Turning Towards Life - a Thirdspace podcast

Perhaps we are so afraid of grief because we have forgotten how vast we humans are and can be. When we forget this, we mistake ourselves for a tiny receptacle, unable to imagine that we can meet life as it is. And then how little we let in, and how frightened we get of feeling the immensity both of our sadness and of the wonder of being here. In this episode we consider what it is to let ourselves widen, to relax our defendedness and our clinging-on so we can find ourselves in the sacredness that is both love and grief together, and meet one another - and life - there.This week's Turning Towards Life is hosted as always by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace.Episode Overview00:00 Introduction and Overview02:20 The Source of Inspiration: Mark Nepo's Poem06:47 Exploring Love and Grief12:31 The Interconnection of Emotions18:41 The Holiness of Life and Death24:57 Embracing the Fragility of Existence30:29 The Invitation to Expand Our Hearts37:47 Conclusion and ReflectionThis 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 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 in all the usual podcast places.Here's our source for this week:AdriftEverything is beautiful and I am so sad.This is how the heart makes a duet ofwonder and grief. The light sprayingthrough the lace of the fern is as delicateas the fibers of memory forming their webaround the knot in my throat. The breezemakes the birds move from branch to branchas this ache makes me look for those I've lostin the next room, in the next song, in the laughof the next stranger. In the very center, underit all, what we have that no one can takeaway and all that we've lost face each other.It is there that I'm adrift, feeling puncturedby a holiness that exists inside everything.I am so sad and everything is beautiful.Mark NepoPhoto by Phil Botha on Unsplash---Join Us Live in 2026Foundations of Coaching, Feb 9-10 2026, OnlineOur two day introduction to the deep and wonderful way of working with people that we call 'Integral Development Coaching'.www.wearethirdspace.org/foundations-of-coachingTurning Towards Life Live Season 2, from March 2026Our Turning Towards Life live programme of community, learning and reflection runs in six month seasons, in person on Zoom once a month. We're very excited about it. A chance to expand beyond the bounds of a podcast into forming a community of learning and practice.You can find out more and join us here: www.turningtowards.life/live----About Turning Towards LifeTurning 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 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, Amazon Music and Spotify.Join Our Weekly Mailing: www.turningtowards.life/subscribeSupport Us: www.buymeacoffee.com/turningtowardslife

What if we mistake ourselves for the stories we've been told - that life is about our happiness, that we should wrestle control from circumstance, that we're separate from the world around us? A conversation about discovering that we didn't parachute into nature but grew from it, like apple blossoms on a vast tree of generations of living things. We ask: what becomes possible when we allow ourselves to feel the fullness of being human, grief and joy and all the rest, rather than contracting around our preferences? Could recognising ourselves as nature's response, rather than isolated egos demanding certainty, reveal what we're here to do?This week's Turning Towards Life is hosted as always by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace.Episode Overview00:00 Welcome to Turning Towards Life02:45 Creating Conversations That Matter04:35 The Irony of Pursuing Happiness08:21 The Metaphor of Apple Blossoms13:28 Rethinking Happiness18:10 The Complexity of Human Experience22:46 Engaging with Life's Uncertainty26:32 Responding to Life as Nature30:29 The Practice of Consciousness32:31 Closing ReflectionsThis 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 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 in all the usual podcast places.Here's our source for this week:Your Life is Not About YouOne of the cruelest ironies of Western life is that, today, the key, unquestioned, seemingly self-evident axiom of the Western wellbeing and self-help industry is precisely that our life is about us; that we have to wrestle the reins of our life from mere happenstance and circumstance and determine its course ourselves; that we have to proactively pursue our agenda and project meaning onto it; and - perhaps cruelest of all - that our life is about our being happy. All of this is unnatural and unjustified to the point of being grotesque... Is the life of an apple blossom about the apple blossom? If not, then for precisely the same reason ours cannot be about us. And this is the great discovery of the second half of life: our life isn't, has never been, and can't ever be about us. Why would it? We are part of nature; why would our life be about us and not nature as a whole? … Nature is, of course, impersonal. It's agenda is universal and holistic, not restricted to the petty egoic tastes and preferences of a person. It is naïve to expect a human being to be able to comprehend the … universal agenda, just as it is naïve to expect an apple blossom to comprehend what its role is in the grand scheme of apple trees and life on Earth. We are segments of nature, not mere witnesses; we didn't parachute into nature, but grew out of it. Therefore, we are nature, as expressed in a particular volume of spacetime.Bernardo Kastrup - The Daimon and the Soul of the WestPhoto by Anastasiya Romanova on Unsplash---Join Us Live in 2026Foundations of Coaching, Feb 9-10 2026, OnlineOur two day introduction to the deep and wonderful way of working with people that we call 'Integral Development Coaching'.www.wearethirdspace.org/foundations-of-coachingTurning Towards Life Live Season 2, from March 2026Our Turning Towards Life live programme of community, learning and reflection runs in six month seasons, in person on Zoom once a month. We're very excited about it. A chance to expand beyond the bounds of a podcast into forming a community of learning and practice.You can find out more and join us here: www.turningtowards.life/live----About Turning Towards LifeTurning 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 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, Amazon Music and Spotify.Join Our Weekly Mailing: www.turningtowards.life/subscribeSupport Us: www.buymeacoffee.com/turningtowardslife

We tend to divide our experience into two parts, which we usually name ‘good’ and ‘bad’. And we do so for good reason - to belong in our family systems and communities, to keep a particular image or identity going, because we are afraid of who and what we will be if we let love, or joy, or anger, or longing touch us. But the cost is high - in realness, in our capacity to bringing our gifts to the world, in our fully taking up the possibilities of this one precious life. So how might we welcome and re-include that which has been split off? And how might we do so in a way that is life-giving, mature, and responsive to our cares, concerns and commitments?This week's Turning Towards Life is hosted as always by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace.Episode Overview00:00 Welcoming 2026: A New Beginning02:45 Exploring the Soul: Care and Reclamation05:37 The Complexity of Anger: Embracing Our Emotions08:53 Curiosity and Connection: Tending to Our Souls11:46 The Journey to Wholeness: Integrating Rejected Parts14:43 Realness in Relationships: The Value of Authenticity17:53 The Power of Curiosity: Transforming Reactions into Growth20:55 Nurturing Wholeness: The Role of Care in Soul Work23:39 The Gift of Realness: Embracing Our True SelvesThis 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 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 in all the usual podcast places.Here's our source for this week:Undividing OurselvesWe all tend to divide experience into two parts, usually the good and the bad. But there may be all kinds of suspicious things going on in this splitting. We may simply have never considered the value in certain things we reject. Or by branding certain experiences as negative, we may be protecting ourselves from some unknown fears. We are all filled with biases and ideas that have snuck into us without our knowing it. Much soul can be lost in such splitting, so that care of the soul can go a long way simply by recovering some of this material that has been cut off.From ‘Care of the Soul’ by Thomas MorePhoto by Mario Gogh on Unsplash---Join Us Live in 2026Foundations of Coaching, Feb 9-10 2026, OnlineOur two day introduction to the deep and wonderful way of working with people that we call 'Integral Development Coaching'.www.wearethirdspace.org/foundations-of-coachingTurning Towards Life Live Season 2, from March 2026Our Turning Towards Life live programme of community, learning and reflection runs in six month seasons, in person on Zoom once a month. We're very excited about it. A chance to expand beyond the bounds of a podcast into forming a community of learning and practice.You can find out more and join us here: www.turningtowards.life/live----About Turning Towards LifeTurning 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 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, Amazon Music and Spotify.Join Our Weekly Mailing: www.turningtowards.life/subscribeSupport Us: www.buymeacoffee.com/turningtowardslife

