On the astonishing power of metaphors to reframe our sense of who we are, what’s possible, and how we might hear and speak with one another… and on the ocean’s vastness and depth as a invitation for us to contain multitudes, especially when in the midst of our most challenging conversations.



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



Episode Overview

00:00 Introduction and Context Setting

03:05 Exploring the Poem: 'Until I Thought of Myself as the Sea'

05:58 The Ocean Metaphor: Embracing Complexity

09:05 The Power of Metaphor in Self-Understanding

11:47 Widening Perspectives: The Ocean as a Shared Experience

14:52 Navigating Difficult Conversations with Oceanic Awareness

17:50 Truth and Multiplicity: The Ocean of Perspectives

20:59 Systems Thinking: The Ocean of Relationships

24:02 Conclusion and Reflection



Here’s our source for this week:



Until I thought of myself as the sea



I used to separate good days from bad until 

I thought of myself as an ocean. I used to 

split times I felt strong from when I felt weak 

until I imagined myself as the sea. Calm and 

rocky, wild and soft, still and powerful and vast 

and more than any one thing. In the ocean it's 

hard to divorce one mood from another, one wave 

from the next. Now, on my worst days, I think 

of how good life is too, how I still can greet joy 

while swimming through grief. How fragile 

strength feels. How I'm not any one thing in any 

one moment on any one day. I'm all of it and 

all of it is me.



Hannah Rosenberg

@hannahrowrites



Photo by Sean Oulashin on Unsplash







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Turning Towards Life, a week-by-week conversation inviting us deeply into our lives, is a live 30 minute conversation hosted by Justin Wise and Lizzie Winn of Thirdspace.  Find us on FaceBook to 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.



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