Turning Towards Life - a Thirdspace podcast

Some people have the patience to sit with the right problem instead of fixing the wrong one. They ask the question that actually needs asking, don’t accept our stories at face value, and get to the real thing waiting to be said. They see what we’re actually struggling with, not the account we offer. They are quiet, patient, kind, curious, and deep enough for us to speak about what matters. They know when to wait and when to act. This capacity lives between and within us. It can grow and be practiced. And the world needs it now.

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 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.

Our source for this week:

The real AI

To quote the great Steve Wozniak, “Actual Intelligence.” The kind we’re born with and can develop if we choose. It’s worth more now than ever before. Alas, it’s rarely taught in school.

The difficult work of making choices.

The act of curation.

The responsibility of putting your name on it.

The judgment to ask the right questions and skip the other ones.

The imperative to ship useful work.

The pursuit of good taste.

The patience to sit with the right problem rather than solving the wrong one.

The generosity to create for someone specific.

Seeking justice.

Offering dignity.

Knowing when to stop.

Investing in deep empathy, not a shallow substitute.

Taking initiative and doing the reading.

Being patient, or impatient, depending on what’s needed.

Ignoring the noise.

Making something that matters.

Caring.

Seth Godin
seths.blog

Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash‍       ‍

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Join Us Live in 2026

Foundations of Integral Development Coaching, led by Lizzie and Justin
Sept 7-8 2026, Online
Our two-day immersive introduction to integral development coaching, led by Lizzie and Justin from Turning Towards Life. An opportunity to begin to learn to support others in deep, life giving discovery and development.

You can hear us talk about our coaching programmes her here:
www.turningtowards.life/coaching

You can read more 'Foundations' here:
www.wearethirdspace.org/foundations-of-coaching

And our year-long Professional Coaching Course here:
www.wearethirdspace.org/professional-coaching-course

Turning Towards Life Live Season 3, from September 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

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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

Inspired by William Martin’s poem ‘Journey’s End’, we wonder together about what it would be to each receive the one, precious, unique life that we are rather than trying all the time to be something or someone else. What happens when we let ourselves soften into receiving everything that has, since the beginning of time, led directly to each of us, seeing ourselves and one another as the sacred presences that we are? And what might the words of someone towards the end of their life offer us to help us do that?

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 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.

Our source for this week:

Journey's End

I’ve reached the end of my journey.
Not at all a giving up on life,
simply no more striving,
seeking, searching, trying,
maintaining, growing, gaining.
No more reading to improve myself.
No more spiritual practices seeking God.
No more interest in insights.
I’m at the Still Point of the journey’s end
seeing for the first time that it is where
I’ve always been. 
Deep breath, happy sigh,
quail strutting on the wall.

William Martin
williammartin.org

Photo by Paulo Pescada on Unsplash 

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Join Us Live in 2026

Foundations of Integral Development Coaching, led by Lizzie and Justin
Sept 7-8 2026, Online
Our two-day immersive introduction to integral development coaching, led by Lizzie and Justin from Turning Towards Life. An opportunity to begin to learn to support others in deep, life giving discovery and development.

You can hear us talk about our coaching programmes her here:
www.turningtowards.life/coaching

You can read more 'Foundations' here:
www.wearethirdspace.org/foundations-of-coaching

And our year-long Professional Coaching Course here:
www.wearethirdspace.org/professional-coaching-course

Turning Towards Life Live Season 3, from September 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

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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 unable to record a new episode this week so we have remixed the sound and video on one of our favourites, from 2022, about a topic that we're thinking about a lot right now - time. So often our lives are ruled by 'clock time' - we're counting off how long there is to get something done, or we're aiming for a time-bound goal, or we're measuring time wasted or time used productively. But although this is the dominant way of understanding time for many of us, it is only one way of relating to the flow of things. What if, instead of filling time with work or play, we turned things around and allowed time to flow into our activity? And what if instead of trying to secure ourselves against an unpredictable future, we took up a playfulness with the unfolding of time itself? A conversation about living into our lives as an infinite unfolding, rather than a finite game. 
 
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 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.

Our source for this week:

What Is Time?

There are two kinds of games. One could be called finite, the other infinite. A finite game is played for the purpose of winning, an infinite game for the purpose of continuing the play…

For an infinite player there is no such thing as an hour of time. There can be an hour of love, or a day of grieving, or a season of learning, or a period of labour.

An infinite player does not begin working for the purpose of filling up a period of time with work, but for the purpose of filling work with time. Work is not a way of passing time but engendering possibility. Work is not a way of arriving at a desired present and securing it against an unpredictable future but of moving towards a future that itself has a future.

