Turning Towards Life - a Thirdspace podcast

We bring ourselves into life in a dance we learned right from our earliest days… in which we’re often carefully managing what we can show to one another of ourselves. And others learn to dance with us in this way too, finding out from being around us what is ok to talk about, and what to avoid. Pretty soon we’re all dancing around that which, if we pay attention, was in plain view all along. Oftentimes the dance feels necessary. Sometimes it is necessary. But keeping on the surface of things is hardly a way towards the intimacy, connection, contact and realness we long for. So who could we be for ourselves and for one another, so that we can bring ourselves - and all our rich complexity - into the light for the benefit of everyone 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: What if we could just tell each other? Parts of us lie in quiet, sly shadows.  Publicly undiscernible, or so we believe.  The truth is they are experienced by others,  Despite our internal dance to conceal them. When we commit to something,  And our actions “say” otherwise,  They betray the façade we  Made to manage others’ views of us. If we knew, and accepted that we were visible,  We’d know there would be no point in trying to hide.  How people feel around us reveals so much of us.  What if we could just tell each other? Instead of hiding in plain sight, we’d be open to anything anyone brought our way. Here I am, ready and willing to learn. By Lizzie Winn Photo by Alexis Brown on Unsplash

Change is everywhere. Within us. Around us. And, sometimes, in our longing for some stability, some centre of ‘no change’ in the tumult of our lives, we’ll close ourselves off from the truth of things, numbing ourselves, distracting ourselves, and pretending it isn’t happening. But the truth is that everything changes. And although we might try to fight it, we human beings long for what is true, what is real, and for intimacy with the world. So can we instead ‘make an altar to change’, and turn towards its ever-presence as a way of deepening our engagement with life, and with one another? 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: Become The Wind  What if we built an altar to change? Dedicated ourselves to the idea, bowed down to that which is not steadfast. Perhaps there would be an empty bowl in the middle that might break at any moment. Perhaps in the center there is only a shard that we must learn to worship. We don’t come to this altar begging, we come to be reminded there is nothing to beg for. We are happy. We are devastated. We are whole. We are broken. It rains. It clears. All at the same time. Or maybe in the center there is a mirror Which reflects only what is, not necessarily what is wanted. An altar where we come to meet truth, to bow down to it. To open the window of the heart and accept that there is no choice but to be changed. Penny Hackett-Evans Photo by Colin Watts on Unsplash

Exploring themes of longing, passion, and finding home within ourselves. Reflecting on the search for truth and satisfaction. Emphasizing the balance between internal and external fulfillment. Discovering that true happiness comes from within. Hosts express gratitude and invite feedback from listeners.

Exploring the theme of inherent goodness within individuals, the hosts discuss the profound lyrics of Alanis Morissette's song 'That I Would Be Good'. They explore the path to healing by returning to goodness, embracing imperfections, and borrowing goodness from others for healing and growth. The essence of goodness, love, and equality in relationships is also highlighted, emphasizing the transformative power of love and communal support.

Right when we’re in the mess and complexity of things - for example when raising children, or being in a partnership, or working alongside others - we can learn so much about what it is to be human. And it’s where we also learn the most about our own power to make a world that is better for others to live in, or worse. In this week’s conversation we explore how we might turn everyday complexity into a deeper care for the world and the use of whatever power we each have for the benefit of those around us. We refer in this week’s conversation to Lindsay Green and Charlie Lyons’ wonderful podcast ‘Made Possible by Parenthood’ which you can find on Spotify here. 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: Bless This Dirty Sponge My spiritual path is not marked out by rose petals, but dirty sponges, baby wipes, frozen peas and car keys.  Washing up is my daily Zen practice.  Leaving parties early to get everyone home to bed is how I learn self-discipline.  My meditation happens while I run the bath. And sometimes at 4am while I try to get back to sleep after waking to help someone use the potty.  My masters are unusually direct and demanding. They teach me how to live without apology and how to be right where I am. Because they know there is nowhere else.  And at the end if the day, I give myself a cup of Hail Mary tea as I forgive myself for all of the ways I felt I fell short. Again.  And I kiss my gurus on their tiny, wise heads and prepare myself to start all over again. Hollie Holden Photo by Imani on Unsplash

In a time of global distress, we’re often faced with news of dire situations far from us that we can do little to affect directly. But we can learn to respond to the world that is more immediately around us with the kind of patience, wisdom, care and love that makes a genuine, tangible, and life-giving difference. In this week’s conversation we explore how we can observe and undo the barriers inside us to being this way. And how we enroll others in helping us to do that. 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: Your Task Your task is not to seek for love but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it. Helen Schucman, from A Course in Miracles Photo by Paul Mocan on Unsplash

How can we be the ones who create safety for other people to bring their troubles, longings, hopes, pain and fear our way? And how can stay long enough, and not turn away? And how do we then accompany one another as we address what we find - with love, truthfulness, patience and exquisite care? 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: Like the Trees You have been waiting for the body to say, This is not an emergency, you are safe. And when it finally does, in a whisper you almost don’t believe, you can breathe a full breath again, and then another, at last trusting the open arms of trees, even their menacing shadows at midnight. Now you know everything that grows must also feel pain, must fear and doubt until they sense this same quickening, like sap rising up in the trunk and spreading through each limb. You have lived as if underground, but now you are breaking open, breaking free, becoming so vast and green, you make a shady place for others to rest in. James Crews Photo by Jan Huber on Unsplash

On the ways comparison can steal the actual living of life from us, and on finding ways to appreciate and live in the midst of the ordinary everydayness 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 the Living Do Johnny, the kitchen sink has been clogged for days, some utensil probably fell down there. And the Drano won’t work but smells dangerous, and the crusty dishes have piled up waiting for the plumber I still haven’t called. This is the everyday we spoke of. It’s winter again: the sky’s a deep, headstrong blue, and the sunlight pours through the open living-room windows because the heat’s on too high in here and I can’t turn it off. For weeks now, driving, or dropping a bag of groceries in the street, the bag breaking, I’ve been thinking: This is what the living do. And yesterday, hurrying along those wobbly bricks in the Cambridge sidewalk, spilling my coffee down my wrist and sleeve, I thought it again, and again later, when buying a hairbrush: This is it. Parking. Slamming the car door shut in the cold. What you called that yearning. What you finally gave up. We want the spring to come and the winter to pass. We want whoever to call or not call, a letter, a kiss—we want more and more and then more of it. But there are moments, walking, when I catch a glimpse of myself in the window glass, say, the window of the corner video store, and I'm gripped by a cherishing so deep for my own blowing hair, chapped face, and unbuttoned coat that I’m speechless: I am living. I remember you. Marie Howe Photo by Marcus Ganahl on Unsplash

Exploring the power of acknowledging intense feelings, being gentle with ourselves, and embracing vulnerability. Delving into self-reflection through poetry, authenticity, and finding wisdom within. Discussing the importance of embracing the present moment and cultivating inner connection for a more compassionate approach to life.

Exploring the balance of right-sized living, the podcast delves into themes of arrogance, false modesty, and personal growth. It emphasizes the importance of being appropriately sized for different life situations, embracing diverse perspectives for deeper connections, and fostering unity within the community.