Podcast
Life Wisdom - By Words of Taoism
Life Wisdom is a podcast inspired by Taoist teachings, offering guidance on mindfulness and inner peace.
Each episode features meditative storytelling, simple practices, and deep reflections to help you reconnect with the present moment.
Brought to you by Substack bestseller author Chen Li, from the blog Words of Taoism.
- Episodes
- 115
- Releases
- Twice a week
- Typical length
- 22 min
- On air since
- 2025
- Latest episode
- 3 days ago
Episodes
115 episodes, newest first
-
22 min
Finding Your Own Pace - Life Wisdom #68
Show notes
This episode is about that habit of haste, which settles so deeply into the body that we stop noticing it, and about the possibility of finding again a pace that belongs to us.
More resources:
• Free resources, books and more on https://wordsoftaoism.com/
• My Substack Blog: https://taoismteachings.substack.com/
• Music I use, as a playlist: https://tinyurl.com/spotifyzenplaylist -
21 min
Enjoying Your Own Company - Daily Wisdom #69
Show notes
Someone who has learned to enjoy their own company comes to others with less hunger, without needing them to fill every silence, reassure every doubt or entertain every evening.
More resources:
• Free resources, books and more on https://wordsoftaoism.com/
• My Substack Blog: https://taoismteachings.substack.com/
• Music I use, as a playlist: https://tinyurl.com/spotifyzenplaylist -
22 min
You Are Worth Hearing - Life Wisdom #67
Show notes
You can feel invisible in an empty flat, and you can feel it far more sharply at a crowded family table, among the very people who are supposed to know you best.
This episode is about that second kind of invisibility, which settles into long marriages, old friendships and families.
More resources:
• Free resources, books and more on https://wordsoftaoism.com/
• My Substack Blog: https://taoismteachings.substack.com/
• Music I use, as a playlist: https://tinyurl.com/spotifyzenplaylist -
22 min
Loving People as They Are - Daily Wisdom #68
Show notes
Change can happen in a relationship, by a road that starts on our own side of it.
More resources:
• Free resources, books and more on https://wordsoftaoism.com/
• My Substack Blog: https://taoismteachings.substack.com/
• Music I use, as a playlist: https://tinyurl.com/spotifyzenplaylist -
21 min
Be patient with Life - Life Wisdom #66
Show notes
Impatience has become so ordinary in this way of living that we hardly recognise it any more, and it passes for the normal speed of life.
More resources:
• Free resources, books and more on https://wordsoftaoism.com/
• My Substack Blog: https://taoismteachings.substack.com/
• Music I use, as a playlist: https://tinyurl.com/spotifyzenplaylist -
21 min
The Way to Inner Peace - Daily Wisdom #67
Show notes
Inner peace is not an external calm that must be achieved by eliminating storms. It is like water that settles on its own when we stop stirring it. The wise show us what stirs it, and how that agitation can subside.
More resources:
• Free resources, books and more on https://wordsoftaoism.com/
• My Substack Blog: https://taoismteachings.substack.com/
• Music I use, as a playlist: https://tinyurl.com/spotifyzenplaylist -
27 min
Living With Grief - Life Wisdom #65
Show notes
This episode is about grief, about what it does to us and how we can make our way through it, and also about how we can stand beside those who are living through it.
More resources:
• Free resources, books and more on https://wordsoftaoism.com/
• My Substack Blog: https://taoismteachings.substack.com/
• Music I use, as a playlist: https://tinyurl.com/spotifyzenplaylist -
20 min
Worrying Less About Tomorrow - Daily Wisdom #66
Show notes
When we dread the future, we assume that the sky might fall, and we also assume that we know what would be good for us and what would be bad.
More resources:
• Free resources, books and more on https://wordsoftaoism.com/
• My Substack Blog: https://taoismteachings.substack.com/
• Music I use, as a playlist: https://tinyurl.com/spotifyzenplaylist -
21 min
You Are More Than Useful - Life Wisdom #64 - Taoism
Show notes
When two people meet for the first time, the first thing they exchange is a name, and the second, almost always, is a question: so, what do you do?
More resources:
• Free resources, books and more on https://wordsoftaoism.com/
• My Substack Blog: https://taoismteachings.substack.com/
• Music I use, as a playlist: https://tinyurl.com/spotifyzenplaylist -
25 min
Living in the Present Moment - Life Wisdom #63
Show notes
Zhuangzi tells the story of a man who was so troubled by his own shadow, and by the sound of his own footsteps, that he decided to get away from them for good.
