Turning Towards Life - a Thirdspace podcast

We spend so much energy trying to think our way to insight, yet a fuller understanding of our lives often arrives from somewhere beyond the usual way we know ourselves. When our hands are busy with ordinary tasks something vast can sometimes settle into awareness. What happens when we discover that our bodies know a kinship with the earth our minds may have forgotten? Could belonging be less about finding our place and more about recognising we never left it?

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
03:03 Exploring the Source: Of Gravity and Light
05:43 The Significance of Menial Tasks
08:47 The Relationship Between Thinking and Receiving
11:45 Belonging and Recognition
14:43 Connection and Community
17:44 The Mystery of Existence and Our Place in It
20:59 The Importance of Acknowledging Our Already Existing Ways of Belonging
23:43 Creating a Sense of Belonging in the World
26:55 Conclusion and Invitations

Here’s our source for this week:

Of Gravity and Light 

What we need most, we learn from the menial tasks:
the novice raking sand in Buddhist texts,
or sweeping leaves, his hands chilled to the bone,
while understanding hovers out of reach;
the changeling in a folk tale, chopping logs,
poised at the dizzy edge of transformation;

and everything they do is gravity:
swaying above the darkness of the well
to haul the bucket in; guiding the broom;
finding the body’s kinship with the earth
beneath their feet, the lattice of a world
where nothing turns or stands outside the whole;

and when the insight comes, they carry on
with what’s at hand: the gravel path; the fire;
knowing the soul is no more difficult
than water, or the fig tree by the well
that stood for decades, barren and inert,
till every branch was answered in the stars.

John Burnside

Photo by Merri J 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

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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
menial tasks, ordinary moments, body kinship, earth connection, belonging fully, inner mystery, thinking patterns, gravity metaphor, physical presence, everyday insights, transformation edge, soul simplicity, cultural belonging, human mystery, inclusion practice, overthinking habits, fearful analysis, mindful walking, dish washing, leaf sweeping, grounded presence, mysterious depths, embodied wisdom, life belonging, earthly home

People Mentioned
John Burnside - The poet whose work "Of Gravity and Light" is discussed throughout the episode

What if we recognised that every single thing we do - and everything we avoid doing - is quietly shaping us into the kind of person we're becoming? A conversation about discovering that we're already practising something all the time, whether we realise it or not, and that our choices about where to place our attention might be more consequential than we imagine. What would it mean to get good at the things that truly matter to us, or to surprise and widen ourselves by practicing new things that are outside of our familiar, comfortable range?

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
02:21 The Importance of Time and Choices
05:37 Practicing What Matters: Insights from Chloe Caldwell
10:08 The Impact of Our Practices on Our Lives
15:07 Awareness of Time and Intentions
19:09 The Role of Social Media in Shaping Us
24:28 Exploring New Practices and Joyful Experimentation
32:32 The Value of External Perspectives on Our Practices
38:01 Conclusion and Reflection on Our Practices

Here’s our source for this week:

You Get Good at What You Do

My dad passed away last December, and he was in the top three closest people to me over my life. He used to have a phrase he used with his guitar students: “You get good at what you do. If you practice guitar, you get really good at guitar. If you don’t practice, you get really good at not practicing.”

I love this phrase because you can apply it to every single thing in life, in ways both literal and abstract. If you write, you get good at writing If you look at Instagram, you get good at looking at Instagram. If you walk, you get good at walking. If you swim, you get good at swimming. If you write, you get good at writing. If you don’t write, you get really good at not writing. If you look at Instagram, you get REALLY good at looking at Instagram.

I think my dad’s lesson seeped into my brain from hearing him say it so much. It wasn’t advice as much as a notion. Now I pass it along to my students and think about it once a day. It seems simple and like something we all know, logically, but the way it is phrased really drives it home.

When he died, one of his guitar students wrote, “Rob was good at love and music. It’s what he did.”

