Turning Towards Life - a Thirdspace podcast

We're taught by our culture to think in polarities - something is either good, or bad; worthwhile, or a waste of time; valuable, or worthless. And because of this we often judge ourselves and our lives in polarised terms too - we're broken, or whole; empty, or full - which in turn leads us into efforting to 'get' the side of the polarity we judge as the right one. Where does this polarised thinkin...

We've all selected parts of us that we present to the world, while other perhaps wilder parts of us have been pushed to the margins, as a strategy we chose earlier in our lives so we could belong, or be safe. In our adulthood, though, there's an opportunity for those precious exiled parts - with their many gifts - to be returned to our lives. They can do this with our own help, when we discover ou...

What would happen if we could see that the many 'young parts' of ourselves, with their fears and worries, with their plans and advice, are doing their best to take care of us - even if the information they have is partial and, sometimes, applies only to a much earlier time in our lives. Could we come at them with kindness, appreciation and welcome instead of trying to dominate and suppress them? C...

We go around our lives hiding much of ourselves from view, 'setting out a stall' that we've learned to set out through all that's happened for us so far. There are gifts behind the face we present to the world, gifts that could be brought for the benefit of many.  But often we run from the very truthfulness about what's peeking out from the shadows, what's waiting in our messy, beautiful selves, b...

It's natural that the process of our growing into adulthood results in our leaving a whole lot of ourselves behind - as we navigate what it takes to belong, to not be shamed, to stay safe, to build a life with some measure of predicability in it. But alongside all of that, what gifts and wonders, what song and words, what works of the creativity that is uniquely human might we bring to the world i...

Many of us avoid ever really saying what we think is true because we're afraid it will rupture the relationships that matter to us. But it's our truthfulness with one another - especially about our experiences, our values, our promises and commitments - that's so often called for if we're going to step forward into the unknown future together. So what about learning to be the ones who, in the face...

Even if we're doing work we really care about, many of us are steeped in a narrative that our work should always be 'busy' and that it is only 'work' if it profoundly depletes us. But in exhausting ourselves, in living in the 'heroic' narrative of always more and always faster, can we really say that we get to bring our width, and depth, and wisdom as a gift to others? And what is the cost to the...

What does it take to let go so that something new that is calling has a chance to be freed up in our lives? And what does it take to be the ones who can support others - especially those we love and want to cling to - to let go when it's called for? This week's Turning Towards Life is a conversation about hope, grief, leaving, and letting ourselves be changed, hosted as always by Lizzie Winn and J...

As Maya Stein writes in her beautiful poem this week, our lives aren't 'a stage rehearsal where you skip the high notes to save your voice'. So this week we wonder together about what it is that has us hold back, and hold others back, from bringing ourselves fully into our lives... 'the songs we could be singing while the light takes its own sweet time to change'. This week's Turning Towards Life...

It can seem so difficult to connect to one another and listen to one another, but when we soften and open and quieten down it's not beyond us to know others and their worlds with enormous depth and sensitivity. As Lizzie says in this episode, we're made for connection, because we were never really as separate as we feel to begin with.  This week's Turning Towards Life is a conversation about our s...

We return this week to our exploration of relational power and ask what would happen if we gave up using our power to control people (and in doing so our attempts to get what we want) and instead used our power to liberate the creativity and contribution of others? And how would this shape our parenting, our leadership, and our friendships? This week's Turning Towards Life is a conversation about...

It's easy to use whatever power we have in the world as a way to make ourselves feel safe and in control. But what if we used our power not to reinforce being in a position of 'power-over-others' but instead to cultivate the conditions in which mutuality, emergence, and reciprocity between us could be born - in our organisations, with our life-partners and romantic partners, in friendships, as par...

It can be so hard, and so painful, to apologise sometimes. But what would happen if we saw that rupture and repair were an inevitable part of every relationship? If we knew that it is the very act of repair that knits us together into something more real, more durable, more connected? This week's Turning Towards Life is a conversation about a loving, mutually respectful, dignified path we can foll...

What would we do if we found different questions to ask, bigger ones, than the habitual questions we're asking of life without even knowing we're asking?    This week's Turning Towards Life is a conversation about what we might do if we stopped contracting away from life, if we undid our own everyday self-diminishment, if we trusted that we had gifts to bring and that we, and others, could be bles...

The predominant narrative in our wider culture is that human beings were made for conflict, for dominating one another, for 'getting ahead' of one another. But that's only one story. What if human beings were made for meeting one another, for welcome, for mutual wonder and mutual seeing, for cooperation, for the intertwining of our many gifts? For giving, even when we ourselves have not received a...

Turning Towards Life 'Live' - an online event for everyone - is coming on Sunday 18th April 2021 2pm-5pm UK. Join us! Details are here https://bit.ly/2NYkeNC How finite everything is, including the time we will get to spend with any of our great loves. And how much we want to turn away from this, avoiding feeling too much of our love in an attempt to try and avoid the inevitable grief that will co...

We're not machines, but we often treat ourselves as if we are. Many of us in our lives become 'busyness machines' or 'target-hitting machines'. But we feel, too, how small this is as a way to live a life. This week we are guided by Parker Palmer's luminous writing into a bigger question - 'What is it to be faithful to something bigger than ourselves?' It's a life-giving alternative that calls us i...

What can happen when we share our 'selves' with each other, making our gifts, qualities and experiences available. How we grow through this, how we long for it, and how much we try to defend against it.  This episode of Turning Towards Life is a conversation of  discovery: that our selves are not something we made on our own, but gifts given to us by the sharing of others. Hosted as always by Lizz...

The education most of us have had taught us how to know the answer, how to be right, and how to move quickly to solve problems. But, by and large, it didn't tell us much about how to be true to the one life we have, nor what kinds of practices of creativity, inquiry and attention might support us in that project.  This episode of Turning Towards Life is a conversation about how we might start to d...

What does it take to not just say 'yes' to our lives and to one another, but to bring our beauty, dignity, creativity and imagination in response? It's a different path to take from 'turning away', and equally different from 'passive acceptance'. Being a human affords us this possibility - that when we encounter fear, shame, wonder, injustice, confusion, or hope, we have the chance to muster a res...

When we discover that we're not really separate from one another - that in a very ordinary way we are always deeply shaping and affecting one another - we also open to new ways that we might be of help to one another and care for one another. And we can also find that we can be profound teachers to one another - that we learn to see, feel, and hear in new ways by the very act of being present to e...

The possibilities of saying a 'bright shining no' where previously we've been in the habit of saying 'yes'. Or a 'bright shining yes' where we've been in the habit of saying 'no'. And on the possibility of newness, creativity and discovery when we greet other people's new ways with wonder and welcome. This episode of Turning Towards Life is a conversation about letting our genuineness into the wor...

When we're faced with difference or conflict it's often easiest to turn away, to give up on ourselves and our own values, or to try to force others to agree with us. But what if we were to learn to trust the creative possibilities that arise precisely because we are different to one another? What if we found a way to enter together into the promise that our encounter with the difference of others...

Asking for what we need is difficult for so many of us, because by genuinely asking we open ourselves up to the possibility that another person might respond in a way we're not expecting. Said another way, making genuine requests shows us that we're not - actually - in control of how other people show up in our lives. But at the same time, it's our capacity to request that opens up worlds - of dig...

A conversation about the essential goodness of people, how it gets misdirected by our misunderstanding ourselves, and the gifts of people who see our goodness, support our stopping our usual defensive ways, and who gladly welcome our remaking… and the possibility of being that way for others… hosted as always by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace. This is Turning Towards Life, a weekly live...