Turning Towards Life - a Thirdspace podcast

A conversation on surrender as one way of meeting life, and how clenching and our attempts to control can constrict the aliveness we find in being with others, and of being in life as it is. We explore how we might let ourselves take up our places in a participative engagement in life rather than insisting too strongly on our own plans. Through a friend's tears, a night of crisis, and a walk in the woods, we see that feeling and letting through can open onto something steady and trustworthy beneath our fear. This week is hosted as always by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace.This is Turning Towards Life, a weekly 30 minute conversation hosted by Thirdspace in which Justin Wise and Lizzie Winn explore living with depth, attentiveness and care. 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.Episode Overview0:00 Welcome 3:23 Marion Woodman on surrender, strength, and grace5:16 On trusting what may meet us18:13 Letting life carry us25:42 Feeling through and holding space for one anotherOur source for this week:I can tell you that it takes great strength to surrender. You have to know that you are not going to collapse. Instead, you are going to open to a power that you don't even know, and it is going to come to meet you. In the process of healing, this is one of the huge things that I have discovered. People recognized the energy coming to meet them. When they opened to another energy, a love, a divine love, came through to meet them. That is what is known as grace. We all sing about amazing grace. It is a gift. I think that it comes through the (inner) work that we do.Marion WoodmanPhoto by Dzo on UnsplashJoin Our Weekly Mailing: www.turningtowards.life/subscribeSupport Us: www.buymeacoffee.com/turningtowardslife---Join Us Live in 2026Turning Towards Life Live Season 4, from March 2027Our 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/liveLearn Coaching with ThirdspaceFoundations of Integral Development CoachingOur two-day immersive introduction to integral development coaching. An opportunity to begin to learn to support others in deep, life giving discovery and development.You can read more 'Foundations' and book a place here:www.wearethirdspace.org/foundations-of-coachingYou can hear us talk about the philosophy of our coaching programmes here:www.turningtowards.life/coachingAnd our year-long Professional Coaching Course details are here:www.wearethirdspace.org/professional-coaching-courseJoin Our Weekly Mailing: www.turningtowards.life/subscribeSupport Us: www.buymeacoffee.com/turningtowardslife

“Things come alive for us only when we dare to see and recognize everything as special. The longer we try to get attention instead of giving it, the deeper our unhappiness.” So writes Mark Nepo, inviting us to see how we make the world through our habits of attention. We consider the choice in each moment between chasing what we feel we lack, or deliberately cultivating what we long for inside us so we can bring to the world. And how that choice shapes both the inner experience of being alive and our ability to serve the one life we are given. This week 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 explore living with depth, attentiveness and care. 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.Episode Overview0:00 Opening & Framing 5:50 Fame or Peace 9:32 Inside-Out and Outside-In 24:09 Attention, Attunement, and Culture 33:17 Closing & CommunityOur source for this week:Fame or PeaceMuch of our anxiety and inner turmoil comes from living in a global culture whose values drive us from the essence of what matters. At the heart of this is the conflict between the outer definition of success and the inner value of peace. Unfortunately, we are encouraged, even trained, to get attention when the renewing secret of life is to give attention. From performing well on tests to positioning ourselves for promotions, we are schooled to believe that to succeed we must get attention and be recognized as special, when the threshold to all that is extraordinary in life opens only when we devote ourselves to giving attention, not getting it. Things come alive for us only when we dare to see and recognize everything as special. The longer we try to get attention instead of giving it, the deeper our unhappiness. It leads us to move through the world dreaming of greatness, needing to be verified at every turn, when feelings of oneness grace us only when we verify the life around us. It makes us desperate to be loved, when we sorely need the medicine of being loving. One reason so many of us are lonely in our dream of success is that instead of looking for what is clear and true, we learn to covet what is great and powerful. One reason we live so far from peace is that instead of loving our way into the nameless joy of spirit, we think fame will soothe us. And while we are busy dreaming of being a celebrity, we stifle our need to see and give and love, all of which opens us to the true health of celebration. It leaves us with these choices: fame or peace, be a celebrity or celebrate being, work all our days to be seen or devote ourselves to seeing, build our identity on the attention we can get or find our place in the beauty of things by the attention we can give.Mark Nepo, from ‘The Book of Awakening’Photo by Johannes Plenio on UnsplashJoin Our Weekly Mailing: www.turningtowards.life/subscribeSupport Us: www.buymeacoffee.com/turningtowardslife---Join Us Live in 2026Turning Towards Life Live Season 4, from March 2027Our 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/liveLearn Coaching with ThirdspaceFoundations of Integral Development CoachingOur two-day immersive introduction to integral development coaching. An opportunity to begin to learn to support others in deep, life giving discovery and development.You can read more 'Foundations' and book a place here:www.wearethirdspace.org/foundations-of-coachingYou can hear us talk about the philosophy of our coaching programmes here:www.turningtowards.life/coachingAnd our year-long Professional Coaching Course details are here:www.wearethirdspace.org/professional-coaching-courseJoin Our Weekly Mailing: www.turningtowards.life/subscribeSupport Us: www.buymeacoffee.com/turningtowardslife

