can, not to let The wire brush of doubt Scrape from your heart All sense of yourself And your hesitant light. If you remain generous, Time will come good; And you will find your feet Again on fresh pastures of promise, Where the air will be kind And blushed with beginning. John O'Donohue Photo by Maria Lupan on Unsplash

What if we could hold gratitude and sorrow together in us, rather than reducing ourselves to only one or the other, and rather than tuning out of life so as to avoid losing things? What might it be to honour and experience the gratitude that is inside all sorrow, and the sorrow that is inside all gladness, and in so-doing come to honour the exquisite and extraordinary depth and inner multiplicity of being a human being? This week's Turning Towards Life is hosted, as always, by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace. (the audio of Justin's voice this week is not the usual recording quality we'd hope for... we'll be back to our usual clarity next week)  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. Here’s our source for this week: Losing It This morning, after swimming, I overhear a conversation between two men who are sitting by the water. One has lost his sunglasses on an earlier swim and is quite distressed. ‘They were expensive. Armani.’ he says. ‘I paid a lot of money for them. And they are the third pair I’ve lost this summer’. He is too agitated to be present with his friend who, after some minutes of listening, says ‘You seem really shaken up by this, too shaken up even to really be interested that I’m here with you. You’re saying the same thing, over and over again. But,’ and here he pauses, ‘tell me something. Did you enjoy having them? Did they bring you pleasure? Because although you’ve now lost them, for a while you did have them too’. For a while, you did have them. And having them, while it lasted, was a gift. And at that moment it occurs to me that this is true for everything, and for all of us. We wail and fret about what we lose, and rightly, because our loss is so often a source of suffering for us. But we will all lose our sunglasses, eventually, just as we will lose all our possessions, our friendships, our bodies, and everything we know. And because losing is terrible and difficult to bear, we can spend our lives fretting about what’s yet to lose, and clinging madly to it, or becoming consumed with longing or remorse for what we’ve lost. And all the while forgetting that, for a time, we did have all of this, and missing the wonder that there is anything at all – sunglasses, friendships, work, life – worth having enough that its loss matters to us in the first place. Justin Wise justinwise.co.uk Photo by Sergey Chuprin on Unsplash

We greatly misunderstand ourselves and other people when we take ourselves to be 'fixed', just ‘one-way’. However stuck we've become, there is something of us that is always changing, and even when we can't see it there's always the seed of change waiting for the right moment to burst forth. So how do we learn to trust that in ourselves and others that is life's never ceasing unfolding into itself? How do we undo the rigid stories and judgments that increase the distance between us? And how do we take up an understanding about ourselves and other people that allow us to be faithful to, as our dear friend Rosemerry writes, 'uncertainty as a sacred path'?  This week's Turning Towards Life is hosted, as always, by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace. 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. Here’s our source for this week: Never the Same Sometimes a person wakes believing they are a storm. It’s hard to deny it, what, with all the rain pouring out of the gutters of the mind, all the gusts blowing through, all the squalls, all the gray. But by afternoon, it seems obvious they are a garden about to sprout. By night, it is clear they are a moon— luminous, radiant, faithful. That’s the danger, I suppose, of believing any frame. Let me believe, then, in curiosity, in wonder, in change. Let me trust how essential it is to stumble into the trough of the unknown, marvel how trough becomes wings becomes faith becomes math. Let me trust uncertainty is a sacred path. Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer ahundredfallingveils.com Photo by Lizzie Winn

We can make a whole life around avoiding the tender places inside us, our ‘sore spots’, and in doing so keep ourselves away from many of our gifts and deepest longings. So how might we, instead of turning away, turn towards that in us which longs to sing, dance, speak or feel? And how might we help one another work compassionately with the sophisticated ‘protective patterns’ that keep us away from feeling our own longing, shame, grief and tenderness, so that life can come bursting through? This week's Turning Towards Life is hosted, as always, by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace. 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. Here’s our source for this week: Protecting the Sore Spot Everyone has one. It’s the part of ourselves we won’t look at, acknowledge or risk disturbing. It’s the story or trauma or situation that must be avoided at all costs. People will choose careers, families and opportunities simply to avoid confronting the little tiny voice that is hiding inside. And marketers with low standards will brazenly manipulate us to extract money spent to protect the sore spot. It’s almost impossible to make it go away. But if we’re brave enough to acknowledge it exists, it’s possible to help it take up far less room. Seth Godin seths.blog Photo by Sven Brandsma on Unsplash

We really don’t have long. And the world keeps telling us that the answer to that is to hurry. But our hurry and fearfulness, our sense that we always have to be in control, distracted and in action, obscures a different kind of attention that is greatly needed in the world - the kind of attention we would call ‘love’. So what becomes possible when we turn ourselves truthfully to the world with the attention of love? Not a syrupy or shallow love, but a love that’s courageous enough to receive the world and to care for it in a much deeper way than our hurried minds make possible? This week's Turning Towards Life is hosted, as always, by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace. 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. Here’s our source for this week: We Have Not Long to Love We have not long to love. Light does not stay. The tender things are those we fold away. Coarse fabrics are the ones for common wear. In silence I have watched you comb your hair. Intimate the silence, dim and warm. I could but did not, reach to touch your arm. I could, but do not, break that which is still. (Almost the faintest whisper would be shrill.) So moments pass as though they wished to stay. We have not long to love. A night. A day... Tennessee Williams Photo by Jonatan Pie on Unsplash