BROADCASTS.com

\nHolding on too tightly to expectations of just about anything can trap us in a cycle of frustration and despair. And often our expectations are really ways we're trying to be in control of a situation rather than surrendering ourselves to the unfolding moment. Of course, our ability to control many circumstances so they will be just the way we want them is often beyond us. And so perhaps we might cultivate a kind of openness to the way things actually are combined with a fierce kind of intention to bring ourselves to whatever is happening with as much of our essential goodness as we can, whether that be courage, tenderness, creativity, love, truthfulness or any other of the many virtues available to human beings.
\n
\nThis week's Turning Towards Life is a conversation about meeting the always unexpected happenings of life with grace and presence. It's hosted as always by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace.
\n
\nHere's a link to the details of the new Thirdspace Coaching For Development programme for people who work in organisations, which we talked about a couple of episodes ago.
\n
\nHere's our source for this week:
\n
\nKnee Sounds
\n
\n\n\nThe older I get the more I notice\nknee sounds\nmy own quiet desires\ndumb egos\nbaby\u2019s sharp intuition\nthe return of the blackberries\nboneheaded binaries.\nSometimes I long for an organized drawer\nor a morning without the realization that one went to school with unbrushed teeth\nbut then I remember how short life is\nhow wide my forgiveness\nmostly of others\nmore and more myself.\nThe noticing is mostly small.\nSometimes it\u2019s big.\nThis life I walk through\nis not what I expected.\nHow could I have imagined her first questions upon waking or his tender body?\nHow could I have known I would birth my own much-needed teacher on solitude?\nOr care so much about those two red poppies?\nAging is a long, drawn out experiment in being wrong about how you will live, who you will be, what you will love and see\nand love and see and love and see\nand that\u2019s okay.\nIt\u2019s more than okay.\nEach day unpromised and fecund.\n
\n\nI am worse than I thought\nand also better.\nHumanity, too.\nWhen the violence is too much\nI touch a lot of tree trunks\neat some more bread.\nwatch my kids sleep their sweaty sleep\nand try not to let any of it\ntragic or tender\nfeel inevitable.\n\n
\nCourtney Martin
\ncourtneyemartin.com/writing/
\n
\nPhoto by Harli Marten on Unsplash\n