Turning Towards Life - a Thirdspace podcast

Celebrating seven years of insightful discussions, the hosts reflect on personal growth through life's challenges. They emphasize embracing both beauty and pain, encouraging authenticity over perfection. The conversation highlights the intertwining of living and learning, suggesting true understanding goes beyond traditional measures. Emotions, particularly rage, are explored as tools for growth, while the importance of reflective practice is underscored. Engaging in self-observation transforms feelings of powerlessness into personal agency.

Discover how rigid judgments can cloud our understanding of others and the importance of seeing people as complex, unique individuals. The hosts explore the transformative power of art and personal reflection, urging listeners to embrace creativity and awareness. They highlight the wonders of daily life and how art can shift our perceptions, encouraging mindfulness and deeper connections. By slowing down, we learn to appreciate the richness in our surroundings and the unfathomable mysteries each person holds.

On the profound, life-saving and deeply dignifying possibilities that come from sharing our personal stories and experiences. The cultural narratives that often discourage openness, contrasted with the healing power of vulnerability and the importance of creating welcome for one another to speak and be listened to. 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. Here’s our source for this week: Some People Will Ask Excerpt from You Could Make This Place Beautiful “Why are you telling these stories? Why air your dirty laundry?” Someone will ask this, or if they don’t ask, they’ll think it. Maybe you’re thinking it now. How do I answer? I could say what happened to me is mine. I could say that suffering equals pain plus resistance, and I’m no longer resisting, no longer hold it in, letting it fester. And why would you expect me, or anyone, to grit my teeth and quietly carry my story? I could say there is a cost to carrying your truth but not telling it. I could say women have been doing this for decades and look where it’s landed us. I could say I’ve gone and lost my narrative, and lost not only my understanding of the future but also my understanding of the past, and this is how I’m trying to find it – Who’s calling this laundry dirty, anyway? It’s just lived-in. Maggie Smith Photo by Elizabeth Gottwald on Unsplash

On the tensions between our inner worlds and the external identities we often adopt to fit in. How societal expectations and personal fears can lead us to suppress what’s most true about us, and the importance of reconnecting with the "wild energies" within our souls. This week we explore how creative practices, changes in routine, and mindful engagement with everyday tasks can help us wake up to our innate aliveness. We reflect on the balance between necessary social conventions and the gifts of discovering our own unique expression, and propose that we each find a way to honour "wonder of their own presence" and bring our unique life force into service to the world around us. 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. Here’s our source for this week: The Wildness In Our Hearts Every human person is inevitably involved with two worlds: the world they carry within them and the world that is out there. All thinking, all writing, all action, all creation and all destruction is about that bridge between the two worlds... Each one of us is the custodian of an inner world that we carry around with us. Now, other people can glimpse it from [its outer expressions]. But no one but you knows what your inner world is actually like, and no one can force you to reveal it until you actually tell them about it. That’s the whole mystery of writing and language and expression — that when you do say it, what others hear and what you intend and know are often totally different kinds of things. One of the sad things today is that so many people are frightened by the wonder of their own presence. They are dying to tie themselves into a system, a role, or to an image, or to a predetermined identity that other people have actually settled on for them. This identity may be totally at variance with the wild energies that are rising inside in their souls. Many of us get very afraid and we eventually compromise. We settle for something that is safe, rather than engaging the danger and the wildness that is in our own hearts. from an interview with John O'Donohue Photo by Linda Xu on Unsplash

We ‘privatise’ so much about our lives that is actually shared, as if we were separate entities - like objects that bump into one another only occasionally. But it’s an impoverished story that robs us of so much contact, depth and support. It might be much more accurate to say that instead of being like objects we are more like whirlpools in a river - constantly evolving processes that shape one another. If we saw ourselves and our relationships that way, perhaps we’d begin to wonder afresh about the power of cultural norms that encourage separateness, and the potential benefits of more open and contactful conversation about ourselves and our relationships with those around us. 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. Here’s our source for this week: This Relationship is Ours One of the principles of the Dagara concept of a relationship is that it’s not private. When we talk about “our relationship” in the village, the word our is not limited to two. And this is why we find it pretty hard to live in a relationship in a modern culture that is lacking true community. In the absence of community, two people are forced to say, “This relationship is ours,” when in fact, a community should be claiming ownership. Subonfu Somé from ‘The Spirit of Intimacy’ Photo by YUXUAN WANG on Unsplash

