Turning Towards Life - a Thirdspace podcast

The cultural story of money that we all live in has opened up all kinds of opportunities for trade and exchange in the world. And at the same time, the story is easily one of transaction rather than relationship, of fleeting contact rather that the weaving of deep reciprocal obligation and care, of efficiency, mechanism and convenience over the vulnerability and gifts of connection and reciprocity and community. Is there a way we can live in the story of money in a way that binds us into the gathering of life? This week's Turning Towards Life is a conversation about how we find our way back to living relationship when the story of money might isolate us and have us feeling separate from one another. It's hosted as always by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace. Here's a link to the details of the new Thirdspace Leading from Essential Self programme which we talked about in the previous episode and which is is coming up soon, and to our year-long Professional Coaching Course which begins in June 2022 Turning Towards Life is hosted by 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 and Spotify. Here's our source for this week: Sometimes to accept is also a gift. The anthropologist David Graeber points out that the explanation that we invented money because barter was too clumsy is false. It wasn’t that I was trying to trade sixty sweaters for the violin you’d made when you didn’t really need all that wooliness. Before money, Graeber wrote, people didn’t barter but gave and received as needs and goods ebbed and flowed. They thereby incurred the indebtedness that bound them together, and reciprocated slowly, incompletely, in the ongoing transaction that is a community. Money was invented as a way to sever the ties by completing the transactions that never needed to be completed in the older system, but existed like a circulatory system in a body. Money makes us separate bodies, and maybe it teaches us that we should be separate. Rebecca Solnit, from 'The Faraway Nearby' Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash

How can we be the ones who welcome what has been lost in others, and in doing so be the ones who welcome again what has been lost in ourselves? It's a central question for our fragmented times. This week's Turning Towards Life is a conversation about how we find our way back home to what was here all along, and the crucial role of welcome, truth-telling and relationship in making that possible. It's hosted as always by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace. Here's a link to the details of the new Thirdspace Leading from Essential Self programme which we talked about in the previous episode and which is is coming up soon.  You can find out more about other Thirdspace programmes we talk about this week on the Thirdspace website here: Our two-day Foundations of Coaching programme on 25-26 April 2022  Our year-long Professional Coaching Course which begins in June 2022 Turning Towards Life is hosted by 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 and Spotify. Here's our source for this week: The birth of new life is something to behold, but have you ever witnessed a revival? Have you seen a person meet themselves after years apart, hands touching through a mirror, eyes locked together, a smile so strong it echoes. Have you ever watched a person breathe after drowning, deep gulps of air that lungs welcome with shouts of, finally, finally, finally! Have you ever witnessed the moment soul sinks into body, the calm when mind and heart look at each other with love instead of longing. Have you ever placed your hand on your chest  and with absolute clarity been able to say what was lost is now found.' by L.E. Bowman https://www.instagram.com/l.e.bowman.poetry/ Photo by manas rb on Unsplash

Stepping into leadership, on whatever scale, immediately asks a central question of each of us: What kind of person will I be? Can I be a person who brings out virtues of dignity, creativity, courage, compassion, persistence, humility, generosity and wisdom in myself and the people I am alongside? Can I catch on to the ways in which I contract into fear, or reactivity, or habit? Can I find others who will help me walk the path of attention, inquiry and practice that can support me in bringing myself to the world in a way that’s most fully expressive of my intentions? This week's Turning Towards Life is a conversation about how we lead together in a way that draws upon our essential goodness. And it's an invitation to a new learning community we're launching. It's hosted as always by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace. Here's a link to the details of the new Thirdspace Leading from Essential Self programme which we talk about in this episode and which is is coming up soon.  You can find out more about other Thirdspace programmes we talk about this week on the Thirdspace website here: Our two-day Foundations of Coaching programme on 25-26 April 2022  Our year-long Professional Coaching Course which begins in June 2022 Turning Towards Life is hosted by 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 and Spotify. Here's our source for this week: The Call of Leadership We’re ‘called to leadership’ any time we find ourselves caring deeply about the world and people around us and want to respond with wisdom, resourcefulness, dignity and creativity – whether that’s in an organisational setting, in national-scale leadership, in a family, because we’ve taken up a role in a community that we care about, or whenever we want to bring a new idea, possibility, cause or work of art into the world. Stepping into leadership, on whatever scale, immediately asks a central question of each of us: What kind of person will I be? Can I be a person who brings out virtues of dignity, creativity, courage, compassion, persistence, humility, generosity and wisdom in myself and the people I am alongside? Can I catch on to the ways in which I contract into fear, or reactivity, or habit? Can I find others who will help me walk the path of attention, inquiry and practice that can support me in bringing myself to the world in a way that’s most fully expressive of my intentions? Another way of saying this – can I lead from my 'Essential Self’, the goodness and wisdom that’s at the heart of each of us? Can I attend to being ‘right sized’, inhabiting fully the life-giving possibilities that are mine to bring without shrinking away or trying to be bigger than I really am? Justin Wise Photo by Simon Berger on Unsplash