Life presents itself to us in all its strangeness and beauty, but given the kind of beings we humans are, we might find ourselves tuning out or looking away. And that is so easy to do. But what if we started to see life as a question that is being asked of us, a call to pay attention and to receive the world, and to respond in the light of that? What aliveness might come? What possibilities for actually living our lives? And what generosity might we find towards this one life we are given? This week's Turning Towards Life is hosted as always by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace. Episode Overview 00:00 Introduction to the Conversation 01:31 Connecting this conversation to Integral Development Coaching 05:32 Exploring Mary Oliver's 'The Swan' 08:07 Awakening to Life's Beauty 12:26 The Interplay of Beauty and Heart 16:28 The Call to Receive Life 22:13 Understanding Affordance in Life 29:50 Shifting Perspectives: What Life Asks of Us 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. Here's our source for this week: The Swan Did you too see it, drifting, all night, on the black river? Did you see it in the morning, rising into the silvery air – An armful of white blossoms, A perfect commotion of silk and linen as it leaned into the bondage of its wings; a snowbank, a bank of lilies, Biting the air with its black beak? Did you hear it, fluting and whistling A shrill dark music – like the rain pelting the trees – like a waterfall Knifing down the black ledges? And did you see it, finally, just under the clouds – A white cross Streaming across the sky, its feet Like black leaves, its wings Like the stretching light of the river? And did you feel it, in your heart, how it pertained to everything? And have you too finally figured out what beauty is for? And have you changed your life? Mary Oliver  Photo by Timothy Abraham on Unsplash --- Join Us Live in 2026 Foundations of Coaching, Feb 9-10 2026, Online Our two day introduction to the deep and wonderful way of working with people that we call 'Integral Development Coaching'. www.wearethirdspace.org/foundations-of-coaching Turning Towards Life Live Season 2, from March 2026 Our Turning Towards Life live programme of community, learning and reflection runs in six month seasons, in person on Zoom once a month. We're very excited about it. A chance to expand beyond the bounds of a podcast into forming a community of learning and practice. You can find out more and join us here: www.turningtowards.life/live ---- About Turning Towards Life 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 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, Amazon Music and Spotify. Join Our Weekly Mailing: www.turningtowards.life/subscribe Support Us: www.buymeacoffee.com/turningtowardslife

We carry other people inside us, when we're with them and when we are apart from them. After all, where does my experience of you live, apart from inside me? And your experience of me, apart from inside you? In this conversation we explore what it is to hold others in us in this way, and how our imaginative capacities might allow us to receive the sacredness of others while they are alive alongside us - with all the gifts and compassion that can bring - and when they are no longer alive. A conversation about loving fiercely, receiving one another, and grieving well so that we can live well. This week's Turning Towards Life is 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. Here's our source for this week: Love Letter from the After Life My love, I was so wrong. Dying is the opposite of leaving. When I left my body, I did not go away. That portal of light was not a portal to elsewhere, but a portal to here. I am more here than I ever was before. I am more with you than I ever could have imagined. So close you look past me when wondering where I am. It’s Ok. I know that to be human is to be farsighted. But feel me now, walking the chambers of your heart, pressing my palms to the soft walls of your living. Why did no one tell us that to die is to be reincarnated in those we love while they are still alive? Ask me the altitude of heaven, and I will answer, “How tall are you?” In my back pocket is a love note with every word you wish you’d said. At night I sit ecstatic at the loom weaving forgiveness into our worldly regrets … Andrea Gibson Dec 21 2023 You can read and hear the full poem at Andrea Gibson’s Website https://substack.com/@andreagibson/p-139965380 Photo by Naoki Suzuki on Unsplash Photo by Naoki Suzuki on Unsplash --- Join Us Live in 2026 Foundations of Coaching, Feb 9-10 2026, Online Our two day introduction to the deep and wonderful way of working with people that we call 'Integral Development Coaching'. www.wearethirdspace.org/foundations-of-coaching Turning Towards Life Live Season 2, from March 2026 Our Turning Towards Life live programme of community, learning and reflection runs in six month seasons, in person on Zoom once a month. We're very excited about it. A chance to expand beyond the bounds of a podcast into forming a community of learning and practice. You can find out more and join us here: www.turningtowards.life/live ---- About Turning Towards Life 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 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, Amazon Music and Spotify. Join Our Weekly Mailing: www.turningtowards.life/subscribe Support Us: www.buymeacoffee.com/turningtowardslife

