The Best Thing for Being Sad, Episode 65
Here's Episode 65 of Turning Towards Life, a weekly live 30 minute conversation hosted by thirdspace coaching in which Justin Wise and Lizzie Winn dive deep into big questions of human living.
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This week we talk about learning. Not the kind of learning that fills us with facts, but the kind of learning that allows us to open ourselves to more spacious interpretations of our lives, and which helps us to take new kinds of action and enter into relationships that are more truthful, compassionate and alive.
Along the way we talk about what it is to have a kind of 'critical reflection' about our own lives, about the gift that human beings can be to one another when we share our stories and when we can hold our stories 'lightly' enough to neither abandon them too quickly nor be rigid about them. And we consider how doing this together - in community wherever we can find it - is necessary for cultivating the courage, hopefulness and care that the world calls for.
The Best Thing for Being Sad
"The best thing for being sad," replied Merlyn… "is to learn something. That's the only thing that never fails.
You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins... you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then - to learn.
Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the only thing for you."
– T H White
from The Once and Future King, quoted by Parker Palmer in The Courage to Teach
Photo by Ali Kanibelli on Unsplash