[So] infinite players cannot say how much they have completed in their work or love or quarrelling, but only that much remains incomplete in it. They are not concerned to determine when it is over, but only what comes from it…

A finite player puts play into time.
An infinite player puts time into play.

James Carse, from ‘Finite and Infinite Games’

Photo by Joe Pregadio on Unsplash

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Join Us Live in 2026

Professional Coaching Course, begins July 2-5 2026, Online
Our year long programme, an opportunity to learn to support others in deep, life giving discovery and development.

You can hear us talk about the programme here:
www.turningtowards.life/coaching

And you can read more about it here:
www.wearethirdspace.org/professional-coaching-course

Turning Towards Life Live Season 3, from September 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 might become possible if, even for a moment, we let ourselves feel cherished… allowing ourselves to feel the care of others as a living presence in our bodies? And what happens to our way of being in the world when we use this as a doorway, returning us to connection, to belonging, to the quiet rhythm of being human together?

In this episode, we turn toward a luminous poem by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, and into a conversation about imagination as a way to recover our capacities as we respond to the world. We explore what it means to remember we are held, how that remembrance changes the way we meet one another, and why it may be more foolish not to imagine a world that can be shaped by our care. Along the way, we find ourselves asking: if even one of us begins to live as though we are cherished, what kind of ripple might that set in motion?

This week's Turning Towards Life is hosted as always by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace.

Episode Overview
00:00 Introduction and Community Engagement
03:33 The Power of Imagination
10:08 Cherishment and Connection
17:12 The Ripple Effect of Cherishment
22:14 Choosing Connection Over Isolation
30:20 Creating Community Spaces

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 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.

Our source for this week:

A Great Shining

inspired by Maya Stein’s 10-line poem form

What if, in this moment, every person on earth thinks of someone who makes us feel cherished,
known, safe? What if we let ourselves linger in this moment of connection? What might happen inside
each body? What might happen in the world as in unison our breaths begin to even and slow? Would
the pulsing of our hearts begin to synch, the way heart cells in a petri dish come to keep time with
each other? What is earth if not a great experiment in which we are all both observer and observed?
How long could it last, this rhythmic communion between jailor and prisoner, oppressor and
oppressed, between fighter and fighter, maker and destroyer, parent and child, liar and believer, all of
us thinking of love? Foolish, perhaps, to imagine such impossible moments. But more foolish not to
imagine such things. Even now, I’m thinking of someone. It feels like the moon is inside me.

Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
Rosemerry's Website wordwoman.com
Rosemerry's Poetry ahundredfallingveils.com

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Join Us Live in 2026

Professional Coaching Course, begins July 2-5 2026, Online
Our year long programme, an opportunity to learn to support others in deep, life giving discovery and development.

You can hear us talk about the programme here:
www.turningtowards.life/coaching

And you can read more about it here:
www.wearethirdspace.org/professional-coaching-course

Turning Towards Life Live Season 3, from September 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

Identity, integrity, and how we come to understand ourselves through attention, discernment, reflection and relationship. Drawing on Parker Palmer’s The Courage to Teach, Justin and Lizzie talk about the life-giving values of curiosity, seeing one another, and the possibilities that arise when we create opportunities for us all to express and inquire into our inner lives together with honesty, courage, wonder and care.

This week's Turning Towards Life is hosted as always by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace.

Episode Overview
00:00 Introduction to Turning Towards Life
02:20 The Aliveness of Conversation
04:48 Exploring Identity and Integrity
10:28 Circles of Congruence
16:22 The Importance of Community
22:19 Curiosity and Connection
27:08 Cultural Context and Personal Responsibility
32:33 The Power of Seeing One Another

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 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.

Our source for this week:

Identity and Integrity   

By identity I mean an evolving nexus where all the forces that constitute my life converge in the mystery of self: my genetic make up, the nature of the man and woman who gave me life, the culture in which I was raised, people who have sustained me and people who have done me harm, the good and ill I have done to others and to myself, the experience of love and suffering - and much, much more. 

In the midst of that complex field, identity is a moving intersection of the inner and outer forces that make me who I am, converging in the irreducible mystery of being human. 

By integrity I mean whatever wholeness I am able to find with than nexus as its vectors form and re-form the pattern of my life.  Integrity requires that I discern what is integral to my selfhood, what fits and what does not - and that I choose life giving ways of relating to the forces that converge within me: Do I welcome them or fear them, embrace them or reject them, move with them or against them? By choosing integrity, I become more whole, but wholeness does not mean perfection. It means becoming more real by acknowledging the whole of who I am. 