We’re so good, we humans, at telling stories about ourselves, other people, our lives. Sometimes our stories bring us close in to the ground of what is - they remind us of our humanity, our dignity, our care, our vulnerability, and the brief span of our existence alongside one another on this planet. Other times our stories serve to take us away, to numb us, or make ourselves feel safe - perhaps at the expense of others, or to judge ourselves and others harshly for our shared human complexity and fallibility.  So what would it be to have practices of speaking, looking, naming, writing that bring us back close to the ground of what is most unarguably true, and then pay attention to the stories we build on top of that so we have a greater chance to spread our wings and be the ones we long to be? Stories that recognise the sacredness of being human? Stories recognise how often we’ll fail, and what we can yet create, and call on us to include both? We begin this week with a luminous piece by our friend Joy Reichart, whose work you can find at soulwriting.org This week's Turning Towards Life is 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. Here's our source for this week: What I know to be true What I know to be true is that I needed to zoom this google doc to 125% to comfortably see the words I’m typing. I need to hold packages and bottles far from my face, under lamps and near windows, to read the instructions. What I know to be true is that I didn’t take a certain way home last night, driving in the dark, because I could not say for sure where exactly to enter the intersection.  What I know to be true is that there is a light gray streak in my hair, and I love it. And that I bought two pairs of reading glasses at the dollar store but never use them—not out of vanity, but simply because it still works to hold the thing under the light, or far away from my face, or to zoom in on the text (if zooming is an option). What I know to be true is that no matter how enlightened we become we are still in human bodies, and now I get what the Buddhists talk about when they chant, over and over again, that we are going to get sick, and die, and lose everything.  Add to that list mistakes: we are going to make them. Even after learning the lessons. We’re going to, as a dear friend puts it, “step in it,” again and again. We’re going to watch ourselves with disbelief. How on earth did it happen again? Especially given how much I know, given how much it hurts?  Add to that list disharmony, unfinished business. Add to that list hatred and greed and all those very human tendencies that none of us—no matter who we are—are above.  Add to that list fear: the root of everything we don’t like about ourselves, of all that goes wrong. I am human, I will fear. I may not be consumed by it every day. In fact in most moments I actually may get bigger than it; may attach myself to the love, to the joy, that I know is the actual truth. Still, it will sneak out from behind corners in the evening hours. It will stalk me when I am dehydrated, or overcommitted. It will brush me with its little fingers of worry, pelt me with tiny flashes of terror. It’ll make me want to solve things using my little human mind: the one that thinks it can singlehandedly battle fear, instead of reaching for a truer, realer source. What I know to be true is that I will not escape any of this. Five decades on this earth in this meat suit, this bone ship, have made that abundantly clear.  What I also know, though, is that there is endless room for my soul to spread out here, and get bigger, and understand more, and giggle when I do the human things, and greet it all with equanimity, and accept the mission I assigned myself in the time before memory, in the time of clear sight, way back before my vision started to blur.  Nov 17, 2025 Written by Joy Reichart www.soulwriting.org Photo by Naoki Suzuki on Unsplash --- Join Us Live in 2026 Foundations of Coaching, Feb 9-10 2026, Online Our two day introduction to the deep and wonderful way of working with people that we call 'Integral Development Coaching'. www.wearethirdspace.org/foundations-of-coaching Turning Towards Life Live Season 2, from March 2026 Our Turning Towards Life live programme of community, learning and reflection runs in six month seasons, in person on Zoom once a month. We're very excited about it. A chance to expand beyond the bounds of a podcast into forming a community of learning and practice. You can find out more and join us here: www.turningtowards.life/live ---- About Turning Towards Life 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 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, Amazon Music and Spotify. Join Our Weekly Mailing: www.turningtowards.life/subscribe Support Us: www.buymeacoffee.com/turningtowardslife

Earlier this week we ran a workshop for our Thirdspace coaching graduates on ‘supervision’ - the practice of supporting one another in being of service to others. Our source this week comes from one of the participants in that day, and asks what it is to ‘become a place’… in which we stand stable without dissolving, in which we hold a field of possibility and relationship without being claimed by it, in which we can be both ‘flame’ and ‘vessel’. We know what good ‘places’ can be in human life. At their best and most resonant they are affordances for us to find our courage, love, presence, realness, generosity. When a place is made with care and attention it can awaken in us awe, wonder, a sense of home, belonging. They can turn us towards one another in genuine reciprocity. And so, we ask in this conversation, what is it to cultivate our capacity to ‘be a place’? And what might that make possible? This week's Turning Towards Life is a conversation about how 'inclusivity' starts with us and between us, 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. Here's our source for this week: I bring my small universe with me, the part that simmers, the part that stews, the part that grows roots in uncertainty, and still feels everything. And yet, I remain my own. Autonomous. Upright. Or lying down Always a quiet spine of presence in the storm-light of relation This is the work: to stand stable without hardening to share without dissolving to hold the field without being claimed by it to become a place I remember myself as both flame and vessel. Ella Dessington Photo by Robert Lukeman on Unsplash --- Join Us Live in 2026 Foundations of Coaching, Feb 9-10 2026, Online Our two day introduction to the deep and wonderful way of working with people that we call 'Integral Development Coaching'. www.wearethirdspace.org/foundations-of-coaching Turning Towards Life Live Season 2, from March 2026 Our Turning Towards Life live programme of community, learning and reflection runs in six month seasons, in person on Zoom once a month. We're very excited about it. A chance to expand beyond the bounds of a podcast into forming a community of learning and practice. You can find out more and join us here: www.turningtowards.life/live ---- About Turning Towards Life 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 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, Amazon Music and Spotify. Join Our Weekly Mailing: www.turningtowards.life/subscribe Support Us: www.buymeacoffee.com/turningtowardslife

We are glad to bring you a repeat of our most popular ever episode "Always Be Vulnerable to All That You Are) from October 2021. We were unexpectedly interrupted for this week's live recording but will be back next week. When we learn to include more and more of ourselves, we also become more able to include more and more of one another. Being able to do this - to welcome that in us that's fearful, ashamed or lonely, as well as what's joyful, grateful and love-filled - is greatly helped by finding the bigger-something that we are... the something of us that's wide and deep, curious and compassionate and which is, essentially, welcome. And that's something we can also help one another with. This week's Turning Towards Life is a conversation about how 'inclusivity' starts with us and between us, 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. Here's our source for this week: VULNERABLE Always be vulnerable To your pain, your fear, your loneliness, To your pleasure too, and your joy, To all that travels through you. Don’t close the doors To these pilgrims from a far-off land, But welcome them all --- One a wild, restless spirit Secretly longing to be tamed,  Another a lover on a long, sweet night, Who only wants to melt in your embrace. For this is how you grow --- By including everything. Always, always be vulnerable  To all that you are. From “Poems of Love and Awakening” by John Welwood Photo by Erika Fletcher on Unsplash --- Join Us Live in 2026 Foundations of Coaching, Feb 9-10 2026, Online Our two day introduction to the deep and wonderful way of working with people that we call 'Integral Development Coaching'. www.wearethirdspace.org/foundations-of-coaching Turning Towards Life Live Season 2, from March 2026 Our Turning Towards Life live programme of community, learning and reflection runs in six month seasons, in person on Zoom once a month. We're very excited about it. A chance to expand beyond the bounds of a podcast into forming a community of learning and practice. You can find out more and join us here: www.turningtowards.life/live ---- About Turning Towards Life 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 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, Amazon Music and Spotify. Join Our Weekly Mailing: www.turningtowards.life/subscribe Support Us: www.buymeacoffee.com/turningtowardslife