Chloé Caldwell
via Cheryl Strayed’s Substack

Photo by Majkl Velner 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

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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
practising consciousness, attention choices, time dedication, intentional living, habit formation, social media impact, parenting practices, body movement, dance therapy, five rhythms, creative experimentation, relationship awareness, coaching practice, value alignment, present moment, death awareness, guitar teaching, love practice, Instagram scrolling, screen time, movement practice, flexible being, meeting world, self observation, community feedback, practice visibility, tender awareness, blind spots, coaching skills, professional development, turning towards life

People Mentioned
Cheryl Strayed
Chloé Caldwell
The Rock (Dwayne Johnson)

How do we attend to the something in each of us that longs to break free through the cracks of our self-image? A conversation about discovering that sacred uniqueness within ourselves and others in the everyday mundane acts of living, loving, working and being genuinely present with one another.

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
02:50 The Singing Bird: A Poetic Exploration
06:03 Longing and Creativity: Uncovering the Singing Bird
08:57 The Unique Expression of Each Of Us
12:00 Navigating Self-Criticism and Inquiry
14:50 Vulnerability and Authenticity in Relationships
18:07 Embracing the Messiness of Life
21:08 The Complexity of Human Experience
23:56 The Interconnectedness of Our Stories
26:50 The Importance of Community and Conversation
30:02 Conclusion and Looking Ahead

Here’s our source for this week:

The Singing Bird

The singing bird
I have a hundred ways 
Of keeping the singing bird
Pushed down,
Hidden, 
Anaesthetised,
Comfort-numb,
Silenced. 

But I have learned 
How easily she 
Can break free
And Sing Anyway. 

She sneaks out 
Through the cracks
That get made 
By laughter
And poetry
And art
And honesty
And dancing
And sunshine. 

I wonder if you know 
The ways you keep the singing bird
Quiet? 
And if you know how to forget yourself 
So that she can sneak out
And remind you of the song 
You’ve always wanted to sing.

Hollie Holden

Photo by Lukáš Kadava on Unsplash

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Join Us Live in 2025

Turning Towards Life Live Season 1, from 17 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.

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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
singing bird, creative expression, authentic presence, vulnerability sharing, sacred uniqueness, forget yourself, honest presence, creative practice, inner critic, right sizing, vast universe, cultural expectations, sacred something, judgement softening, unfolding process, kerfuffle acceptance, contactful being, depth confidence, whoness discovery, messy glory, genuine presence, practical spirituality, learning process, turning towards life, creative longing, existential wondering

People Mentioned
Hollie Holden (author of this week's source)

We mistake ourselves for the stories we've been told and the ones we keep telling. But what if those stories are too small to contain who we really are? A conversation about discovering that the more we open our hearts to the world, the less we actually know about anything—and how this not knowing might be exactly where freedom lives. What happens when we stop trying to figure everything out and instead give ourselves fully to the mystery of being human?

This week’s conversation is hosted, as always, by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace.

Episode Overview
00:00 Introduction and Context Setting
06:26 Exploring Rilke's 'Widening Circles'
12:16 The Journey of Discovery
18:53 Embracing Uncertainty and Complexity
24:10 Faithfulness in the Face of Not Knowing
30:30 Invitation to Community and Practice

Here’s our source for this week:

Widening Circles

I live my life in widening circles
that reach out across the world.
I may not complete this last one
but I give myself to it.
I circle around God, around the primordial tower.
I’ve been circling for thousands of years
and I still don’t know: am I a falcon,
a storm, or a great song?

Rainer Maria Rilke
Translated by Joanna Macy

Photo by Alan Mersom on Unsplash

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Join Us Live in 2025

Turning Towards Life Live Season 1, from September 2025
We also have the launch of our Turning Towards Life live programme which is going to run 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 register your interest for Season 1 of Turning Towards Life Live here.

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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 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.

Join Our Weekly Mailing: www.turningtowards.life/subscribe
Support Us: www.buymeacoffee.com/turningtowardslife

Keywords
widening circles, spiritual unknowing, faithful presence, identity stories, cultural certainty, mysterious reality, spiritual practice, contemplative conversation, human complexity, sacred listening, deepening awareness, creative response, genuine unknowing, expanding compassion, spiritual freedom, mystical faithfulness, embodied wisdom, relational depth, authentic encounter, philosophical openness, contemplative dialogue, life-giving practice, spiritual attention, transformative conversation, primordial mystery

People Mentioned
Rainer Maria Rilke (poet who wrote "Widening Circles")
Joanna Macy (translator of the Rilke poem)
Maya Angelou (poet, mentioned from previous week's episode - "Phenomenal Women")
Richard Rorty (philosopher, pragmatism)
James Hollis (Jungian writer)

What happens when we choose to actively shape our own identity rather than only accept the stories handed down to us? How might we practice distinguishing between what belongs to us and what we've been told we should be? What becomes possible when we see ourselves as authors of our own ways of being in life?