Identity and integrity are not the granite from which fictional heroes are hewn. They are subtle dimensions of the complex, demanding, and lifelong process of self-discovery.  Identity lies in the intersection of the diverse forces that make up my life, and integrity lies in relating to those forces in ways that bring me wholeness and life rather than fragmentation and death.

Parker Palmer, from ‘The Courage to Teach’

Photo by Dalelan Anderson on Unsplash   ‍

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Join Us Live in 2026

Professional Coaching Course, begins July 2-5 2026, Online
Our year long programme, an opportunity to learn to support others in deep, life giving discovery and development.

You can hear us talk about the programme here:
www.turningtowards.life/coaching

And you can read more about it here:
www.wearethirdspace.org/professional-coaching-course

Turning Towards Life Live Season 3, from September 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 learn to be honest about our lives… to look closely, to say truthfully what we see, and to turn with reverence and respect to all that has been and the path that unfolds before us? Said another way, what does it take to say ‘yes’ to our lives, in spite of everything?

This week's Turning Towards Life is hosted as always by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace.

Episode Overview
00:00 Introduction to Reverence and Connection
05:27 Exploring Rilke's Poetic Insights
11:22 The Journey of Self-Reflection
21:10 Embracing Spaciousness in Life
26:11 Confronting Mortality and Vastness

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 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.

Our source for this week:

I Am Much Too Alone in This World    

I am much too alone in this world, 
yet not alone enough
to truly consecrate the hour.
I am much too small in this world, 
yet not small enough
to be to you just object and thing,
dark and smart.
I want my free will and want it accompanying
the path which leads to action;
and want during times that beg questions,
where something is up,
to be among those in the know,
or else be alone.
I want to mirror your image to its fullest perfection,
never be blind or too old
to uphold your weighty wavering reflection.
I want to unfold.
Nowhere I wish to stay crooked, bent;
for there I would be dishonest, untrue.
I want my conscience to be
true before you;
want to describe myself like a picture I observed
for a long time, one close up,
like a new word I learned and embraced,
like the everyday jug,
like my mother’s face,
like a ship that carried me along
through the deadliest storm.

Rainer Maria Rilke

English translation by Annemarie S. Kidder.

Photo by Vida Huang on Unsplash‍     

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Join Us Live in 2026

Professional Coaching Course, begins July 2-5 2026, Online
Our year long programme, an opportunity to learn to support others in deep, life giving discovery and development.

You can hear us talk about the programme here:
www.turningtowards.life/coaching

And you can read more about it here:
www.wearethirdspace.org/professional-coaching-course

Turning Towards Life Live Season 3, from September 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

Cultivating both joy and sorrow within us. Seeing what they are made of, so that we can approach them with reverence rather than trying to control them or banish them. And finding out that that the more we go on in lives, the more we can know and the more we can have faith that we can meet what life brings us.

This week's Turning Towards Life is hosted as always by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace.

Episode Overview
00:00 Introduction and Context
03:05 The Inner Child and Magic in All Creatures
06:10 Delighting in Life and Connection
09:12 The Role of Time in Our Experiences
11:46 Reverence Towards Sorrow and Joy
14:44 The Complexity of Joy and Sorrow
17:50 Intention and Commitment to Experience
20:49 Community and Shared Language
23:56 Conclusion and Gratitude

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 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.

Our source for this week:

Blessed is the person
who delights in seeing
the inner child in every one
and the magic in all creatures
who does not shun difficulty
and can turn with equal reverence
toward sorrow and joy
who can trust fear as
the balsam of courage
and pain as an instrument
for opening the heart
who can pause to notice
the delicate lustre of a lichen
and the undulations of the light
who dares to make hope
an axiom of being
and is strong enough
to be changed by love.

Maria Popova, from The Almanac of Birds

Photo by Ramona Edwards on Unsplash

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Join Us Live in 2026

Professional Coaching Course, begins July 2-5 2026, Online
Our year long programme, an opportunity to learn to support others in deep, life giving discovery and development.

You can hear us talk about the programme here:
www.turningtowards.life/coaching

And you can read more about it here:
www.wearethirdspace.org/professional-coaching-course

Turning Towards Life Live Season 3, from September 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 circumstances of our lives don’t have to be perfect in order for us to feel like we’re alive. The world and the people and things in it are calling for our participation - our granting everything significance and feeling and knowing our own significance too.” 

A conversation about our choices as we relate with who and what is around us, and how we might live our way into the sacredness of everything, including ourselves.

This week's Turning Towards Life is hosted as always by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace.