On the astonishing power of metaphors to reframe our sense of who we are, what’s possible, and how we might hear and speak with one another… and on the ocean’s vastness and depth as a invitation for us to contain multitudes, especially when in the midst of our most challenging conversations. This week’s conversation is hosted, as always, by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace. Episode Overview 00:00 Introduction and Context Setting 03:05 Exploring the Poem: 'Until I Thought of Myself as the Sea' 05:58 The Ocean Metaphor: Embracing Complexity 09:05 The Power of Metaphor in Self-Understanding 11:47 Widening Perspectives: The Ocean as a Shared Experience 14:52 Navigating Difficult Conversations with Oceanic Awareness 17:50 Truth and Multiplicity: The Ocean of Perspectives 20:59 Systems Thinking: The Ocean of Relationships 24:02 Conclusion and Reflection Here’s our source for this week: Until I thought of myself as the sea I used to separate good days from bad until  I thought of myself as an ocean. I used to  split times I felt strong from when I felt weak  until I imagined myself as the sea. Calm and  rocky, wild and soft, still and powerful and vast  and more than any one thing. In the ocean it's  hard to divorce one mood from another, one wave  from the next. Now, on my worst days, I think  of how good life is too, how I still can greet joy  while swimming through grief. How fragile  strength feels. How I'm not any one thing in any  one moment on any one day. I'm all of it and  all of it is me. Hannah Rosenberg @hannahrowrites Photo by Sean Oulashin on Unsplash --- Join Us Live in 2026 Foundations of Coaching, Feb 9-10 2026, Online Our two day introduction to the deep and wonderful way of working with people that we call 'Integral Development Coaching'. www.wearethirdspace.org/foundations-of-coaching Turning Towards Life Live Season 2, from March 2026 Our Turning Towards Life live programme of community, learning and reflection runs in six month seasons, in person on Zoom once a month. We're very excited about it. A chance to expand beyond the bounds of a podcast into forming a community of learning and practice. You can find out more and join us here: www.turningtowards.life/live ---- About Turning Towards Life 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 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, Amazon Music and Spotify. Join Our Weekly Mailing: www.turningtowards.life/subscribe Support Us: www.buymeacoffee.com/turningtowardslife

What if we see ‘the self’ not as something fixed, but as an ongoing act of responsibility and ever-unfinished creation… a way we make ourselves by how we live, the choices we make, and the way of relating to others and the world that we follow? This week’s conversation is hosted, as always, by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace. Episode Overview 00:00 Introduction to Turning Towards Life 02:44 Exploring the Source: Be Yourself 04:37 The Creative Act of Being Ourselves 08:09 FindingTribe and Belonging 15:20 The Power of Choice and Response 18:55 Gentleness and Boldness in Self-Creation Here’s our source for this week: Be Yourself Really? Which self? The self you were when you were two years old, almost out of diapers? The self you were when you were screaming with the fans at the big game? The self you were after a long night? How about this: Become the self you’d be proud to be. Hang out with people and ideas that help you become that self. Act like that self every chance you get. Seth Godin from Seth’s Blog Photo by Nijwam Swargiary on Unsplash --- Join Us Live in 2026 Foundations of Coaching, Feb 9-10 2026, Online Our two day introduction to the deep and wonderful way of working with people that we call 'Integral Development Coaching'. www.wearethirdspace.org/foundations-of-coaching Turning Towards Life Live Season 2, from March 2026 Our Turning Towards Life live programme of community, learning and reflection runs in six month seasons, in person on Zoom once a month. We're very excited about it. A chance to expand beyond the bounds of a podcast into forming a community of learning and practice. You can find out more and join us here: www.turningtowards.life/live ---- About Turning Towards Life 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 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, Amazon Music and Spotify. Join Our Weekly Mailing: www.turningtowards.life/subscribe Support Us: www.buymeacoffee.com/turningtowardslife

How do we discover what brings life and vitality to us? How do we identify and acknowledge the destructive forces within ourselves? Can we approach the complex, ongoing process of discernment with maturity and nuance, avoiding simplistic judgments? And what resources or practices can we trust to guide us through this challenging work? This week’s conversation is hosted, as always, by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace. Episode Overview 00:00 Introduction and Context of the Conversation 02:57 Our Source for This Week, by Nick Cave 06:05 The Nature of Evil and Human Complexity 08:41 The Inherent Potential for Goodness in Humanity 12:00 The Cosmic Disposition Towards Goodness 14:47 The Duality of Good and Evil in Human Experience 17:45 The Responsibility of Attending to Sorrow 20:46 The Choice to Cultivate Goodness 24:05 The Power of Intentional Living 26:41 The Complexity of Human Relationships 30:01 The Importance of Slowing Down and Reflecting 33:01 Conclusion and Reflection on the Conversation Woven Into Everything I am inclined to believe in a form of intelligence within the universe, as I hold that consciousness or ‘intelligence’  exists throughout everything, that it goes all the way down to the fundamental atomic matter of things. This force, woven into everything - both living and non-living - is inherently good. If we choose, we could call this force God. I view this power as a kind of cosmic disposition that grows, understands, and empathises with us - suffers with us, you might say - and that humans are ‘fractal', as Cormac so beautifully puts it, exemplars or metaphors of the melancholic nature of this God-soaked universe. I believe that evil exists not only within the human heart but also as an external energy separate from us, moving through the world - a nullifying, destructive potency - 'going to and fro in the earth and walking up and down in it’. We can see it, if we choose, all around us. Yet, we can act as the remedy to this existential predicament by directing our efforts towards the world’s flourishing and away from its destruction, in whatever way we can. It is our duty to attend to the sorrow of the universe - the sorrow of God. Nick Cave from The Red Hand Files Issue # 342 Photo by NASA on Unsplash --- Join Us Live in 2026 Foundations of Coaching, Feb 9-10 2026, Online Our two day introduction to the deep and wonderful way of working with people that we call 'Integral Development Coaching'. www.wearethirdspace.org/foundations-of-coaching Turning Towards Life Live Season 2, from March 2026 Our Turning Towards Life live programme of community, learning and reflection runs in six month seasons, in person on Zoom once a month. We're very excited about it. A chance to expand beyond the bounds of a podcast into forming a community of learning and practice. You can find out more and join us here: www.turningtowards.life/live ---- About Turning Towards Life 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 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, Amazon Music and Spotify. Join Our Weekly Mailing: www.turningtowards.life/subscribe Support Us: www.buymeacoffee.com/turningtowardslife