When we're afraid, but not acknowledging our fear, we're most likely to act out of line with our deepest intentions. It's easy from the midst of fear to try to assert our power and control - by being right or over-certain or dominating others - or to shrink away from our own dignity by saying 'yes' when something else is called for. What if we could learn to notice and name our fear, to ourselves and others, and in doing so return to the qualities of wisdom, truthfulness, and reciprocity that give us the greatest chance of addressing the challenges of the moment at a right size and in right relationship with others? This week's Turning Towards Life is a conversation about 'right sizing' ourselves so we can respond to the world with the depth that is the heritage of each one of us. It's hosted as always by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace. This is Turning Towards Life, a weekly live 30 minute conversation hosted by Thirdspace in which Justin Wise and Lizzie Winn dive deep into big questions of human living. 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 and Spotify. You can find out more about the Thirdspace programmes we talk about this week on the Thirdspace website here: Our two-day Foundations of Coaching programme on 25-26 April 2022  Our year-long Professional Coaching Course which begins in June 2022 Our new Leading from Essential Self programme from 25-27 May 2022 Here's our source for this week: Fear Is Contraction Fear unites the disparate parts of our false selves very quickly. The ego moves forward by contraction, self-protection, and refusal, by saying no. Contraction gives us focus, purpose, direction, superiority, and a strange kind of security. It takes our aimless anxiety, covers it up, and tries to turn it into purposefulness and urgency, which results in a kind of drivenness. But this drive is not peaceful or happy. It is filled with fear and locates all its problems as “out there,” never “in here.”   The soul or the True Self does not proceed by contraction but by expansion. It moves forward, not by exclusion, but by inclusion. It sees things deeply and broadly not by saying no but by saying yes, at least on some level, to whatever comes its way. Can you distinguish between those two very different movements within yourself?   Fear and contraction allow us to eliminate other people, write them off, exclude them, and somehow expel them, at least in our minds. This immediately gives us a sense of being in control and having a secure set of boundaries—even holy boundaries. But people who are controlling are usually afraid of losing something. If we go deeper into ourselves, we will see that there is both a rebel and a dictator in all of us, two different ends of the same spectrum. It is almost always fear that justifies our knee-jerk rebellion or our need to dominate—a fear that is hardly ever recognized as such because we are acting out and trying to control the situation.  Fr Richard Rohr Available at the Centre for Action and Reflection website Photo by Ashley Batz on Unsplash

In the words of Marie Howe’s beautiful poem that is our source this week, “whatever leads to joy, to more life, to less worry”. Can we learn to live this way in the midst of it all - attending to joy in its deepest sense, in the way it brings us into contact with what is most real? And is there a way to not pile worry on top of everything that it already matters for us to take care of? This week's Turning Towards Life is a conversation about the faithfulness it takes to lean into our lives, and to face their realness in doing so. It's hosted as always by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace. This is Turning Towards Life, a weekly live 30 minute conversation hosted by Thirdspace in which Justin Wise and Lizzie Winn dive deep into big questions of human living. 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 and Spotify. You can find out more about our Professional Coaching Course, which we talk a little about in this episode, on the Thirdspace website here. Here's our source for this week: My Dead Friends I have begun,  when I’m weary and can’t decide an answer to a bewildering question to ask my dead friends for their opinion  and the answer is often immediate and clear. Should I take the job? Move to the city? Should I try to conceive a child  in my middle age? They stand in unison shaking their heads and smiling—whatever leads  to joy, they always answer, to more life and less worry. I look into the vase where Billy’s ashes were — it’s  green in there, a green vase, and I ask Billy if I should return the difficult phone call, and he says, yes.  Billy’s already gone through the frightening door, whatever he says I’ll do. Marie Howe Photo by Sergey Pesterev on Unsplash