More resources:
• Free resources, books and more on https://wordsoftaoism.com/
• My Substack Blog: https://taoismteachings.substack.com/
• Music I use, as a playlist: https://tinyurl.com/spotifyzenplaylist -
20 min
The path to a simpler life - Life Wisdom #62
Show notes
A life left to itself grows the way an unpruned tree grows, in every direction at once, and it is rarely anyone's fault.
More resources:
• Free resources, books and more on https://wordsoftaoism.com/
• My Substack Blog: https://taoismteachings.substack.com/
• Music I use, as a playlist: https://tinyurl.com/spotifyzenplaylist -
20 min
On Feeling Grateful - Daily Wisdom #65
Show notes
We are very good at giving thanks and surprisingly bad at feeling grateful, and that gap is worth sitting with, because we tend to assume that the words and the feeling are the same thing at two different volumes, when they turn out to be different kinds of thing altogether.
More resources:
• Free resources, books and more on https://wordsoftaoism.com/
• My Substack Blog: https://taoismteachings.substack.com/
• Music I use, as a playlist: https://tinyurl.com/spotifyzenplaylist -
20 min
It's Okay to Spend Time Alone - Taoism - Life Wisdom #61
Show notes
"Alone" is a word we use every day that has changed its meaning under us, and I would like to spend some time with it, because the change explains a great deal about why so many of us feel the way we feel.
More resources:
• Free resources, books and more on https://wordsoftaoism.com/
• My Substack Blog: https://taoismteachings.substack.com/
• Music I use, as a playlist: https://tinyurl.com/spotifyzenplaylist -
22 min
The Right Timing - Daily Wisdom #64 - Taoism
Show notes
Today I want to talk about timing. About the sense, which some people seem to have and most of us feel we lack, of when to act and when to wait, when to speak and when to hold back, when a thing is ready and when it needs more time.
More resources:
• Free resources, books and more on https://wordsoftaoism.com/
• My Substack Blog: https://taoismteachings.substack.com/
• Music I use, as a playlist: https://tinyurl.com/spotifyzenplaylist -
25 min
The Need To Be Understood - Life Wisdom #60 - Taoism
Show notes
Being understood is one of the ways we feel close to another person. There is a particular ease in knowing someone can see the intention behind an awkward sentence, or recognise tiredness in a silence that might otherwise look cold.
• Free resources, books and more on https://wordsoftaoism.com/
• My Substack Blog: https://taoismteachings.substack.com/
• Music I use, as a playlist: https://tinyurl.com/spotifyzenplaylist -
24 min
Let a Good Moment be Enough - Daily Wisdom #63
Show notes
Watch what the mind does with happiness. It rarely just takes it.
I want to be careful here, because it would be easy to describe all that as a failure of presence and leave you feeling you have been doing joy incorrectly. That is not what is happening.
More resources:
• Free resources, books and more on https://wordsoftaoism.com/
• My Substack Blog: https://taoismteachings.substack.com/
• Music I use, as a playlist: https://tinyurl.com/spotifyzenplaylist -
28 min
Not Everything Is Meant to Stay - Life Wisdom #59 - Taoism
Show notes
I want to talk about the story we tell ourselves when something ends. And about the fact that almost all of us have only one story available, and it is a story about failure.
More resources:
• Free resources, books and more on https://wordsoftaoism.com/
• My Substack Blog: https://taoismteachings.substack.com/
• Music I use, as a playlist: https://tinyurl.com/spotifyzenplaylist -
20 min
The Beginner's Mind - Life Wisdom #62
Show notes
In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities. In the expert’s mind there are few.
More resources:
• Free resources, books and more on https://wordsoftaoism.com/
• My Substack Blog: https://taoismteachings.substack.com/
• Music I use, as a playlist: https://tinyurl.com/spotifyzenplaylist -
19 min
Making Room For Your Self - Life Wisdom #58 - Taoism
Show notes
Most of us have promised ourselves, at some point, that we would live more simply.
More resources:
• Free resources, books and more on https://wordsoftaoism.com/
• My Substack Blog: https://taoismteachings.substack.com/
• Music I use, as a playlist: https://tinyurl.com/spotifyzenplaylist -
30 min
Why Do I Need to Be Liked? - Daily Wisdom #61
Show notes
Today I'd like to talk with you about something almost everyone treats as a weakness, and which I think has been badly misunderstood: the fact that we care, often a great deal, about what other people think of us.
More resources:
• Free resources, books and more on https://wordsoftaoism.com/
• My Substack Blog: https://taoismteachings.substack.com/
• Music I use, as a playlist: https://tinyurl.com/spotifyzenplaylist
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