We are so excited to bring you this episode, which draws on some brilliant writing by Jonah Platt about why we should work to keep on bringing out what is 'implicit' inside us into the world of relationship - making it 'explicit'. In this conversation we tackle the world head on, from the most intimate relationships to the largest scale challenges facing us societally and politically, and we wonder together about the maturity, generosity and boldness it takes for us humans to keep talking and listening to one another. And we talk together about pragmatism - doing what it takes to improve things, rather than falling into trying to avoid certain feelings, or keeping ourselves in familiar territory, or trying to keep things too safe. It's a bold, warm, playful and important conversation - and we are very glad to share it with you. This week’s conversation is hosted, as always, by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace. Episode Overview 00:00 Introduction and Welcome 05:30 The Importance of Making the Implicit Explicit 10:28 Exploring Resistance to Explicit Communication 15:26 The Role of Patience and Slowing Down 20:09 Navigating Complexity in Relationships 25:22 The Pragmatism of Explicit Communication 30:14 The Risk and Creativity of Sharing Implicit Thoughts Making the Implicit Explicit To achieve clearly understood communication in our relationships, personal, professional, casual, romantic, online, every level of life, it is critical that we remind ourselves to make the implicit explicit. That's the idea. Whatever we assume to be obvious, be it our emotional state, the purpose of an event, or the location of a stapler, we must teach ourselves to assume that it actually is not, and therefore must be stated out loud if we are to be understood.  Why is this important to do? Because the literal opposite is true. What is most obvious to us is generally not obvious to other people, and in fact, they are often making a totally different and wrong assumption than the one you also wrongly assume they are making.  Why does this happen? Well, there are several cognitive biases at work here… Primarily, there's what's called the curse of knowledge. Once we know something, it becomes difficult to imagine what it's like not to know it, so we overestimate how obvious our thoughts or intentions or explanations will be to others.  There's the closely related illusion of transparency, where we overestimate how clearly our internal states, our emotions, thoughts, our sense of morality are visible to others. They're not.  And last, naïve realism, where we assume our perceptions of reality of what's obvious about the world are shared by all. These misalignments happen constantly in our interpersonal lives, and they lead to resentment, misunderstanding, conflict, and harm.  I think at times there are also certain common resistances to being explicit. One… is a sense of, "Well, if you really loved me, you would already know this about me," which is an understandable way to feel, but is really… a failure to communicate.  Another may be a sense of self-respect or maybe self-preservation that warps into a kind of peremptory and self-defeating resentment. "Why should I have to make something explicit just to give you an understanding about me you haven't bothered to ask for?" And the answer to that is, if a greater understanding would be a positive outcome, however it's arrived at, why not just take responsibility to ensure it arrives?  There's also, and I think this is the one that has most prevented me from making the implicit explicit as it pertains to my views on certain public issues, is the sense of not wanting to play the game, of not wanting to debase myself in order to pass somebody's morality test. And also the question of, what does this really change? …  And yet… if playing the game and taking the test opens a door to greater understanding, a door through which perhaps more understanding can then travel through that otherwise might have remained closed, that may in fact be change enough to make the enterprise worthwhile…  So if you've got questions for someone in your life, ask them. Expect that they have questions for you too. Preempt them. Make the implicit explicit. Talk to each other. Talk to each other.  Jonah Platt from ‘Making the Implicit Explicit’  Episode 44 of Jonah’s podcast ‘Being Jewish with Jonah Platt’ Photo by Priscilla Du Preez 🇨🇦 on Unsplash --- Join Us Live in 2026 Foundations of Coaching, Feb 9-10 2026, Online Our two day introduction to the deep and wonderful way of working with people that we call 'Integral Development Coaching'. www.wearethirdspace.org/foundations-of-coaching Turning Towards Life Live Season 2, from March 2026 Our Turning Towards Life live programme of community, learning and reflection runs in six month seasons, in person on Zoom once a month. We're very excited about it. A chance to expand beyond the bounds of a podcast into forming a community of learning and practice. You can find out more and join us here: www.turningtowards.life/live ---- About Turning Towards Life 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 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, Amazon Music and Spotify. Join Our Weekly Mailing: www.turningtowards.life/subscribe Support Us: www.buymeacoffee.com/turningtowardslife

The central work of our lives over the last 15 years or so has been as practicing integral development coaches, and as teachers of this way of guiding and supporting others. In this conversation we explore what it is to be a ‘coach’ in this way, to use our humanity, intelligence, hearts and life force to grow wings and then to help other people grow wings of their own. It’s such a rewarding, life-giving endeavour, and it teaches us ever more about being a person and taking care of others. Join us for an exploration of what ‘guiding people up and out’ might be, with inspiration from a lovely and inspiring poem by Ellie Steel. This week’s conversation is hosted, as always, by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace. Episode Overview 00:00 Introduction 03:03 Exploring Aliveness: A Central Theme 05:54 Navigating by Aliveness: Insights and Reflections 09:10 The Distinction Between Aliveness and Happiness 11:59 Embracing the Full Spectrum of Human Experience 14:52 Creatures of Creation: Our Relationship with Life 17:55 Intimacy with Existence: The Heart of Aliveness 20:56 The Cost of Control: Reconnecting with Aliveness 27:13 The Dance of Control and Aliveness 30:01 Curiosity as a Pathway to Freedom 33:04 The Nature of Care and Connection Here’s our source for this week: Wings (for Miss) Under her wings I live and grow and against and with the feathers soft and strong that open over the heads of all who reach up guiding up and out until the wings flutter away and we who are not in need grow wings for ourselves and open them up to those without wings Ellie Steel From She Will Soar: Bright, Brave Poems about Freedom by Women (link on Bookstore) Photo by Torianna Marasco on Unsplash --- Join Us Live in 2026 Foundations of Coaching, Feb 9-10 2026, Online Our two day introduction to the deep and wonderful way of working with people that we call 'Integral Development Coaching'. www.wearethirdspace.org/foundations-of-coaching Turning Towards Life Live Season 2, from March 2026 Our Turning Towards Life live programme of community, learning and reflection runs in six month seasons, in person on Zoom once a month. We're very excited about it. A chance to expand beyond the bounds of a podcast into forming a community of learning and practice. You can find out more and join us here: www.turningtowards.life/live ---- About Turning Towards Life 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 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, Amazon Music and Spotify. Join Our Weekly Mailing: www.turningtowards.life/subscribe Support Us: www.buymeacoffee.com/turningtowardslife Keywords: coaching, wings metaphor, againstness relationship, growth facilitation, multidirectional holding, self-generating capacity, coaching philosophy, lineage importance, power dynamics, tender development, mutual growth, generative listening, creative holding, leaping ahead, integral development, community practice, dignified support, holding system, personal transformation, growth orientation, generosity practice, wingless to winged People: Ellie Steel (poet who wrote "Wings") Martin Heidegger (philosopher referenced by Lizzie when discussing the concept of "jumping ahead" or "leaping ahead") Cast of the TV Show 'Shrinking'