In those moments when, in the midst of the brokenness of the world, any of us find ourselves able to kindle our resolute love or contagious joy, we're being of much needed service - both to ourselves and to those around us. And we don't always know that we're doing that. So what would it be to begin to notice this most human of capacities in ourselves, and share it with others - as a complement to all the other strong feelings and orientations that sweep through us when we are also in contact with the fragility of things? This week's Turning Towards Life is a conversation about celebrating our capacity to be generous, courageous gifts to one another, this week seeded from a source from the wonderful work of David Abram. It's hosted as always by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace. This is Turning Towards Life, a weekly live 30 minute conversation hosted by Thirdspace in which Justin Wise and Lizzie Winn dive deep into big questions of human living. 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 and Spotify. You can find out more about our Professional Coaching Course, which we talk a little about in this episode, on the Thirdspace website here. Here's our source for this week: Holding Together There are so many unsung heroines and heroes at this broken moment in our collective story, so many courageous persons who, unbeknownst to themselves, are holding together the world by their resolute love or contagious joy. Although I do not know your names, I can feel you out there. David Abram Photo by Kristopher Roller on Unsplash

How do we make contact with our own kindness, generosity, creativity, patience, courage, compassion, fierce or gentle love, and our capacity to stay in contact with life, right when we're afraid or wanting to turn away? This week's Turning Towards Life is a conversation about how we find that in ourself that's ready to stay faithful, when other parts of us strongly want to turn away - and how we help one another to do that. Our conversation is seeded from a source from the wonderful work of Maya Stein. It's hosted as always by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace. This is Turning Towards Life, a weekly live 30 minute conversation hosted by Thirdspace in which Justin Wise and Lizzie Winn dive deep into big questions of human living. 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 and Spotify. You can find out more about our Professional Coaching Course, which we talk a little about in this episode, on the Thirdspace website here. Here's our source for this week: What If? Whatever you’re afraid of. Whatever you’re warding off, trying to hold back from being true. Whatever keeps sniffing at your legs, and whatever you keep kicking away. Whatever draft you’re trying to seal. Whatever risk you push to the perimeter. Whatever old whisper you’re turning from to deafen. Whatever exit you’re avoiding, eyes locked on the straightaway. Whatever breakage you think is yours to mend, and the endless ministrations of that mending. Whatever call you keep not picking up. Whatever blank piece of paper. Whatever Hail Mary. Whatever salt you keep throwing over your shoulder. One day, it will stop being enough to keep you from your own magnificence. And what if, what if, what if this was that day? Maya Stein mayastein.substack.com Photo by Grant Whitty on Unsplash

We might imagine we can choose the 'threshold moments', when we're called to step into the unknown. Sometimes we can. But as events in the world remind us this week, what changes around us and within us often comes without warning and without our say-so. One response to transitions on whatever scale is to run from them, or to try to be in control of them on our own. But that rarely works out, because for us to be in charge would mean having powers that none of us have. Instead, can we turn towards them and have them be an opportunity for us to connect with one another's lives more deeply, listen more fully, and support one another? And what kind of world might open if we did? This week's Turning Towards Life is a conversation about turning towards what's being born, perhaps right when we're least ready for it. It's hosted as always by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace. This is Turning Towards Life, a weekly live 30 minute conversation hosted by Thirdspace in which Justin Wise and Lizzie Winn dive deep into big questions of human living. 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 and Spotify. You can find out more about our Professional Coaching Course, which we talk a little about in this episode, on the Thirdspace website here. Here's our source for this week: Liminal Space In this waiting place we loiter, hover, on a tentative cusp, a threshold, between the familiar and the unknown, with no possible retreat. The customary comfort zone is gone, and where the entrance ushers is not yet seen. Our new question (let alone its answer) still is ambiguous. We are in limbo. We can either hesitate or go forward. The gossamer veil of divine nearness flutters ever so lightly, breathing inseparably close, as we step to embrace the unrevealed with trust, a shimmering opportunity for connection and listening and being led right on through. Lean into this portal; it is the doorstep to fruitful ground. by Polly Castor pollycastor.com Photo by Mark Basarab on Unsplash

