Turning Towards Life - a Thirdspace podcast

It’s so easy to feel separate from the world - indeed we’re taught in many ways that human beings are in some profound way separate, different, and apart from nature. So what happens when we start to allow the world around us to be our teacher... when we look within us to find resonance with that which we find around us? And when we let the living and non-living world teach us new ways of relating, understanding, acting and loving? 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: Nature is Imagination [The phrase] the ‘more than human world’ refers to a way of thinking which seeks to override our human tendency to separate ourselves from the natural world… the erroneous idea that there is a neat divide between humans and non-humans, between our lives and the teeming, multitudinous living and being of the planet. The ‘more than human world’ acknowledges that the very real human world - the realm of our senses, breath, voice, cognition and culture - is but one facet of something vastly greater. All human life and being is inextricably entangled with and suffused by everything else. This broad commonwealth includes every inhabitant of the biosphere: the animals, plants, fungi, bacteria and viruses. It includes the rivers, seas, winds, stones and clouds that support, shake and shadow us. These animate forces, these companions on the great adventure of time and becoming, have much to teach us and have already taught us a great deal. We are who we are because of them, and cannot live without them… [These] things are beings: not passive props in the drama of our own preoccupations, but active participants in our collective becoming… Everything is really everyone, and all those beings have their own agency, points of view, and forms of life... [And] Being itself is relational: a matter of interrelationship. All that is required for sticks and stones to leap into life… is our own presence... There is only nature, in all its eternal flowering, creating microprocessors and datacentres and satellites just as it produced oceans, trees, magpies, il and us. Nature is imagination itself. [Let us] begin to imagine anew, with nature as our co-conspirator: our partner, our comrade and our guide. James Bridle, from 'Ways of Being' jamesbridle.com Photo by Hamish Duncan on Unsplash

Lizzie and Justin are partners in Thirdspace, an organisation which supports people to recognise their goodness and capacity, helping them bring their whole selves to the world.  In this special episode Lizzie and Justin talk about the Thirdspace Professional Coaching Course, a certification programme in integral development coaching which is at the heart of Thirdspace's work and a project of great joy and love for both of us. Our next cohort is open for applications now, and begins in July 2023. Over the course of our conversation you'll hear what makes this special programme unique, how it changes participants and what it makes possible, the distinction between 'developmental' and other kinds of coaching, and more about the details and structure of the programme. You can read more about the course (the 'PCC') right here. 

The world is calling out for change, and still we need to take care of one another. How can we remember to meet each person ‘as if they are a whole world’, whatever scale we’re working on?  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: I’ve noticed something about people who make a difference in the world: They hold the unshakable conviction that individuals are extremely important, that every life matters. They get excited over one smile. They are willing to feed one stomach, educate one mind, and treat one wound. They aren’t determined to revolutionize the world all at once; they’re satisfied with small changes. Over time, though, the small changes add up. Sometimes they even transform cities and nations, and yes, the world. Beth Clark Photo by nina lindgren on Unsplash

We can be invitations to one another, showing one another ways of being courageous, or ways of being loving, or ways of relating to others that we’d never imagined before. What might it be for us to stay open to one another in this way? To learn from one another in everything, and to see one another as living beacons of what might be possible - on the scale of the everyday (how we wash the dishes; how we get ready to leave the house), and on the biggest scale (how we move through transitions; discovering what’s worth committing to)? 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: The Appointment What if, on the first sunny day, on your way to work, a colorful bird sweeps in front of you down a street you’ve never heard of. You might pause and smile, a sweet beginning to your day. Or you might step into that street and realize there are many ways to work. You might sense the bird knows some- thing you don’t and wander after. You might hesitate when the bird turns down an alley. For now there is a tension: Is what the bird knows worth being late? You might go another block or two, thinking you can have it both ways. But soon you arrive at the edge of all your plans. The bird circles back for you and you must decide which appointment you were born to keep. Mark Nepo Photo by Zdeněk Macháček on Unsplash