“The concept that sits right at the heart of a sane and meaningful life,” writes Oliver Burkeman “is something like aliveness.” In this conversation we explore what it is to attend to aliveness, how we might come to notice its presence, and consider steps any of us can take to cultivate it. And we talk about how vital this is in an age where we may find ourselves encouraged in many places to become part of an algorithm - to act in life as if we were machines rather than creative beings who are part of a vast and inherently creative universe. This week’s conversation is hosted, as always, by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace. Episode Overview 00:00 Introduction 03:03 Exploring Aliveness: A Central Theme 05:54 Navigating by Aliveness: Insights and Reflections 09:10 The Distinction Between Aliveness and Happiness 11:59 Embracing the Full Spectrum of Human Experience 14:52 Creatures of Creation: Our Relationship with Life 17:55 Intimacy with Existence: The Heart of Aliveness 20:56 The Cost of Control: Reconnecting with Aliveness 27:13 The Dance of Control and Aliveness 30:01 Curiosity as a Pathway to Freedom 33:04 The Nature of Care and Connection Here’s our source for this week: The Path of Aliveness The concept that sits right at the heart of a sane and meaningful life, I’m increasingly convinced, is something like aliveness. It goes by other names, too, none of which quite nail it – but it’s the one thing that, so long as you navigate by it, you’ll never go too far wrong. Sometimes it feels like a subtle electrical charge behind what’s happening, or a mildly heightened sense of clarity, or sometimes like nothing I can put into words at all. I freely concede it’s a hopelessly unscientific idea. But I’m pretty sure it’s what Joseph Campbell meant when he said that most of us aren’t really seeking the meaning of life, but rather “an experience of being alive… so that we actually feel the rapture” – although personally I don’t think it’s always rapturous, per se – “of being alive.”In literal terms, of course, “aliveness” can’t be the right word here, because technically everyone’s alive all the time, whereas aliveness comes and goes. Still, I know it when I feel it. And I definitely know it when my misguided efforts to exert too much control over reality cause it to drain away.  And so an excellent question to ask yourself – when you’re facing a tough decision, say, or wondering if you’re on the right track – is: “Does this feel like it’s taking me in the direction of greater aliveness?”Crucially, aliveness isn’t the same as happiness. As the Zen teacher Christian Dillo explains in his engrossing book The Path of Aliveness, you can absolutely feel alive in the midst of intense sadness. Aliveness, he writes, “isn’t about feeling *better*; it’s about *feeling*better.” When I feel aliveness in my work, it’s not because every task is an unadulterated pleasure; and when I feel it in my close relationships, it’s not because I’ve transcended the capacity to get annoyed by other people – because believe me, I haven’t. But to whatever extent I *do* manage what Dillo refers to as fully inhabiting my experience, life is good, in a deep sense, and more vibrant, and I feel more connected to others – and overall, happiness tends to predominate…   I think it might be the key to understanding how to think and feel about AI, how to respond to it, how to integrate it into our lives or not – and how to ensure, as technology marches on, that we don’t lose sight of what really matters for a meaningfully productive life.  Most obviously, aliveness is what generally feels absent from the written and visual outputs of ChatGPT and its ilk, even when they’re otherwise of high quality… It makes you wonder if Wendell Berry had it right when he wrote: “It is easy for me to imagine that the next great division of the world will be between people who wish to live as creatures and people who wish to live as machines.”…  I think it’s good to stay fully, even slightly foolishly, committed to the idea that humans doing human things, with other humans, is and will remain at the vital heart of human existence. Because otherwise what on earth’s the point? Oliver Burkeman The full text of this wonderful post can be found on Oliver’s website ‘The Imperfectionist’, where you can also find out about his books and sign up to his mailing list. Photo by yunona uritsky on Unsplash --- Join Us Live in 2026 Foundations of Coaching, Feb 9-10 2026, Online Our two day introduction to the deep and wonderful way of working with people that we call 'Integral Development Coaching'. www.wearethirdspace.org/foundations-of-coaching Turning Towards Life Live Season 2, from March 2026 Our Turning Towards Life live programme of community, learning and reflection runs in six month seasons, in person on Zoom once a month. We're very excited about it. A chance to expand beyond the bounds of a podcast into forming a community of learning and practice. You can find out more and join us here: www.turningtowards.life/live ---- About Turning Towards Life 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 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, Amazon Music and Spotify. Join Our Weekly Mailing: www.turningtowards.life/subscribe Support Us: www.buymeacoffee.com/turningtowardslife

We make the world, and unmake that which doesn’t serve, by our everyday actions and inactions, our intentional taking care and our turning away. What does it take to have the courage, humility and compassion to attend as fully as we can to the world, to step towards a world we want to live in? This week’s conversation is hosted, as always, by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace. Episode Overview 00:00 Welcome to Turning Towards Life 02:49 The Joy of Coaching and Community 07:08 Understanding the Shambhala Warrior 12:17 Interconnectedness and Community Resilience 17:08 Humility in Compassionate Action 23:12 The Complexity of Truth and Instant Gratification 28:46 The Call to Action and Hope Here’s our source for this week: Joanna Macy: The Shambhala Warrior Now the time comes when great courage is required of the Shambhala warriors, moral courage and physical courage. That is because they’re going right into the heart of the barbarian’s power to dismantle their power and dismantle their weapons, weapons in every sense of the word. As they make their way into the pits and citadels where the armaments are made, so are they also entering the corridors of power where decisions are made. Now, heed this. The Shambhala warriors know these weapons can be dismantled. That is because they are manomaya, an old word that means “mind-made.” Made by the human mind, they can be unmade by the human mind. The dangers facing us are not fashioned by some satanic deity or by an evil extraterrestrial force or by some immutable preordained fate. These dangers are created by our relationships, our habits, our choices. “So now is the time,” said Chogyal Rinpoche, “for the Shambhala warriors to go into training.” “How do they train?” I asked. “They train in the use of two implements or tools.” “What are they?” I asked, and he held up his hands the way the lamas hold the ritual objects, the dorje and bell, in the great monastic dances of his people. “One,” he said, “is compassion. The other is insight into the radical interdependence of all phenomena. You need both,” he said. “You need compassion because it provides the fuel to move you out where you need to be in order to do what you need to do. It means not being afraid of the suffering of your world. That tool is very hot. By itself it is so hot it can burn you out. So you need the other tool, the insight that reveals the interbeing of all that is. When that dawns in you then you know that this is not a battle between good people and bad people but that the line between good and evil runs through the landscape of every human heart. And you know that we are so interwoven that even our smallest acts have repercussions that ripple through the web of life, beyond our capacity to discern. But that knowing is kind of cool. It can seem at times a bit abstract. That’s why you need the heat of real passion.” From One Earth Sangha Photo by Daniele Levis Pelusi on Unsplash --- Join Us Live in 2026 Foundations of Coaching, Feb 9-10 2026, Online Our two day introduction to the deep and wonderful way of working with people that we call 'Integral Development Coaching'. www.wearethirdspace.org/foundations-of-coaching Turning Towards Life Live Season 2, from March 2026 Our Turning Towards Life live programme of community, learning and reflection runs in six month seasons, in person on Zoom once a month. We're very excited about it. A chance to expand beyond the bounds of a podcast into forming a community of learning and practice. You can find out more and join us here: www.turningtowards.life/live ---- About Turning Towards Life 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 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, Amazon Music and Spotify. Join Our Weekly Mailing: www.turningtowards.life/subscribe Support Us: www.buymeacoffee.com/turningtowardslife