This week’s conversation is hosted, as always, by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace.

Episode Overview
00:00 Introduction to the Conversation
03:18 Reading Maya Angelou's 'Phenomenal Woman'
08:01 Exploring Identity
11:07 The Invitation of Authenticity
16:03 Rejecting the Algorithm: Embracing Authorship
21:16 The Inquiry into Who We Might Be
26:25 Finding Belonging in Authenticity
30:01 The Call to Pay Attention to Life

Here’s our source for this week:

Phenomenal Woman

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I’m not cute or built to suit a fashion model’s size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I’m telling lies.
I say,
It’s in the reach of my arms,
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.
I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please,
And to a man,
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees.
Then they swarm around me,
A hive of honey bees.
I say,
It’s the fire in my eyes,
And the flash of my teeth,
The swing in my waist,
And the joy in my feet.
I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.
Men themselves have wondered
What they see in me.
They try so much
But they can’t touch
My inner mystery.
When I try to show them,
They say they still can’t see.
I say,
It’s in the arch of my back,
The sun of my smile,
The ride of my breasts,
The grace of my style.
I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.
Now you understand
Just why my head’s not bowed.
I don’t shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud.
When you see me passing,
It ought to make you proud.
I say,
It’s in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
the palm of my hand,
The need for my care.
’Cause I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.

Maya Angelou

Photo by Chris on Unsplash

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Join Us Live in 2025

Turning Towards Life Live Season 1, from September 2025
We also have the launch of our Turning Towards Life live programme which is going to run 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 register your interest for Season 1 of Turning Towards Life Live here.

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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 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.

Join Our Weekly Mailing: www.turningtowards.life/subscribe
Support Us: www.buymeacoffee.com/turningtowardslife

Keywords
phenomenal woman, inner mystery, self-making beings, authentic choices, conditioned narratives, cultural expectations, embodied identity, ancestral patterns, algorithmic conformity, gender stereotypes, truthful living, belonging to life, mysterious aliveness, elder wisdom, fierce invitation, active authorship, realness inquiry, powerful presence, liberation permission, identity deviation, life-giving stories, genuine aliveness, source of power, community belonging, truthful emergence

We are much more powerful than we often imagine, and in surprising ways. For most of us, our power is not in being remembered long beyond our lifetimes, or in being able to change the world that is far from us. It is rather in that we are each made by one another, and we make one another, by how we live, what we say, how we listen, and how we act.

When we start to see that we are literally making a world for others to live in right here and now, in our every way of conducting ourselves it can open great possibilities both for gratitude and wonder, and great responsibilities for us as parents, friends, colleagues and neighbours in our everyday lives.

In this conversation we remember Joanna Macy, whose writing we have featured a number of times, who died on July 19. And we talk together about what it is to be ‘good soil’ for one another, so that we get to make a world together that 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 Introduction and Context Setting
02:59 Nature as a Narrative for Human Life
05:59 Reflections on Mortality and Legacy
08:50 The Interconnectedness of Human Experience
11:54 Being Soil for One Another
14:49 Relationships and Community
18:07 Parenting and World Making
21:06 Cultural Narratives that Limit and Bring to Life
23:49 Conclusion

Here’s our source for this week:

In Honor of Joanna Macy, 1929-2025

I write while staying in one of the great forests of British Columbia, a forest in which the inextricability of life from death is gorgeously evident… Magnificent fallen trees turn back into soil as younger trees reach downward to twine around their ancestors' trunks and upward toward the sky. The roots growing around and gripping these decaying logs look like veins and tentacles and fingers clutching and reaching toward an anchor in the soil. Some of the mature cedars and conifers stand on mounds that must be fully decayed trees or rather once were trees and are further along in the process of becoming soil. Often a great tree that's fallen over still has at its base a tall shield that is its roots still clinging to rounded stones and soil, and from this the trunk stretches across the earth. These trees from which trees grow are known as nurse logs…

When I was younger, I was taught what an artist or writer was supposed to aspire to was immortality, the kind that Dante and Li Po and Shakespeare have, so that in centuries to come memory of your name and attention to your creations continue. Later in life, I realized that there was an entirely different thing to aspire to, an entirely different kind of creative success: to be so much part of your own time, of the present that is making the future, that rather than remaining what people think about, you become in some way how people think, how they value, what they prioritize. You stop being what's in front of their eyes and become part of what is behind their eyes, how they see the world, how they live, act, what they aspire to, what they hold close, what they resist.