We begin this week with Hollie Holden's poem about the ways we perform in order to belong, and the counterpoint of an unconditional love by which we might welcome ourselves and others. We explore the ways that a deeper belonging with one another arises from encountering ourselves and others with a kind of grace and attention to the sacred and inherent value of every person. The conversation asks us to do the complex and often difficult work of building cultures where genuineness is welcome, where we can fall apart and still be seen, and where we extend to one another the precious, unwavering love that knows us as inherently whole even when - especially when - we disagree.This week 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 explore living with depth, attentiveness and care. 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.Episode Overview00:00 Introduction to Turning Towards Life03:03 Exploring the Poem 'Just the Way You Are'07:45 The Complexity of Masking and Love11:16 Cultural Influences on Masking17:29 The Power of Authenticity in Relationships22:49 Discernment and the Journey to Self-Acceptance32:10 The Role of Community in Unmasking37:47 Conclusion and Commitment to WellnessOur source for this week:Just the way you are It seems to me that, as we grow, Our masks get more and more clever. We try each one out, wondering - will they love me like this?Will they love me if I’m insightful and sparkly and helpful and Zen and kind and deep and clever and shiny and loyal and strong?Will they love me if I take on their pain? if I carry the whole family? if I hide my needs and use my resilience to keep everyone else centered?I try on all these masks and - even when they feel good to wear and everyone does seem to love me like this and this and this - A question keeps rising to the surface like a forgotten whale who has never left me.And she wants to know who I am when nobody’s around.She loves my pajamas and the softness of my tummy and the way I talk to myself when I’m choosing what to wear.She loves me when I’m grumpy in the morning and when I doubt myself and when I remember to ask for help – and when I forget.She loves me in a way that makes the masks less and less interesting and less and less necessary.And she only ever asks me one question - this whale who’s never left me:Can you soften more today into the Love that loves you just the way you are? Hollie Holden July 2026Photo by Jonathan Hsu on UnsplashJoin Our Weekly Mailing: www.turningtowards.life/subscribeSupport Us: www.buymeacoffee.com/turningtowardslife---Join Us Live in 2026Turning Towards Life Live Season 4, from March 2027Our 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/liveLearn Coaching with ThirdspaceFoundations of Integral Development CoachingOur two-day immersive introduction to integral development coaching. An opportunity to begin to learn to support others in deep, life giving discovery and development.You can read more 'Foundations' and book a place here:www.wearethirdspace.org/foundations-of-coachingYou can hear us talk about the philosophy of our coaching programmes here:www.turningtowards.life/coachingAnd our year-long Professional Coaching Course details are here:www.wearethirdspace.org/professional-coaching-courseJoin Our Weekly Mailing: www.turningtowards.life/subscribeSupport Us: www.buymeacoffee.com/turningtowardslife