It's never too late to look at our lives, to set out on a new path, to begin the difficult and necessary and life-giving work of changing course, of learning how to bring ourselves in a way that deepens our depth, courage, love, kindness, truthfulness and contribution. It's never too late to learn something, to teach something. It's never too late to live - even in the very last moments of our lives. This conversation, marking the 8th anniversary of Turning Towards Life, takes us into an exploration of who we humans can be to one another, especially when we pay attention, when we remember our capacities to make worlds together, and when we commit to listen to one another with kindness, truthfulness, openness and care. This week’s conversation is hosted, as always, by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace. Episode Overview 00:00 Celebrating Eight Years of Turning Towards Life 05:48 Introducing the Source: Harold Schulweis 11:57 Personal Reflections on Change and Growth 17:47 The Power of Openness and Change 24:08 The Importance of Dialogue and Disagreement 29:52 Creating a World of Connection and Kindness Here’s our source for this week: It’s never too late The last word has not been spoken the last sentence has not been writ the final verdict is not in. It's never too late  to change my mind  my direction to say 'no' to the past  and 'yes' to the future  to offer remorse to ask and give forgiveness. It is never too late  to start all over again  to feel again  to love again  to hope again. It is never too late  to overcome despair  to turn sorrow into resolve  and pain into purpose. It is never too late to alter my world  not by magic incantations  or manipulations of the cards  or deciphering the stars  but by opening myself  to curative forces buried within  to hidden energies the powers in my interior self. In sickness and in dying,  it is never too late. Living, I teach  Dying, I teach how to face pain and fear. Others observe me, children, adults,  students of life and death  learn from my bearing, my posture,  my philosophy. It is never too late -  Some word of mine, some touch, some caress may be remembered  some gesture may play a role beyond the last  movement of my head and hand. Write it on my epitaph  that my loved ones be consoled. It is never too late. Harold Shulweis Photo by Ümit Bulut on Unsplash --- Join Us Live in 2026 Foundations of Coaching, Feb 9-10 2026, Online Our two day introduction to the deep and wonderful way of working with people that we call 'Integral Development Coaching'. www.wearethirdspace.org/foundations-of-coaching Turning Towards Life Live Season 2, from March 2026 Our Turning Towards Life live programme of community, learning and reflection runs in six month seasons, in person on Zoom once a month. We're very excited about it. A chance to expand beyond the bounds of a podcast into forming a community of learning and practice. You can find out more and join us here: www.turningtowards.life/live ---- About Turning Towards Life 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 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, Amazon Music and Spotify. Join Our Weekly Mailing: www.turningtowards.life/subscribe Support Us: www.buymeacoffee.com/turningtowardslife People Mentioned: Rabbi Harold Shulweis David Whyte Rainer Maria Rilke Norman Fisher Mary Oliver Maya Stein Rosemary Whatola-Trommer Hollie Holden Naomi Shihab Nye Rebecca Solnit Leo Tolstoy (author of The Death of Ivan Ilyich) Keywords: never late, starting over, forgiveness practice, teaching presence, continuous becoming, habit remaking, interior forces, curative powers, death teaching, final verdict, life ongoingness, changing direction, opening myself, human power, world making, truthful standing, cynicism rejection, spiritual openness, destination pressure, community presence, disagreement kindness, intentional space, learning together, transformative choice, last breath

A conversation about discovering that the entire world around us—the first star breaking through darkness, rain dancing on rooftops, stooping to pick up an acorn—aren't distractions from life's important questions but invitations further into them. That we are never separate from the world, and that there are many ways in which the world is calling to us even when we feel alone. And that rather than retreating from the world to find the answers to our most urgent questions, perhaps we can soften back into contact with what surrounds us as a way into the answers. This week’s conversation is hosted, as always, by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace. Episode Overview 00:00 Introduction to Turning Towards Life 02:25 Exploring Ingrid's Poetry 06:30 On Ordinary Moments 10:07 Connection to the World Around Us 14:34 Receiving from the World, Finding We Are Not Alone 19:24 Discovering our Non-Separateness Here’s our source for this week: Questions for Discerning What is Timeless and True When mist settles thick on the water as far as the eye can see, may you hold yourself in generosity, and ask what do you endlessly dream? When the first star breaks its light through the darkest evening sky, what is the wish that flutters in the temple of your heart? When rain dances with joy on the roof above your head, what do you feel most grateful for, and for what do you give thanks? When the catbird settles on a branch nearby, tips his head back and sings, what sweet urgency pours from your life into the living, breathing day? When you stoop to pick up an acorn that has fallen along your trail, allow yourself to wonder: what seeds do you plant and grow? When the autumn leaf lifts on a swirling current of wind: what journey are you missing? What adventure do you long to begin? When the present insight slips into the vast eternal realm, what do you still remember in the very bones of your soul? When the morning sun wakes you and asks for your finest gift, what do you pull from your infinity to give and give, and open to, and give? Ingrid Goff-Maidoff ingridgoffmaidoff.com Photo by Lucas van Oort on Unsplash --- Join Us Live in 2026 Turning Towards Life Live Season 2, from March 2026 Our Turning Towards Life live programme of community, learning and reflection runs in six month seasons, in person on Zoom once a month. We're very excited about it. A chance to expand beyond the bounds of a podcast into forming a community of learning and practice. You can find out more and join us here: www.turningtowards.life/live ---- About Turning Towards Life 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 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, Amazon Music and Spotify. Join Our Weekly Mailing: www.turningtowards.life/subscribe Support Us: www.buymeacoffee.com/turningtowardslife Keywords: timeless questions, sweet urgency, temple heart, infinity giving, autumn leaf journey, catbird settling, acorn wondering, star breaking light, rain dancing joy, mist settling thick, bones soul memory, morning sun gift, world offering attention, contact receptivity, contracted separation, life calling back, rose smelling presence, ordinary invitations, belonging planet, softening contact, generous participation, separateness fear, social media hysteria, retreat fantasy, bodily contraction, woods walking

