258: The Body in Relationship

Published: Sept. 19, 2022, 10:35 a.m.

Being together in a way that makes ourselves available to one another is what we're made for, and is among the most simple and most difficult things we'll ever do. So how do we create the safety and openness in our own way of being that allows us to be deeply connected to and available for others? What does it take to create the kind of relationship with our own bodies that can be a ground of safety for all the parts of us that get afraid and want to run? How can our 'yes' to staying in contact be a real yes, and our 'no' be a real no too, so that when we're with one another we're really with one another? And how can we make encountering one another's depth as ordinary as sitting together with a cup of tea?

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

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.

Here's our source for this week:

The Body in Relationship

You sit before me, 
Body open,
Your eyes meet mine. 
My deepest wish, 
To make contact, 
To come to intimately know you.
And as I reach for you, 
I see that I must reach for me first, 
That without me, I can’t truly be with you. 
First, it has to start here, 
Contact with this body I have, 
Teeming with senses, feeling and wisdom. 
And as I make contact here, 
Suddenly I’m confident, settled
Ready to be with you. 
And stay here, 
Because my body is home, 
And I can welcome you. 
And when we do this for each other, 
We dance between the houses, 
Living in community. 
Always welcome, 
At each others’ table, 
We share tea and life. 
And all the depths, 
And shallows, 
Are made normal just like our tea. 

Lizzie Winn


Photo by Lizzie Winn