We are invited into Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel's philosophy of wonder and radical amazement. It's a call to break free from habitual thinking and approach life with fresh curiosity. We explore together what it is to take nothing for granted and to practice 'maladjustment' to what we already know and feel sure about. And through all of that we invite ourselves, and you, into deepened care for all that surrounds us all.This week 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 explore living with depth, attentiveness and care. 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.Episode Overview00:00 Introduction and Reflections 03:14 Learning and Community with Us06:09 Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel09:09 Wonder and Awareness17:08 Adapting Our Minds to the World29:24 Parenting and WonderOur source for this week:The greatest hindrance to knowledge is our adjustment to conventional notions, to mental clichés. Wonder or radical amazement, the state of maladjustment to words and notions, is, therefore, a prerequisite for an authentic awareness of that which is. Standing eye to eye with being, we realize that we are able to look at the world with two faculties-the first we try to explain or to adapt the world to our concepts, through the second we seek to adapt our minds to the world…Wonder is a state of mind in which we do not look at reality through the latticework of our memorized knowledge; in which nothing is taken for granted. Spiritually we cannot live by merely reiterating borrowed or inherited knowledge. Inquire of your soul what does it know, what does it take for granted. It will tell you only nothing is taken for granted; each thing is a surprise, being is unbelievable. We are amazed at seeing anything at all; amazed not only at particular values and things but at the unexpectedness of being as such, at the fact that there is being at all.Rabbi Abraham Joshua HeschelPhoto by Anuj Yadav on UnsplashJoin Our Weekly Mailing: www.turningtowards.life/subscribeSupport Us: www.buymeacoffee.com/turningtowardslife---Join Us Live in 2026Turning Towards Life Live Season 4, from March 2027Our 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/liveLearn Coaching with ThirdspaceFoundations of Integral Development CoachingOur two-day immersive introduction to integral development coaching. An opportunity to begin to learn to support others in deep, life giving discovery and development.You can read more 'Foundations' and book a place here:www.wearethirdspace.org/foundations-of-coachingYou can hear us talk about the philosophy of our coaching programmes here:www.turningtowards.life/coachingAnd our year-long Professional Coaching Course details are here:www.wearethirdspace.org/professional-coaching-courseJoin Our Weekly Mailing: www.turningtowards.life/subscribeSupport Us: www.buymeacoffee.com/turningtowardslife

We begin our 10th year of Turning Towards Life with a poem about the capacity of our own hearts to meet the newness of each day, and the love and grief of living. We explore how we can find a way to know our own vastness, capacity and the inherent dignity and sacredness of being a person, and see it in one another... as an antidote and alternative to a world that seems to ask us to be afraid of one another rather than see one another for the precious, irreplaceable life that we each are.This week 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 explore living with depth, attentiveness and care. 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.Episode Overview00:00 Celebrating a Decade of Connection02:54 The Gift of Each New Day06:00 Limitlessness of the Heart12:04 Understanding Our Completeness18:07 On Connection and CommunityOur source for this week:Today is a new day. Every morning the sun rises. There is always another train that comes if I stand on the platform. Another breath arrives without me even asking it to. My children wake with the kind of enthusiasm that only newness can bring. So they’re all the evidence I need. That it’s given, the new day. And what is a life other than a collection of many, many new days. And then I start to think about if the days were few. And maybe they are. We never know. So each day is new. Each day is precious. Each one belongs to us. And my goodness how we forget this. How asleep we can be to the gift of the day. The hour. The minute that’s given. All my stories getting in the way of receiving life. Getting in the way of remembering. Protecting myself maybe from that feeling that we really don’t know. Our days are indeed numbered. So what shall we do ? Love. Step forth. Have faith ?Someone said ‘my heart is full, but oh wait a second, there’s room for more’. And in that moment, I realised that the fullness of a heart is not even possible. They are massive, vast, huge, crazy with bigness. Even if we tried to fill them up we can’t. There is no end to them, that’s why. And so grief can’t break us, because our hearts have no edges. What holds us back from feeling it all is a mistaken understanding that there’s a limit. But there isn’t. So with hearts that have no boundaries, we can love and love and love, and grieve and grieve and grieve. And our joy has no end either. So here we are. What shall we do ? Cups of tea make sense, having a cuddle, writing a poem, letting the sunlight dance on my warm skin and feel the rain soaking through my trousers. Lizzie Winn1st October 2026Photo by simon on UnsplashJoin Our Weekly Mailing: www.turningtowards.life/subscribeSupport Us: www.buymeacoffee.com/turningtowardslife---Join Us Live in 2026Turning Towards Life Live Season 4, from March 2027Our 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/liveLearn Coaching with ThirdspaceFoundations of Integral Development CoachingOur two-day immersive introduction to integral development coaching. An opportunity to begin to learn to support others in deep, life giving discovery and development.You can read more 'Foundations' and book a place here:www.wearethirdspace.org/foundations-of-coachingYou can hear us talk about the philosophy of our coaching programmes here:www.turningtowards.life/coachingAnd our year-long Professional Coaching Course details are here:www.wearethirdspace.org/professional-coaching-courseJoin Our Weekly Mailing: www.turningtowards.life/subscribeSupport Us: www.buymeacoffee.com/turningtowardslife