You become a nurse log on which new life can grow as you compost into the soil we call culture. And maybe this is the mindset of moist places, of an ecology of vivid decay and regeneration rather than of the arid places, where death dessicates and the mummies, skeletons, ruins, Dead Sea Scrolls, last for centuries or millennia.

Rebecca Solnit, writing in memory of Joanna Macy 1929-2025
From ‘Meditations in an Emergency’, Rebecca’s ongoing public writing for these times

Photo by Tomas Martinez on Unsplash

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Join Us Live in 2025

Turning Towards Life Live Season 1, from September 2025
We also have the launch of our Turning Towards Life live programme which is going to run 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 register your interest for Season 1 of Turning Towards Life Live here.

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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 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.

Join Our Weekly Mailing: www.turningtowards.life/subscribe
Support Us: www.buymeacoffee.com/turningtowardslife

Keywords
nurse logs, creative success, soil culture, interpenetrating lives, mortality meaning, forest metaphor, humility humus, world making, parenting soil, cultural foundation, death regeneration, collective memory, individual legacy, spiritual ecology, creative immortality, ancestral roots, living decay, fertile ground, cultural inheritance, generational impact, everyday power, relationship making, invisible influence, natural cycles, human connection

We are patterned beings, and the patterns we live get started very early in our lives. They bring both blessings and blind-spots. One of the great opportunities of a well-lived life is to come to see the patterns, inquire into them, and find ways to open more spaciousness in us than the patterns have allowed so far.

This is what we might call ‘growth’ or ‘development’. In this conversation we talk about what it takes to do this, and about the Enneagram, a wise, kind and deep body of language and invitation that we have both found incredibly helpful in walking this path.

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
02:50 The Enneagram: A Personal Journey
08:55 Understanding the Enneagram
11:51 Blind Spots and Self-Awareness
17:41 Patterns and Growth
26:04 Gifts Beneath the Surface
34:50 Conclusion and Recommendations

Here’s our source for this week:

The Enneagram Guide to Waking Up

At one level the personality types are based on a very simple thing - where we focus our attention as we move through the world.   But what we see also defines what we don’t see - as well as the fact we don’t see it. These are our blindspots.  When we remain unaware of these key aspects of our experience, we stay blind to the impact they have on how we think, feel and act.  And this explains why we can be said to be ‘asleep’ - going through life like zombies. 

To wake up from this state, we must confront the ego - as well as the Shadow cast by the ego.  We need to become aware of the automatic habits that structure our defensive egoist persona, as well as all that remains unconscious in us connected to our ego’s need to protect itself.  This self-protective persona keeps us focused on its needs and prevents us from feeling pain - or joy - condemning us to a kind of waking sleep in which we don’t know who we are and what’s possible for us.  

We suppress these shadow elements because they create pain or challenge our self image.  By making these elements more conscious, however, we become more self aware and whole.  Without facing them, we can never know ourselves as we actually are.  When we don’t see and own the unconscious tendencies connected to the personality, we stay focused on (and limited by) we are held hostage to who we think we are or who we fear we are or who we would like to be.  When we move beyond the ego and actively engage in the process of growth that the enneagram maps out for us, we begin to awaken to our full potential.

Beatrice Chestnut and Uraneo Paes
From ‘The Enneagram Guide to Waking Up’, Simon and Schuster, 2021

Photo by Tomas Martinez on Unsplash

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Join Us Live in 2025

Turning Towards Life Live Season 1, from September 2025
We also have the launch of our Turning Towards Life live programme which is going to run 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 register your interest for Season 1 of Turning Towards Life Live here.

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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 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.