How do we approach our lives when they don’t go how we want? Or when we find ourselves judging the value of our lives by the outcomes of our actions and projects? When we find out we’re not nearly as ‘in charge’ as we imagine, and that every choice is riddled with complexity, it’s easy to tune out and seek the promise of easy answers or to demand of ourselves a level of control and power that’s impossible for us humans. So how else might we live? Might we find a way to honour that our lives are not made of ‘final destinations’ but are a process of becoming, in which each choice and action has a chance to move the world somewhat but, more importantly, to shape who we are? This week's Turning Towards Life is a conversation about watching where we are going, leaning into what we love, and telling the truth. It's hosted as always by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace. This is Turning Towards Life, a weekly live 30 minute conversation hosted by Thirdspace in which Justin Wise and Lizzie Winn dive deep into big questions of human living. 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 and Spotify. You can find out more about our Professional Coaching Course, which we talk a little about in this episode, on the Thirdspace website here. Here's our source for this week: Choice There isn’t a right answer. There just isn’t. The game show where the bells ring and the points go up and the confetti falls because you got the answer is a lie. The preacher who would assure you of how to attain salvation is making it all up. The doctor who knows just how to fix what ails you will be sure of something else tomorrow. Every choice will wound someone, heal someone, build a wall and open a conversation. Things will always happen that you can’t foresee. But you have to choose. It’s all we have—that little rudder that we employ in the midst of all the eddies and rapids, the current that pulls us inexorably toward the sea. The fact that you are swept along by the river is no excuse. Watch where you are going. Lean in toward what you love. When in doubt, tell the truth. Lynn Ungar lynnungar.com Photo by Cory Woodward on Unsplash

Can we look at ourselves and others around us as we all grow older with eyes of wonder... seeing and receiving the luminosity and depth that shines out from beneath the skin? Or will we get caught up in our culture's dominant meta-narratives - that to grow old is to be diminished, and that time is a 'resource' that we get less of as we age? What if, instead, life is a ripeness that we grow into, and growing into our elderhood is a deep gift we can bring to others? This week's Turning Towards Life is a conversation about what might become possible as we grow into the wildness of our bones, and attune to the gifts of the ones who walk the path ahead of us. It's hosted as always by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace. This is Turning Towards Life, a weekly live 30 minute conversation hosted by Thirdspace in which Justin Wise and Lizzie Winn dive deep into big questions of human living. 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 and Spotify. You can find out more about our Professional Coaching Course, which we talk a little about in this episode, on the Thirdspace website here. Here's our source for this week: Beneath the Sweater and the Skin How many years of beauty do I have left? she asks me. How many more do you want? Here. Here is 34. Here is 50. When you are 80 years old and your beauty rises in ways your cells cannot even imagine now and your wild bones grow luminous and ripe, having carried the weight of a passionate life.  When your hair is aflame with winter and you have decades of learning and leaving and loving sewn into the corners of your eyes and your children come home to find their own history in your face. When you know what it feels like to fail ferociously and have gained the capacity to rise and rise and rise again. When you can make your tea on a quiet and ridiculously lonely afternoon and still have a song in your heart Queen owl wings beating beneath the cotton of your sweater. Because your beauty began there beneath the sweater and the skin, remember? This is when I will take you into my arms and coo YOU BRAVE AND GLORIOUS THING you've come so far. I see you. Your beauty is breathtaking. Jeannette Encinias www.jeannetteencinias.com Photo by Ýlona María Rybka on Unsplash