How can we learn to bring enthusiasm and aliveness to what's happening, without turning away? How do we welcome in ourselves that which we've exiled - and that very same something in others - and do so with joy and gladness? How do we hold together our wildness and our seriousness, our wide-eyed wonder and our practicality, our delight and our shame? How do we orient to life so that everything that is alive in us has a chance to belong? 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: Promise to Stay Wild With Me Promise to stay wild  with me. We’ll seek and return  and stay and find beauty  and the extraordinary  in all the spaces we can  claim.  We’ll know how to live.  How to breathe magic  into the mundane. We can be in love with  one thousand views  and skylines and souls  and minds at once.  Don't apologize for  your burn, your passion,  or your enthusiasm. Enthusiasm propels the  world. by Victoria Erickson Photo by Matt Houghton on Unsplash

'There are only two directions,' writes Quinn Bailey, 'towards and away'. Towards our lives or away from them. Towards life itself, or away from it. But is it always a choice? And when it is a choice, how do we go about even noticing which we are choosing? And what is it to act in harmony with life's longing for us, what with all the complex shaping forces within us and around us that can sometimes be so hard to comprehend, let alone work with? 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: The Only Two Directions This world has only two true directions: Towards and away. The big fear, in the end, is to awake and find that You chose away. That the hand Which held you down Was none other Than your own. Remember The pursuit Of that which is not truly us Renders even the most Powerful vision useless Recognize When the boulder in front of the cave begins to shift When that first illuminating shaft Pierces the dark Do not hesitate long Do not waste time Anticipating the griefs Yet to come They cannot be helped and perhaps are necessary On that long And awkward walk Towards yourself by Quinn Bailey Photo by Zoltan Tasi on Unsplash

We can live our whole lives caught up in ideas of ourselves that were handed to us from others - our family, our culture, or structures that work to constrain us. But in the midst of all of that, sometimes, if we look out of the corner of our eye or listen to the quiet voice inside us, we discover that something truer to us is calling. Stepping out onto that path - whether it's the call away to something new, or a deeper way into what we're already up to - will surely expose us to intense experiences and much uncertainty before it can become a home of its own. So how can we support one another in walking the path of vocation when it is no longer possible to ignore it? 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 true vocation requires shedding anything that would impede or obscure the call. A true pilgrimage requires letting go of the very things most people try to hold onto. In seeking after what the soul desires we become pilgrims with no home but the path the soul would have us follow. As the old proverb says, “Before you begin the journey, you own the journey. Once you have begun, the journey owns you.” After all, what good is a dream that doesn’t test the mettle of the dreamer? What good is a path that doesn’t carry us to the edge of our capacity and then beyond that place? A true calling involves a great exposure before it can become a genuine refuge." Michael Meade, "Fate and Destiny" Photo by Johannes Plenio on Unsplash

A 'contract' is a way of making sure our interests are met in our relationship with another person, a business, a career. But contracts are a shallow framework for what really matters in our lives - friendships, long-term partnerships, marriages, parenting, or dedication to a vocation. Before long, if we've lived a life of bargains and contracts, we may find our hearts in a deep longing for something with more depth and meaning. And, in this opening, perhaps we might start to consider what it is to live in a frame of 'promises made from love' or, said another way, a life of covenants and vows to something bigger than ourselves. 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 commitment is a promise made from love A commitment is a promise made from love. A commitment is making a promise to something without expecting a return - out of sheer lovingness. There may be a psychic return in a good marriage, or from a commitment to a cause, or from making music, but that is not why one makes it or why one does it ... There is something that feels almost involuntary about a deep commitment... Somewhere along the way you realised, I'm a musician... I'm a scientist... I love her. I am his beloved... In this way, a commitment is different from a contract. A person making a contract is weighing pros and cons. A person entering into a contract doesn't really change. She just finds some arrangement that will suit her current interests. A commitment, on the other hand, changes who you are... Rabbi Jonathan Sacks clarifies the difference: "A contract is a transaction. A covenant is a relationship. Or to put it slightly differently: a contract is about interests. A covenant is about identity. It is about you and me coming together to form an 'us'. That is why contracts benefit but convenants transform." David Brooks, from 'The Second Mountain' Photo by Emma Frances Logan on Unsplash