Join Our Weekly Mailing: www.turningtowards.life/subscribe
Support Us: www.buymeacoffee.com/turningtowardslife


Keywords
blind spots, defensive patterns, shadow work, personality types, protective mechanisms, essential goodness, waking up, automatic habits, self-protective persona, unconscious tendencies, growth journey, authentic connection, gift liberation, inner world mapping, community learning, pattern recognition, ego confrontation, sacred qualities, birthright gifts, castle metaphor, boarded rooms, turning towards life, sincerity practice, integrity development, anger recognition, happiness demand, frightening presence, Soho realisation, protective strategies, truthfulness emergence, inclusion practice

People mentioned
Beatrice Chestnut (co-author of "The Enneagram Guide to Waking Up")
Uranio Paés (co-author of "The Enneagram Guide to Waking Up")

What happens when we allow ourselves to truly feel the reality that we will grow old, become ill, and die? How might we practice treating our deepest fears not as enemies but as intimate companions? The recognition that these experiences unite us with every other human being who has ever lived offers a pathway from aloneness into a more genuine and heartfelt connection with others. And when we stop running from what we cannot escape,  we might get in contact with a very strong feeling of the realness and aliveness of being alive.

This week’s conversation is hosted, as always, by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace.

Episode Overview
00:00 Introduction, Welcome, and Turning Towards Life Live
04:55 The Importance of Finding One's Voice
08:17 Engaging with Deep Questions
10:51 Confronting Fear and Acceptance
19:00 Self-Remembrance and Aliveness
25:08 The Shared Human Experience
35:07 Conclusion and Invitation to Community

Here’s our source for this week:

Facing Fear

I am of the nature to grow old. I cannot escape growing old. I am of the nature to have ill health. I cannot escape having ill health. I am of the nature to die. I cannot escape death. All that is dear to me, and everyone I love, are of the nature to change. There is no way to escape being separated from them…

Looking deeply at each remembrance and breathing in and out with our awareness of each one, we engage our fear in an empowered way…

Most of us don’t want to acknowledge it, so we live more or less in denial. Yet down deep in the recesses of our minds, we know it’s true. When we suppress our fearful thoughts, they continue to fester there in the dark. We are driven to consume in an attempt to forget and keep those thoughts from surfacing in our conscious mind. Running away from our fear ultimately makes us suffer and makes others suffer, and our fear only grows stronger…

Invite your fear into consciousness, and smile through it; every time you smile through your fear, it will lose some of its strength. If you try to run away from your pain, there is no way out...

We must invite these things up into our mind consciousness every day and tell them, “My dear, I’m not afraid of you. I’m not afraid of my fear. It is my nature to grow old; I cannot escape old age.” When fear manifests, we want to have the seed of mindfulness also manifest to embrace it. So we have two energies present—the first is the energy of fear, and the second is the energy of mindfulness. The fear receives a bath of mindfulness and becomes a little bit weaker before it drops back down to the depths of our consciousness in the form of a seed.

Thich Nhat Hanh, from ‘Fear: Essential Wisdom for Getting Through the Storm’

Photo by razi pouri on Unsplash

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Join Us Live in 2025

Turning Towards Life Live Season 1, from September 2025
We also have the launch of our Turning Towards Life live programme which is going to run 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 register your interest for Season 1 of Turning Towards Life Live here.

----

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 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.

Join Our Weekly Mailing: www.turningtowards.life/subscribe
Support Us: www.buymeacoffee.com/turningtowardslife

Keywords:
growing old acceptance, death awareness, mindfulness practice, fear embracing, mortality contemplation, Buddhist remembrances, Thich Nhat Hanh wisdom, existential tenderness, human vulnerability, self-remembrance, control illusion, avoidance strategies, everyday mindfulness, shared humanity, ordinary sacredness, life force recognition, conscious ageing, intimate fears, tender ordinariness, universal mortality, presence practice, busyness distraction, consumption patterns, denial mechanisms, awakening practice

People Mentioned:
Thich Nhat Hanh - Vietnamese Buddhist teacher and author of "On Fear," whose text on the five remembrances forms the central source material
Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel - Referenced for his teaching about being alive as a blessing
Joanna Macy - Mentioned as author of a previous source discussed in an earlier episode

Our immediate emotions about an event or happening usually sit on top of deeper currents of meaning, story, longing and commitments that may at first be obscured from view. If we want to become ever more active and intentional participants in our lives and relationships, there's much to be said then for first coming to know the emotion and then beginning to notice the commitments which lie underneath. This way we give ourselves an opportunity to cultivate something over time - a purposeful way of knowing ourselves and using that knowledge for the very practical purpose of being the person we each want to be. How might we begin to approach this inquiry and the new kinds of action that come from it?

