See Paris First, Episode 71
Here’s Episode 71 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 take up the topic of fear, and how our avoidance of it can shrink our lives. We consider together what it takes to live in an ever larger world of both meaning and contribution, and how that nearly always calls on us to move towards what we're most afraid of. As we go we talk about the ways in which fear draws us away from our capacity to respond to what's actually happening now, the kindness to ourselves that's required to work with all of this, the perils of living in a narrative of 'self-improvement', how it is that our fears are also a kind of loyalty to something that matters or mattered, and the 'leaving home' that's required to find a new and more spacious home in which we can live.
See Paris First
Suppose that what you fear
could be trapped
and held in Paris.
Then you would have
the courage to go
everywhere in the world.
All the directions of the compass
open to you,
except the degrees east or west
of true north
that lead to Paris.
Still, you wouldn’t dare
put your toes
smack dab on the city limit line.
You’re not really willing
to stand on a mountainside,
miles away,
and watch the Paris lights
come up at night.
Just to be on the safe side,
you decide to stay completely
out of France.
But then danger
seems too close
even to those boundaries,
and you feel
the timid part of you
covering the whole globe again.
You need the kind of friend
who learns your secret and says,
“See Paris first.”
– Marsha Truman Cooper
Photo by Henrique Ferreira on Unsplash