'For the sake of what am I doing this?' is the question that animates this week's conversation. For the sake of fitting in? Of having feelings that I want to have? For the sake of serving? Of bringing the unique gifts I have to offer? For the sake of doing the big jobs, the ones that make a difference over the long term - such as pursuing love, justice, peace? Rather than pursuing quick wins that shrink our ambitions, might we find courage to take on impossible jobs and measure our lives not by immediate results but by unwavering dedication to the particular gifts that each of us has to bring? This week’s conversation is hosted, as always, by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace. Episode Overview 00:00 Introduction and Welcome 04:14 Introducing Parker Palmer and this week’s Source 08:52 The Concept of Faithfulness vs. Effectiveness 15:42 The Challenge of Complex Issues in Life 22:33 Finding Fulfillment Beyond Short-Term Goals Here’s our source for this week: Faithfulness and Effectiveness Take on big jobs worth doing, jobs like the spread of love, peace, and justice. That means refusing to be seduced by our cultural obsession with being effective as measured by short-term results. … Our heroes take on impossible jobs and stay with them for the long haul because they live by a standard that supersedes effectiveness. The name of that standard is "faithfulness" - faithfulness to your gifts, to the needs of the world, and to offering your gifs to whatever needs are within your reach. The tighter we cling to the norm of effectiveness, the smaller the tasks we'll take on, because they are the only ones that get short-term results. Public education is a tragic example. We no longer care about educating children - a big job that's never done. We care only about getting kids to pass tests with measurable results, whether or not those tests measure what matters. In the process, we're crushing the spirits of a lot of good teachers and vulnerable kids: there are millions of kids in this country who long to be treasured, not measured. Care about being effective, of course. But care even more about being faithful, as countless teachers do - faithful to your calling and to the true needs of those entrusted to your care. You won't get the big jobs done in your lifetime. But if, at the end of the road, you can say, "I was faithful", you can check out with a sense of satisfaction. Parker Palmer, from "On the Brink of Everything", p47-48 Photo by Alexey Demidov on Unsplash --- Join Us Live in 2026 Turning Towards Life Live Season 2, from March 2026 Our Turning Towards Life live programme of community, learning and reflection runs in six month seasons, in person on Zoom once a month. We're very excited about it. A chance to expand beyond the bounds of a podcast into forming a community of learning and practice. You can find out more and join us here: www.turningtowards.life/live ---- About Turning Towards Life 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 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, Amazon Music and Spotify. Join Our Weekly Mailing: www.turningtowards.life/subscribe Support Us: www.buymeacoffee.com/turningtowardslife Keywords: faithfulness practice, effectiveness obsession, long-term commitment, cultural critique, big jobs worth doing, short-term results, treasured not measured, educational reform, calling dedication, gift recognition, world needs, satisfaction fulfillment, loyalty examination, complex missions, unfinished work, life dedication, cultural metanarratives, social exclusion fear, heart questioning, purpose alignment, decision making clarity, service orientation, love peace justice, parenting faithfulness, recognition limitations, life filling, tribe dedication, spiritual satisfaction, deeper commitment, relationship building, podcast longevity

We are far from powerless… though we often we imagine we are. And neither are we able to control how life goes… though we often long to be able to. Our making ourselves too small or too big rarely serves life. So what would it be to find a way to be in a responsive partnership with life itself - acting into life and then opening ourselves to life’s response, bringing the qualities we have to offer as humans and letting ourselves be changed by what comes? This week’s conversation is hosted, as always, by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace. Episode Overview 00:00 Welcome and Introduction to Turning Towards Life 02:50 The Emergence of a Collective Self 06:07 Exploring Uncertainty and Aliveness 09:05 Navigating the Unknown: Embracing Change 11:50 The Dance of Certainty and Uncertainty 15:07 Partnership with Life: Making Our Moves 17:50 The Nature of Human Qualities in Crisis 20:57 Reflective Practice and Self-Discovery 24:00 Being Human in Uncertainty 26:49 Closing Reflections and Gratitude Here’s our source for this week: We look with uncertainty We look with uncertainty beyond the old choices for clear-cut answers to a softer, more permeable aliveness which is every moment at the brink of death; for something new is being born in us if we but let it. We stand at a new doorway, awaiting that which comes… daring to be human creatures, vulnerable to the beauty of existence. Learning to love. Anne Hillman Photo by Karissa Mason on Unsplash --- Join Us Live in 2026 Turning Towards Life Live Season 2, from March 2026 Our Turning Towards Life live programme of community, learning and reflection runs in six month seasons, in person on Zoom once a month. We're very excited about it. A chance to expand beyond the bounds of a podcast into forming a community of learning and practice. You can find out more and join us here: www.turningtowards.life/live ---- About Turning Towards Life 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 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, Amazon Music and Spotify. Join Our Weekly Mailing: www.turningtowards.life/subscribe Support Us: www.buymeacoffee.com/turningtowardslife Keywords: uncertainty acceptance, essential qualities, human aliveness, partnership with life, permeable existence, doorway metaphor, vulnerable beauty, reflective practice, present moment awareness, control letting go, death brink living, softness cultivation, new birth allowing, offering making, response receiving, qualities emerging, steadfastness courage, generous heart, human goodness, unpredictability embracing, participation dance, life partnership, essential self, turning towards life, relationship reflection

A conversation about imagination as essential aliveness—and how treating life as purely literal diminishes our humanity. A great human power lies in choosing which story we live from, recognising that even dead ends become part of a larger narrative of redemption. What would change if we approached each day wondering along which secret aqueduct new life might be flowing toward us? This week’s conversation is hosted, as always, by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace. Episode Overview 00:00 Embracing Life's Multitudes 02:56 Gathering in Community 05:50 Machado’s Poem Last Night as I Was Sleeping 08:58 Imagining New Possibilities 11:59 Turning Towards Joy and Failure 14:53 The Imaginative Act of Being Human 17:47 Finding Connection in Shared Experiences 20:50 The Invitation to Storytelling 23:45 Practicing Presence and Openness Here’s our source for this week: Last night, as I was sleeping       Last night, as I was sleeping, I dreamt -- marvellous error!— that a spring was breaking out in my heart. I said: Along which secret aqueduct, Oh water, are you coming to me, water of a new life that I have never drunk?      Last night, as I was sleeping, I dreamt -- marvellous error!— that I had a beehive here inside my heart. And the golden bees were making white combs and sweet honey from my old failures.      Last night, as I was sleeping, I dreamt -- marvellous error!— that a fiery sun was giving light inside my heart. It was fiery because I felt warmth as from a hearth, and sun because it gave light and brought tears to my eyes.      Last night, as I slept, I dreamt -- marvellous error!— that it was God I had here inside my heart. Antonio Machado English version by Robert Bly Original Language Spanish Photo by Vivek Doshi on Unsplash ---- Join Us Live in 2025 Turning Towards Life Live Season 1, from 10 September 2025 Our Turning Towards Life live programme of community, learning and reflection runs in six month seasons from September. It's going to be in person on Zoom once a month. We're very excited about it. A chance to expand beyond the bounds of a podcast into forming a community of learning and practice. You can find out more and join us here: www.turningtowards.life/live ---- About Turning Towards Life 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 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, Amazon Music and Spotify. Join Our Weekly Mailing: www.turningtowards.life/subscribe Support Us: www.buymeacoffee.com/turningtowardslife Keywords: marvellous error, secret aqueduct, golden bees, sweet honey, old failures, imaginative capacity, turning towards life, heart opening, sacred aliveness, storytelling power, redemption possibility, fiery warmth, divine presence, new life water, creative interpretation, dream consciousness, life-giving conversation, spiritual recognition, meaning making, transformation language, wonder invitation, possibility thinking, cynicism rejection, literal thinking, narrative choice People Mentioned: Antonio Machado (Spanish poet, author of the poem) Robert Bly (translator of the poem) Roger Housden (author of "Ten Poems to Change Your Life") Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer (podcast host of "Emerging Form") Christie Aschwanden (podcast host of "Emerging Form") Emerging Form Episode 146, Maria Kelson on Switching Genres https://emergingform.substack.com/p/episode-146-maria-kelson-on-switching