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
02:51 Exploring Emotions vs. Feelings
05:58 The Complexity of Human Experience
08:50 The Role of Reflection in Understanding
11:56 Parenting and Emotional Awareness
15:08 The Importance of Feeling in Relationships
18:02 Navigating Emotions and Feelings
20:45 The Journey of Self-Discovery
24:04 Honoring Influential Voices
30:05 Conclusion and Reflections

Here’s our source for this week:

The Feeling Beneath the Feeling

"What was my feeling in that situation — not my emotions, my feeling? My emotions may support my feeling, but emotions are affective responses determined by complexes, momentary reactions to an immediate situation. Feeling, on the other hand, evaluates what something is worth to me."

Marion Woodman

Photo by Ismael Paramo on Unsplash

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Join Us Live in 2025

Turning Towards Life Live Season 1, from September 2025
We also have the launch of our Turning Towards Life live programme which is going to run 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 register your interest for Season 1 of Turning Towards Life Live here.

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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 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.

Join Our Weekly Mailing: www.turningtowards.life/subscribe
Support Us: www.buymeacoffee.com/turningtowardslife

Keywords
feeling versus emotion, emotional complexity, beneath the beneath, reflective living, what matters deeply, belonging longing, momentary reactions, personal complexes, evaluating worth, emotional flooding, parenting emotions, feeling towards, working with feelings, emotional skillfulness, writing practice, conversation practice, underneath layers, fear and anger, grief processing, lifelong inquiry, emotional courage, welcoming feelings, feeling fully, emotional determination, reactive responses, deep currents

Can we practice a fierce, truthful loving form of gratitude for life itself that calls us until our care for the world in practical, tangible ways? How is this different from shallow or 'pop-culture' versions of gratitude that might have us tune out from our pain and the difficulties around us? How might the deepest kind of gratitude connect us to the source from which all life comes, and the incredible unlikeliness of our being here, and so fuel our own aliveness? And how might attending to small things - the computer screen in front of us, a cup of tea, the cat - be a pathway in?

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 Live
03:05 Exploring Gratitude as a Mood
05:44 The Depth of Gratitude and Taking Action
09:04 The Interconnectedness of Life and Gratitude
12:00 The Power of Small Things in Building Gratitude
14:44 The Role of Community in Changing Things
18:00 Gratitude Beyond Circumstances
20:55 The Miracle of Existence
23:58 Finding Wholeness in Small Moments
26:48 Conclusion and Reflection

Here’s our source for this week:

On Gratitude

Just to live is holy
To be is a blessing
-- Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel

We have received an inestimable gift. To be alive in this beautiful, self-organising universe - to participate in the dance of life with senses to perceive it, lungs that breathe it, organs that draw nourishment from it - is a wonder beyond words.  

Gratitude quiets the frantic mind and brings us back to source. It reconnects us with basic goodness and our personal power. It helps us to be more fully present to our world. That grounded present provides the psychic space for acknowledging the pain we carry for our world...

We begin to know the immensity of our heart-mind, and how it helps us move beyond fear... The truth of our inter-existence, made real to us by our pain for the world, helps us see with new eyes. It brings fresh understandings of who we are and how we are related to each other and the universe. We begin to comprehend our own power to change and heal. We strengthen by growing living connections with past and future generations, and our brother and sister species.

Then, ever again, we go forth into the action that calls us... Even when we don’t succeed in a given venture, we can be grateful for the chance we took and the lessons we learned. And the spiral begins again.

Joanna Macy, from ‘World as Lover, World As Self’

Photo by Balazs Busznyak on Unsplash

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Join Us Live in 2025

Turning Towards Life Live Season 1, from September 2025
We also have the launch of our Turning Towards Life live programme which is going to run 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 register your interest for Season 1 of Turning Towards Life Live here.

----

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 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.

Join Our Weekly Mailing: www.turningtowards.life/subscribe
Support Us: www.buymeacoffee.com/turningtowardslife