When a wild god arrives at our door... do we just shut it, or could we find a way to let the wildness in? What would it take to inhabit the 'wild' end of the wild-civilised polarity in a way that honours our lives, brings us to life, includes it - so that our wildness does not only live in the shadows but can live in our conversations, our creativity, the way we dance, and the way we respond to the vast mystery we're all in the middle of (but which we often hide away from)? And could it be that by including the wildness within us and between us, rather than pretending it isn't there, we give ourselves a chance to respond with courage and openness to the call of the world around us? This week's Turning Towards Life conversation begins with an extraordinary poem by Tom Hirons and 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: Sometimes a Wild God Tom Hirons https://tomhirons.com/poetry/sometimes-a-wild-god Sometimes a wild god comes to the table. He is awkward and does not know the ways Of porcelain, of fork and mustard and silver. His voice makes vinegar from wine. When the wild god arrives at the door, You will probably fear him. He reminds you of something dark That you might have dreamt, Or the secret you do not wish to be shared. He will not ring the doorbell; Instead he scrapes with his fingers Leaving blood on the paintwork, Though primroses grow In circles round his feet. You do not want to let him in. You are very busy. It is late, or early, and besides… You cannot look at him straight Because he makes you want to cry. You can read the whole of this wonderful poem at Tom’s website Photo by Max Saeling on Unsplash

What we won't own in ourselves often finds its way out into the world anyway, but in distorted or destructive form - sometimes at great consequence to ourselves and to those around us. Or we'll project it onto others - seeing anger in them, for example, when it's really ours to work with. But there are other paths, one of which is to turn towards what is 'shadow' in us and find a way to integrate it so it can belong. When we do this, the shadow has a much better chance of making the life-giving contribution it's here to make. This is, perhaps understandably, a far from easy path to walk, but one with many riches - and much to offer in the way of creating cultures in which we're able to take care of others and ourselves with dignity and compassion. Our conversation this week, hosted as always by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace, draws on the work of Carl Jung as we wonder together about the courage, creativity, and openness it can take - and our willingness to allow ourselves to get messy and porous - in order to meet, with sufficient openness, that which we would otherwise turn away from. 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: Meeting the Shadow Letter from C. G. Jung to P. W. Martin, founder of the International Study Centre of Applied Psychology, Oxford, England, 20 August 1937 Dear Mr. Martin, It is a very difficult and important question, what you call the technique of dealing with the shadow. There is, as a matter of fact, no technique at all, inasmuch as technique means that there is a known and perhaps even prescribable way to deal with a certain difficulty or task. It is rather a dealing comparable to diplomacy or statesmanship. There is, for instance, no particular technique that would help us to reconcile two political parties opposing each other. It can be a question of good will, or diplomatic cunning or civil war or anything. If one can speak of a technique at all, it consists solely in an attitude. First of all one has to accept and to take seriously into account the existence of the shadow. Secondly, it is necessary to be informed about its qualities and intentions. Thirdly, long and difficult negotiations will be unavoidable. Nobody can know what the final outcome of such negotiations will be. One only knows that through careful collaboration the problem itself becomes changed. Very often certain apparently impossible intentions of the shadow are mere threats due to an unwillingness on the part of the ego to enter upon a serious consideration of the shadow. Such threats diminish usually when one meets them seriously. Pairs of opposites have a natural tendency to meet on the middle line, but the middle line is never a compromise thought out by the intellect and forced upon the fighting parties. It is rather a result of the conflict one has to suffer. Such conflicts are never solved by a clever trick or by an intelligent invention but by enduring them. As a matter of fact, you have to heat up such conflicts until they rage in full swing so that the opposites slowly melt together. It is a sort of alchemistic procedure rather than a rational choice and decision. The suffering is an indispensable part of it. Every real solution is only reached by intense suffering. The suffering shows the degree in which we are intolerable to ourselves. “Agree with thine enemy” outside and inside! That’s the problem! Such agreement should violate yourself as little as your enemy. I admit it is not easy to find the right formula, yet if you find it you have made a whole of yourself and this, I think, is the meaning of human life. Sincerely yours, C. G. Jung Photo by Mohamed Nohassi on Unsplash