Sometimes, instead of trying to make life's challenges easier, it's more beneficial to fully acknowledge the weight of our burdens until we're compelled to put them down. How we often carry impossibly heavy  expectations, work ethics, or people-pleasing behaviours, thinking these will lead to success or belonging, when instead they multiply our difficulties. The importance of compassionately recognising both the good intentions behind these burdens and the suffering they cause, and the role of coaches and loved ones in helping people see alternative ways of living that honour their true selves without abandoning themselves. And the transformative power of imagining and articulating different "styles" of engaging with life's challenges, whether in parenting, work, or relationships. Who can we be, we wonder, when we learn to envision and offer new possibilities and narratives for relating to life that honour other people’s aliveness and wholeness? 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. Here’s our source for this week: Don't Lighten the Burden  The British-born Zen master Houn Jiyu-Kennett [...] said of her teaching style that her goal wasn’t to lighten the burden of the student, but to make it so heavy that he or she would put it down. I had a full-body reaction the first time I encountered that, in the basement shelves of Watkins, the ‘esoteric’ London bookstore. Tears pricked behind my eyes. The relief! To me, the phrase meant this: you can slog through life (and I had been slogging through life) trying to ‘get on top of things’, trying to reach the point at which you feel like you know what you’re doing, trying to fix your flaws, or make yourself emotionally invulnerable… All of that is an attempt to ‘lighten the burden’, and there are a thousand self-help gurus on standby, promising to aid you in the effort. But making the burden heavier? That means seeing that as a finite human you’ll never get on top of everything, never fully understand what makes others tick, never immunize yourself from distress. The burden of reaching that goal is an impossibly heavy one. And so you put it down. You let your shoulders drop and your muscles unclench. And then – crucially – you’re free to actually be here, actually do stuff, actually show up. You get to climb life’s mountains without lugging a huge rucksack full of steel ingots on your back the whole way, which is both easier and much more fun.  Oliver Burkeman Read the full piece, “Turning Words”, by Oliver Burkeman here Sign up here to Oliver’s newsletter Photo by Marcus Zymmer on Unsplash

How might we engage with our inner world and find meaning in our  experiences? In this episode we explore how we might embrace even the difficult parts of life as potential sources of wisdom and growth. And how this perspective can transform our relationship with challenging emotions and experiences, inviting us all to approach life's complexities with curiosity and openness. The conversation weaves through topics such as the stories we tell ourselves about our experiences, the wisdom inherent in our inner responses to life events, and the possibility of finding value in even the most unwelcome feelings, making space for confusion, wonder, and the potential for transformation in our everyday lives. 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. Here’s our source for this week: Coming Home to Myself The Self pushes the neglected forward for recognition. Do not disregard it. It holds energy of highest value. It is the gold in the dung. Do not disregard the dung. Marion Woodman Photo by Vivek Doshi on Unsplash

Delve into the protective myths that we often cling to, which can intensify feelings of isolation instead of providing comfort. Discover the importance of authenticity and how vulnerability fosters deep human connections. The discussion emphasizes recognizing our shared humanity and the duality of our experiences. Explore the complexities of aging and loss, and how community can transform our understanding of these themes. Join the conversation about shedding limiting narratives to embrace a richer, more engaged life.

On rediscovering and recovering our own and other people’s qualities and possibilities in the midst of everything that happens. How what we think we've lost in life may actually be ever-present, just waiting to be rediscovered, often brought to us by the presence of others. And the possibility that every encounter with another person, even difficult ones, can remind us of qualities within ourselves we may have forgotten if we can maintain a sense of wonder and openness to the mysterious nature of things. 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. Here’s our source for this week: What You Thought You Lost What you thought you lost along the way hangs in the air like a prayer May you find your way home may the doors swing open wide             from the out and the in               side under a wide open sky May you lose             may you find, may you know               in the core of your weathered soul your old and your new sign May every stranger on the path become the one who                         stopped to hang something you thought you lost in the air               by a thread like an ancient pagan prayer             like some kind of elder           warm-eyed guardian was standing there. Wendy Videlock www.wendyvidelock.com Photo by Jehyun Sung on Unsplash

How do we become fully ourselves, as adults, in contact with our essential depth and capacity and without being so much in the grip of the defensive patterns of personality we developed as children? Being an adult who is in touch with their essence. Being an adult who can play. Being an adult who can be joyful. Being an adult who can find freedom in themselves. Being an adult who can not shut everything down just to make everything okay the whole time. Being an adult who can be open to people's views. Being an adult who can be accepting of difference.  Being an adult who isn't trying to corral everybody into one way of doing things the whole time. Being an adult who doesn't blame everything on everyone else for whatever they're going through. 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. Here’s our source for this week: Holding Personality Lightly  Early in life we all experience emotional states we cannot tolerate - being left alone, interaction with an anxious or depressed parent etc - and in response we begin to build shields of protective armour around our essence. These defence structures constitute our personality. Doing their job well, they continue to guard our vulnerability, but they also prevent the intimate contact we long for. What we routinely identify as our selves is actually this personality… a construct, an idea or self-image that hides the part of us that is vulnerable and capable of unmediated connection. This mask plays a crucial role in our lives. It is likely that we could not have survived without it. But we are so much more than this learned self-concept. Knowing ourselves solely as our personality limits us severely. When we delve into the truth of our personality, we begin to see how our daily struggles in relationship result from our inclination to defend this assumed identity. Before we can have direct, unmediated contact with ourselves or with a significant other, we must take the necessary step of unmasking our personality. In this process, we do not give up the personality entirely, but rather learn to wear it more lightly. Jett Psaris and Marlena Lyons from ‘Undefended Love’ Photo by Caleb George on Unsplash