February 04, 2024

330: Looking After Our Selves

36 minutes

When we’re children we often know intuitively something that as adults we forget - that there are many different parts of each of us inside, and that sometimes we really need to give space to the part of us that will be kind, and nurturing, and gentle.

As adults it is possible for us to relearn this, and we can practice relating to the whole of our inner world with an attentiveness and spaciousness that’s resourcing to us. This in turn frees us up to bring our personal complexity to meet the complexity of the world. ‘Where to begin’ is the starting point for this week’s conversation.

Hosted, as always, by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace.

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Turning Towards Life, a week-by-week conversation inviting us deeply into our lives, is a live 30 minute conversation hosted by Justin Wise and Lizzie Winn of Thirdspace. Find us on FaceBook to watch live and join in the lively conversation on this episode. You can find videos of every episode, and more about the project on the Turning Towards Life website, and you can also watch and listen on Instagram, YouTube, and as a podcast on Apple, Google, Amazon Music and Spotify.

Here's our source for this week:

Looking After Our Selves

It’s well observed that between the ages of around one and twelve, many children manifest a deep attachment to a stuffed soft object, normally shaped into a bear, a rabbit or – less often – a penguin. The depth of the relationship can be extraordinary… What’s truly remarkable is that the animal looks after its owner, addressing him in a tone of unusual maturity and kindness. It might, in a crisis, urge the child not to worry and to look forward to better times in the future. But naturally, the animal’s character is entirely made up. The animal is simply something invented, or brought to life by one part of the child, in order to look after the other… Though it sounds a little odd, speaking to ourselves is common practice throughout our lives. Often, when we do so, the tone is harsh and punitive. But… mental well-being depends on having to hand a repertoire of more gentle, forgiving and hopeful inner voices… Being properly mature demands a gracious accommodation with what can seem childlike, embarrassing or humiliatingly vulnerable. We should honour stuffed animals for what they really are: tools to help us on our first steps in the vital business of knowing how to look after ourselves.

From The School Of Life

www.theschooloflife.com/article/stuffed-animals

Photo by Richard Stovall on Unsplash

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