Episode Overview
00:00 Introduction to Turning Towards Life
01:20 Exploring Healthy Power
04:52 The Significance of Encounters
10:42 The Invitation to Relationship
17:39 The Power of Significance
22:06 Covenant and Responsibility
28:02 Living in Relationship
29:57 Finding Fulfillment in Ordinary Moments

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 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.

Our source for this week:

The Baal-Shem teaches that no encounter with a being or a thing in the course of our life lacks a hidden significance. The people we live with or meet with, the animals that help us with our farm work, the soil we till, the materials we shape, the tools we use, they all contain a mysterious spiritual substance which depends on us for helping it towards its pure form, its perfection. If we neglect this spiritual substance sent across our path, if we think only in terms of momentary purposes, without developing a genuine relationship to the beings and things in whose life we ought to take part, as they in ours, then we shall ourselves be debarred from true, fulfilled existence.

It is my conviction that this doctrine is essentially true. The highest culture of the soul remains basically arid and barren unless, day by day, waters of life pour forth into the soul from those little encounters to which we give their due; the most formidable power is intrinsically powerless unless it maintains a secret covenant with these contacts, both humble and helpful, with strange, and yet near, being.

Martin Buber

Photo by Linh Pham on Unsplash

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Join Us Live in 2026

Professional Coaching Course, begins July 2-5 2026, Online
Our year long programme, an opportunity to learn to support others in deep, life giving discovery and development.

You can hear us talk about the programme here:
www.turningtowards.life/coaching

And you can read more about it here:
www.wearethirdspace.org/professional-coaching-course

Turning Towards Life Live Season 3, from September 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

“If I don’t want to be that person who uses power for the sake of power just because I can, and because I can frighten people, and because people do what I say because they’re scared… then what power am I using? How do I find creative alternatives to power struggles - to use my power as a person to enable something to happen, but not because of fear?”

An exploration of how we can use the great powers that come with being human with intention, responsibility, care, and creativity, so that we can help shape a world we actually want to live in.

This week's Turning Towards Life is hosted as always by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace.

Episode Overview
00:00 Introduction to Turning Towards Life
01:22 Exploring Power Dynamics
06:11 Healthy Power vs. Coercive Power
11:40 Intention and Responsibility in Power
17:28 Seeing Systems of Power
20:54 Conclusion and Future Conversations

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 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.

Our source for this week:

Both men and women suffer when power is exercised for its own sake by rule- and authority-bound women and men. Powermongers usually win their own games; they are operating on home territory. To go beyond power and the structures that support it usually involves quietly stepping aside. We do not step aside to disengage but to evolve creative alternatives to power struggles.

We may not be able to do as much as we would like about the way things turn out on sociopolitical battle-grounds, that often require well-coordinated strategies involving many people. However, we can certainly begin with ourselves. We do not have to react in kind. We can learn to choose how we want to respond.

Who are your inner powermongers? What do they say? How do they keep the rules? 

Marion Woodman, from ‘Coming Home to Ourselves’

Photo by Eddie Kopp on Unsplash‍       ‍   
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Join Us Live in 2026

Professional Coaching Course, begins July 2-5 2026, Online
Our year long programme, an opportunity to learn to support others in deep, life giving discovery and development.

You can hear us talk about the programme here:
www.turningtowards.life/coaching

And you can read more about it here:
www.wearethirdspace.org/professional-coaching-course

Turning Towards Life Live Season 3, from September 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

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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 can we love - people, life, the world - in a way that allows us to genuinely contribute? And how is that different from the kind of love that is really a strategy to have ourselves feel ok?  That second kind of love might be better understood as a way that we try to control life or other people - we’ll love just as long as we get back exactly what we hoped for.  The first kind of love is wilder and more surprising and, as author Maria Popova says, the great wonder is ‘how it continues to hold as it continues to change’. 

This week's Turning Towards Life is hosted as always by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace.

Episode Overview
00:00 Introduction to Turning Towards Life Podcast
04:23 Exploring the Source: Maria Popova's Poem
06:17 The Nature of Love and Neediness
12:45 Distinguishing Love from Control
19:41 Loving Kindness as a Disposition
27:47 The Essence of Lovingness
31:31 Reflections on Love in Today's World

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 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.

You can find our source for this week, as well as the video of this conversation, on our website here: www.turningtowards.life/home/love-is-always-wilder-than-you-suppose

Photo by Bob Brewer on Unsplash‍   
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Join Us Live in 2026

Professional Coaching Course, begins July 2-5 2026, Online
Our year long programme, an opportunity to learn to support others in deep, life giving discovery and development.

You can hear us talk about the programme here:
www.turningtowards.life/coaching

And you can read more about it here:
www.wearethirdspace.org/professional-coaching-course

Turning Towards Life Live Season 3, from September 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

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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