Turning Towards Life - a Thirdspace podcast

Truthfulness with ourselves. A conversation about honesty and welcome, with Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace. In this episode we take up the topic of truthfulness with ourselves. We talk about how our efforts to turn away from what’s true about our experience can be a kind of violence to ourselves. And how easily that becomes a way we suppress the truth of others’ experience. Along the way we consider how the life-giving and dignity-bestowing act of honesty with ourselves can open up the possibility of a deep welcome to others and to life itself. Turning Towards Life is a weekly live 30 minute conversation hosted by Thirdspace in which Justin Wise and Lizzie Winn dive deep into big questions of human living. You can find the source text and more information on this conversation at https://wp.me/p4Tynu-bz and find more, including details about how to join us live, on our website http://turningtowards.life Photo by Daniil Kuželev on Unsplash

Tantrums - and what we do when life falls short of our expectations. A conversation about intimacy with the truth of our lives, with Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace. Our source for this week is from Alan Lew’s ‘This is Real and You Are Completely Unprepared‘. In our conversation we talk about tantrums, what we do when life falls short of our expectations, the simplicity and difficulty of returning to intimacy with the truth of our lives, and how we can only really do this in the company of others. Turning Towards Life is a weekly live 30 minute conversation hosted by Thirdspace in which Justin Wise and Lizzie Winn dive deep into big questions of human living. You can find the source text and more information on this conversation at https://wp.me/p4Tynu-bk and find more, including details about how to join us live, on our website http://turningtowards.life Photo by Erik Kossakowski on Unsplash

The beauty and possibility of our incompleteness. A conversation about the mistake we make when we try to be perfect. With Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace. Our conversation opens with an exploration of the blue of the sky and of the sea, from Rebecca Solnit’s ‘Field Guide to Getting Lost’. We consider together how it’s the very incompleteness of a human being that gives us our particular kind of beauty and possibility, and the mistake we make when we try too hard to compare ourselves to others or to some perfect ideal of how and who to be. Along the way we talk about self-acceptance, making and sharing art, the importance of community, coaching as a way of bringing art to one another and the gift that human beings can be to one another when the conditions are made right by all of us. Turning Towards Life is a weekly live 30 minute conversation hosted by Thirdspace in which Justin Wise and Lizzie Winn dive deep into big questions of human living. You can find the source text and more information on this conversation at https://wp.me/p4Tynu-ba and find more, including details about how to join us live, on our website http://turningtowards.life Photo by Maximillian Conacher on Unsplash

Loving what we're in the midst of. A conversation about bringing lightness to our endeavours, with Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise from Thirdspace. In this conversation we consider together how the act of loving what we’re in the midst of, and who is around us, can be the first step to a more expansive and inclusive orientation to life. And that this itself has the possibility of relieving difficulty and bringing a necessary lightness to our endeavours. Along the way we consider the gifts of frustration and disappointment, explore how love is not so much a feeling but an intentional practice, and explore the merits of washing dishes and crochet as a path – like any practice – to the kind of intimacy with life that we need in order to face our biggest challenges with grace, courage, creativity and patience. Turning Towards Life is a weekly live 30 minute conversation hosted by Thirdspace in which Justin Wise and Lizzie Winn dive deep into big questions of human living. You can find the source text and more information on this conversation at https://wp.me/p4Tynu-aT and find more, including details about how to join us live, on our website http://turningtowards.life Photo by Nick Casale on Unsplash

Reclaiming our aliveness and the grip of our addictions. A conversation about paying attention to our lives and the felt-sensation of our bodies. With Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace. Our conversation opens with an excerpt from Christine Caldwell’s book ‘Getting Our Bodies Back‘. We consider together how the culture most of us live in actually encourages us to take up addictive behaviour as a way of distancing ourselves from our experience (and we include in our definition of addiction here anything that we do compulsively, habitually, at odds with what is life-giving for us and which puts us to sleep), at the same time as evoking deep feelings of shame and hollowness. As we go we discuss how the first step in our reclaiming our aliveness, and our capacity to nourish ourselves, is the art of paying attention to our lives, and the felt-sensation of our bodies. And, as often, we return to the power of relationship – places and people with whom we can be open about ourselves – as the path to recovering our capacity to properly nourish ourselves and one another. Turning Towards Life is a weekly live 30 minute conversation hosted by Thirdspace in which Justin Wise and Lizzie Winn dive deep into big questions of human living. You can find the source text and more information on this conversation at https://wp.me/p4Tynu-b2 and find more, including details about how to join us live, on our website http://turningtowards.life Photo by Ibrahim Rifath on Unsplash

Developing a faith in life that can sustain us through the inevitable difficulties we face. A conversation with Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace. This conversation begins with Norman Fischer’s Zen-inspired translation of an ancient Hebrew poem, most commonly known in our culture as ‘Psalm 16’. Norman has done amazing work on bringing out the simplicity and beauty of words, revealing the deep possibilities of these poems so often obscured by flowery and complex translations, and in this poem he points into a topic we’ve been exploring for some weeks on Turning Towards Life – the ways in which we might develop the kind of faith in life that can sustain us through the inevitable difficulties we face without us turning away. Turning Towards Life is a weekly live 30 minute conversation hosted by Thirdspace in which Justin Wise and Lizzie Winn dive deep into big questions of human living. You can find the source text and more information on this conversation at https://wp.me/p4Tynu-aP and find more, including details about how to join us live, on our website http://turningtowards.life Photo by Suhyeon Choi on Unsplash

The perils of seeing ourselves as separate. A conversation inspired by a Rumi poem, with Justin Wise and Lizzie Winn of Thirdspace. In this conversation we consider together the perils of seeing ourselves as separate – from one another and from life – and how our mistaken sense of separateness leads so easily to fear and isolation from the deep sources of relationship, love and courage that are available to us all. Along the way we consider what it is to be in a long-term relationship or marriage, we talk about words for the ‘source of everything’ that can constrain or liberate our aliveness, we explore the politics of division that’s arising in so many places in the world, we chat about the joys of wild swimming, and we remind ourselves of what becomes possible when we look into the eyes of another – even one very different from ourselves – and remember the shared beauty that’s there and that gives rise to each of us. Our source for this week is by 13th century poet Rumi. Turning Towards Life is a weekly live 30 minute conversation hosted by Thirdspace in which Justin Wise and Lizzie Winn dive deep into big questions of human living. You can find the source text and more information on this conversation at https://wp.me/p4Tynu-aI and find more, including details about how to join us live, on our website http://turningtowards.life