Turning Towards Life - a Thirdspace podcast

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


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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

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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 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



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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

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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

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

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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

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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

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

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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

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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 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

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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

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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

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

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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

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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

People Mentioned:

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
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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
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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

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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


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


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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

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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